The current pandemic might temporarily slow down environmentally destructive economic growth. However, claiming that we are flattening the curve of (un)sustainability is dangerous. The global sustainability crisis is not just being driven by uneconomic growth but also increasing global inequality and social stratification. Teaching this key lesson…

Purpose: This paper aims to understand why higher education institutions (HEIs) struggle to become sustainable institutions themselves despite providing relevant teaching and research on sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: Using 17 open-ended, semistructured interviews to determine common themes (codes) regarding sustainability, the…

Digital technologies are powerful resources that have not been globally integrated in higher education teaching. Previous studies have pointed out several barriers that can slow down this integration. This study, therefore, aims to elaborate an explanatory model of the barriers to digital technology integration into university teaching, including…

A growing body of literature is encouraging academics to slow down their academic work as a way of managing the acceleration of university life. Little attention, however, has been paid to the important differences in temporalities among different sorts of higher education institutions, and the effect this is likely to have upon the sense of…

When the corporate storm strikes the academy, faculty must be willing and able to repel administrative assaults upon academic freedom, shared governance, and tenure. This paper will describe the on-going clash between administrators who embrace the corporate mindset and faculty who cherish traditions of shared governance and collegial…

We study user behavior in the courses offered by a major massive online open course (MOOC) provider during the summer of 2013. Since social learning is a key element of scalable education on MOOC and is done via online discussion forums, our main focus is on understanding forum activities. Two salient features of these activities drive our…

Colin Irvine confesses that, even after earning tenure, he seems unable to slow down and stop working. He describes his year in Norway and notes that he struggles with conflicting desires. On the one hand he feels obligated to engage the country and culture, and say "yes" to all opportunities. On the other hand, liberated from committee…

Information obtained from department heads as well as from staff highlight the difficulties of heads who have to make evaluative statements on departmental staff that may further or slow down their career. Heads may have positional authority, but academic conventions often prevent heads from exercising it. (Author/MLW)

By December 1974, it appeared that the growth of faculty unionism in U.S. higher education had definitely begun to slow down. The 1975 turnabout, rejection rates, the nature of the resistance, and the public versus private distinction are reviewed. It is concluded that any future increase in the rate of public rejections and in the four-year…

The shortage of PhDs that characterized the past 30 years is over and probably won't be experienced again. Universities which used to employ 50% of the new PhDs, now employ 35-40%, and by the end of this decade, only 25% or less of the new doctorates will enter college teaching. The enrollment rate which yearly increased 10% in the sixties, will…

The 1960's saw a great deal of talk about changing the pattern or structure of graduate education, but very little if any action. The 1970's will be radically different, not only because of budgetary constraints, but also because of the oversupply of PhDs and excess capacity. There are three basic factors that contribute to the demand for new…