A discussion of structural racism led to a reprimand for Shannon Gibney, who teaches Intro to Mass Communications at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Three white male students complained they were singled out by Gibney, reports City Pages. An English professor, Gibney also teaches African Diaspora Studies in a new associate degree program. About a […]

As a college senior, I decided to round out my undergraduate experience with several courses in the humanities, including introductory philosophy. Among the concepts we studied was George (Bishop) Berkeley’s contention that familiar objects like tables and chairs are merely ideas in the minds of perceivers. It seemed bizarre to me, but I was also […]

Last month, Terrence Roberts became the fifth student from the same high school in New Orleans to be killed by gunfire in a six-month stretch. Just one murder in a school can dramatically alter its community, identity and academic trajectory, but what does school become after a sordid span of five murders? What lessons should […]

The relevance, cost and value of a college education have been hot topics lately on various media platforms. The discussion often seems to be just an exchange of point-counterpoint broadsides among proponents and opponents of a liberal-arts education. As president of a liberal-arts college, I won’t pretend to be neutral. I have benefited from, and […]

It’s 2013. Ebooks have been around since 1971. Yet tens of millions of students in kindergarten through college are still hauling around piles of heavy, quickly outdated paper textbooks that cost anywhere from $30-$200 per subject, per student. Open educational resources provide a free digital alternative to traditional books. Boundless, a startup that’s two and […]

Want more college graduates in the U.S.? One place to start is close to home. Foundations and community groups are partnering with twenty American cities as part of a new effort aimed at increasing the number of residents with postsecondary credentials. Everything from technical and planning assistance to data tools and access to a network […]

In the 2012 international test that measures what 15-year-old students know, called PISA, private school students did only a smidgen better than public school students on the math test. Almost seven percent of American 15-year-olds attend private school and they scored an average of 486, only four points more than the average public school student, […]

Conventional wisdom is that top U.S. students fare well compared to their peers across the globe. According to this line of reasoning, the US doesn’t make it on the list of the top 25 countries in math (or top 15 in reading) because America has higher poverty and racial diversity than other countries do, which […]

A recent paper published in Developmental Science reinforced how tactile experience is important to learning in the developing brain. The experiment looked at how toddlers in a high chair learned the names of novel (edible) substances. Those who were allowed to get their hands dirty, quite literally, exploring the texture of the different samples, picked […]

NEW ORLEANS — Jasmine Stewart applied to only one college — the historically black Southern University at New Orleans. It was near home, willing to take her despite her mixed academic record, and comparatively cheap. Stewart also didn’t want her mother, a hotel housekeeper, to have to pay more than one application fee. But after […]