Blogspot - suburbdad.blogspot.com - Confessions of a Community College Dean
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Fruits of Twitter 27 Aug 2013 | 06:30 am
Among its other virtues, Twitter makes a nifty self-updating annotated bibliography. People tweet links with comments; if you follow the right people, you can wind up with some great suggestions. Th...
What If We Studied Success? 26 Aug 2013 | 05:01 am
The more I’ve reflected on President Obama’s plans, as described last week, the less I like them. Rating community colleges assumes that students choose among many; in practice, community colleges ar...
President’s Pell Plan Probably Problematic 23 Aug 2013 | 06:41 am
From yesterday’s reports, President Obama’s plan for changing how higher education is paid for is very much a mixed bag. It sounds mostly well-intended, and parts of it are quite good: I was heartene...
The Meanings of Late August 22 Aug 2013 | 06:57 am
As a kid, late August carried the dread and melancholy of knowing that summer vacation was nearly over. I’m seeing some of that now with The Boy and The Girl. As a teenager, late August carried a ce...
Advising and Naming Names 21 Aug 2013 | 03:50 am
Some things that strike me as obvious apparently don’t strike others the same way, so I’m doing an ethical compass check here. Should academic advisors steer students towards, or away from, individual...
The Ballad of the Red Pen 20 Aug 2013 | 06:10 am
How do you use the red pen? As a student, especially in K-12, the red pen was the authority indicating error. There, I learned that you measured the quality of writing by the number of errors it con...
Anything to Declare? 19 Aug 2013 | 06:47 am
Textbook costs have been a major issue for decades. I remember being shocked at the cost of books when I was a student, back when they were printed on papyrus and delivered by dinosaurs. Students th...
Data and Debate 15 Aug 2013 | 06:41 am
Bonnie Stewart made a statement on Twitter yesterday that made me sit up. She wrote that big data inherently undermines shared governance, placing more power in the hands of administration. If tha.....
Virtualization 14 Aug 2013 | 06:34 am
Apparently, this is turning into “begging for ideas” week. Please forgive the dreadful manners. I know juuuuuust enough about IT to be dangerous. I recently heard an IT idea that strikes me as obvi...
How to Count? 13 Aug 2013 | 06:30 am
This may sound crass, but it’s actually an essential exercise. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you have only enough money to pay for one of the following positions: a. a librarian b. a pr...
