Here is the pre-review I posted on the New York Times movie site. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/movies/at-berkeley-a-documentary-by-frederick-wiseman.html?ref=movies&_r=0#preview “I’m a former math professor. I worry that viewers of “At Berkeley” will leave with an impression of colleges and universities. That would be a big mistake. It is not true that “a college is a college is a college”. I […]
New York Times: Concern for the Humanities
October 31, 2013 by
Tamar Lewin wrote this front page article in the Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/education/as-interest-fades-in-the-humanities-colleges-worry.html?hp I expressed my concerns which I pasted below. “There several reasons to be concerned. There is what Jonathan Jacobs at John Jay College points out is the inability of many graduates to even recognize a rational argument. A subgroup of these graduates teaches […]
New York Times Writes That Average Cost of College Steady Over a Decade
October 25, 2013 by
The sticker price has gone up considerably but the discounts have gotten bigger, according to the report that the NYTimes cites. (Here is the link to the Times’ article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/education/despite-rising-sticker-prices-actual-college-costs-stable-over-decade-study-says.html?ref=us) There must be a reason why the colleges are increasing their sticker price while keeping their real charges the same. I suspect its marketing. The […]
Obama Administration Proposes to Make Colleges More Affordable and Accountable
August 22, 2013 by
The Obama Administration will “…announce a set of ambitious proposals…” today, according to an article in today’s New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/education/obamas-plan-aims-to-lower-cost-of-college.html?pagewanted=1&ref=tamarlewin Here is my view, which I put in a comment to the article. “No one could have addressed the need for government regulation than did David Riesman, our deepest thinker ever on higher education. […]
New York’s Mayor Boomberg Is Focusing Responsibility Where It Mostly Belongs
August 14, 2013 by
According to today’s NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/nyregion/new-york-issuing-scorecards-on-teacher-colleges.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail0=y&_r=1&emc=edit_tnt_20130814 Mayor Bloomberg is holding universities responsible for poorly (or well) trained teachers – something I have stressed here. (See the category University Education Dumbs Down High School , particularly the post, A Suggestion for Holding Colleges Accountable for Teacher Performance .) I hope his administration goes on to look at graduate schools. For my […]
Washington University Engineering Says Northwest Missouri’s Calculus and Physics is “Equivalent” to Theirs
July 26, 2013 by
There is an article in today’s NY Times that mentions Randolph College and some of the problems they, and others, are having filling freshman slots. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/education/in-a-recovering-economy-a-decline-in-college-enrollment.html?pagewanted=all I commented and will include that at the bottom of this post. But first this. Randolph College is one of the schools affiliated with Washington University’s 3-2 Engineering Program. […]
Not a Bad Life For Students With Time on Their Hands
June 14, 2013 by
See the interesting “student housing” article in the NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/us/in-luxury-student-housing-gym-tan-and-study.html?pagewanted=1&ref=us#postcomment My Comment: Hey, the kids have got to do something with their time. The amount of outside study that we professors require for even good grades has more than halved over the years. (See the great book “Academically Adrift” for the details.) Not giving the […]
NY Times article on Visas and hi-tech
May 20, 2013 by
Here is the link http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/technology/tech-industry-pushes-to-amend-immigration-bill.html?ref=business#comments I don’t feel I am knowledgeable enough to know whether Silicon Valley companies want more visas to hire cheaper labor; or, whether they really can’t find enough qualified Americans. I do know, as do readers of this blog, that one can’t determine how many people are qualified for jobs based […]
The Economist Cover Story “How Science Goes Wrong” and NY Times “Risk Calculator for Cholesterol Appears Flawed”; Connected?
Both of these stories focus on what could be a failure of professionals to understand and utilize quantitative data and methods. In the case of the cholesterol test, I have no way of knowing exactly how the failure occured. But I am worried that it is symptomatic of our problems in higher education. I posted […]