Journalist – Historian – Speaker
This was a good week. Spring is here in Chicagoland, my son is currently head-banging to the CD version of “Let it Go,” and later I’ll be cooking salmon in delicious little packets of butter, lemon, and tarragon. For lunch, thanks to secular Easter, we’ll be having egg salad. I’ve got 5 higher-ed columns out …
In a happy Saturday post, here’s a story going viral about Noah, a man with Down syndrome in Wisconsin, being accepted to Edgewood College in Madison. I hope to go to Edgewood in the fall and write about Noah and their “Cutting” Edge” program. It’s a nice conclusion to a complicated week of writing about …
I’ve been writing about work and inclusion this week. I actually began the week by writing against the sheltered workshop model and celebrating a Rhode Island decision. But as I clarified in that post, the goal isn’t to end all sheltered workshops, but to end the default slide into segregation that dominates the work-life of …
One major complaint about college students today, even highly-prepared college students, is that they have been taught to do well on tests, not to think critically. The culprit may be No Child Left Behind, and I’m not convinced that the Common Core will change this. As a history professor, I assign a lot of essays …
I’m writing a piece on the ways that Catholic Colleges and Universities, especially my own, are helping undocumented students. The help comes in three ways: Money for tuition/expenses, changing discourse, and political action. What I’m really interested in for this piece is the link between mission and policy changes. One piece that has emerged is …
Jordan Weissmann, Slate columnist on business and education, is really happy that your small private college might be closing. Here’s why: These are agonizing times for small, private colleges. Enrollment is falling. Debts are rising. Tuition is high as it can go. And since the financial crisis, schools have been shuttering more often than normal….“What we’re …
Yesterday I wrote about ending the abuses of sheltered workshops and received push-back from a reader and online-friend. Her son is finding his pathway into employment through a Goodwill sheltered workshop. I really appreciate her voice. I want to see change, but would hate for that change to limit options for her son or for …
This summer I hope to write several longer essays about social justice topics: police and disability, rape culture (men need to talk to men about rape), eugenics and Down syndrome, and adult-life with developmental disability. I know, sounds more fun than a barrel full of very squished and depressed monkeys, am I right? Here’s the …
In case you missed it. I wrote about Jesus’ Wife, Academic Fatherhood (and some pre-panel thoughts about a roundtable on parenting in academia. I’ll have more to say on this next week, I hope), and two more pieces on gender. One was about women and men getting invited to talk on the television, the other …
Here’s a very brief Twitter discussion with Julia Baird. She wrote a lovely piece for the NYTimes the other day about Queen Victoria (I blogged here). Twitter is a medium that encourages quick hits, but this is just not correct. Mindboggling debate over whether an ancient papyrus proved Jesus had a wife. http://t.co/Wi9b0hVt6m — Dame …