Jason M. Shepard (CSU Fullerton) and Kathleen Bartzen Culver (Wisconsin): Culture Wars on Campus: Academic Freedom, the First Amendment and Partisan Outrage in Polarized Times. Chad M. Oldfather (Marquette): The Scholar’s Dilemma. The Great Recession never ended for college humanities: Economic considerations weigh on students who came of age in the aftermath of the financial crisis. How much do professors work? One researcher is trying to find out. Under Trump, a hard test for Howard University. The introduction to Seeing the World: How US Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era by Mitchell L. Stevens, Cynthia Miller-Idriss and Seteney Shami (and more).
Cekic Nenad (Belgrade): Utilitarianism and the Idea of University: A Short Ethical Analysis. Instead of defending the SAT, let’s advocate a genuinely egalitarian education system: Admit everybody. Paul Campos on why college isn’t the answer to social inequality. The citation graph is one of humankind's most important intellectual achievements. James Fallows on the future of elite schools in the Trump era (and the future of blogging). How Liberty University built a billion-dollar empire online. Volunteers of the ivory tower: How academia exploits the labor — and love — of aspiring scholars. Books by immigrants, foreigners and minorities don’t diminish the “classic” curriculum — they enhance it.
Jelena Brankovic, Leopold Ringel, and Tobias Werron (Bielefeld): How Rankings Produce Competition: The Case of Global University Rankings. Nicholas Maxwell (UCL): The Scandal of the Irrationality of Academia. One group that definitely faces prejudice in college admissions: “I’m talking about introverts, of course”. Cardinal cons: Niall Ferguson, campus conservatives, and the victimization racket. Pay what you want: Scott McLemee explores a few — perhaps somewhat surprising — new pricing models for books and journals. What it’s like to be black on campus now. How social-media trolls turned U.C. Berkeley into a free-speech circus.
Adam Cook and Isaac Ehrlich (SUNY-Buffalo): Was Higher Education a Major Channel Through Which the Us Became an Economic Superpower in the 20th Century? Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem: Left-wingers being fired for their opinions. Dani Rodrik on saying no to academic normalization of Trump. Sparky Abraham on how student debt is worsening gender and racial injustice. Yasmin Nair on how the dangerous academic is an extinct species.
Nicholas Maxwell (UCL): Do We Need an Academic Revolution to Create a Wiser World? The humanities are in crisis: Students are abandoning humanities majors, turning to degrees they think yield far better job prospects — but they’re wrong. Erik Bleich reviews Free Speech on Campus by Sigal R. Ben-Porath; and Free Speech on Campus by Erwin Chemerinsky and Howard Gillman. Lee Konstantinou on Avital Ronell and the end of the academic star. You can download Greening the Academy: Ecopedagogy Through the Liberal Arts, ed. Samuel Day Fassbinder, Anthony J. Nocella, and Richard V. Kahn (2012).
