Higher education stands as a monolith in a dynamic, rapidly evolving society in which access to information has been democratized through technological innovation while much of academia clings to traditional conventions of closed sources of information. The way people work and play have changed, but the way students are expected to learn, for the most part, has not.

2011 Annual Academic Report, “Why Higher Education Must Change”

The ACTA ‘s blog presents a concise version of  the corporate sector’s agenda in public higher education.  In fact, they represent corporate power as influential trustees and alumni. They are usually coy about their 1% bona fides, but their last “Must Reads” post points to what it calls the “Phoenix challenge” to higher education embodied in that company’s “2011 Annual Academic Report.”…

I was happy to see that the SEIU is taking the lead on organizing in the for-profit university system, although they are a very long way from unionizing any online faculty. Still, both their website, For Profit U, and a recent online seminar, summarized in both Truth Out’s ‘”Good for Wall Street – Bad for Students’: SEIU Hosts Webinar on Predatory, Proprietary Colleges and Universities” and Pittsburgh’s Post Gazette’s “Service union’s criticism rankles EDMC” are a breath of fresh air. I think, though, that they don’t understand the industry.

The Truth Out summary of the for-profit industry’s roots in neo-liberalism, and its use of unethical recruitment practices is right on target. I also think that SEIU has…

Continental European capitalism, which combines generous health and social benefits with reasonable working hours, long vacation periods, early retirement, and relatively equal income distributions, would seem to have everything to recommend it – except sustainability.

“Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable“– Kenneth Rogoff

Mike Konczal assembles some striking quotes from Federal Reserve transcripts showing how obsessed the monetary overlords are with keeping wages down. I won’t recycle any of the quotes—check out his post for the full flavor.

“The Fed and the Class Struggle” — Doug Henwood

Here’s an juxtaposition that might be used to teach critical thinking. The contrast between these two ways of seeing the economy isn’t simply a matter of right and wrong, yes and no, or even “subject positions,” although that…

I am starting to believe that there must be an inverse relationship between the blunt stupidity of an idea and its longevity as a cultural meme. I’m not talking about Obama’s birth certificate and the Pentagon conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center, although those memes seem to endlessly circle around deep stinking pools of stupidly. Those are bad enough but they are just side-shows in the long run.

I’m talking about ideas that seem to quietly persist against all logic and across decades. When Reagan was elected more than 30 years ago he made his plans very clear. “Trickle-down” economics meant a sweeping redistribution of wealth from the poor, working, and middle classes, to the rich. If we give them…

I hate to go all ad hominem, but if I am, especially when it comes to someone like Harold Bloom (see, “Harold Bloom by the Numbers“) , I have to go for T.S. Elliot: “We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men / Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!” It’s not so much Bloom’s freakish careerism, if not greed, that’s so bothersome, although that’s disturbing enough.

What gets my goat is that Bloom– and the journalist, Carlin Romano– seem so blissfully unconcerned about the ways that Bloom’s ideas reflect the self-serving decadence of academic intellectual work at this particular time in U.S. history. “This is cactus land / Here the stone images…

I’ve said before that I think the electronic textbook is both inevitable and desirable. In the long run, I think collaboratively run Wiki’s make the most sense for college learning, because they are flexible, collaborative, and cheap.  They create dramatically collaborative models– symbols, really– of knowledge production. These new textbooks would signal a profound shift away from old models of intellectual property that continue to hinder both the production and the democratization of knowledge. It’s a tool with enormous potential.

Access can be tailored to need or to pedagogical or even national style. Some teachers might make editing the textbook a part of their curriculum; some not.  Wikis can be modified and maintained, creating local or regional iterations of the textbook;…