Standing before a class of 28, Katie Filippini was losing the battle to teach her third-graders that the “er” in “germ” sounds the same as the “ir” in “dirt.” Ten minutes into the lesson, two boys fought over space on the blue carpet, a girl giggled at the commotion and a boy named Dandre stared … Continue reading »
Filed under Faculty …
Court Rejects Law Professor’s Assertion That ‘Tenure’ Means Continuous Employment
A federal appellate court has sided with a private law school in a case brought by a professor who contends she was wrongly fired, and both sides say the ruling is important for how it defines the concept of tenure. The decision, issued on Monday by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for … Continue reading »
With Student Learning at Stake, Group Calls for Better Working Conditions for Adjuncts
Academe needs a new model for the professoriate that better supports the growing number of instructors who are off the tenure track, the participants in a national project about the changing faculty have concluded. The participants, who represent a cross-section of academe and its stakeholders, also said in a report being released this week that … Continue reading »
To Earn Classroom Certification, More Teaching and Less Testing
New York and up to 25 other states are moving toward changing the way they grant licenses to teachers, de-emphasizing tests and written essays in favor of a more demanding approach that requires aspiring teachers to prove themselves through lesson plans, homework assignments and videotaped instruction sessions. The change is an attempt to ensure that … Continue reading »
School Dress Codes Aren’t Just For Students Anymore
When kids in one Kansas school district return to class this fall, they won’t be seeing cutoff shorts, pajama pants or flip flops — on teachers. The Wichita School District is just one of a growing number in the nation cracking down on teacher apparel. Jeans are banned in at least one elementary school inNew … Continue reading »
A Sociologist Whose Data Find Fault With Same-Sex Relationships is Savaged by The Progressive Orthodoxy
Whoever said inquisitions and witch hunts were things of the past? A big one is going on now. The sociologist Mark Regnerus, at the University of Texas at Austin, is being smeared in the media and subjected to an inquiry by his university over allegations of scientific misconduct. Regnerus’s offense? His article in the July … Continue reading »
Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012
Faculty members are far less excited by, and more fearful of, the recent growth of online education than are academic technology administrators, according to a new study by Inside Higher Ed and the Babson Survey Research Group. But professors are hardly the luddites many still assume them to be. Nearly half of the 4,564 faculty members surveyed, … Continue reading »
40 Years of Title IX: Leadership Matters for Women in Academe
Today’s commentary is by Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh who is dean of women’s affairs at Indiana University at Bloomington. In August she will become vice president for equity and inclusion at the University of Oregon. Forty years ago this month, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 became law, requiring an end to gender discrimination in … Continue reading »
15 Colleges Receive Grants for Innovation in Helping Faculty Retire
The American Council on Education and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on Monday awarded $100,000 grants to each of 15 colleges for adopting innovative approaches to helping faculty weather the winter of their careers. The grants will enable each institution to further develop its programs that support professors before, during, and after their transitions to retirement. “We … Continue reading »
Conference Looks at What Works in Student Learning, and What Gets in the Way
If students are not learning enough in college, participants at a conference said here last week, the culprit is as amorphous as it is pervasive: culture. That culture is reflected in the choices of administrators, the priorities of faculty, and the habits of students, people attending the conference, “What Works and What Matters in Student … Continue reading »
