Several colleges and universities have changed spring semester grading processes in response to the pandemic and our collective shifts to distance learning. The debates and decisions about grading prompted me to return to one of my all-time favorite higher education books, Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment, by Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Johnson…
Spaces and Schools
Educational work is now remote. As we social distance, protecting our students and each other, interaction is mediated by screens and phones. This is our new normal. The loss of face-to-face, of being at my college, has made me think – and rethink – the value and importance of being in a shared physical space…
An Economist’s Call for Equality
Economists, I think, often tend to have a different way of looking at things. They ask particular sorts of questions and often arrive at different kinds of answers than us non-economists. For us, economic work often can seem to take place in a world unto itself. Sometimes, though, what economists argue and and call out…
Islands of Engagement: Higher Education and Democracy
A meaningful college education is more than a collection of courses, an assembly of skills, and a few letters after one’s name. College educated signifies a level of intellectual and personal maturity, the possibility of real agency, and substantive worth. For some, college educated also carries with it responsibilities of citizenship and civic engagement. Many…
Crisis As The New Normal
Goldie Blumenstyk is an editor and reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education. She’s been writing about academia for decades and has rightly established herself as one of the most respected journalists covering the field. I read her regularly and trust her judgment, as do many others who work in higher ed. Five years ago…
An Immigrant’s Educational Journey
One of the most effective ways to look at rights of passage is by tracking a group of people. It’s a familiar model that can lend itself to different kinds of experiences, from war stories to expeditions to immigration to more. Chronology usually drives the narrative, with the beginning introducing us to a disparate group…
Unpacking Elite Institutions and Class Consciousness
An adage, well-known and regularly lived in community colleges, is that access does not equal success. Access is essential, of course, but access alone is no triumph for inclusion. Getting students in the door is very different than having students graduate. The adage can hold true at selective institutions, too, as explained by Anthony Jack,…