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I always received glowing remarks on my alliteration or understanding of poetic devices, but they were hidden beneath what felt like hundreds of tiny red strikes across misspellings—although my phonetic versions of the words were sometimes genius, and always understandable.
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“A poem is like a vision test—its vision is either clear or it’s not.”
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How do we transcend generations of trauma and let go of our burdensome past?
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Rion Amilcar Scott discusses his new story collection, THE WORLD DOESN’T REQUIRE YOU.
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“I have to confess here that I never studied Shakespeare in college.”
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If you ask me why I did it, I can’t give you a proper answer. I was hungry and didn’t have much money, but it wasn’t like I was homeless or went to sleep starving.
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I don’t feel ashamed of my history, I feel ashamed of letting it be erased.
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A Rumpus series of work by women and non-binary writers that engages with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
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College is a rite of passage for many young people, and it’s also a part of the American Dream for many families. Here is a list of books that tackle those fraught four years.
...moreDonna Drucker writes for Notches on the Dean of Women’s Office at Purdue University. The Dean of Women’s Office was the late 1960s predecessor to the university’s modern-day Dean of Students role. In her piece, Drucker looks at the period-specific complaints and concerns registered by female students, and how the office addressed a wide range […]
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As for gentrification, like in every desirable part of the country, economics decide the contest, and wealth wins every time.
...moreTenured professors might soon be a thing of the past, and that could prove particularly frightening if one Republican presidential candidate gets a hold of the Department of Education. Tenure protections were created in order to foster original thinking on university campuses and protect academic researchers from censorship. But a Ben Carson presidency would see […]
...moreKate McGee, a reporter for Austin’s NPR affiliate KUT, recently completed on a summer-long series titled The Months Between. The series followed three Central Texas graduating high school seniors to chronicle the phenomenon of “summer melt,” where college-bound grads (often low-income minority students) never end up attending college. All episodes of The Months Between, as […]
...moreStudent textbooks are a big moneymaker for college bookstores. But as textbooks go digital, college bookstores are under threat as publishers gain more power over the means of distribution of the textbooks. Forbes takes a look at the changes in the textbook market and how college bookstores need to adapt to keep up.
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The first thing my parents bought when they earned money in America was a giant bag of almonds as a talisman for success.
...moreThe [Department of Education’s] report states: “In today’s world, college is not a luxury that only some Americans can afford to enjoy; it is an economic, civic, and personal necessity for all Americans.” Most defenders of the liberal arts would agree with that statement. And yet the report does not elaborate why college is a […]
...moreColleges and universities cannot be expected to solve America’s problems of inequity. They cannot repair broken families, or make up for learning deficits incurred early in childhood, or “level the playing field” for students with inadequate preparation. But they should be expected to try to mitigate these problems rather than worsen them—and one main reason […]
...moreEven though liberal arts degrees are actually good for business, Matt Burriesci (author of Dead White Guys: A Father, His Daughter, and the Great Books of the Western World) believes that supporters of the humanities should lay that argument to rest: A liberal arts education … may not teach you how to change your oil […]
...moreRecently, Tara Shultz, a college student at Crafton Hills College, expressed her shock and disgust at the “pornographic and violent” content in the selection of graphic novels (Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi) used in her English class and called upon the university to excise the texts from the curriculum. Thankfully, it seems like […]
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“That’s the anthem I would have sung at my original graduation if the university had stayed open,” my mother said.
...moreIn the New Yorker, Carmen Maria Machado writes about the poor adjunct situation throughout American universities.
...moreI went to university in 1964, a different era, when very few of us, around 5 per cent of the population, had the chance. We were undoubtedly a lucky generation. Now, many many more of us, young and older, are studying for degrees – between 35 and 40 per cent. I approve wholly of this […]
...moreI teach part-time. My students work. They work in fast food or slightly slower food or hospitality. Last spring semester, two were veterans, with at least four trips to the Middle East between them. One of my four parents cut her hours short to race to my class. Every time my students do not learn […]
...moreHow it all got so bad is a blur. I blocked the door. I blacked out the basement windows. I remember myself curled in feral positions, sounds on repeat getting louder, climbing up and out of the window to piss in the grass. When I had an exam, I studied for sixteen hours, then didn’t […]
...moreThough plenty of adjunct professors still teach students, the full-time, tenured, middle-class professor position is nearing extinction. Adjunct professors are paid at wages below the poverty line while the costs of the career—attending conferences, performing research, accessing academic databases—continue to rise. Sarah Kendzior at AlterNet explains why underpaid adjunct faculty is a sign of a greater problem: […]
...moreThe Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has added a new test to their admissions process. Prospective students are more likely to be admitted to the school if they prove that they are “confident” that they can “control” their own fates: Students who answer in ways that suggest that they are confident they can control their fates—or […]
...moreThe arts don’t pay very well, and working as a professional in a creative field like writing, music, or film has grown more precarious. High student debt doesn’t help, but it might explain why almost a quarter of arts graduates end up in business management. Of working artists, 40% don’t have bachelors degrees. The organization […]
...moreAdjunct college faculty are at last taking a stand against abominable work conditions and low pay by planning a national walk out on February 25, 2015. Unlike their tenured counterparts, adjuncts lack protection from retributive firing should they follow through. Since 1975, the percent of adjunct faculty has risen from 21% of the workforce to […]
...moreA communications law professor offers this tale of integrating digital storytelling in the classroom: After all, we tell our students in courses focusing on skills that online tools are excellent opportunities to engage in some fantastic storytelling. Why not encourage students to use those tools to tell the stories of communication history, theory, sociology or, […]
...moreFor those of us who have our hearts set on becoming professors, a Ph.D. is a necessary step toward landing a coveted tenure-track position. But if we aren’t planning to spend our lives at the blackboard, is a doctoral degree worth its hefty price tag? If you’re currently toiling away at your dissertation, you might want […]
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