Author: Reporter

Great swathes of rock music since the nine­teen-six­ties would nev­er have exist­ed, we’re some­times told, were it not for the record­ings of Robert John­son. Cer­tain­ly the likes of Kei­th Richards, Eric Clap­ton, Robert Plant, and Bob Dylan have nev­er hes­i­tat­ed to acknowl­edge his influ­ence. “From the first note the vibra­tions from the loud­speak­er made my hair stand up,” Dylan writes in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy of his first encounter with John­son’s music. “The stab­bing sounds from the gui­tar could almost break a win­dow. When John­son start­ed singing, he seemed like a guy who could have sprung from the head of Zeus in…

Kentucky’s Republican-controlled General Assembly overrode Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto this week to pass legislation that could make it easier for the state’s public colleges to fire faculty members over financial concerns.  Under HB 490, public colleges will be able to terminate faculty members for “bona fide financial reasons,” which include financial exigency, low enrollment in academic offerings, or a mismatch between costs and revenues in a department, program or major.  Public colleges have until Oct. 1 to establish their policies for removing faculty members under the legislation. Institutions seeking to terminate faculty must inform them why they’re being terminated…

Alan Blinder, The New York Times

One of the benefits of having the best readers ever is that they—you—share great ideas. Y’all came through again. (I’m told that as a new Pittsburgher, I’m supposed to say “yinz” instead of “y’all.” Getting used to that may take a while.) Now that online options are ubiquitous, how can we best use evening class time slots? Reader responses are below, along with some thoughts from me. I think courses like mine that have an associated lab can be a natural fit for the hybrid-style approach of the one night a week meeting, rather than the more traditional multiple-evening course…

Faiz Shakir, executive director of More Perfect Union, said he hopes the new campus initiative will start an economic populist movement. Douglas Graham/Contributor/Getty Images The progressive media organization More Perfect Union announced a new initiative Wednesday aimed at building “collective power” on college campuses, The New York Times reported. More Perfect University bills itself as an antidote to Turning Point USA, the widespread campus organization founded by conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, and will attempt to recapture young voters who moved to the right during the 2024 presidential election.  Turning Point has “been wildly successful,” Faiz Shakir, executive director of More…

Dive Brief: The University of Michigan’s incoming president withdrew from the appointment Wednesday, about less than three months before he was slated to assume the leadership role.  President-elect Kent Syverud, whom the board unanimously selected in January, said in a Wednesday statement that he recently received a brain cancer diagnosis and is undergoing treatment.  U-M plans to restart its presidential search process, according to a board statement. Until a permanent leader is selected and begins, Domenico Grasso will continue serving as interim president after stepping into the role last May. Dive Insight: Syverud’s appointment as U-M’s next president was a…

By now, many of you are puzzling over financial aid offers and comparison shopping among schools. Here’s something you may not know: In some circumstances, you can negotiate to get a more generous package. This column features what you need to know.But first, a little Story Time With Uncle Olivier.My parents’ longstanding employment at a college unlocked thousands of dollars in tuition benefits for my undergraduate education. Standardized tests and a bit of pluck knocked tens of thousands of dollars off my grad school bill.I could not negotiate the former. It was simply part of my parents’ benefits package.But I…

A few years ago, Rock Rest Elementary school went all in on phonics.The K-5 school outside of Charlotte, N.C., had been spurred to action by the “science of reading” movement. Teachers and administrators realized that students weren’t being taught how to effectively sound out words, said Elaine Shobert, the school’s literacy curriculum facilitator.“When we watched kids and listened to kids,” she said, “we were like, ‘Yeah, they’re not reading.’”Rock Rest adopted a program to systematically teach students how to decode—how letters represent sounds, and how to blend those sounds together to read words. It helped students become better readers. But…

Teaching is demanding work: long hours, low pay, and a profession increasingly shaped by the politicization of public education. Teachers also have to contend with worsening student behavior, the pressure to achieve better student outcomes, and limited autonomy in how they teach.While teachers want smaller class sizes, funding for teacher training, hiring more paraprofessionals or counselors, and support for students with disabilities and different learning needs are under pressure. The list of stressors pushing teachers out of the profession is long.But what makes them stay? In responses to a question Education Week posed on social media last month about what…

Faculty across disciplines continue to experiment with new pedagogical strategies to address student engagement—flipped classrooms, active learning, flexible assessments, and modality choice. Yet many still report the same outcome: participation without ownership. Students complete tasks, but the learning often remains external—something done to them rather than something they claim.  This suggests that the challenge may not lie in pedagogy itself, but in when meaning enters the learning process.  We Keep Improving Delivery—But Avoid the Meaning Question Higher education has no shortage of thoughtful, research-informed teaching practices. Experiential learning, project-based instruction, and learner-centered classrooms have rightly shifted authority away from passive lectures and toward student participation. These approaches matter, and they…