Academics // Browsing posts in Academics
When It’s Time to Leave Academic Administration
What follows involves a delicate topic, probably insufficiently discussed because of its delicacy. But this issue deserves airing, and ultimately some wider discussion toward informal guidelines. I’ve had occasion, as a dean and now provost, at two different institutions, to watch the complex dance of administrator departure. The phenomenon is complicated enough to warrant some ...
Inclusiveness
As many of my readers know, we have a new strategic vision for the University that includes a number of interesting elements. One feature, which I’ve written about before, implies a commitment to growth which we’re now trying to translate into more specific strategic planning. A related feature involves inclusiveness. Our President notes publicly that ...
Teaching Oversight
A talented colleague has raised an interesting issue, and since he did it publicly I don’t think it’s inappropriate to comment. Mills Kelly, in our History Department, has twice offered a course that involves students preparing a plausible public hoax and disseminating it (Wikipedia, etc.) for 10 days, after which it is explicitly disavowed. The ...
Multiplicity University
One of the odd aspects of many current discussions of American university futures involves a certain all-or-nothing quality—either everything is going to change, as the existing model is fully outmoded—or nothing much should. What’s often missing, though there are exceptions, is an understanding that our most likely near future, and possibly even long-term future, will ...
Big Mason or Bigger Mason
As a University, we’re about to turn from the process of crafting a new strategic vision, to an actual planning process based on that vision. One of the most interesting planning targets has to be size of student body. The President’s Vision statement clearly implies growth, but there are no specifics attached. It’s time to ...
Law Schools in Crisis
It’s probably fairly widely known, and not just in law schools, that most law schools have been facing, now for several years, a serious decline in applications. The result is particularly important for the schools themselves, but the results impinge on the wider academic enterprise as well. Again, the crisis is widespread, and I’m not ...
Humanities and the Global Option
I promise not to worry about the humanities in every blog, but another angle is worth exploring. I had occasion recently to talk about “global humanities” at a promising new Institute of that name at Montgomery College, which stimulated some further thinking. Mason, under Dean Jack Censer, has turned a good bit of its humanistic ...
Mason Students
Writing the first blog of the new year is a bit of a challenge. Obviously one wants to make it interesting. On the other hand, we emerge from a week where — professionally — not a lot has been happening (for which we are profoundly grateful). So let me talk a bit about aspects of ...
NSSE: How Our Students Are Doing
We’ve received National Survey of Student Engagement data for Mason for 2012, and while further reports will be issued by beginning of spring semester, from our peerless Office of Institutional Assessment, some preliminary results are worth attention. NSSE is a national survey that asks students to reflect on learning activities that relate to student success. ...
Rankings
The recent news that yet another institution has provided inaccurate data for the US News and World Report survey—however inadvertently—is yet another reminder of the importance of not taking any of the surveys too literally. Several cases of inaccurate submissions, both for the main US News ranking and for the law school version, suggest how ...
Recent Posts
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Good Things
Ends of semester are always a bit tense, particularly in the spring....
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When It's Time to Leave Academic Administration
What follows involves a delicate topic, probably insufficiently discussed because of its...
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Inclusiveness
As many of my readers know, we have a new strategic vision...
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