#Adjunct Reading Room: blogs & posts of note

…there always more than just a few don't miss posts out there. Often I do miss them though or, if I catch them, don't get back to read more attentively (which skimming on the fly is not). Today's post (started two days ago!) reviews several recent blog posts and blogs I read regularly. Posts like this will help me keep up and remind you about blogs you might want to add to your own list. Give them a visit.  And yes, a real life adjunct Reading Room would look far shabbier than this image. A contest and online photo-stream forays come to mind,

Don't overlook less mainstream sources of insightful commentary on academia and academic labor -- and in our own voices -- by limiting your reading to higher ed media and adjunct stories. Even cast your digital reading net beyond the Ivory Silo™ to include K12 bloggers. Advertising and other funding are factors too. Who influences editorial content? Follow the money and affiliations. You may not agree with independents, but at least they are less likely to be wearing a collar.

This is not to say don't read read mainstream higher ed media. Do read them -- just not to the exclusion of other sources or as a substitute for developing your own. The wider you cast that net, the better.

Blog Posts

Reading Room: Omnivore on college campuses

Hadley Arkes on Ave Maria University: A challenge among friends. Acts of Faith: Divinity grads aim to compensate for the chaos in contemporary society. Should we arm Christian campuses? David C. Cramer wonders. Faith and the cosmos: Can Catholic universities foster dialogue between religion and science? 

Humanities 2.0: New digital tools are bringing new ways to teach humanities courses, even Shakespeare. From THES, a review of Higher Education and the Public Good: Imagining the University by Jon Nixon; a review of The Public Value of the Humanities; and Urania's lessons for Clio: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto on the humanities' need for scientific insights. 

Gary Wills reviews All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly. Richard Arum on his and Josipa Roksa’s book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (and more). A review of The Campaign for an Academic Bill of Rights by David Horowitz. A look at five myths about liberal academia. Speaking untruth on behalf of corporate power: Leo Casey on academics in the service of union-busting. 

Tales of the unexpected: There's no such thing as a typical academic, but some have more unusual backgrounds than others. A review of In the Basement of the Ivory Tower by Professor X (and more). Collateral Damage: From John Dewey to the Ivory Tower of Babel in two easy steps. Are women’s colleges outdated? Tom Matlack thought women’s colleges were anachronistic — until he toured Barnard with his daughter. 

Why safety schools can be smart choices: Brand-name diplomas don't have much to do with success later in life. Grade point average (GPA) is a historical mistake in two senses, and there is no reason for its continued acceptance.

reading (or re-reading) the university: on college campuses, from Omnivore

Around the Web: Educating & Getting Educated

There's news out there, academic injustice, shifting paradigms, dragons, windmills, but my mind is somewhere else today. The news will still be there tomorrow, the same or different. 


I'm forever collecting links, more now with blogs to feed: my rss reader overfloweth with higher ed, ed tech and adjunct/contingent issue stories, my social bookmark files with links. It's time to share, but my "I'm reading" widget choices are for local Mountainair NM readers and anyone dropping by my community blogs. Not a lot of shared interests, trust me. So then... another account for another widget? In another lifetime maybe.

At the recent AFT convention, keynote speaker Bill Gates told the assembled educators that "teaching is complex." D'uh. Baby, you don't know the half of it. Bye bye one room schoolhouse, rote learning, recitation, drill to kill and Dewey. Online ed or distance learning, Edupunk, DIY education. ed tech, LMS or learning management systems, self-paced study, Constructivism, Connectivism. 


Got 'em bookmarked or on my reader ~ but where to start, how to organize the process in less than overwhelming... by topic or topical relevance... annotated or bare bones?


I'll start with this already briefly annotated collection of education links from Omnivore, The Book Forum blog:

online reading for wayward perma-temps

No, I haven't forgotten about the blogroll... still collecting, tagging, sorting, etc. A March 4 post from new adjunct blog, The Adjunct Voice. described as "a virtual meeting place for part-time/adjunct university faculty members from across the U.S. to have a voice... share... ideas, experiences and concerns" opens today's online reading list for wayward perma-temps. Each post "My name is Raye, and I am an adjunct"

Day of Action for Education event heating up for March 4. Do you know of a March 4th activity in your area? Please add it to her list.

CalFac list of March 4 actions

The Case Against College Education ... but for certification. If TIME is in favor of it, can group think be far behind?

1st the dot.com bubble, then the real estate bubble: now comes the student loan bubble, Bob Samuels in HuffPo

Share Your Story @ HuffPo - Majoring In Debt

Scientific American: Academic Labor Market Gone Seriously Awry

[Not Yet] Summer School for X-Fac

Excerpted from Marc Bosquet's Aug 2, 2009, Brainstorm column in CHE, also crossposted at How the University Works. I have no idea why an August 2009 column would take so long to show up in my rss reader, so don't ask... but I'm glad of it.  Good reading list even if referenced articles and topics are from last summer. I've already recommended Chris Newfield's splendid and indispensable Remaking the University, with Journal of the Edu-Factory Collective high on my "to-blog" list. Academe and Workplace, please note, have long been listed on our sidebar. "X-Fac" in subject line refers to recent thread on naming at adj-l list and Marc's determination to replace familiar but demeaning and/or inaccurate standbys. I'm not sure what with, hence the "X"  ... that or for X-men who teach.... Summer School For Faculty Possibly you're tired of beach reading--or perhaps you couldn't afford the beach this year? You say you'd like to get beyond the "Thank you, sir! May I have another?" school of governance?  I have a few suggestions.