Despite national calls to conceptualize education as a continuous P-16 system, most high schools cease to serve their students at the point of graduation. For their part, colleges provide relatively few students with formal bridge programs during the summer transition between secondary and postsecondary education. Even among low-income students…

The author went to graduate school during the height of the culture wars, when the debate over the place of cultural literacy in the curriculum and the legitimacy of the great books approach was still raging. The first college class that he taught was structured around the theme "education and the making of knowledge," with E.D. Hirsch and Paulo…

The author wants to know more about the appreciation of and respect for pluralities, in places where differences in race and ethnic background are rare. Given the lack of regular and even intimate contact with a variety of peoples, what can teachers expect? Further, with the de facto separation of races in many rural area of the United States,…

Historically, faculty of color have been woefully underrepresented in higher education. Since the 1980s, though, numbers for these academics have begun to increase. To bring attention to the some of the struggles that faculty of color face, the authors created a counternarrative by drawing on their collective experience to deconstruct and…

Education is an international must, a veritable human right, yet education--especially higher education--in the land of the free is still remarkably elusive. The author has witnessed the many obstacles associated with preparing students for college. Advanced courses are rarely offered in these schools due to a lack of perceived eligible students,…

In this paper, the author ventures into the nether wastes of economics, and attempts a brief survey of the main currents that didn't get it wrong. He looks at the failure of the nation's leading academic economists to understand the current financial crisis or the shaky underpinnings of the nation's financial system. The author's method consists…

When one considers the possibilities for a new progressive era in American higher education, the author contends that it is wise to review the past because there are lessons to be learned. In fact, the latter part of the 20th century was one of great progress for diversity in higher education, generally speaking, and for African Americans in…

Traditionally, academic freedom has been understood as an individual right and a negative liberty. As William Tierney and Vincente Lechuga explain, "Academic freedom, although an institutional concept, was vested in the individual professor." The touchstone document on academic freedom, the American Association of University Professor's (AAUP)…

Those who are in higher education dream of a world of changed values where the inchoate, contested, but urgent constellation of things that they collectively believe in, work for, and seek on college campuses has spread well beyond any specific "quad" and has instead become something of a global norm. Imagine that higher education is no longer…

In 2002, during yet another budget crisis produced in large measure by the state's tax-cutting mania, Massachusetts proposed a massive cut in the university's budget. Through an early retirement incentive, the state wanted to reduce the faculty by 10 percent. No one was prepared to fight back. Despite UMass Amherst's long history of activism, and…

As anyone who has ever defended a thesis or been on a tenure track must know, American institutions of higher education have rigorous and finely calibrated ways of according respect to those who work in them. What they do not have enough of is respect from those beyond their gates. The author argues that the system that created the two-tiered…

American higher education institutions, states this author, cannot reach or advance underserved Americans without deliberate and intentional action. Ideas are important. Great speeches and stimulating books inspire and motivate. Yet, this is not enough. Decisive action, guided by clear goals, and sustained commitment, is required to capture the…

While women have always faced gender inequities in the general workplace, the academic world has traditionally prided itself on equality and transparency. Sadly, despite substantial gains in the number of doctorates awarded to women and in their employment in academic institutions, there is still much room for improvement in the academy. The…

Discusses why science needs science fiction, commenting on the author's book about science that draws heavily on the "Star Trek" series. The best science, in spite of popular thinking, comes from leaps of intuition, and science fiction provides a creative spark that encourages participation in science. (SLD)

Describes a philosophy of teaching inspired by a love of the discipline being taught and the desire of the professor to give students something of substance and be fulfilled by their responses. (SLD)