Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
There are probably more articles on the internet arguing about trigger warnings on college syllabuses than there are actual trigger warnings on college syllabuses. Only one college, Oberlin College, actually recommended that professors warn students about content that might be disturbing or traumatizing — and they eventually withdrew that policy. But however infrequently they’re actually…
I recently spent a semester teaching writing at an elite liberal-arts college. At strategic points around the campus, in shades of yellow and green, banners displayed the following pair of texts. The first was attributed to the college’s founder, which dates it to the 1920s. The second was extracted from the latest version of the…
To understand the feeling of crisis that many see in higher education right now, it’s useful to start with some figures from 40 years ago. In 1974, the median American family earned just under $13,000 a year. A new home could be had for $36,000, an average new car for $4,400. Attending a four-year private…
Pornhub, which holds the distinction of being the largest porn website, wants to pay students $25,000 for a video showing the work they do to make others happy. But don’t get the wrong idea—this is a charitable endeavor. In a statement announcing the scholarship competition, the company noted, “it’s been said that how you make…
Begin: WordPress Article Content Getting hacked is bad news… unless you’re a bunch of librarians. For three days “hackers” took over the American Library Association’s Facebook page and posted an endless stream of clickbaity articles and spam. The hackers had control of the page for three days and everything was returned to normal on Monday….
There is empirical evidence to support the idea that males have a higher capacity for spatial reasoning than females. A large-scale 1995 meta-analysis found that on average, men outperform women in a cluster of tests related to spatial ability by nearly a full standard deviation, and in attempt to explain this, researchers have hypothesized about…
How NOT to number objects It all started on an early Friday morning when I opened a box and found a cast iron plate with its accession number as well as object title and year or production written down on a post-it and the post it secured all around with adhesive tape. I found this…
Politicians and pundits love to talk about the character-building experience of working your way through college. But how realistic is that ideal? As one way of answering that question, here’s a thought experiment: Let’s say you’re planning to attend your state’s best-known public university (at the in-state rate, naturally) and you’re hoping a minimum-wage job…
It’s that time of year: Journalism students are returning to campus, charting their courses for the next semester, and professors are fine-tuning their syllabi. Turmoil in the news business means that many professors are also reckoning with how to adapt their teaching approaches in an era of data visualization, apps, and distributed content. One department…
Per an alert sent to students by school administrators, Savannah State University in Georgia is on lockdown while campus police investigate a shooting near the student union. One man has been taken to the hospital, CBS 46 reports. “The SSU campus is on lockdown following a shooting incident this evening at or near the Student…