Maclean’s Magazine ('Canada’s only national weekly current affairs magazine') publishes an annual edition ranking Canadian universities. In this year’s issue, with strong showings of Asian student populations at the top schools, an article asks, whether Canadian universities are
“Too Asian”? [more inside]
posted by typewriter
on Nov 11, 2010 -
80 comments
So your parents gave you a puppy when you were 10 years old. Now you are graduating and feel condemned to going to a local school and spending the next four years living with your parents because you can't leave Lassie behind.
Think again. Colleges are are going beyond the traditional use of dogs as
mascots.
posted by Xurando
on Jun 6, 2010 -
35 comments
Scenes from the Cultural Revolution. A compilation of quotes about American Universities as compared to Maoist propaganda.
"'If the system were fair,' says Larry Mumper, sponsor of the Ohio bill, 'Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would be tenured professors somewhere.'"
"We will strike down the reactionary, bourgeois academic savants! . . . We will vigorously establish proletarian intellectual authorities, our own academic savants."
posted by borkingchikapa
on Mar 20, 2005 -
60 comments
Colleges: An Endangered Species? A well-written review that refers to a number of recent books on the subject of college education:"Every middle-class American family with a college-age child knows how it goes: the meetings at which the high school counselor draws up a list of "reaches" and "safeties," the bills for SAT prep courses ("But, Dad, everyone takes one; if you don't let me, I'm screwed"), the drafts of the personal essay in which your child tries to strike just the right note between humility and self-promotion—and finally, on the day of decision, the search through the mail in dread of the thin envelope that would mean it's all over and that, as a family, you have collectively failed. ...
posted by Postroad
on Feb 19, 2005 -
33 comments
HR 3077 - "unprecedented federally mandated intrusion into the content and conduct of university-based area studies programmes."
"There is a great deal at stake for American higher education and academic freedom. If HR 3077 becomes law - the Senate will review the bill next - it will create a board that monitors how closely universities reflect government policy. Since the legislation assumes that any flaw lies 'with the experts, not the policy', the government could be given the power to introduce politically sympathetic voices into the academic mainstream and to reshape the boundaries of academic inquiry. Institutional resistance would presumably be punished by the withdrawal of funds, which would be extremely damaging to Middle East centres especially."
you didn't have reason to call your congressperson tomorrow? you do now. frightening.
via the excellent
openbrackets.com
posted by specialk420
on Apr 16, 2004 -
67 comments
There's something about "Mary." The administration at Mary Washington College, ranked third in America this year among public liberal arts colleges by US News & World Report, is again trying to eliminate "Mary Washington" from it's name so they can have a name "without the female baggage." The adminstration cites problems with athletes' reactions to the name, but a student notes that "...if you change the name so you don't put off guys who don't like the idea of a school named Mary, you're not necessarily attracting the right kind of guy." I suggest the administration could use a refresher on the etymology of "
alma mater."
posted by NortonDC
on May 11, 2003 -
24 comments
Does being valedictorian still matter? A New Jersey high school student with top grades and a 1570 SAT score is suing her school (including a $2.5 million punitive damages demand) for deciding to make her one of three "co-valedictorians." Considering that valedictorian is an award given well after college acceptance letters are sent out, is the title actually relevant in the American education system? Has anyone here actually gained something (other than pride) via the highest GPA in their class?
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on May 5, 2003 -
89 comments
Between
Wellstone and
Veblen, I got to thinking about my
alma mater.
There are a
few others, off the top of my head, that this tiny,
out-of-the way school can lay claim to. How many other prodigal children come from small colleges?
Kofi is one, from another small Minnesota college. Who else? Schools with more than 2,500 students need not apply.
posted by RKB
on Oct 30, 2002 -
18 comments
Conservatives rare species on campus "A poll by the Enterprise Institute showed that professors registered as Democrats outnumbered Republicans at Stanford, 151 to 17. At Berkeley, the lopsided score was 59-7. At Cornell, 166-6. And so on." When I was in college, I guess I was too busy trying to earn my degree to notice if conservatives were allowed to exist or not. I don't remember much political indoctrination in my physics or differential equations classes. Are the campuses really like what this columnist suggests?
posted by munger
on Oct 21, 2002 -
148 comments
A glimpse into the "Ivory Tower" - The online community at
Swarthmore College is abuzz with reflections, debates, insults and demands for revenge prompted by the recent tragedies. After being physically threatened by a member of my college community after commenting that I thought that the Netherlands was a more "free" nation than the US, I've stopped going to the site myself; however, a look at the forum may demonstrate that such reactionary thought isn't limited to "middle America" or the "unenlightened," as some intellectual snobs/idealists seem to think. (Swarthmore was tied with Amherst as the number one liberal arts college in the country according to
U.S. World and News Report.)
posted by surblimity
on Sep 13, 2001 -
10 comments
Princeton president pines for peculiar persons. "Princeton University's new president, Shirley Tilghman, says her campus has a problem: not enough weirdos. 'I would like to think we could begin to attract students with green hair. We will take pink and blue and orange hair, too.'" The rest of the article is pretty bland, but that quote is hilarious.
posted by jeb
on Jul 10, 2001 -
9 comments
Stripper, Reinstated. --
The stripper who posed for Playboy and went on national TV after she was kicked off the Cal State Fullerton cross-country team has been offered the chance to wear a Titan uniform once again.
posted by fooljay
on Jul 2, 2001 -
10 comments
"Why is affirmative action in universities so unpopular when it seems to be working so well? Statistical studies show that the policy has improved racial diversity not only in the classrooms but later in life, in business and the professions, as well, and contributed to improved understanding among races."
New York Times Op-Ed: Race and the Uses of Law. Will the Supreme Court decide that racial diversity is a compelling educational need that justifies affirmative action? Should they?
(Educators are invited to contribute.)
posted by sudama
on Apr 13, 2001 -
35 comments
The
OPE Campus Security Statistics Website allows you to research criminal offenses that were reported at over 6000 colleges nation wide, (United States). University participation is compulsory.
Of course, what they don't mention is lots of schools, including my
alma mater, refer certain complaints (commonly those dealing with sexual assault) directly to local law enforcement, and keep no official record of the incident with the school itself. I was semi-involved with my school's Women's Resource Center in '98, and I can tell you there were a lot more incidents of sexual assault than
listed on the OPE site.
posted by alan
on Oct 24, 2000 -
2 comments
The Supreme Court ruled today that
university student fees may go to controversial groups in order to create a "marketplace of ideas". As a member of a university student funding board (and as a member of "controversial" student groups, i.e. GLBT groups), I've been eagerly awaiting this ruling all semester. The case began in 1996 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where three students challenged the use of mandatory student fees to fund campus organizations that they had politically and idealogically objections to. For the full text of the Supremem Court decision, visit
campusspeech.org.
posted by hit-or-miss
on Mar 22, 2000 -
1 comment
