Changing Athletic Conferences
As many know, Mason has decided to leave the Colonial Athletic Association in favor of the Atlantic 10. We have been mulling this move off and on for a year. It was never an easy decision: the CAA had been good for us in many ways, and we will continue to value relationships with the ...
Anger and Work
A colleague noted yesterday (as I write) that he hadn’t seen me get angry very often, during the many years now that he and I have worked together. I think that’s a correct statement, though of course I’m open to correction from others (and I don’t mean that there haven’t been a few occasions). I ...
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 ...
Global Information: A New Mason Register
One of the perennial challenges in trying to build a global university involves developing and sharing appropriate levels of information about what’s already happening. We had the experience a few years ago of rounding up about 35 faculty interested in Africa, from various disciplinary standpoints. Not only had many of them not met before, as ...
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 ...
Promotion and Tenure
At the Provost’s level, this is promotion and tenure decision season at George Mason, and given how large P and T looms for all participants some comments seem inescapable. Obviously, I have no particular cases, past or present, in mind in these comments, but some general remarks could be useful. This is also, not coincidentally, ...
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 ...
Different Flavors of Faculty
For some time, as most of my readers know, many universities have maintained several types of fulltime faculty. The clear installation of predominantly teaching faculty was much discussed when I was at Carnegie Mellon, but we had the example already of places like Stanford (which had teaching, research and tenure track/tenure), and we had clear ...
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 ...
Caring for Students
The topic seems apt as we launch a new semester… I was intrigued by a report a few weeks back on what college students value most in their teachers. This was not just a Mason survey, but I certainly assume it applies to us too. The winner by a considerable margin: teachers who care about ...
Recent Posts
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Changing the World
This is an adaptation of some brief graduation remarks I recently offered,...
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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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Challenge and Opportunity in the Global Agenda
I've written before about the uphill aspect of expanding global goals in...
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Teaching Oversight
A talented colleague has raised an interesting issue, and since he did...
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Visiting Pakistan
Returned recently from Pakistan, mainly visiting the National University of Science and Technology...
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