Charles Sykes believes that higher education has lost its way and its purpose. He is angry and sees higher ed as a gigantic scam. Sykes assembles as many complaints, criticisms and shortcomings as possible in an unremittingly shrill jeremiad, Fail U.: The False Promise of Higher Education. It paints a extraordinarily dire picture of higher…
Category: Reviews
Reviews of books, articles, and the like
Perhaps Not So Fast, Mr. Chips?
Kevin Carey’s The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere is a provocative look at a possible future for higher education. A policy expert and writer, Carey is convinced that the current state of affairs for academia is failing and that wholesale changes are just around the corner. The…
The Grind of Poverty
You may have come across Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive recently in a bookstore or referenced in the media. It’s a book by Stephanie Land, a first-person account of her experience as a poor single mother trying to get by on manual labor and government assistance. Maid has been…
Recipe For Reform
Reform or revolution? I’m thinking ways of making colleges more effective and sustainable, not Rosa Luxemburg and the end of capitalism. Some writers believe that technology or funding changes will reshape the education landscape quickly and dramatically, while others see ongoing change at a more moderate pace. In the latter camp, for an outline for…
Change, Resistance & Change
On good days it seems that we may be moving toward a society that respects all gender and gender choices. Read a newspaper or watch the news – rules, rights and expectations around gender issues are changing and being more inclusive. On other days, less optimism feels appropriate. Reflection reminds us about how slow and…
The Big Test Two Decades On
It is helpful to be aware one’s biases. I’m saddled with more than a few, and one is a reflexive distrust of anything called a “secret history.” I know, it’s not rational. To my thinking, though, if it’s being talked about, it can’t be a secret. So why call it that? That idiosyncrasy played a…
University of Nike: Wrongs and Rights
Joshua Hunt, a young journalist, was sent to Eugene, Oregon in 2014 to do an assignment for the New York Times. A University of Oregon student had alleged a sexual assault by three of college basketball players. The police report was harrowing. Amid growing national concern about student athletes and sexual violence, many media outlets…