Category: Higher education

Higher education, moneyLeave a comment

College Ain’t for Everyone…

therandomtexan

…and I’m no longer a Voice in the Wilderness saying so.  Writing in the Washington Examiner, Michael Barone says American higher education has been in serious trouble for the past two decades. Yes, it’s true that American universities science and technology departments lead the world, and the (increasingly unscientific) social sciences and (often inhumane) humanities departments can still boast some brilliant scholars. But at some point, too much of a good thing stops being a good thing. … A dismaying number of American freshman college students never end up graduating — not after four or six or 20 years. And … Continue reading College Ain’t for Everyone…

Computers and Internet, good stuff, Higher education, teaching, TEOTWAWKILeave a comment

The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

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Many of us university instructors are scrambling to adapt our formerly face-to-face courses into online courses. This, to allow “social distancing” in response to the Wuhan Flu pandemic. Rebecca Barrett-Fox urges us “Please do a bad job of putting your courses online.” I’m absolutely serious. For my colleagues who are now being instructed to put some or all of the remainder of their semester online, now is a time to do a poor job of it. You are NOT building an online class. You are NOT teaching students who can be expected to be ready to learn online. And, most … Continue reading The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

good stuff, Higher education, public databases, statisticsLeave a comment

Tsoo Tsoon to be a Tsunami

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Andrew Gillen at the Texas Public Policy Foundation says “Two Tsunamis are About to Hit Higher Education,” when :..the Department of Education released post graduate earnings and debt data broken down by college program — which will have a revolutionary impact on higher education.” A bit of poking around on the web gets you to the TPPF webpage College Earnings and Debt, which ranks hundreds of degree programs by median student debt and after-graduation income.  It’s a nice interactive database, where you can compare programs among multiple colleges, or for a single college. GIllen touts this information (he calls it the … Continue reading Tsoo Tsoon to be a Tsunami

Higher education, the game of lifeLeave a comment

College is Vastly Overrated

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Charles Cook thinks College Does Not Make You a Better Person. In a 1780 letter to Abigail, John Adams wrote that he “must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy,” while his “sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.” There is a great deal in this observation, and, within the context of late-18th-century, mid-revolutionary America, Adams’s assessment was spot-on. Nevertheless, were his words to be taken literally, such a progression would eventually … Continue reading College is Vastly Overrated

hidden San Antonio, Higher education, Roadrunners on the rampage, the grifter eliteLeave a comment

Hey, Hey, Hey! My school made the top 20!

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UTSA does it again!  My school was recently reported as being #19 of 20 in sugar babies. And the term sugar baby indicates a young adult willing to become a compensated protege of an older patron in exchange for unspecified (but easily imagined) personal services. Somehow I suspect this new ranking for UTSA will not appear in any of the school’s recruitment or outreach materials. Continue reading Hey, Hey, Hey! My school made the top 20!

good stuff, Higher education, teaching, the game of lifeLeave a comment

You can teach yourself

therandomtexan

Tara Westover gives the Big Reveal about education My parents would say to me all the time: you can teach yourself anything better than someone else can teach it to you. Which I really think is true. I hate the the word “disempower,” because it seems kind of cliché, but I do think that we take people’s ability to self-teach away by creating this idea that that someone else has to do this for you, that you have to take a course, you have to do it in some formal way. It took me a long time to learn that … Continue reading You can teach yourself

all about the Benjamins, Higher education, R tips and tutorialsLeave a comment

Non-tenure track salaries

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I was preparing a data analysis assignment for one of my classes, and decided I needed an example for my students.  Similar to what I’m asking of my students, I wanted to use public employee salary data from the the Texas Tribune Government Salaries Explorer.  After a few moments’ thought* , I hit upon the topic of salaries for non-tenured faculty at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where I teach statistics. I downloaded the UTSA data–an Excel CSV file–and selected out employees whose job titles contained the words “ADJUNCT”, “LECTURER”, or “TUTOR”, and copied those to a separate … Continue reading Non-tenure track salaries

Higher education, News and politics, this IS war, You gotta be kiddin' me!Leave a comment

Confucius say “Uh oh”

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The Confucius Institutes in the US are in the government’s crosshairs: President Trump is about to sign the new National Defense Authorization Act, which will prohibit funding to Chinese-run Confucius Institutes on American campuses. Texas Senator Ted Cruz added the key amendment to “The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019,” which also restricts funding to universities that host Confucius Institutes and requires them to provide a public record of any agreements or contracts they have with the program, which has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. This is going to be a bit of a problem at … Continue reading Confucius say “Uh oh”

1984, Higher education, human rightsLeave a comment

The Noble Lie loses its nobility

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My workplace has a new President; based on his periodic pronouncements I’ve started calling him President Diversity. Notre Dame’s Professor Patrick Deneen calls this The Ignoble Lie: Meritocratic ideology disguises the ruling class’s own role in perpetuating inequality from itself, and even fosters a broader social ecology in which those who are not among the ruling class suffer an array of social and economic pathologies that are increasingly the defining feature of ­America’s underclass. Facing up to reality would require hard questions about the agenda underlying commitments to “diversity and inclusion.” Our ­stated commitment to “critical thinking” demands no less, … Continue reading The Noble Lie loses its nobility