In my second post in this series I took on my colleague Steve Pearlstein‘s argument that “universities” should engage in less research, more teaching. In this final post in the series, I want to take up his argument about general education. Cheaper, better general education. The reform of general education is something I’ve had a…
More Than a Few Tough Things (2)
In my previous post in this series, a response to a column my colleague Steve Pearlstein wrote in the Washington Post over the weekend, I discussed some difficult choices that public universities will need to make in the future as enrollments change, legislative investment declines, and options for students proliferate. And just to be clear,…
More Than a Few Tough Things
My colleague Steve Pearlstein’s weekend column in the Washington Post has generated more than its fair share of attention and, well, backlash. Perhaps the two most cogent negative responses I’ve seen were from Dan Drezner (Pearlstein’s WaPo colleague) and Matt Reed at Inside Higher Ed. Both take Pearlstein to task in some pretty tough, and…
Back to the Future
It’s all but impossible for me to believe it, but 10 years ago this week I wrote my first post in this blog. And, oddly enough, this post is #500. If I were a numerologist I’m sure I could make something of that symmetry. Way back in 2005, that first post was about my attempts…