I have a new piece on CNN today about the upcoming canonizations of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. When CNN asked me if I had anything to write about it, the core question to me was – why should non-Catholics, especially secular people, care. I’m lucky in having very smart people around me…
Adjuncts are Labor. Professors are Labor. Graduate Students are Labor. Staff are Labor. Administrators, well, that’s more complicated. What’s a “Chair” anyway? More on that later (and in the meantime follow that link for a good piece on definitions). I am going to be writing regular columns for the Chronicle and Chronicle Vitae over the…
Yesterday I followed a tweet from New Faculty Majority to Academe Blog (from but not speaking for the AAUP) – and read a startling set of statistics. I posted this tweet: Since 1976 – 23% growth FT fac. 269% growth in PT fac. 369% growth in admin. MT @NewFacMajority: http://t.co/duHV4Eg7da #highered #adjuncts — David M….
McDonald’s toys are in the zeitgeist. More specifically, the gender-normative ways in which McDonald’s describes their toys are in the zeitgest, and perhaps some progress has been made. Last year I wrote a “straight married white male feminist manifesto.” I wrote it for the Good Men Project which means I deliberately waved a red flag…
Most of my writing on the cult of compliance focuses on police violence. It’s where the deification of compliance is most visible and most dangerous. Schools, however, are another site for such practices, especially as they turn into bunkers. Sometimes such moments turn violent, but there are more subtle forms, such as this story out…
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…