The National Association of Scholars has been publishing a series of articles called "If I Ran the Zoo" (inspired by Seuss) in which various contributors describe what they would do if they were in charge of higher education. (via)
posted on Jul 9, 2008 - View this thread

Via The Friendly Atheist and the New York Times, this blog post and this article explain two instances of a very, very unsettling new phenomenon.
posted on Jun 17, 2008 - View this thread

"This all would have never happened if their windows were closed." Runner up: "I didn't feel like a creep," he said. "I didn't feel like a Peeping Tom. I felt like this type of thing happens a lot."
posted on Jun 12, 2008 - View this thread

KnowHow2Go wants you to take on the tough classes - such as Biology, Foreign Languages, and Algebra II - to prepare yourself for college.
posted on May 26, 2008 - View this thread

The Atlantic: Is college necessary? Fascinating article on a growing concern. Does college really generate a good ROI?
posted on May 21, 2008 - View this thread

Students for Sensible Drug Policy responds to "Operation Sudden Fall"
posted on May 9, 2008 - View this thread

Who (or what) is killing our college boys? Over the past decade the bodies of dozens American male college students have been found drowned, near their respective campuses. The victims were usually last seen drinking at parties or area bars before they disappeared.
posted on May 3, 2008 - View this thread

"The women's tennis team at Grand Canyon University in Arizona has an unusual player this year — a 60-year-old named Sheila Johnson. She played for three years at Arizona State in the '60s, but still had one year of eligibility left." NPR story. Newspaper Article. Sports Illustrated Article. Picture of the team and Stats.
posted on Apr 24, 2008 - View this thread

Something about the library inspires one to jump.
posted on Apr 1, 2008 - View this thread

Slate asks, "What's behind the boom in homeland-security and emergency-management majors?"
posted on Mar 29, 2008 - View this thread

Swinging from pendulums and facing down wrecking balls, MIT professor Walter Lewin shows students the zany beauty of science.
posted on Mar 14, 2008 - View this thread

Lost bag! Reward if found! Returned! But it's a fake! Finally someone took the advice to GYOFB. But it's a fake! Students at CUNY's Hunter College in a class sponsored by the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition produced the blog and related guerrilla marketing activities related to counterfeiting last spring. But "while a television viewer is aware that he or she is watching advertising, those viewing the blog or her posters at Hunter thought they were learning about the experiences of a real student — not a class project crafted by an industry association (that was sufficiently proud to boast about it)." Reports Inside Higher Ed.
posted on Mar 3, 2008 - View this thread

College Photographers of the Year, 2007, and archive of past winners, 2001-2006.
posted on Feb 9, 2008 - View this thread

As national signing day approached, a small town in Nevada got excited that one of its football stars would go to a big time college program. Finally on the fated day town notables and media gathered for a ceremony where, Kevin Hart, made his choice known. Then it all unraveled, he was never recruited at all.
posted on Feb 6, 2008 - View this thread

Barefootin'! Ron Hunter, men's basketball coach of IUPUI, decides to raise awareness for Samaritan's Feet, a charity that collects shoes for needy children, by coaching barefoot. Initially, he hoped to collect 40,000 pairs in honor of the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. - 110,000 pairs of shoes were collected by tip-off.
posted on Jan 27, 2008 - View this thread

Advice on Academic Job Talk Visits by Siva Vaidhyanathan.
posted on Jan 10, 2008 - View this thread

Open Culture's "10 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube" features "intellectually redeemable" channels from UC Berkeley, @GoogleTalks, TheNobelPrize, TED Talks, FORA.tv, the European Graduate School, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, BBC Worldwide, National Geographic, PBS, UChannel, MIT, Vanderbilt, and USC.
posted on Dec 27, 2007 - View this thread

Learn how the most opulent casino in the North American hemisphere, complete with guard turrets and escape tunnels, became a Baptist College in 1956.
posted on Dec 3, 2007 - View this thread

U.S. Public Service Academy : A proposal by two Teach for America alum to provide fully-funded top-notch undergraduate education in public service in the style of military academies, but with a mandatory 5-year local/state/federal service work requirement. A bill for this school was put into Congress by Senators Hillary Clinton and Arlen Specter.
posted on Nov 24, 2007 - View this thread

Trinity University won their football game this Saturday on a crazy play, (somewhat reminiscent of "The Play" minus the mayhem of the fans and band rushing the field.) This one looks more like a grade school game of keep away. What happened to the defense??
posted on Oct 28, 2007 - View this thread

Although not a new phenomenon, it seems that over the last year “ghetto,” “gangsta,” “south of the border” and “taco and tequila” parties have become college chic and cool. Parties at more than a dozen colleges and universities received national coverage in the past year, with countless others going unnoticed save for the pictures posted to sundry websites. It is tempting to interpret such events as clichéd racist expressions. They are, after all, contemporary minstrel theaters that allow middle- and upper-class white Americans to cross moral and social boundaries by racial crossdressing. But such easy explanations keep us from fully appreciating the circumstances on today’s college campus that make minstrel parties pleasing and powerful for so many.
posted on Oct 10, 2007 - View this thread

And I thought us UC Santa Cruz students and alums only had to deal with the defensive ticks we developed by being the stepchild to that other University of California in the Bay Area. But no! We apparently attended the Worst School in America!

