21st Century Scholar

Memorial Day suggests summer is around the corner! As we approach summer I wanted to suggest two first-rate novels to read; I’ll discuss the first one today and the second next week. I frequently tell my students if they want to read good writing they’re not going to find it in social science. I find [...]

I wrote the Foreword to Damon William’s Examining Strategic Diversity Leadership: Activating Change and Transformation in Higher Education (Stylus, 2013). Here’s what I said: In his epic The Souls of Black Folk in 1903 W. E. B. Du Bois commented that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.” Damon Williams [...]

We all know that stereotypes exist. Some are funny—white men can’t jump. Others remain from a distant past—all professors wear bow ties, tweed jackets, and smoke pipes. And others are pernicious—African American students don’t do well on standardized tests. Stereotypes also tend to speak as much about the group not mentioned as the group mentioned. [...]

Guert Affenlight is Westish’s President. He is not unlike many good men and women who go about their academic lives trying to do as good as they can possibly can. He is a good, but not a great, president. His tenure has been successful, and he had been a quite successful professor, but many of [...]

One of the centerpieces of The Art of Fielding is Henry’s ability to field every ball that is hit to him. He is so good that by his junior year he has never made an error; he is about to break the record when he lobs an easy throw over the head of the first [...]

The Art of Fielding is an academic novel where baseball is the centerpiece and two of the main characters are in a gay relationship. Did Chad Harbach have me in mind when he wrote this novel? Nevertheless, regardless of whether a reader likes academic novels, gay characters, or baseball, this book is terrific. I have [...]

Over the last several years we have had an increasing emphasis on educational research that tells us “what works.” The assumptions behind this drive are relatively straightforward: If we are going to invest finite monies and time into something, then we should know with absolute certainty that the prescriptions that are being employed are effective. [...]

I have too much to read and not enough time to read everything that gets sent to me or seems interesting. There is no small amount of relief, if not joy, when a journal arrives or something is sent to me, and I realize after skimming it for 30 seconds that I can simply file [...]

Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances by Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane is a critically important book about the rising power of class in American life. The editors and contributors look at multiple aspects of inequality and how it pertains to education. The 551-page book in six parts with 25 [...]

by Bill Tierney, Kris Renn, and Susan Twombly Last spring we thought the task would be relatively easy, almost fun. Bill announced on the blog that in December the three of us would choose the best higher ed book of the year. The purpose was to be free of political considerations or lobbying and instead [...]