NewsTrust - College - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

Writing Teachers: Still Crazy After All These Years

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Minding the Campus - By Mary Grabar - Apr. 22 (Opinion) - After spending four depressing days this month at a meeting of 3,000 writing teachers in Atlanta, I can tell you that their parent group, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, is not really interested in teaching students to write and communicate clearly. The group’s agenda, clear to me after sampling as many of the meeting’s 500 panels as I could, is devoted to disparaging grammar, logic, reason, evidence and fairness as instruments of white oppression. They believe rules of grammar discriminate against “marginalized” groups and restrict self-expression.

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Don’t balance federal budget at the expense of college student aid

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Center Maryland - By Tina Bjarekull - Mar. 31 (Opinion) - The economic vitality of the United States is dependent on knowledge, innovation, and intellectual discoveries. We cannot cut ourselves out of a global recession. We must build the intellectual capital necessary to lead, grow, and prosper.

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Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic of American Education-Related Social Stratification

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Matthew Yglesias - By Matthew Yglesias - Jul. 28 (Opinion) - Peter Beinart, like all good heterodox liberals, thinks we should curb race-based affirmative action in college admissions in favor of something more focused on class. I’m open to this idea, though I’d like to see a specific proposal rather than a vague suggestion. But every time I hear this debate I have to wonder why we’re having it

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Right Wing Thought Police - An Analysis

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Lawrence Davidson - Jul. 10 (Opinion) - Lawrence Davidson writes: 'The American right wing is achieving its long-term goal of becoming the nation's thought police. They are realizing this goal through the timeless practices of extremists (be they on the right or the left, religious or secular), which are intimidation, slander and harassment.' Lawrence Davidson, Reader Supported News

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We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Chronicle of Higher Education - By Mark Bauerlein, Mohamed Gad-el-Hak, Wayne Grody, Bill McKelvey, Stanley W. Trimble - Jun. 24 (Opinion) - the amount of redundant, inconsequential, and outright poor research has swelled in recent decades, filling countless pages in journals and monographs. Consider this tally from Science two decades ago: Only 45 percent of the articles published in the 4,500 top scientific journals were cited within the first five years after publication. In recent years, the figure seems to have dropped further. In a 2009 article in Online Information Review, Péter Jacsó found that 40.6 percent of the articles published in the top science and social-science journals (the figures do not include the humanities) were cited in the period 2002 to 2006.

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The Empathic Professor

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Inside Higher Ed - By Michael Bugeja - Jun. 18 (Comment) - Biological theorist Richard Dawkins writes in The Selfish Gene that if we wish "to build a society in which people cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, [we] can expect little help from biological nature … because we are born

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using technology to cut the costs of college

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

peterlevine.ws - By Peter Levine - Apr. 28 (Opinion) - First, I'm obsessed by the sheer number of people who are employed per student at particularly expensive colleges and universities. For instance, Harvard employs 2,163 faculty, 5,102 administrators and professional staff, and 4,800 clerical and technical workers for its 19,500 students. Only 18 percent of the total work force are professors. There are three students for every five workers. (I'm counting graduate students as students, even though most also teach, so the ratio is even higher.) Thus I wonder whether there could be significant efficiencies in administration. On the other hand, it may be that most of the administrative and professional staff are involved in externally funded research or clinical medicine, in which case shrinking their numbers doesn't cut the cost of education.

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The Academy of Debt

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Rebecca Delaney - Mar. 19 (Interview) - Everyone's focused on health care, but a critical student loan reform effort might pass through budget reconciliation soon, too.

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Richard (RJ) Eskow: A College Test for Washington: Help Young People in Need, or Kowtow to Bank Lobbyists?

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Richard (RJ) Eskow - Feb. 09 (Opinion) - t should be, as the President once called it, a "no-brainer": Overhaul our broken system for distributing federal student loans. Stop giving banks undeserved profits for administering these loans (an estimated $80 billion over ten years), since they take no risk and have managed the program poorly. Make sure our money goes directly to the young people that need them the most. Who could be against that? In fact, the student loan reform bill has already passed the House.

