Departments

;

colleges and universities

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    5/7/2021

    The War on Critical Race Theory

    by David Theo Goldberg

    "The exact targets of CRT’s critics vary wildly, but it is obvious that most critics simply do not know what they are talking about. Instead, CRT functions for the right today primarily as an empty signifier for any talk of race and racism at all."

  • SOURCE: Business Journals
    5/6/2021

    Death, Taxes, and Ivory Towers

    Universities have long claimed to be engines of local economic development. The tax exemptions many wealthy institutions enjoy bring that claim into question. Historian Davarian Baldwin provides background to a report on Yale and New Haven. 

  • 5/9/2021

    Are Campus Bookstores Undermining Student Learning?

    by Elizabeth Stice

    Today’s undergraduates are increasingly being cornered into ongoing financial commitments for everything, while they never take possession of anything. Rejecting digital book programs run by campus bookstores outsourced to third parties could help reverse this trend.

  • SOURCE: The Guardian
    5/1/2021

    Studying History Should not be Only for the Elite, Say Academics

    Professor Kate Williams said she was angry that the Tory government is “pushing a vision that only Stem subjects [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] matter and degrees are only worthwhile if you immediately move to a job paying a very high salary”.

  • SOURCE: Texas Tribune
    5/4/2021

    Tensions Boil at UT-Austin over "The Eyes of Texas"

    "Kendall Walker, a UT-Austin senior who is part of the student strike in the admissions office, said she thinks administrators wrongly assumed the issue would die down after the school formed a committee this past year to study the song’s origins."

  • SOURCE: Academe
    5/4/2021

    Visions against Politics

    by Eileen Boris and Annelise Orleck

    Historians Eileen Boris and Annelise Orleck are the guest editors of the spring edition of the AAUP's magazine focusing on the need for a New Deal for Higher Education. This is their introductory essay. 

  • SOURCE: BIG by Matt Stoller
    4/25/2021

    Break Up the Ivy League Cartel

    by Sam Haselby

    The incredible wealth of Ivy League and other elite universities, combined with their ever-dwindling acceptance rates, suggests that contemporary meritocracy is working to reproduce a tiny economic and political elite at the expense of democracy. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    4/22/2021

    The Crushing Contradictions of the American University

    by Chad Wellmon

    The proliferation of student loan debt reflects the acceptance by banks, borrowers, and the federal government of the idea that higher education is transformative and beneficial. Is this ideology bordering on magical thinking? 

  • SOURCE: Madison.com
    4/17/2021

    Two Madison Profs Make 'Collegeland' Podcast About University Life

    Historians Nan Enstad and Lisa Levenstein have produced a podcast that tells the stories of college campuses as places of learning, work, and socialization, seeking to counter both right-wing demonization of campus liberalism and the rose-colored view of university PR. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    4/13/2021

    ‘That Man Makes Me Crazy’: Neil Matkin's Reign at Collin College Draws Scrutiny

    Neil Matkin's regime connects several trends: the politicization of higher ed administration, the diminishment of faculty's role in shared governance, and the imposition of business logic in higher ed administration. But faculty and staff say that the personal element is what makes the situation truly intolerable. 

  • SOURCE: AAUP
    4/2/2021

    Restoring the People’s Universities

    by Alejandra Marchevsky and Jeanne Theoharis

    "We see this trend across the nation: when students of color finally began to gain access to higher education, disinvestment and the shrinking of educational opportunity followed."

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    3/29/2021

    Montana Universities Prepare for Guns on Campuses

    Montana's public universities are struggling to plan for the consequences of the legislation signed in February allowing open and concealed carry of firearms on campuses. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    3/26/2021

    The Social Justice Purge at Idaho Colleges

    Concerns about free speech on campus should consider the Idaho legislature's recent attacks on "critical race theory" as an effort to use education funds to restrict academic freedom, says NYT opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg.