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Some of What We’ve Been Reading This Month – July 2017

This is the first of what will become a monthly round-up of education-related news that we’ve been reading. Please feel free to discuss any of these articles in the comments thread or to post links to articles you think our membership, as well as others who come to this blog, should know about. You’re also welcome to post a comment about any campus or union-related issue that you’re interested in discussing. Please make every effort to abide by our comments policy when doing so.

(NOTE: For articles from The Chronicle, you will need to log in to the myNCC portal, open The Chronicle from the link in the Publications folder in the right hand column in order to access the full text of the article.)

  1. Harvard University has suspended its graduate theater program for three years. The US Department of Education found that the program saddled students with debts they would not be able to repay. (Inside Higher Ed)
  2. Maryam Mirzakhani, the only woman ever to win the Fields Medal, a top mathematics award given every four years by the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union, has died of breast cancer. (Inside Higher Ed)
  3. In the annals of government misusing scholarly research: Attorney General Jeff Sessions misrepresents a study’s findings about the relationship between sanctuary cities and crime rates. (Inside Higher Ed)
  4. In the annals of “It’s good we have the contract we do:” Tenured faculty are being laid off under questionable circumstances at Mills College in Californian and the College of New Rochelle in New York. (Academe Blog)
  5. Statement by the AAUP Committee on Graduate and Professional Students condemning private universities that try to prevent graduate students from “exercis[ing] their freedom to join together in a union to negotiate collectively for better working conditions.” (Academe Blog)
  6. A delegation of poets from the United States will, for the first time, be participating in the Havana International Literary Festival. (Las Vegas Review Journal.)
  7. “Why It’s a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence:” In which the authors argue that, “People do not react to the world as it is; they react to the world as they interpret it, and [because] those interpretations are major determinants of success and failure in life,” we need to be very careful about what we teach students about the relationship between language and violence. (The Atlantic)
  8. A “Quick Take” in Inside Higher Ed on paper called “Why Are Some Immigrant Groups More Successful Than Others?”
  9. “I remain convinced that almost without exception, every school’s alumni population represents its most under-equipped, under-inspired, under-mobilized and under-utilized marketing force:” A blog post on Inside Higher Ed about new ways of recruiting and retaining students.
  10. “The study, which focused on complaints by graduate students, led to two major findings: most faculty harassers are accused of physical, not verbal, harassment, and more than half of cases — 53 percent — involve alleged serial harassers:” An article on Inside Higher Ed about a study called “A Systematic Look at a Serial Problem: Sexual Harassment of Students by University Faculty.”
  11. “Tens of thousands of people who took out private loans to pay for college but have not been able to keep up payments may get their debts wiped away because critical paperwork is missing.” From an article in The New York Times about how National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts, one of the nation’s largest owners of private student loans, “is struggling to prove in court that it has the legal paperwork showing ownership of its loans, which were originally made by banks and then sold to investors.” The problems are reminiscent, the article says, of those that we saw during the subprime mortgage crisis.
  12. A wonderful article in The Chronicle (login through the myNCC) about Febin Bellamy, who started Unsung Heroes, a project to share the stories of “invisible campus workers.”
  13. A brief essay about the challenge of figuring out how to respond to the Internet “Outrage Machine,” when its outrage is directed at higher education faculty. (The Chronicle)
  14. The funding bill currently under consideration by the House contains no money for Fulbright-Hays grants. (Inside Higher Ed)
  15. An interesting essay about incorporating millennials into higher ed administration. (Inside Higher Ed)
  16. The American Council on Education found that graduation rates at minority-serving institutions is higher than federal data suggests. (Inside Higher Ed)
  17. Republicans are planning significant changes to the Pell Grant program. (Inside Higher Ed)
  18. A statement posted to the Western Michigan University’s AAUP chapter’s blog in support of WMU student Mujtaba’a al-Sweikat, who has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia. (Academe blog)
  19. A brief article in Inside Higher Ed about a Research for Action study purporting to show that “overall [performance based funding in higher education] can have a positive effect.”
  20. An essay by a professor at University of Denver about what “universities [can] do before a [stalking] situation escalates to a one involving a shooter on campus.” (Inside Higher Ed)
  21. “The Republican budget resolution envisions more than $236 billion in cuts to mandatory spending for education programs over 10 years.” (Inside Higher Ed)
  22. There’s a proposal under consideration at the Department of Homeland Security that would require international students to reapply annually for permission to stay in the U.S. (Inside Higher Ed)
  23. An essay in The Chronicle (log on through the myNCC portal) arguing that it is a mistake for climate scientists not to embrace public debate with skeptics.