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Young and Not So Invincible

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Anthony Wright - Jun. 27 (Opinion) - In the last several weeks, in ceremonies across the country, hundreds of thousands of Americans have become uninsured. I’m not talking about plant closings, or court proceedings for divorce or bankruptcy. I’m referring to high school and college graduations. Even if graduates were going into a job market that didn’t have double-digit unemployment, the likelihood is that many, if not most of them, will become uninsured for at least some period of time.

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School of Hock

Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Martha C. White - May. 01 (Opinion) - With a growing number of college grads finding themselves crushed under the weight of their student loan debt, the Obama administration is considering action that could derail the entire student loan industry. Groups who monitor campaign contributions, though, worry that the strength of the industry could block any shot at real change.

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Land of My Dreams

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Review - By Martha Nussbaum - Mar. 27 (Opinion) - I am tempted to say, somewhat hyperbolically, that virtually the only place in today’s India where Gandhi’s ideas are being duly honored is on the campus of Jamia. But Hasan knows, like Gandhi, and like Martin Luther King, Jr., that anger will not go away, will not cease to create the possibility of violence, unless the subordination that fuels it is brought to an end.

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ABC Radio Australia:Connect Asia:Stories:Journalism students show little interst in newspapers

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Australian Broadcasting - By Reporter: Sen Lam; Interview with Alan Knight, Journalism Professor - Mar. 13 (Interview) - With the global economic downturn the newspaper industry around the world is in turmoil. Profits are down and journalists are being layed off. But more than that the habits of younger news consumers are changing. Even those who aspire to be journalists. A new suvey of journalism students has found that more than 60 per cent read a printed newspaper only once a week or less. Presenter: Sen Lam Speaker: Alan Knight is Professor in Journalism and Media Studies at the Queensland University of Technology

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The Business of Business Education Is More than Business

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Carnegie Foundation - By Tom Ehrlich - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - No one can doubt that we need to be thinking through how we got into the economic mess in which we find ourselves and how we might best extricate ourselves. We have a new administration in Washington that is focused hard on just those issues. But it is also the responsibility of each of us to become wiser in these arenas.

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Supply-Side Education

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chronicle of Higher Education - By David Glenn - Jul. 25 (Review) - "There was enormous growth in educational attainment between 1900 and 1970," Goldin says in an interview. "But after 1970, the growth in attainment became much more sluggish. Putting those two parts together, you can explain a large amount of the story of wage inequality in the 20th century."

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Veterans: Missing in Action

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

American Progress - By Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, Benjamin Armbruster - May. 23 (Opinion) - Yesterday, the Senate honored U.S. troops by passing a 21st Century GI Bill....Seventy-five senators voted to fund veterans yesterday, providing a veto-proof majority. Yet not only did Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) not vote for the bill, he didn't even show up to vote (the only other senators missing were Sen. Ted Kennedy...and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who had to attend a funeral)....a look at his record on veterans issues shows that he has unfortunately favored conservative pandering...

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Wikinews interviews team behind the 2,000th featured Wikipedia article

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Wikinews - By Brian McNeil, Jon Beasley-Murray, UBC students - Apr. 13 (Interview) - Wikinews contacted Professor Jon Beasley-Murray, who agreed to be interviewed for this story. His responses can be found below. Included are sections soliciting responses from three students who took the class and helped create and bring El Señor Presidente to Feature Article status. Thus far the project has created seven good articles in addition to the 2,000th featured article.

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Satire as Racial Backlash Against Asian Americans

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Inside Higher Ed - By Sharon S. Lee - Feb. 28 (Opinion) - Imagine for a minute if student leaders at elite college campuses devoted themselves to mocking black people or Jewish people or gay people. I'm not talking about drunk students posting pictures of their offensive parties on Facebook, but student newspaper editors - thought of as being both smart and progressive - giving space over for the sole purpose of making fun of people because of their background. It's hard to imagine. And yet recently this phenomenon of racial caricatures as "satire" has emerged with Asian Americans as the object of the jokes.

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Has Huckabee Been Lying About Having a Theology Degree?

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Steve Benen - Dec. 14 (Opinion) - t's a theocratic war. And I don't know if anybody fully understands that. I'm the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well." Now, on its face, it's a pretty unpersuasive pitch. After all, how much could Huckabee have learned at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1970s about 21st-century fundamentalist Islam? Probably not much. But as it turns out ,the theology-degree claim may be more than unconvincing; it may also be false.

