http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:56:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en When the president named Arne Duncan as his first Secretary of Education, he was doing a lot more, and a lot worse, than just naming a Chicago crony and basketball buddy to a critical Cabinet position. He was adopting one of the most aggressive, least tested, top-down, pro-corporate philosophies toward ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/264 An interesting piece in last week's Chronicle, Goodbye to those Overpaid Professors in their Cushy Jobs, attempts a possibly premature farewell to a stereotype, the enduring myth that "college professors lead easy lives."  According to reporter Ben Gose, once-rampant complaints about the imaginary prof on a three-day workweek are now ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/263 Should The New York Times (NYT) exist? Ha--you're thinking, "What an unfair question!" Or "You've framed the debate in an obviously unfair or careless way." And right you are. But since I'm a rich and powerful chunk of media capital with a stake in the answer, I don't care what you ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/262 Joe Ramsey is a talented young scholar of the radical writing that often characterized the American cultural landscape in the first half of the last century (and which the cultural criticism of the second half largely ignored). He writes politically-relevant poetry under the name J. Gallant Ramsey. This piece on ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/261 Only way to please me turn around and leave and walk away --Alabama Getaway, lyrics by Robert Hunter Many who learn that the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) amputated a $650,000 state appropriation, not to mention a flow of grant money, just to rid itself of a labor center (and Glenn Feldman, the accomplished historian ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/260 Just last year, Stanley Fish was playing Clint Eastwood with his manifesto: Do Your Job, Punk! (or, My Tinfoil Hat Keeps Politics Out of My Teaching--Get Yours Today!) In that widely panned book, he argued that the role of the faculty was to produce and distribute knowledge magically apart from ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/259 Let's say you teach at an M.A.-granting state school with 2,000 new first-year undergraduates entering annually. Let's further say they take half their load with faculty on part-time appointments. Controlling for other variables, one new multi-campus study suggests that this degree of contingency in faculty appointment could play a significant ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/258 Across the planet for the past two years, university management has been opportunistically putting the screws to faculty, staff and students with bogus claims that "the economy made us do it." Professor of accounting and AAUP Secretary-Treasurer Howard Bunsis has made a second career of flying around North America debunking ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/256 So when I heard Anya Kamenetz, once the passionate shoot-from-the-hip spokesperson against student debt, was reinventing herself as the passionate shoot-from-the-hip analyst of new media in education, I was prepared to give her a listen. I thought, well, at least she has enough dignity and intelligence not to turn herself ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/255 Over at the Atlantic, business editor Megan McArdle lit up the Beltway blab-o-sphere by posing an interesting question: If "almost every" tenured professor she knows has a "left-wing vision" of workplace issues, why do they accept the "shockingly brutal" treatment of faculty with contingent appointments? Her perception of leftism among the ... http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/254