Category Archives: neoliberalism

November 19, 2011, 12:09 pm

On the Nature of Change in Higher Ed (Part III): Assessing the Costs

Students at UC-Berkeley marching on behalf of public education last week. Photo credit: Judith C. Brown.

We return to guest blogger, historian and former Zenith provost Judith C. Brown. Her full biography and Part I of this series, which asks us to think about what modern higher education is, and can be viewed here. Part II, where she addressed the larger economic context for higher education, can be viewed here. In this concluding post, she responds to the question: “What is to be done?”

Many who are impatient with the slow pace of change in higher education see the key to success in Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring’s, The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out (2011). The authors’ main argument is that traditional colleges and (more…)

September 4, 2011, 10:50 am

I Hate Teaching on Labor Day: An End of Summer Polemic

By Claire Potter

Do faculty and students get burned when the academic calendar ignores federal and religious holidays?

Oh sure, write it off to the selfish impulses of a persnickety faculty member who is unwilling to sacrifice for the common good (think again.) Tell me that I just had twelve paid weeks off (not true: I have a nine month salary that is paid over twelve months), and that compared to such a luxury, one little day can’t possibly matter. Tell me that this calendar was approved at a faculty meeting I failed to attend (true) and that if I had really cared I would have attended the faculty meeting and made one of my impassioned, fruitless speeches (which would have embarrassed everyone and changed nothing.)

Let’s repeat it for emphasis: I hate teaching on Labor Day. Hate. It. (more…)

August 6, 2011, 11:41 am

Education Policy This Week: Edu-Traitors, Preventing Child Abuse Through Censorship, And Combat Soldiers In Class

By Claire Potter

Today we are taking note of smart people saying smart things that open a can of worms or two about education policy and its consequences.

At HASTAC, Duke’s Cathy Davidson confesses that she is an edu-traitor. “I argue that, right now, we are deforming the entire enterprise of education,” Davidson writes, “from preschool onward, by insisting it be measured implicitly by the standard of ‘will this help you get into college’? The result is the devaluation of myriad important ways of learning that are not, strictly speaking, ‘college material.’”

To put Davidson’s concept in practical terms, even before budgets are cut, aspects of the school day that used to be a valued part of the educational mission — art, music, recess, clubs, athletics — become “extras.” In politician-speak, these activities are “fat” or “pork,” which can and should be cut: those words are also a…

August 30, 2010, 12:59 pm

She Said Its Two Feet High And Risin’: Five Years After Hurricane Katrina, What Would Jesus Do?

By Claire Potter

Five years ago today I had just moved back into our current house after nine months of renovations that were way overdue. We had given our temporary apartment back to the landlord, and for part of August I had shuttled back and forth between our New York home and various forms of temporary housing in Shoreline. Our nephew had gone on vacation and I camped in his home down the street; I spent five days at a motel in Worcester, MA at a national sports event; and I spent one surreal night in a chain hotel outside Shoreline, which turned out to be almost entire rented out to the city as an overflow for homeless families waiting for Section 8 housing. As it turned out, these migrations were a preview of things to come: a year or so later, when it was discovered that thousands of displaced Gulf Coast residents were being made ill by the formaldehyde in their trailers, my accommodations see…