  24. Why the Education Department shouldn’t ignore student affairs professionals (Inside Higher Ed)
  25. An essay in The Chronicle called “Yes, the Trump Budget Would Hurt Students — but It Could Be Worse”
  26. An essay in The Atlantic critiquing a policy recommendation that fraternities, sororities and other exclusive campus student organizations “should be gradually but totally eliminated from campus life.”
  27. An essay in The Atlantic about the Internationals Network for Public Schools and its approach to immigrant education in high school.
  28. “House Republicans issued a 2018 budget bill Tuesday afternoon that rejects several higher education cuts proposed by President Trump but upholds plans to pull billions of dollars in reserves out of the Pell Grant program for needy college students…[and also plan to] eliminate all funding for Child Care Access Means Parents in School, a program that subsidizes campus-based day care for low-income parents earning a degree.” (Washington Post)
  29. “The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, set to hold its inaugural meeting Wednesday, is already better known as the voter fraud commission…” (Washington Post)
  30. The Racist Origins of Private School Vouchers (Center for American Progress)
  31. “So yes, by all means, let’s reform the processes for travel costs to make them fairer and more relevant. But at a deeper level, especially for community colleges and teaching-intensive institutions, let’s stop pretending that travel is for Other People.” A worthwhile blog post about the cost of both academic travel and of not traveling. (Inside Higher Ed)
  32. “Our capacity to see disdain, or much worse, as a form of caring is probably a necessary survival trait, but I cannot envision the circumstances where my public shaming of an individual student is a moment of triumph for me or them.” A blog post about student silence in the classroom. (Inside Higher Ed)
  33. “We have recently witnessed the introduction of a growing number of diverse plans for free public college. But what we’ve not seen — and what must be done — is to determine a set of criteria to judge the effectiveness and the viability of these various financial aid models.” (Inside Higher Ed)
  34. “Have public funding cuts caused colleges and universities to raise tuition?” An article about a study that attempts to answer that question. (Inside Higher Ed)
  35. An article about the resignation of Professor Michael Bonesteel from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago over accusations of bias and harassment. (Inside Higher Ed)
  36. “Neo-McCarthyism and the Radical Professor:” A response to situations like Bonesteel’s (Black Perspectives)
  37. “NYC Schools Chancellor to Help Celebrate 5 Years and 22,000 Young Minds Introduced to STEM in NYU Tandon’s Summer Programs” (Press release from NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering)
  38. A Q&A with Betsy DeVos (Colorado’s 9 News)
  39. Professors in the Political Crosshairs: A collection of articles in The Chronicle “documenting the impact of web-driven political outrage on the lives of professors.” (You’ll have to access some of the articles through the NCC portal.)
  40. An interview about the pitfalls of mentorship. (The Atlantic)
  41. “Much attention and worry has been devoted to the decline of female coaches at the collegiate level since Title IX was passed in 1972…What’s gained scant notice is the even greater scarcity of women coaches in youth sports organizations and secondary schools.” (The Atlantic)
  42. College Football’s Inevitable End: “Dr. Ann McKee, director of the CTE Center at Boston University, and her team have examined 202 brains of deceased football players, 111 of whom played in the NFL. Of those 111, 110 showed evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Eighty-six percent of former professionals displayed ‘severe pathology.’ Of those with severe pathology, 89% had behavioral or mood symptoms, 95% had cognitive symptoms and 85% had signs of dementia.” (Inside Higher Ed)
  43. “Supporting International High School Students in the College Admissions Process:” A report from the National Association of College Admissions Counseling about the need for greater training to help counselors deal with international students.
  44. The Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina is looking to weaken The University of North Carolina School of Law’s Center for Civil Rights. A debate about academic freedom has ensued. (Inside Higher Ed)
  45. “Eradicating Transphobia on Campus:” Third in a series of essays about how to make campuses more trans inclusive. This one focuses on administrators. (Inside Higher Ed)
  46. “Deportation Case Galvanizes a Campus:” MIT is rallying around a custodian who has been detained and faces deportation. (Inside Higher Ed) – This is an issue we at NCC need to pay attention to.
  47. “What’s In a Grade? Depends on Whom You Ask?” An interesting article discussing a debate at Eastern Washington University about changing the school’s grading system. (The Chronicle – log in through the myNCC Portal)
  48. “Assessing the Intangible in Our Students:” An essay considering the consequences of not paying enough attention to what purely data-driven assessment can’t measure. (The Chronicle – log in through the myNCC Portal)
  49. “Is Academic Freedom’s Watchdog Losing Its Bite?” The title is a bit sensationalist, but the content is an interesting analysis of the effectiveness of the AAUP’s censure list. (The Chronicle)

One Response

  1. Thanks, brothers and sisters, for incorporating this new feature! After I have arrived in the NW I intend to read the whole list!

    Knowledge is power! Saber es Poder!

    Solidarity/solidaridad

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