Opinion

Like many parents, I have been following the Trayvon Martin story with outrage and with deep grief for his family. And also like, I am sure, many parents of teenage boys, I am guiltily aware of feelings of relief and fear in the mix — relief that it wasn't my kid, and fear that next time it might be.

By Susan O'Doherty

What’s New at UVenus: ● If you missed our #femlead Twitter chat on Bridging the Global Divide in Higher Education, hosted by Anamaria Dutceac, you can find the transcript here.

By University of Venus

Stephen Downes made a comment in passing yesterday, calling Khan Academy's online video library a MacGuffin, "something [that] provokes learning, but isn't." I've been stewing about the analogy ever since.

By Audrey Watters

These days I'm a little obsessed with Moneyball, the book and the film. Michael Lewis's story of the transformation of the Oakland A's through data-driven decision-making and a commitment to rethinking the game even in the face of resistance from old-school scouts isn't inspiring in the way we think of come-from-behind, underdog sports stories.

By Janine Utell

What do college and university leaders need to know about technology as disruptive forces converge on higher education? Lucy Apthorp Leske offers advice.

By Lucy Apthorp Leske

Colleges need to focus on students whose parents never earned a degree, writes Teresa Heinz Housel.

By Teresa Heinz Housel

We're moving into the start of 'prime-time season' for watchers of development and change related to the Bologna Process (which is fueling the establishment of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)), and its cousin, the European Research Area (ERA). This is because the 2012 Bucharest Ministerial Conference, which will be held in Bucharest, Romania, on 12-13 April, is the setting for two key gathering that stir up analyses.

By Kris Olds

Whether you’re into bread, pastries, cookies, soups, sauces, casseroles, or other delightful, delectable, and preferably time-consuming sundries, elaborate cooking projects can be a welcome distraction from those towers of books scattered and stacked precariously around your living quarters. It’s true that, at this stage of the game, each of us has our own arsenal of finely-tuned “productive” procrastination techniques to help us avoid the real work of reading, writing, and grading, and far be it from me to pass judgment on anyone’s time-tested methods. But while baking started out as an avoidance strategy for me, it has evolved into a tool for invention.

By GradHacker