by Lee Shainen IN THE AUGUST 12th edition of Parade, this headline caught my eye: “Help for Failing English Students.” As an English teacher, I was obliged to read on: “The ‘Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary’ not only features new words, but its publishers also asked college...
Opinions
by P.D. Lesko WHEN VISITING ROME, Italy, one notices the letters S.P.Q.R. on most every modern drain cover. The correct Latin translation is, of course, “Senatus Populus Que Romanus,” or.
by Jennifer Block Bradner YOU PARK YOUR car in the parking lot. You approach the ticket window. You purchase a ticket and enter the gates. You have arrived and the.
by Lee Shainen LIVING IN THE desert where the annual rainfall is perhaps ten inches, one paradoxically, learns a lot about rain. Considering that all of the rain falls in two distinct and short seasons, one also learns to distrust annual averages. We have winter rains...
by P.D. Lesko I READ THE hefty Department of Education Statistics Quarterly from cover to cover with the relish that some people save for their favorite travel magazines. So, I.
by Lee Shainen EVER SEE THAT commercial about herding cats? It reminds me of trying to get adjuncts to organize. Faculty members, in general, are an independent and eccentric lot. Off.
by P.D. Lesko I WANT TO have lunch with Manfredi La Manna. Anyone who can price a journal subscription at $700 and come out looking like the guy in the white hat is someone I’d love to meet. That’s right, Dr. La Manna, founder of...
by Chris Cumo WERE GOD AN Ivy Leaguer, his 11th commandment would be publish or perish. The words reverberate through academic libraries and archives. In the Darwinian competition for jobs and promotions, ostensibly.
by Lee Shainen CONVENTIONAL WISDOM DICTATES that adjuncts have no power; their voices are not heard, except in the classroom. The voice of unconventional wisdom says, au contraire. Watch out now;.
by Peter Temes WHEN I LEFT academe, I often thought about the title of Milan Kundera’s book Life Is Elsewhere. Like many scholars, I had the feeling that intellectual life was terribly thin outside colleges and universities. My earliest experiences in the 9-to-5 world didn’t help much. In my first...
