Since the time of the Reagan revolution in the nation's politics--a transformation dedicated to privatizing everything someone could make a profit on--higher education has undergone its own radical transformation. In higher education, within three decades of the Reagan presidency, a corporate model of organization and operation, set up to maximize…

The enormous changes that took place on American campuses during the 1960s not only opened those campuses to new constituencies and new ideas, but also created a powerful conservative movement that sought to reverse those changes. Along with the rising cost of higher education, the right's campaign against the academic reforms of the sixties has…

Libraries are an interesting instance of the radical transformations that higher education is experiencing. The neoliberal turn that has led to the commodification of what scholars do--teach and create knowledge--has had a profound effect on the academic library. But the political economy of the transformed library is invisible to many if not most…

California's public higher education system has for a long time been lauded as one of the finest in the world. But for the last several decades, budget cuts and privatization have resulted in the steady erosion of this system, as well as K-12 education in the state and other public sector services. It was told that privatization and choice--in the…

Looking back on 27 years of teaching experience, it's tempting to think the biggest changes have been in technology. Certainly, going from carbon copies and mimeograph machines to word processing and teaching on Blackboard in a Web-blended course has been a huge transition. But the most radical transformation in teaching for the author began when…

Celebrating its 350th anniversary as a scholarly association devoted to scientific pursuits, the Royal Society (UK), in March 2010, published "The Scientific Century: Securing Our Future Prosperity." In its report, the Royal Society argues against both the notion of withdrawing public investment from its world-class universities and the haphazard,…

When she began teaching college geology and paleontology, the author anticipated some resistance from those who believed in a 6000 year-old earth, from creationists and those who advocate intelligent design, or possibly from students who simply wished to be consistent with the family religion and still take a course involving evolution and the Big…

Philosophers, cognitive scientists, anthropologists, and psychologists have argued convincingly that the act of questioning is central to thinking, to storing and communicating knowledge, even to several important types of social interaction. But while scholars of higher education have written extensively on the topic of questioning for more than…

Learning how to think critically is a slow, painstaking process but one well worth cultivating. Some students never realize that questioning matters. Their smug mockery of any reflective endeavor threatens their comfort zone and creates an obstacle to thinking critically. They simply devalue it. Questioning is a sure sign that the student is…

A problem that history teachers in the United States face is that they lack an appropriate reference point from which to address many of today's global issues. The source of this problem is an antiquated model of society, still taught in the universities, that largely reflects the society that existed a century ago. For the last decade, the author…

Despite trends toward greater corporatism and bureaucratization of the academy, some vestiges of shared governance remain, including some level of faculty decision-making in faculty senates or councils. Generalizations about faculty senates are difficult to make because they vary with regard to their level of power and faculty involvement.…

Motivational interviewing, which began as a counseling technique in addiction recovery, is a client-centered tool for making changes, increasing helpful behaviors and decreasing unhelpful behaviors. It relies on an individual's intrinsic motivation and interest in change, using a non-confrontational approach to frame goals in a practical,…

There is nothing more baffling than the art of teaching. Day in and day out, teachers move through classrooms and courses, lectures and discussion groups. What have students seen teachers do that has made a difference for them? What pedagogical behaviors, values, and attributes earn teachers praise from the population they work so hard to serve?…

In this article, the author shares her reflections on teaching and learning. The author's teaching philosophy is rooted in her studies of developmental psychology and educational psychology. The theoretical approach most compatible with her view of teaching and learning advocates a contextualist and interactionist view that Tharp and Gallimore…

Many academics like to isolate a piece of the world to study: an important social issue, a central philosophical problem, a key moment in history. They know they're oversimplifying but they do it anyway--it's the only way to make progress, and what's more, their little worlds are often more beautiful than the real one. This paper shares a story of…