In the fall of 2017, the University of Florida (UF) and the city of Gainesville were part of a coda to a terrible event in recent U.S. history: the violent torch-wielding rally of white supremacists and extreme far-right groups in the college town of Charlottesville, Virginia, that left three people dead and at least 33 injured. These events…

Collective bargaining and faculty governance are sometimes perceived to be in conflict. Faculty members will debate about whether a specific issue--for example, program consolidations or early college/dual enrollment (where high school students earn college credits taking high school classes taught by high school teachers)--falls under governance…

Teaching basic reading, writing, and critical thinking skills is immensely gratifying and vitally important work, requiring intelligence, optimism, and humanity. To be able to gain some sliver of understanding with regard to students' attitudes, behaviors, skills, and abilities; to recognize that there exists a multiplicity of possible…

Academic freedom gives professors broad discretion over expressions and interactions in the classroom. Free speech guidelines and First Amendment protections permit students to speak their minds too, but they offer very limited guidance as to how classrooms should operate. While professors should obviously work within free speech parameters in the…

The lack of diversity among higher-education faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines represents a grave structural inequality with serious consequences for students. Fixing it means rethinking the pathway to the professoriate for women and people of color, and avoiding the problems with hiring in STEM fields…

In 2014, for the first time in U.S. public schools, the percentage of Hispanic, African American, Asian, and other students of color exceeded the percentage of white students, creating a majority-minority system that reflects the mosaic of cultures, experiences, languages, and religions that characterize this nation. In stark contrast, an…

In this article, the author describes a disconnect between knowing "about" diversity and "understanding" diversity and recommends re-building the critical consciousness of faculty by turning the current discourse from a framework of diversity to a framework of social justice. As defined in the article, diversity is a call to be…

Given their history of socio-economic peripheralization and continued struggles for success, one would expect African Americans--especially highly educated ones--to be adept at the various forms of mobilization and advocacy, especially that of labor unions, which have not only provided them access to opportunities but also given them a voice in…

Author Lissa Stapleton approaches the topic of Deaf faculty as a critical scholar-practitioner who possesses both dominant and subordinate identities that have influenced her through the academy and her understanding of what it means to be a faculty member. She writes that is is not race, gender, or sexual orientation that brings her to this…

While higher education has typically included exposure to the values and ethos of the liberal arts, traditional liberal arts education has been in retreat and under threat for a while now. What role has the assessment movement had on this retreat? Is assessment, in fact, part of the deterioration of higher education? Assessment in academia began…

American higher education is in the midst of a staffing crisis. More than three quarters of faculty members work off the tenure track, often with no job security, low wages, and few prospects for advancement. While the contingent labor force is diversified--including highly qualified but part-time laborers piecing together positions at multiple…

When discussing the role of higher education as it applies to students, responses often devolve into two opposing camps: one for people who advocate for and defend the role of liberal arts education as basic to the preservation of democracy and freedom, and the other for people who care about the connection between what students learn in…

Skills, jobs, and even self-enrichment were not historically regarded as the ultimate goals of the liberal arts; they were byproducts. The reason liberal arts education was called "liberal" in the first place was because it was supposed to cultivate a free human being. Education on the liberal model aimed to liberate. The goal of liberal…

When you think of global, online education, the first thing that may jump to mind these days are MOOCs, the "massive open online classes" that are widely publicized (and criticized). The author states that his classes were not these, but rather, closer to what are now being called SPOCs--small private online classes. Enrollment is…

Maureen Curtin, associate professor in the English and Creative Writing Department at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Oswego, reports in this article on an initiative that is designed to spur teams of faculty and visiting artists to teach "intellectual issues" through students' storytelling. The courses were part of the…