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W&M's Gene Nichols still nailed by the Wren Cross

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:29:40 -0700

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - Oct. 02 (Opinion) - Checking today, I learned that Nichol's foes are again using the power of the internet to rally against him, sponsoring a site with arguments against his renewal and a petition "Should Nichol's be Renewed," created on June 12 in Utah, after sending out an anonymous newsrelease on June 11. There's a second site created at nearly the same time with the same provider, for the Society for the College of William and Mary, which appears to be down with no past history at the internet archive. But Nichols supporters also have a site (email), which says it has uncovered some of the right-wing funding behind the effort.

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Paging whoever runs Columbia University's public relations department

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 07:17:39 -0700

Red State - By Moe Lane - Sep. 23 (Opinion) - There is the America where Adolf Hitler is the man who soaked Europe in gasoline, then lit a match; where Adolf Hitler is the man who created an efficient bureaucratic machine designed to convert 11 million people to corpses; and where Adolf Hitler is the man who, to paraphrase Mark Rogers, once apparently competed with Josef Stalin to see who could murder more Russians. That's one America. The other America is the one where Adolf Hitler is the guy you use to show your disapproval of the Bush administration.

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AIDS/HIV tips from Indiana University

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:46:00 -0700

Indiana University News Room - By Tracy James, Elisabeth Andrews - Sep. 11 (Editorial) - Denial and stigma are major issues in dealing with the AIDS problem in rural America. Many rural residents deny the possibility of HIV/AIDS being part of their community. Hence, many do not practice risk-reduction behaviors, falsely believing they have little chance of contracting HIV, said William L. Yarber, senior director of the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention at Indiana University Bloomington. Stigma is a serious problem for people with HIV/AIDS in all communities, but particularly in rural areas, said Yarber, also a researcher at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. "People with HIV/AIDS in rural communities carry an extra burden with their disease in that many are stigmatized as unworthy of community support and adequate health care," he said. People diagnosed with AIDS who live in rural areas now account for 8 percent of all cases nationwide, up from 5 percent in 1996. Despite these growing numbers, most AIDS control strategies have focused on urban communities. "AIDS in rural America is often isolated and forgotten. As a consequence, rural prevention efforts are under-funded," Yarber said. RCAP is the only prevention center in the country to exclusively address HIV/AIDS and STDs in rural communities. "Our center fills a void in AIDS/STD prevention and research," Yarber said. Yarber, a professor in the Department of Applied Health Science in IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, can be reached at 812-855-7974 and yarber@indiana.edu. For information about RCAP, visit http://www.indiana.edu/~aids/.

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Professor Norman Finkelstein and DePaul End Tenure Dispute, But Effect on Academic Freedom Remains

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:03:14 -0700

Democracy Now - Sep. 10 (Interview) - Professor Norman Finkelstein has resigned from DePaul University after the two sides agreed on a private settlement. The deal was announced just before a scheduled protest against the school's decision to deny Finkelstein tenure and to cancel his classes this semester. As part of the settlement DePaul issued a statement that described Finkelstein as a "prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher." Finkelstein has said DePaul's decision to deny him tenure was a result of political opposition to his speaking out about the Israel-Palestine conflict. We speak with Finkelstein and his attorney, Lynne Bernabei.

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CU and the Churchill Affair: How did this happen in the first place?

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:47:23 -0700

Scholars & Rogues - By Sam Smith - Jul. 25 (Opinion) - The wait is over and the inevitable has happened: the University of Colorado yesterday formally dismissed Professor Ward Churchill. If Churchill is guilty of academic dishonesty, then he needed to go. However, it's a huge mistake to see the Churchill case exclusively in terms of the events that have made the front pages. How did his academic dishonesty go unnoticed? As it turns out, I might have some insight into this question...

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Testimony of Vivek Wadhwa to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce

Wed, 16 May 2007 14:05:25 -0700

cggc.duke.edu - By Vivek Wadhwa - May. 16 (Statement) - The numbers that are at the center of the debate on US engineering competitiveness are not accurate. The US may need to graduate more of certain types of engineers, but we have not determined what we need. By simply reacting to the numbers, we may actually reduce our competitiveness. Let's better understand the problem before we debate the remedy.

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