January 18, 2012, 03:04 PM ET

Can Wikipedia Shut Down Universities?

Five or six years ago at a faculty meeting a colleague, the sort of person who can only be described as an "old school educator," argued for a college-wide ban on Wikipedia. Another colleague, a highly distinguished scholar and teacher, looked at me in shock and asked the question we were all thinking:

How can I teach without Wikipedia?

I think the difference is not that one was a good teacher and the other bad nor that one was willing to do the work of teaching and the other not. Indeed, I would wager a bet that a look at my Wikipedia-dependent colleague's teaching record would show an exceptional educator. It is just that she relies on Wikipedia for many of the facts (what year was Weber born? when did Marx write the Manifesto), and spends her time preparing courses that are not just a collection of facts, but rather a set of analytical tools for exploring the world around us. By this... Read More

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January 18, 2012, 01:35 PM ET

The Lost Day

January 17, 2012 7:00 a.m Wake up, stretch big while still under covers, realize how happy I am to be on winter break, when I can sleep until 7 instead of getting up at 6. Nice hubby makes bed and coffee for me. I eat breakfast, drink second cup of coffee while checking email. Happily take note that there are only a few things on my “To Do” list, which means I can get cracking on a course lecture I’ll be giving early in the semester. Feel fantastic. Decide to get the stuff on the “To Do” list out of the way before turning to the lecture. 9:00 a.m. First on list is to fix matters with my new airline plan. For some reason, login to airline fails, so I call airline company. After slogging through many recorded voices and many button pushes, I finally hear a recorded voice telling me to hold for a representative. Fifteen minutes pass. I hang up. I strum my fingers on the... Read More

January 18, 2012, 12:39 PM ET

Privacy vs. Piracy

I asked my undergraduate assistant Sam to find out some information about terrariums (hey, I'm paying him out-of-pocket and besides, it's for my next Hartford Courant column). In an almost immediate response, Sam's plaintive voice cried from across the room, "Have you seen this weird ad on Wikipedia?" Wikipedia is blocking access to its English language version in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act which, the Wiki folks argue, will lead to "Internet censorship" and "will cripple the Internet, and will threaten whistle-blowing and other free speech actions." Proponents of the bill argue that it will protect copyright, guard against the theft of intellectual property, and provide greater measures of integrity when it comes to the use and management of media on the Internet. The Chronicle addressed the issue a couple of months ago, while The Onion addressed it more recently. Like ... Read More

January 17, 2012, 10:03 AM ET

No Progress in Our National Conversation on Race

cross posted from Philanthropy Daily: We’re still in the thick of primary season now, but maybe it’s time to start worrying about the general election — not who is going to win, but how the contest will be run and how it will be covered and how much the subject of race is going to be a factor. It would be easy to dismiss Lee Siegel’s op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times as a bunch of pundit claptrap, which I will do in a moment, but I am concerned it is a bad sign of things to come. Siegel’s amazingly ignorant and ill-timed thesis is that the “one quality that has subtly fueled [Mitt Romney's] candidacy thus far and could well put him over the top in the fall [is] his race. The simple, impolitely stated fact is that Mitt Romney is the whitest white man to run for president in recent memory.” Maybe you were thinking this is the beginning of some Chris Rock sketch about... Read More

January 17, 2012, 06:12 AM ET

Envy and Evolution

According to a New York Times editorial on Sunday, "Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, noted in a speech on Thursday that the median income in the United States had actually declined since 1999, shrinking the middle class while the income of the top 1 percent soared. Such inequality is corrosive. And pointing it out has nothing to do with envy and everything to do with pressing for policies to help America’s struggling middle class.” I agree that income inequality is a serious problem (especially in the U.S., where it is more egregious than in any other developed country), and that corrective measures of some sort are definitely needed. But it might surprise the Times editorial board—and many Brainstorm readers as well— to learn that, in fact, concern with income inequality has a great deal to do with envy. Take this little test. Which of... Read More

