Background: In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, state legislatures considered a flurry of legislation that would allow school districts to arm their teachers. In at least 15 states such legislation has been signed into law. Parallel to these developments, a lively and at times strident public debate on the
appropriateness of arming public school teachers has emerged in the media, especially as a result of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. Although the two sides of the debate offer illuminating insights into the pitfalls and promises of arming teachers, both tend to focus almost exclusively on the empirical issue of student safety. As a
result, the public debate fails to address several central ethical issues associated with arming public school teachers. This article is an effort to pay these issues their due attention.
On her first day of work, a dean got a call from the provost of her new university. He asked her to act immediately on a matter "too long put off" — firing the director of a badly run research center. The university had built a strong case — perennially low performance and financial mismanagement — but the departing dean hadn’t wanted to leave with blood on his hands. So
the new dean dutifully pulled the trigger.
It turned out that the center’s director — while abjectly unfit — was also extremely popular. And so a firestorm erupted among the college’s faculty members. By the dean’s estimation, her honeymoon lasted half a day.
This paper presents an empirical analysis of the Ontario-led strategic man-date agreement (SMA) planning exercise. Focusing on the self-generated stra-tegic mandates of five universities (McMaster, Ottawa, Queen’s, Toronto, and Western), we asked how universities responded to this exercise of strategic visioning? The answer to this question is important because the SMA process is unique in Ontario, and universities’ responses revealed aspects of their self-understanding. We adopted an organizational theory approach to understand the structure and nature of universities as organizations and explored how they might confront pressures for change. Analysis of the universities’ own proposed strategic mandates found elements of both conformity and striking differentiation, even within this sample of five research-intensive university SMAs. Directions for further work on this planning exercise and on higher education reform more generally are discussed.
Inside Higher Ed’s eighth annual survey of college and university presidents seeks to understand how these leaders view the opportunities and challenges facing higher education institutions in the U.S.
This study addresses the following questions:
• What effects do presidents perceive the election of Donald Trump had on their campus and on higher education more generally?
• What are presidents’ views of some of the federal policies that affect higher education?
• Are presidents confident in the sustainability of their institution’s financial model over the next 5 and 10 years?
• Do presidents believe the business models used in various sectors of higher education are sustainable?
• Do presidents anticipate that additional colleges will close or merge in the coming year?
• What are presidents’ opinions about tuition resets or tuition freezes?
• What are presidents’ biggest concerns about the size and composition of their student body?
• How do presidents assess race relations at their institution and at colleges nationwide?
• Do college presidents believe that Americans have an accurate view of the purposes of higher education?
• What factors do presidents see as causing declines in public support for higher education?
• How vocal have presidents been about political matters?
• How well prepared do presidents think they were for the various tasks of a college presidency when they first became a president?
My father used to tell a joke, over and over again. It was a classic outback Australian, Slim Dusty joke that – like the best dad jokes – I can’t remember. But I do recall the punchline. “Who called the cook a bastard?” To which the answer was, “Who called the bastard a cook?”
This riposte often comes to mind during discussions about doctoral supervision and candidature management. Discussions go on (and on and on) about quality, rigour, ethics and preparedness. Postgraduates are monitored, measured and ridiculed for their lack of readiness or their slow progress towards completion. But inconsistencies and problems with supervisors and supervision are marginalised. In response, I think of my father’s one-liner: Who called the supervisor a bastard? Who called the bastard a supervisor?
Many proponents of online education have speculated that the digital learning environment might be a meritocracy, where students are judged not on their race or gender, but on the comments they post.
A study being released today by the Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford University, however, finds that bias appears to be strong in online course discussions.
The study found that instructors are 94 percent more likely to respond to discussion forum posts by white male students than by other students. The authors write that they believe their work is the first to demonstrate with a large pool that the sort of bias that concerns many educators in face-to-face instruction is also present in online education.
Why go to university? When asked, today’s students are openly careerist and materialist. In a 2012 survey by the Higher Education Research Institute in Los Angeles, almost 90 per cent held that “being able to get a better job” was a “very important” or “essential” reason to go to college. The rationales of being “very well-off financially” and “making more money” were almost as popular.
College and university leaders have been consumed since last summer with trying to understand public attitudes about them, as surveys and studies -- like this and this and this and this -- have delivered evidence of growing skepticism and doubts about the value of what consumers and society get from higher education.
Gallup injected yet more data into the mix Friday, with a new survey that both reinforces the idea that higher education has seriously alienated white male Americans without a degree and underscores that people think very differently about the topic depending on the words you use.
