Trump, Shame, and the College Classroom
Like much of the world’s population, I have spent the last four years contemplating what has led so many people to support Donald Trump, despite a series of shameful…
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December 2, 2020
Teaching and Social Responsibility in Higher Education / The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
SoTL at Age 25: A Power Analysis
He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted and capable of maintaining itself to the satisfaction of everybody, must…
September 3, 2022
Who Killed Colin Powell? Higher Education and COVID Denial
We certainly know what killed Colin Powell. His weakened immune system was unable to withstand the assault of a powerful virus, despite the efforts of those around him to…
October 24, 2021
Decoding the Disciplines / Teaching and Learning in History / Teaching Strategies / The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
Old Dog, New Tricks, and SoTL: 50 Years of Progress
“I hope I didn't sound too much down on teaching. I enjoy it. And it is not a great deal of work right now. But it’s really not a…
September 10, 2021
Decoding the Disciplines / Teaching and Social Responsibility in Higher Education / The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
The COVID Kids are Coming
Early last March I drove from the Big Ten university, where I taught for forty years, to Bedford, Indiana, where I had been asked to talk to a high school…
February 28, 2021
Mendacity on a Big Screen: MLK Day at the University
Martin Luther King Day, 2020 -- It was a deeply painful spectacle to watch. In front of perhaps a thousand people, the President of my university was called upon to…
January 17, 2021
Where the Buck Stops
Yes, there was always someone who screwed up before students arrived in our classes. There were parents who failed their children, teachers who failed their students, and a society…
November 11, 2020
Foucault’s Soldiers
Several decades ago, when the writings of Michel Foucault were at the peak of their popularity in academia, my former colleague, Jim Riley, remarked insightfully that what was most…
October 11, 2020
Vampire Universities
It was a test of my parenting, and I think I passed. We were on a trip to investigate colleges with our teen-aged son, and Yale had become part…
September 24, 2020
COVID-19 and the Unindicted Co-Conspirators of Academia
It is a lovely image, a beautiful example of the high quality of contemporary newspaper photography. The composition is perfect. The diagonal slats of the blinds carry the viewers’ eyes…
August 3, 2020