January 17, 2012, 03:56 AM ET

Rereading Jane Eyre

Every year, I travel back to a time and place I’ve never been, but feel incredibly familiar with—the landscapes and relationships crafted by Charlotte Bronte, in Jane Eyre. Right now, I’m finishing another reread. Like many, my first brush with the novel occurred during childhood—my favorite passage was the exchange between Jane and Mr. Brocklehurst, the sanctimonious clergyman in charge of Lowood, a boarding school for indigent girls—where he asked, if she was to avoid going to hell what must she do? Ten-year-old Jane’s response was that she must stay in good health and not die. Brilliant. Charlotte was not the only literary talent in her family. Most are familiar with Emily (Wuthering Heights). But, Charlotte’s sister, Anne Bronte, provided a telling account about the lives of mid-19^th century governesses and the abuse experienced by those live-in educators.�... Read More

January 17, 2012, 12:35 AM ET

Scrummin' in South Carolina: Gingrich Breaks Through

Tonight's South Carolina presidential debate was a pretty rowdy affair. The crackle in the air was provided by: 1) Fox and Wall Street Journal moderators (Bret Baier, Kelly Evans, Juan Williams, and Gerald Seib) who asked intelligent, tough questions, 2) candidates who sought to ignore those questions and strafe their opponents in the process, and, 3) a boisterous crowd that seems to have time-traveled to Myrtle Beach straight from the infamous 2004 Clemson v. South Carolina football brawl (which, in order to provide CHE readers with substantive analytical resources, I have posted above). The storylines as I see them: Gingrich Strikes Back: Aside from an assault on Mitt Romney's Bain record which the latter parried well, the former Speaker was beastin' (as the football players like to say). Gingrich brought down the house by quipping that 99 weeks of unemployment benefits was "an... Read More

January 16, 2012, 05:06 PM ET

'The Artist' Says It All

Last night, The Artist, a French movie directed by Michel Hazanavicius, won three Golden Globe awards—this on top of winning four awards at the Critics Choice Awards ceremony last Thursday. How can it be that in a time when movies come to us decked out in special effects and hyper-plastic color, and some even come to us not flat, but as 3-D, a silent movie (truth be told, it’s not completely silent; there’s music, for one thing, and a smattering of...I don't want to spoil it for you, so I'll stop here), shot in black and white, is enthralling both movie insiders and general moviegoers alike? Although The Artist offers comic relief, it’s more a feel-gooder, along the lines of It’s a Wonderful Life, than the comedy people are pegging it. The time is the late 1920s, when the charmingly vain silent movie star George Valentin, played by French movie star Jean Dujardin, finds he ... Read More

January 15, 2012, 12:12 PM ET

Monday's Poem: 'The Second Fallacy,' by C. Dale Young

You despise it, the bougainvillea, so you plant it on either side of your front door. You call this luxury. It is a very specific type of luxury. The bougainvillea asks for nothing. It methodically climbs beside your front door. You have charted this. You cannot help yourself. You have watched this plant so many times that it comforts you. My mother planted them at the edge of her yard so many years ago because the eye trains itself without training on the hot-pink petals—leaves, really—seen more clearly against the dark and rotting fence. And you find that no matter how far you push backward, no matter how hard you pressure memory, that you cannot remember any image earlier than this one in your life. Not her warm hands or the early pleasure of milk. Not the first time she read to you. What you return to are the terrible wings rising from... Read More

January 15, 2012, 09:35 AM ET

A Case of Alleged Political Discrimination Goes Forward

Here is a story in the New York Times about a case that may have far-reaching implications for higher education. It could also form a significant chapter in the chronicle of political bias in higher education, an issue that has diminished in recent years (for various reasons). The Times piece opens: "Teresa R. Wagner is a conservative Republican who wants to teach law. Her politics may have hurt her career." Wagner alleges that the University of Iowa Law School rejected her job application because of her politics, which are vocally social conservative. The story quotes a 2007 letter from the associate dean to the dean stating, "“Frankly, one thing that worries me is that some people may be opposed to Teresa serving in any role, in part at least because they so despise her politics (and especially her activism about it)." The latest episode is this: "Late last month, a... Read More