higher education
-
The Summer Melt Phenomenon
Kate 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…
-
College Bookstores and Digital Textbooks
Student 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…
-
Seven Almonds
The first thing my parents bought when they earned money in America was a giant bag of almonds as a talisman for success.
-
A College Education, Measured and Graded and Ranked and Weighed
The [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…
-
Rising Costs, Failing Students
Colleges 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…
-
Stop Measuring the Humanities with Dollar Signs
Even 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…
-
We Shall Not Ban Comics in English Class!
Recently, 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…
-
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Reading Don Quijote with My Mother
“That’s the anthem I would have sung at my original graduation if the university had stayed open,” my mother said.
-
O Adjunct! My Adjunct!
In the New Yorker, Carmen Maria Machado writes about the poor adjunct situation throughout American universities.
-
Learning While Teaching
I 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…
-
Our Part-Time Labor Problem
I 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…
-
Fail Again, Fail Better
How 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…