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Tag: Books

Why Public Higher Education Should be Free…

… is the unfortunate title of a new book by Robert Samuels, a professor at the University of California, and president of the University Council – American Federation of Teachers.  The title is unfortunate because the book’s not really about free tuition; the subject doesn’t really get a look-in until about three-quarters of the way through.  Rather, Samuels’ book is mostly about (as he puts it in the title of his first chapter) why tuition goes up and quality goes down. 

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September 17, 2013 No Comments

Higher Education Management, Hermit Kingdom-Style

Frabjous day!  I have just read one of the great higher education management tracts of all time. I’m of course speaking about, On Improving Higher Education, by Kim Il Sung.  (Pyongyang Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1974). Don’t let Kim’s “communist” label fool you – what this guy cared most about was the concept of Juche  (self-reliance), which continues to be the underlying ideology of the north’s nationalist, quasi-fascist state.  As you can imagine, this meant a lot of belt-tightening.  As such, Kim’s thoughts have

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May 27, 2013 3 Comments

Paying For the Party

Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality is a quite remarkable new work of ethnography, by sociologists Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton.  I recommend it unreservedly for student professionals, or anyone interested in how university affects social mobility. Embedded in a women’s dormitory at a large, unnamed Midwestern flagship state university (which, if I had to guess, is probably either Indiana or Illinois), the authors observed the girls on one floor for a year, and then conducted regular follow-up interviews

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April 11, 2013 No Comments

Inventing Academic Freedom

If you’re a devotee of campus histories (and yes, I realize that’s a big “if”) you’ll know that they tend not to deal with many events in great detail.   Sadly, monograph-length treatments of specific events, or turning points, that define an institution are few and far between. This is why a recent book by Peter C. Kent called Inventing Academic Freedom: The 1968 Strax Affair at the University of New Brunswick is such a refreshing read.  Sure, it’s a parochial story

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April 9, 2013 1 Comment

The Curiosity of School

One book that got a little bit of attention, and a lot of Indigo/Chapters shelf space,  over the Christmas period was a little tome called The Curiosity of School, by Ontario freelance writer, Xander Sherman.  While the book does contain the occasional nugget (the bits on testing are kind of fun), it remains unquestionably the worst book I’ve ever read on education! The basic thesis here – from the home-schooled Sherman – is that School gets in the way of real education, and is

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January 11, 2013 3 Comments

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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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