21st Century Scholar

Yesterday I discussed the current role of teaching and its impact on student / professor relationships at research universities. Today I discuss the future of graduate-level programs at research universities. The Future The future of the graduate-level university is one of destabilization and changing power dynamics. Two areas, privatization and technology, will guide change. Both [...]

Yesterday Bill provided a response to PhD Savvy’s blog about students demanding “timely interactions” with professors. They both discuss the role of teaching at a research university. I will address both of their blogs in three ways: First, the role of teaching at research universities today, second, the role of teaching at universities in the [...]

“Then read no more. Thou hast attained the end,” says Faustus, sitting in his study. I first read Marlowe’s play as an undergraduate; I have read it many times since. The imagery of that first scene, a man surrounded by countless books, always delights me (maybe because I know how the story ends). Now think [...]

A friend visited this weekend who was in town to offer a module for Walden University.  Walden is a primarily online, for-profit institution that offers graduate courses in various low-cost disciplines.  They don’t focus on lab-intensive graduate  programs such as chemistry or engineering, but instead offer classes leading to a degree in education, business, psychology [...]

Anyone who quotes Kant in an oped can’t be all bad, but Mark Taylor’s recent bromide about academe is yet another in a century’s worth of mostly humanities professors telling us the academic world is going to hell in a handbasket.  Taylor chairs the religion department at Columbia and wrote a column, “End the University [...]