The always endearing David Horowitz, in addition to posting an article showing the university's crimes-against-academia/cool-classes, was on Fox News decrying the University's policy of turning patriotic Midwestern kids into Molotov-throwing Marxists. After watching that clip, I do have to wonder what career paths are available to someone with a skillset that includes "Can organize anti-capitalist revolutions."
posted on Oct 9, 2007 - View this thread

On average, college students are having a medium amount of sex.
posted on Sep 23, 2007 - View this thread

Think you're smart? Apply for a Prize Fellowship at Oxford's All Souls College. [via adrianhon]
posted on Sep 12, 2007 - View this thread

Is College Worth the Cost? In strict dollar terms, is that degree going to be worth the parchment it's printed on?
posted on Aug 29, 2007 - View this thread

Radar picks the worst colleges in America. At least one of the picks is rather dubious, although I suppose being the "worst" Ivy League is a position of some note, and another one of the picks was where my school's valedictorian went. Either way, it's always nice to see the Moonies somersaulting into otherwise non-Moonie related stories.
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

Gawker's Poll for Most Annoying Liberal Arts College.
posted on Jul 24, 2007 - View this thread

Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace: "Hegemonic American teens (i.e. middle/upper class, college bound teens from upwards mobile or well off families) are all on or switching to Facebook. Marginalized teens, teens from poorer or less educated backgrounds, subculturally-identified teens, and other non-hegemonic teens continue to be drawn to MySpace. A class division has emerged and it is playing out in the aesthetics, the kinds of advertising, and the policy decisions being made." (Related blog post)
posted on Jun 25, 2007 - View this thread

JP Nicholas Reilly is a theatre (that's "thee-AY-ter") artist who takes himself very, very seriously. Most of his knowledge of the world comes from Hollywood blockbusters. Although his previous plays have sucked big fat hairy sweaty donkey balls, his latest production - about Hitler in college - promises to be his magnum opus.

And if that doesn't convince you, there's the wikification of the world, a phone call from Ira Glass, a Wii swapped for a Super Nintendo, and the Holy Fucking Grail. Watch.
posted on Jun 15, 2007 - View this thread

Antioch College announces that it is suspending operations, effective July 1, 2008. Founded in 1852, enrollment at the school had been declining for the past several years. Loren Pope included it in a list of life-changing schools. The school was notable for its strong tradition of student governance, advocacy of co-education, the integration of co-op work experience with the academic curriculum, narrative evaluations in place of letter grades, and the sexual offense prevention policy. Coretta Scott King, Stephen Jay Gould, Rod Serling, and Eleanor Holmes Norton graduated from Antioch, among other noteworthy alumni. Four satellite campuses will remain open.
posted on Jun 12, 2007 - View this thread

The Brain Trust Project “is a non-partisan organization dedicated to developing smarter public policy by supporting the role of academics in creating solutions for the political problems facing us today.” The website is the work of USC undergraduates Mathew Morgan and Colin Koproske.
posted on May 14, 2007 - View this thread

“I never think of my age,” she said. “We don’t die at a certain age. And if people didn’t know they were getting a certain age, maybe the same age their father died or their mother died, I think they’d be better off.”

Outragefilter: After a photo labeled "drunken pirate" was found on her MySpace page, 27-year-old student teacher and college senior Stacy Snyder was denied teaching credentials by Millersville University officials. This week, she filed a federal lawsuit against the school.
posted on Apr 28, 2007 - View this thread

Soulforce Equality Ride! Soulforce, a nationwide organization working to end religious discrimination of gays and lesbians are in the middle of their second annual Equality Ride to raise awareness of Christian colleges and universities that discriminate against queer students. GLBTQ students are discriminated against everywhere. The Riders have been met with both open arms and anger. The Reverend Mel White, who runs Soul Force, ghost wrote Billy Graham's and Jerry Falwell's autobiographies and worships at Falwell's church in Lynchburg, VA in silent protest. Previously.
posted on Mar 23, 2007 - View this thread

Are you in college and dreading the coming of finals? Is that first weekend in May filling you with silent dread? Need to unwind but aren't really into seeing another movie or getting loco with your mexican breathern? Do you miss those carefree days of summer camp? Wicked! May 5th is New England Intercollegiate Nudist Day! (nsfw) via
posted on Mar 19, 2007 - View this thread

