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#71
General Discussion / placeholder
Last post by apl68 - March 27, 2024, 06:14:11 AM
My ears have been hurting off and on for two days now.  At the moment my right ear aches so much I can hardly concentrate on what I'm trying to do.
#72
General Academic Discussion / Re: 3-year degrees/race to the...
Last post by marshwiggle - March 27, 2024, 05:35:24 AM
Quote from: Langue_doc on March 27, 2024, 05:18:53 AMThe NYT article:
QuoteIn the Fight Over How to Teach Reading, This Guru Makes a Major Retreat
Lucy Calkins, a leading literacy expert, has rewritten her curriculum to include a fuller embrace of phonics and the science of reading. Critics may not be appeased.

There were several reports, mostly negative, on the Calkins/Columbia approach. Just google Columbia, phonics.

Interesting that even having had her methods debunked, she still gets the title.
#73
General Academic Discussion / Re: What do admincritters do?
Last post by marshwiggle - March 27, 2024, 05:32:59 AM
Quote from: Kron3007 on March 26, 2024, 01:44:17 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 25, 2024, 08:03:28 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 25, 2024, 07:41:31 AMHad this conversation with a colleague the other day about the recent cycle of narcissistic Presidents my current institution has had at the top. I think one has to be a bit of a narcissist to decide to become a college President. The question is whether the person is good at controlling these impulses.

Or, as the saying goes, the higher a monkey climbs, the better you can see its behind.

This is even more the case when it comes to leading a country. What makes a person think "The best person to lead the entire nation is ME."? By definition, it requires a person who has a pretty elevated self-conception.



I always theorized this is somewhat true even at the faculty level.  Maybe narcissistic is not exactly right, but I feel there is a disproportionate level of crazy among faculty.  I have always wondered if the system is selecting for it, or inducing it.


Well, when you're selecting people for the job who are, by definition, more obsessed with some (possibly tiny and obscure) area of knowledge than the vast majority of people around them, it's no surprise that *they often have priorities that most people would consider "unusual".


*My dad was blue collar; built his own house, worked on his own car, ran heavy machinery, etc. I have absolutely none of those skills. (I wish I did.) If he'd been sent in a time machine 200 years into the past, he probably would have done fine. If I were, I'd have been essentially useless.


#74
The State of Higher Ed / Re: J.D. Vance: "Sanctuary Cit...
Last post by Langue_doc - March 27, 2024, 05:27:06 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2024, 02:22:42 PMOhio U.S. Senator JD Vance Introduces Bill to Prohibit Universities from Hiring Illegal Aliens

QuoteOhio U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) and Indiana U.S. Representative Jim Banks (R-IN-03) have introduced a bill that would prohibit universities that receive federal funding from hiring illegal aliens.

The bill, titled the College Employment Accountability Act, would specifically amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to "prohibit an institution of higher education that employs unauthorized aliens from receiving funds from federal student assistance or federal institutional aid"

Institutions of higher education would have to participate in the E-Verify Program, which is a federal program that checks the immigration status of all employees, in order to receive federal funds under the bill.

Do universities hire a lot of "illegal aliens?"



They must be unfamiliar with HR protocols in colleges, private and public, where all potential employees have to provide evidence that they are either US citizens or green-card holders authorized to work in the US. There's a name for these one-page forms. Brains seem to be travelling south along the human spine these days!
#75
The State of Higher Ed / Re: J.D. Vance: "Sanctuary Cit...
Last post by marshwiggle - March 27, 2024, 05:22:14 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 26, 2024, 09:39:55 PMMore to the point-- it is illegal for any Americans to hire illegal aliens.

But my understanding is that it's a lot easier to do in the U.S. than it is in Canada because the employment laws are a lot less strict.
#76
General Academic Discussion / Re: 3-year degrees/race to the...
Last post by Langue_doc - March 27, 2024, 05:18:53 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on March 24, 2024, 08:53:08 PMIsn't a big part of the answer to why kids leave high school unable to read and write the abandonment of phonics education for the so-called "balanced literacy" approach  ? They're taught to guess from context and pictures, not to... well, read.

The NYC schools had, for decades, relied on the so-called reading guru at Columbia, only to find out that kids weren't learning to read. The first three paragraphs from the article:
QuoteCall it the end of an era for fantasy-fueled reading instruction. In a move that has parents like me cheering, Columbia University's Teachers College announced last month that it is shuttering its once famous—in some circles, now-infamous—reading organization founded by education guru and entrepreneur Lucy Calkins.

For decades, the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project was a behemoth in American education. As many as 1 in 4 U.S. elementary schools used Calkins' signature curriculum. But that number is dwindling as a growing chorus of cognitive scientists, learning experts, and parents—many amplified by education journalist Emily Hanford via her 2022 podcast Sold a Story—argue that the Calkins approach to reading is ineffective at best, actively harmful at worst, and a large part of why more than half of our country's fourth graders aren't demonstrating proficiency on reading exams.

It's common knowledge that never learning to read well damages children's self-esteem, their life prospects, and our country's future workforce. What's less talked about is how, when schools fail to teach reading, it harms the public's trust in schools. An unspoken contract between public schools and parents is that schools will teach their children to read. In many places, that contract was broken when schools adopted Calkins' methods, kids didn't learn to read, and responsibility for teaching reading transferred onto parents and guardians.

The NYT article:
QuoteIn the Fight Over How to Teach Reading, This Guru Makes a Major Retreat
Lucy Calkins, a leading literacy expert, has rewritten her curriculum to include a fuller embrace of phonics and the science of reading. Critics may not be appeased.

There were several reports, mostly negative, on the Calkins/Columbia approach. Just google Columbia, phonics.
#77
The State of Higher Ed / Re: Colleges in Dire Financial...
Last post by spork - March 27, 2024, 05:11:36 AM
Bluffton University will "merge" with University of Findlay.
#78
General Discussion / Re: NYT Spelling Bee
Last post by Langue_doc - March 27, 2024, 05:08:54 AM
Good morning!

QB. QB yesterday, last word was dunno.

psychotic/crunk--I think one has to be slightly psychotic to even think that crunk was a legit word, let alone come up with it.

Happy solving!
#79
The State of Higher Ed / Re: J.D. Vance: "Sanctuary Cit...
Last post by kaysixteen - March 26, 2024, 09:39:55 PM
More to the point-- it is illegal for any Americans to hire illegal aliens.
#80
General Academic Discussion / Re: What do admincritters do?
Last post by pgher - March 26, 2024, 07:32:14 PM
Quote from: simpleSimon on March 26, 2024, 05:28:31 PMIn a school of any size someone somewhere is doing something wrong (falsified research, drugs, affairs with students, financial mismanagement, athletes who cannot read, etc.)  How many of these potential crises are being effectively managed and which ones are likely to go public?  Crisis management is essential and keeping boards in the dark is one way for a president to get on their bad side.


Ugh. I am currently department chair and dealing with this sort of thing. In a perfect world, crises are dealt with at the lowest possible level. Conflict between two people in the same department should be handled by the chair. But sometimes, the tools available to the chair are insufficient for the problem, or are unsatisfactory for one or both parties. Then it escalates, and lands on the desk of the dean, provost, or chancellor.