For all too many Black students, a college degree isn’t a ticket into the middle class….As our society engages in a historic reckoning over its persistent racial disparities — in employment, income, healthcare, life span, on-time high school graduation, homeownership, incarceration, political representation, poverty rates, school suspensions and wealth — we, in the academy need … Continue reading
Blackboard, Anthology to Merge, Creating Ed-Tech Behemoth
Anthology, which emerged a year ago from the combination of three higher education administrative software firms, will merge with Blackboard, long the most visible company in learning technology, the two companies announced today. The deal will result in the end of Blackboard as a freestanding company, and could bring the end of its well-known, and sometimes … Continue reading
These Colleges Are Betting That Culturally Relevant Textbooks Will Improve Student Outcomes
Millie González and her colleagues aren’t here to argue about whether open educational resources are on par with traditional textbooks一she says research has borne that out. González and Framingham State University, where she is interim director of Whittemore Library, are part of a consortium in Massachusetts looking to answer different questions. Like: What would happen if students … Continue reading
Los Angeles School District Mandates Vaccines for Students 12 and Older
Los Angeles already has a strict vaccine mandate for teachers and staff members, and the new student mandate will further increase the safety of the classroom. But it is also likely to be more divisive, with far-reaching educational repercussions. According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, 58 percent of 12- to 18-year-olds … Continue reading
Virtual Learning Can Be a Gateway to Increasing Equity in Higher Education
While many are eager to return to campuses this fall, it became increasingly obvious that virtual course delivery would need to be an integral and lasting part of our curriculum moving forward, even prior to the uncertainty surrounding the surges of the delta variant. It’s undeniable that many of our students have greatly benefited from the … Continue reading
How Biden’s New Vaccination Policy Affects Colleges
Thousands of colleges could be subject to a new federal rule mandating Covid-19 vaccination or testing for large private-sector employers, the Biden administration announced on Thursday. The Department of Labor’s emergency, temporary rule will require all employees of businesses with 100 or more workers to be vaccinated or to be tested weekly. That mandate will cover more … Continue reading
How Sociologists Can Battle COVID Denialism
…The behaviors that usually get thrown into the black box of “irrationality” are sociology’s specialty. And that’s why it’s an especially useful discipline for dealing with the national public-health emergency we face. Insights from sociological theorists like Robert Merton and Erving Goffman can do more than explain the strange pandemic behavior we’ve seen in recent … Continue reading
Six Ways to Fall in Love With Teaching Again
Issues with the bureaucracy of education, funding, changes in class size, class structure, and mode of instruction, as well as student issues, all contribute to our falling out of love with the teaching profession. Additionally, oftentimes personal obligations and responsibilities add stressors that create burdens and affect our happiness in our personal and work lives, … Continue reading
A Generation of American Men Give Up on College
Men are abandoning higher education in such numbers that they now trail female college students by record levels. At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and … Continue reading
Secretary of Education Calls on NEA to Drop Lawsuit that Puts Student Financial Aid in Jeopardy
U.S.Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos called on the National Education Association (NEA) today to drop its politically-motivated lawsuit and stop standing in the way of students working to complete their postsecondary education program. The NEA recently sued the department over its delay in implementing Obama-era rules that govern state standards for online education. The rules … Continue reading