Duclod man uncovered. Sarah Aswell uncovers but does not name the author of bizarre letters. "As early as 1992, students at Grinnell College, a small liberal arts school in Iowa, began receiving strange, anonymous letters in the mail. The letters contained homemade greeting cards with crudely drawn pictures—men crawling on the ground, toilets and trash cans, twin closet doors—and jokes that didn’t make any sense." Previously on Metafilter, plus this blip.
posted on Mar 12, 2007 - View this thread

Recent comments about the food. Oklahoma University has turned their complaints about campus dining into one of the most hilarious blogs on the internets! IT WASN"T COOKED! Awesome.
posted on Feb 21, 2007 - View this thread

The grinning mugs of students at Tarleton State University in Texas and the University of Connecticut School of Law are gracing the pages of The Smoking Gun, where they stand accused of racial insensitivity. Is this passive-aggressive racial stereotyping? Simple stupidity? Or can we call this parody and laugh it off?
posted on Jan 25, 2007 - View this thread

Do you love learning? I know you do. This might help keep you busy for a while.
posted on Jan 13, 2007 - View this thread

Mark Leung's College Saga (pt 1) (2)(3)(4)(the entire 40 min. youtube) is many things, but it's mostly a massive live action homage to Final Fantasy and having way too much free time at Babson College. Points for tremendous effort. (Related Retrovideogamepopcultery: Collegehumor's Street Fighter: The Later Years.)
posted on Dec 30, 2006 - View this thread

"We have an academic community in which people are free to explore ideas." Art student expelled after questioning a fellow classmate's belief in leprechauns. To be fair, he was actually expelled for his "aggressive, demeaning, and threatening" behavior. Oh, and he blogs.
posted on Nov 28, 2006 - View this thread

On Nov. 6, 1869, Rutgers beat Princeton in the first ever college football game. 137 years later, almost to the day, Rutgers has added another standout achievement to their football history by beating #3 Louisville 28-25. Now, perhaps, the comments about a weakened Big East will stop. Me, I'm just wondering how big the headline in the Daily Targum will be.
posted on Nov 9, 2006 - View this thread

Courses from UC Berkeley on Google Video - including a guest lecture by Sergey Brin and poems by Mary Karr. Perhaps they are now moving towards competing with YouTube's College section.
posted on Sep 29, 2006 - View this thread

"I hate grades.... [But] I am obliged to follow the rules set forth by my employer and the larger education industry in general. Consequently, I assign grades."
posted on Sep 28, 2006 - View this thread

YaleShmale "Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn't necessarily mean you're smart." The pitch certainly proves the point.
posted on Aug 26, 2006 - View this thread

He describes how the birds’ wings flutter, the small black eyes blink, and the head pops off in your palm... A riveting inside look at the Exotic Animal Training program at Moorpark College, which offers America's only college degree in animal training.
posted on Aug 12, 2006 - View this thread

BULLSHIT! Penn & Teller present their rational, libertarian bent views on diverse subjects, now available for free download on Google Video ::: profanity; creationism; alien abductions; conspiracy theories; recycling; gun control; endangered species; religion; the bible; family values; the apocalypse; signs from heaven; the occult; 12-step recovery programs; exercise v. genetics; environmentalism; hypnosis; ghosts; the war on drugs; feng shui / bottled water; college; PETA; and abstinence.
posted on Aug 11, 2006 - View this thread

2%. (bugmenot login fleeb@fleeble.com, password fleeble) That is the percentage of students in UCLA's incoming freshman class that self-identify as black. Only 96 students in an entering class of 4,852, and the lowest percentage since 1973. Many believe Proposition 209 is to blame, but some want to stop collecting this data altogether.
posted on Jun 8, 2006 - View this thread

Is this guy an awesome teacher or just crazy? Or maybe it goes hand in hand. Think back to the days of high school and college science classes. For most people, it probably wasn't chalkboards full of endless physics equations that got them interested in the sciences, but rather the crazy, cooky and awe-inspiring professors who do dramatic and unique demonstrations to get students interested. What makes a good teacher or professor? Is this teacher really reckless or is it a legit demonstration that benefits students?
posted on May 25, 2006 - View this thread

March Madness: 11th seeded George Mason upset UConn in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament this afternoon, continuing their unexpected streak of upsets. Their wins validate not only their inclusion in the tournament, but the rising status of mid-major conferences. The most prominent critic of the inclusion of these smaller schools has been CBS analyst Billy Packer, who verbally assaulted the head of the selection committee on live TV just two weeks ago, and has yet to apologize for his obvious error.
posted on Mar 26, 2006 - View this thread