US News On Retention – Say What?

From page 70 of the 2015 “rankings”: “…The higher the proportion of freshmen who return…and eventually graduate, the better a school most likely is at offering the classes and services that students need to succeed…” Oh, if it were true.  Do the people at US News know that another way of helping people “succeed” [in just […]

Does The University of Chicago Try to Catch Up on Economic Diversity? Let’s Hope So, But We Need to Watch.

David Leohardt’s article is here. The University of Chicago Tries to Catch Up on Economic Diversity – NYTimes.com. My comment was: “It will be important to keep our eye on this program. Hopefully, it will be in the tradition of their ground-breaking and principled President Robert Maynard Hutchins (’29-’45). Unfortunately, though, nowadays many universities take […]

Added Edit to a Post on U. of Chicago Curriculum

I added this link to “Content Deflation” Part II: University of Chicago Felt the Heat University of Chicago Choses Cornell Provost – NYTimes.com. I think the U. of Chicago case is important because it shows that the faculty are the final arbiters of the schools’ educational mission and of whether the university will sell its “soul”.  […]

I Hope Princeton and its New President are Listening

I commented on the article http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304756104579453570560473730 . As I have posted before, I am concerned that Princeton faculty don’t see what is happening as clearly as the University of Chicago faculty saw in the nineties.  (See my post Princeton Giving Up on Using Grades As Motivation and Feedback? for Princeton and “Content Deflation” Part II:  University of […]

Princeton Giving Up on Using Grades As Motivation and Feedback?

“That is my worry.  I will state my position as briefly as I can:  If the same material is taught to similar students, then the times it is taught with a higher standard for an A, B, etc…. will be the times that, on average, more students will learn more.  Now on to what is happening at Princeton. The […]

“Content Deflation” Part II: University of Chicago Felt the Heat

(Part I is here: How Competition Leads to “Content Deflation” in One Anecdote.  I suggest reading it first.) What heat? the heat of what Chicago’s President Hugo F. Sonnenschein (in 1998), called “…the commodification and marketing of higher education…” He went on to say “…we can’t jolly dance along and not pay attention to them. One […]