Articles

Most recent posting below. See other articles in the column to the right.

NO BIG DEAL...but many small ones
September 30, 2008 By Peter Wood
How campaigning-for-credit undermines academic value

Facebook and the Future of the University
September 30, 2008 By Tom Wood
Will social networking sites like Facebook remove the extracurricular responsibility of the university?

Unbuttoned in Illinois
September 29, 2008 By Peter Wood
The University of Illinois has issued a strange notice concerning its employees' buttons and bumper stickers.

Losing Altitude: Leftist Ideologies on the Decline
September 29, 2008 By Peter Wood
People are less and less interested in topics like Marxism and deconstruction, but which new ideological trends are replacing the old?
2 comments - Last on 10/07/2008

What Does a Chief Diversity Officer Actually Do?
September 26, 2008 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
Comments on Williams and Wade-Golden's prescriptions for the role of the "diversity messiah"
4 comments - Last on 10/06/2008

How Preferences Have Corrupted Higher Education
September 26, 2008 By John M. Ellis - Academic Questions
This is an article from the current issue of Academic Questions (vol. 21, no. 3, Special Issue: The Future of Race Preferences). It is an address that was originally presented at “Race and Gender Preferences at the Crossroads,” a conference organized by the California Association of Scholars.

America’s Financial Crisis and Higher Education
September 25, 2008 By Peter Wood
Student loans going the way of home mortgages could have serious consequences for the university. A call to academe to pay attention to what's going on in American finance.
1 comment - Last on 09/26/2008

The Effects of Proposition 209 on California: Higher Education, Public Employment, and Contracting
September 25, 2008 By Charles L. Geshekter - Academic Questions
This is an article from the current issue of Academic Questions (vol. 21, no. 3, Special Issue: The Future of Race Preferences). It is an address that was originally presented at “Race and Gender Preferences at the Crossroads,” a conference organized by the California Association of Scholars.

Lazere v. Gelernter
September 24, 2008 By Peter Wood
On the Sometimes Difficult Task of Setting the Record Straight or Getting Heard Above the Din Especially if Your Points Are Prolix

Crying Out Loud
September 24, 2008 By Glenn Ricketts
Scholarships for cheerleaders but none for history readers

About Face in Amherst
September 23, 2008 By Peter Wood
Here's what really happenned when U Mass tried to cover its tracks after getting caught offering students academic credit for volunteering in the Obama campaign.

The Extracurricular Sector of the University: Unappreciated and Soon To Be Unneeded
September 23, 2008 By Tom Wood
With the rise of online education, will student affairs and residence life programs become obsolete?

Observations at Manchester
September 23, 2008 By Ashley Thorne
What does NAS have to say about a private Christian college? NAS takes a tour through Manchester.
3 comments - Last on 09/24/2008

College Credit for Campaign Volunteers
September 22, 2008 By Peter Wood
Students are earning academic credit for helping out in the presidential campaigns.
1 comment - Last on 09/22/2008

Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing: A Business-as-Usual Group Tries on the Rhetoric of School Reform
September 19, 2008 By Peter Wood - Minding the Campus
One education organization seeks to solve an unnamed crisis by paying teachers more and sending more students to college.

Fairy Tales for Freshmen: Mile-High Propaganda
September 17, 2008 By Ashley Thorne
Once upon a time, a professor of freshman English imposed his politics on the class. Actually, it was only last week at Metro State College.

Dis-honoring Yeshiva
September 17, 2008 By Peter Wood
Yeshiva ousted James Otteson, who had just been hired to found and direct the university's academic honors program. Rumor has it that his pseudonymous blog was what turned the Yeshiva administration against him, but we don’t know. Could it be that he was blackballed for his high standards for scholarly excellence?

“Hurray! We Got Noticed!” ACPA’s Response to NAS Residence Life Statement
September 16, 2008 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
The American College Personnel Association responded to NAS's statement Rebuilding Campus Community: The Wrong Imperative by reaffirming its 1994 document, the Student Learning Imperative and "savoring the moment."

Disruption:
Advising the Next President
September 15, 2008 By Peter Wood
Experts predict global trends of the future and academics give advice to the future U.S. president, but what will become of higher education?
1 comment - Last on 09/23/2008

Social Work Update: Grammatically Challenged Social Work Boards Bewildered by English Language
September 12, 2008 By Glenn Ricketts
Maybe they don't know what gerunds are...
2 comments - Last on 11/03/2008

NAS Cheers "Enduring Questions"
September 12, 2008 By Ashley Thorne
NAS hails with appreciation the announcement of the National Endowment for the Humanities' new "Enduring Questions" program.

9/11: A Remembrance
September 11, 2008 By Peter Wood
Let us remember 9/11 and rouse from academic detachment from the real world.
1 comment - Last on 09/15/2008

Is College Driving Students to Drink?
September 11, 2008 By Tom Wood
Why is binge drinking such a problem on college campuses? What factors lead certain students to consume more than others?

Activists Only: Reading Between the Lines of an Academic Job Ad
September 11, 2008 By Peter Wood
U Mass Amherst is looking for a new linguistic anthropologist who fits with the university's politically correct policies and its commitment to a "racialized" outlook. Where does such a job description leave qualified non-minority applicants? Where does it leave anthropology students?

What You Learn Depends on What (and Whom) You Ask
September 11, 2008 By Steve Balch
Does diversity in the medical classroom enhance students' ability to care for minority patients? A new study supposedly provides evidence to that effect. But the survey omits some essential elements and thus fails to take an accurate pulse.

A Couple of Curiosities
September 10, 2008 By Peter Wood
A note on two interesting pieces of education news: PBS hosts the “Teaching & Learning Celebration 2008” and Cambridge says it's not the university's job to promote social justice.

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation
September 04, 2008 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
A handy guide to the highlights of the first season of NAS's new website. Come here first to see what we've been up to and find the best of NAS since our web upgrade!

Protecting the Prickly: La Raza Studies
September 04, 2008 By Ashley Thorne
NAS takes a look at La Raza studies, a public school program in Tucson, where the cactuses are plentiful and so is the bitterness.
1 comment - Last on 09/06/2008

Night Makes Right: Stanley Fish’s Candelabra of Truth
September 03, 2008 By Peter Wood
In his new book, Save the World on Your Own Time, Stanley Fish writes, "If you’re not in the pursuit-of-truth business, you should not be in the university." But what does he mean by "truth"?
1 comment - Last on 09/09/2008

She Do the Plagiarists in Many Voices: An Anthropologist’s New Rationale for Academic Dishonesty
September 02, 2008 By Peter Wood
It seems the Internet generation of students has a novel excuse for plagiarism: "I was exploring the ever-changing version of my self." In a world of Wikipedia, YouTube, Blogspot, and Second Life, can authorship be "fluid"?
2 comments - Last on 09/06/2008