Brainstorm

Surefire Ways to Suss Out Whether a Job Candidate Is Male or Female

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:00:00 -0500

1. Ask the job candidate to state his or her maternal grandmother's maiden name. If the candidate knows it, that candidate is a female.

2. Put a round rubber object on the table. If the candidate picks it up and simply looks at it, the candidate is female. If the person starts throwing the object into the air

Isn't the Student Loan Program Supposed to Be About Students?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:00:00 -0500

In response to my recent blog about the conversion to an all DL program, Kevin Carey, a person I admire and respect deeply (and with whom I almost always agree) countered with a compilation of his, Ben Miller's and Jason Delisle's thoughts. Since Jason and Ben are former colleagues, I appreciate that they both chimed in since I know that together they have spent a great deal of time and energy thinking about student loan issues. This is precisely the kind of dialogue

Three Cheers for Descartes

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:02:00 -0500

I must remember that I am a man, and that consequently I am in the habit of sleeping, and in my dreams representing to myself the same things or sometimes even less probable things, than do those who are insane in their waking moments. How often has it happened to me that in the night I dreamt that I found myself in this particular place, that I was dressed and seated near the fire, whilst in reality I was lying undressed in bed! At this moment it does indeed seem to me that it is

Is Now the Right Time to Convert to an All-Direct-Loan Program?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:22:00 -0500

Paul Basken's article, "Complexities Grow for the Student Loan Bill as Senate Action Finally Draws Near ," provides an insightful update on the challenges that the Administration will face in eliminating the bank-based Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program and converting to the government-run Direct Loan (DL) program. The ironies associated

Now Is the Right Time to Convert to an All-Direct-Loan Program

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:00:00 -0500

In response to the question Diane Auer Jones poses below about student loan reforms, my colleague Ben Miller (who has a frighteningly detailed understanding of the intricacies of federal loan policy) offers the following:

Because the piece has a lot going on, let's go through it one step at a time. Jones writes:

On one hand the Administration is trying to garner

California's College Dreamers

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:00:00 -0500

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today on student protests in the UC system, entitled "California's College Dreamers." The piece opens by chastising students for not investigating the tuition hikes enough to discover "that compensation packages won from the state by unions were a big reason for the hike."

The editorial notes that the UC system lost out on $800 million dollars

Midterm Exam Rocks Painting

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 19:36:00 -0500

How smart can a rock band be? Super-smart, that's how smart. If you have 2 minutes to spare, turn on your sound, click HERE, and enjoy a delightful rock n' roll romp through Western art history. The Franco-American band, Hold Your Horses, will delight anyone with even the least sense of humor and the littlest bit of knowledge about painting. I played this for my advanced painting class yesterday (a sort of on-the-spot

Debating RTT4HE

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 19:00:00 -0500

Ashley Thorne of the National Association of Scholars has written a response / rebuttal to my new Chronicle column, which argues that cash-strapped colleges and universities would benefit from a "Race to the Top" for higher education. She's friendly about it and agrees with some of my points, but in the end we have very

Baddest of the Bad Books

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:41:00 -0500

What's worse than David Horowitz's brand of right-wing drivel giving yellow journalism a bad name? A ghost-authored Horowitz sequel, padded with over 150 witless, tendentious summaries of courses that the compilers erroneously imagine will frighten middle America into hauling the faculty up the nearest telephone pole.

The current issue of American Book Review highlights their Top 40 Bad Books. Heading the list for

Employers Want 18th-Century Skills

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 08:00:00 -0500

The other day my sister the epidemiologist overheard me talking about the writing problems of undergraduates and she jumped in with, "It's a real problem for us, too." She outlined one instance. When senior researchers conceive their projects, one of the first things they do is ask assistants of various types (interns, etc.) to conduct a "literature review." That means reading up on the topic and summarizing every relevant study, report, essay, etc. Each item gets a

Oscar Night

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 15:17:00 -0500

Tonight, millions will gather round the fireplace (AKA television) to tremble with excitement over who will win what at the Academy Awards -- that holy annual event where Hollywood, performing directly to its loyal fans, congratulates itself for the previous year’s work. Oscar night's competition, celebration, and glamour, stirred into a delicious TV brew, invites movie lovers to watch people they adore from afar -- people who make their living practicing the art of pretending to be

Cultural Evolution

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 12:32:00 -0500

Right at the end of his On the Origin of Species, the book published in 1859 in which he announced his theory of evolution through natural selection, Charles Darwin wrote:

"In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."

In leaving things to this final

Sen. Lamar Alexander Is Making Things Up

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 11:00:00 -0500

With the prospect of President Obama's student-loan bill passing through the budget reconciliation bill fast approaching, Sen. Lamar Alexander (Republican of Tennessee) took to the Washington Post op-ed page to tell some lies about the bill. Alexander, who used to be the Secretary of Education and knows better, said:

Starting in July, all 19 million

Older Profs Say They Shouldn't Have to Work Long Hours Either!

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 16:02:00 -0500

In recent conversations with more than 36 faculty members, representing a three-fold increase over the number of respondents to The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, the project run by Harvard's Graduate School of Education based on interviews with 12 professors, it was determined that all academics born between 1919 and 1964 also believe they should not have to work more than 60 hours a

The Disempowered Consumer

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 10:16:00 -0500

After arriving home from school last night, I read a long reader response to my post on why the idea of “consumer empowerment” (now used by everyone in the health-care debate) is wrongheaded. Commentator ledzep, arguing against my unapologetic liberal leanings on the issue of health care, concluded by saying it was not my “most responsibly argued piece” -- as if, like a teenager