Abstract Research suggests that cultural issues can make or mar the open innovation process. In this paper, we thus aim at identifying organizational culture types that enable and retard the two types of open innovation activities: in-bound and out-bound. Data were collected using the questionnaire survey method from 339 middle and top managers working in the Malaysian high-tech sector.Organizational culture emerged as a huge predictor of open innovation. We found that highly integrative culture enables in-bound open innovation, but does not significantly affect out-bound open innovation. Besides, hierarchy culture is found to retard both in-bound and out-bound open innovation. This paper is probably the first to empirically investigate the role of culture in open innovation. The findings fill an important gap in open innovation theory while practical implications extend to managers interested in open innovation adoption in their organizations.
The career search is a mysterious process, and as the seeker it is easy to feel as if you have no control. And the longer the search goes on without a positive outcome, the more you can feel like the system is rigged against you.
But having been on both sides of the hiring equation myself, and through my work coaching others through the process, I know that sometimes job candidates sabotage their own success. My point is not to cast blame, but to provide you with some insight into the perspective of the hiring manager so you can evaluate and reassess your approach. Following are some areas to consider when analyzing your process.
When professors advise early-career academics on grant writing, we often focus on the common mistakes and pitfalls. But up-and-coming researchers don’t just need advice on what not to do.
They need to know what goes into a successful grant proposal, too. I have some suggestions on that front — that I have gleaned from teaching grant writing for 20 years, and being continually funded by the National Institutes of Health as a principal investigator. Here, then, are my top 10 tips on how to draft a grant proposal that has the best odds of getting funded.
It happened in early January, when all my historian friends were at the annual meeting of the AHA, the
leading organization in our field.
I was sitting at home, revising my manuscript introduction and feeling jealous of my friends, when I got an email telling me my last (and best) hope for a tenure-track job this year had evaporated. I’d promised myself that this would be my last year on the market. Of course, I’d promised myself that last year, too, and then decided to try again. But this time, I knew it was over.
Welcome to Teaching, a newsletter from The Chronicle of Higher Education. This week Dan describes one reader’s intriguing idea to improve course evaluations, Beckie shares how some of you make use of brain research in your teaching, and we look at the month ahead.
For 25 years, I have diligently, thoughtfully, and fastidiously written comments on my students’ essays. In my neatest hand, I’ve inscribed a running commentary down the margin of page after page, and at an essay’s conclusion I’ve summarized my thoughts in a paragraph or more. I’ve pointed out problems in the argument and explained basic mistakes of grammar and style. I’ve demonstrated my enthusiasm for a sharp idea and a well-hewn sentence. I’ve carefully moderated my tone, combining praise with correction. I’ve read papers that moved me to tears, literally, and others that left me frustrated — and tried to be sensitive in letting my students know that in either case.
I’m a tenured professor at a large public research-oriented university. This was my first job straight out of doctoral studies. It was, and still is, the job of my dreams. As opposed to the many tenure-track horror stories we hear (particularly from women), I felt valued and appreciated from Day 1 in my department. I respect my colleagues and feel respected by them.
So what’s the problem? Last fall I physically collapsed.
Significant investments are made in PSE at the provincial and federal level in Canada every year. At the federal level, the government spent over $12 billion on PSE in 2013-14.1 Annual federal investments in PSE are primarily made through the Canada Social Transfer, research support, various tax programs and the federal student financial aid system. CASA advocates on diverse issues related to improving student financial aid because it is an important mechanism for increasing access to PSE for all Canadians.
What happens when a high-school student from a low-income family wants to attend a private college 100 miles away, but has a parent whispering in her ear to look closer to home? The "Survey of Admitted Students: Targeting Yield Strategies," may provide some answers, as well as more questions.
The report, produced by Eduventures, a consulting company, and written by Kim Reid, a principal analyst there, distilled insights from more than 100,000 high-school students nationwide.
Starting in the fall of 2018, most international PhD students at the University of Toronto will pay tuition fees equivalent to those of domestic students.
“This is very positive news for the University,” said Joshua Barker, dean of the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) and vice-provost of graduate research and education. “We strive to remove any barriers, financial or otherwise, that graduate students might face as they look to attend our university.”
Public and Political attention is increasingly focused on growing soci-oeconomic inequality, in particular the decline of secure, full-time work and rise of more precarious forms of employment. The trend is more evident in some sectors, like retail, than others, but few sectors — whether in the pri-vate or public spheres — appear to be completely immune.
This report explores the extent to which conditions for workers in Can-ada’s post-secondary institutions are shifting as well. More precisely, it asks whether employment on university and college campuses in Ontario is be-coming more precarious, for whom and for what reasons.
When Harvard University announced Lawrence S. Bacow as its president-in-waiting on Sunday, the institution focused heavily on his illustrious academic history, past presidential experience at Tufts University and family story as the son of immigrants.
Less discussed was Bacow’s age. He’s 66, about four years older than the average college president. If he stays at Harvard for 10 years -- the tenure he has previously said is about right for a president -- he will be stepping down in his mid-70s.