Tag: Books

  • The silencing of voices through the banning of books

    The silencing of voices through the banning of books

    When I was in fifth grade in northern Kentucky, I walked into my school library, excited to check out my favorite book — Drama by Raina Telgemeier — only to find it missing. My librarian told me it had been removed because someone had complained it wasn’t appropriate for our age group.

    The shelves looked emptier without it and I remember the sting of frustration in my chest as I asked question after question, my voice growing unsteady. That book was my only access to a world I love and now it was gone. 

    At the time, I didn’t understand why it had disappeared. Now, I realize that moment was part of a much larger battle playing out across the country.

    A surge in book bans across the U.S. is forcing educators and librarians into a heated debate over censorship and intellectual freedom, as restrictions on books about race, gender and LGBTQ+ topics increase.

    “Books don’t hurt people. People hurt people,” said Joyce McIntosh, assistant program director for the Freedom to Read Foundation.

    Bans across the nation

    As book bans and censorship debates arise across the country, independent K-12 schools, like the Tatnall School in Wilmington, Delaware where I go to school, must balance open access to information with concerns over age-appropriate content — a challenge that mirrors broader societal tensions over education and free expression.

    Over the past few years, book challenges have significantly increased, with reports from the American Library Association showing a record-breaking number of book bans in 2023, documenting 1,247 demands to censor library books and resources.

    While these debates are heating up in the U.S., similar efforts to restrict access to information are occurring across the globe, from government crackdowns in China to classroom censorship in Brazil. McIntosh said these bans disproportionately target books focused on BIPOC and LGBTQ communities, limiting students’ access to diverse perspectives. 

    “Bans often target books focused on [black, indigenous and people of color]  and LGBTQ communities, preventing students from seeing themselves represented,” McIntosh said. 

    Groups advocating for more restrictions counter that certain topics seen in school books promote inappropriate themes or political agendas. On the other hand, organizations like the Freedom to Read Foundation work to educate library workers and community members about the importance of intellectual freedom. 

    Local schools navigate the debate

    For educators, the tension between intellectual freedom and parental concerns seems like a tightrope act. While public schools in the United States must follow government and state regulations, independent schools have more flexibility in curating their libraries and media centers. That flexibility comes with its own challenges and doesn’t provide much leeway.

    Instead, it forces school administrations to set their own guidelines, often navigating difficult conversations with parents, teachers, and students to figure out what’s best for their school environment. 

    Ensign Simmons, the director of innovation and technology and library coordinator at the Tatnall School, emphasized the school’s approach to book selection. While the library strives to provide students with diverse perspectives in education, it also considers community concerns as well as the age-appropriateness of the content, Simmons said. 

    Simmons said that while Tatnall is not a public institution, the school still has a responsibility to prepare students to think critically and be open-minded when they enter the world.

    Tatnall hasn’t faced formal book bans, but the school remains aware of the growing national trends. Instead of outright censorship, Simmons said that the school encourages dialogue between students, parents and educators. Maintaining this balance means that while some books may contain more mature content, the overall goal is to promote discussion among students of different perspectives rather than restrictions.

     “Even if you disagree with something, that doesn’t mean we should take it off the shelves,” Simmons said. “We should keep them out there because that does spark a conversation and that conversation is what’s important at the end of the day.”

    The role of parents play

    While anti-ban activists argue that restricting and banning books violates an individual’s access to intellectual freedom, pro-ban supporters see it as a step taken that is necessary to protect children and youth from inappropriate and controversial material.

    Moms for Liberty, a conservative advocacy group, has led efforts to remove books like The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison from certain school districts and libraries, arguing that educators should not have the final say in what the students read.  

    McIntosh said that many schools already have policies allowing parents to opt their child out of specific reading materials and select an alternative that aligns with the curriculum. However, when one parent’s choice limits access for all students, it crosses into censorship, she said. Parents have the right to choose that for their child, however, it starts becoming more like censorship when they decide they don’t want anyone reading the book, making a decision for others based on their own beliefs. 

    Censorship is a global issue, not confined to the United States. In China, writers who challenge the government’s narrative have been imprisoned. In Tanzania, the government banned children’s books on sex education, citing violations of cultural norms, while in Brazil, attempts have been made to remove books addressing race and gender from classrooms. This is similar to the problem in the United States.

    These efforts to restrict access to information emphasize the broader, international pattern of controlling stories, especially those of marginalized communities. Whether driven by political power, cultural conservatism or fear of open dialogue, these global examples underscore the dangers of erasing perspectives that are vital for understanding diverse human experiences, just as we are witnessing in the U.S.

    What the future holds

    As the debate over book bans intensifies, many wonder what the future for school libraries will look like. In the future, instead of banning books outright, restrictions could shift toward regulation of digital content, as our world’s use of technology grows and as more controversial material becomes accessible online.

    Schools, like Tatnall, might continue to shift and shape their policies, cultivating discussions among the youth rather than enforcing strict bans and censoring intellectual content.

    Years ago, I didn’t understand why my favorite book was taken away. Now, I see that removing a single book is never just about a book — it’s about whose voices get heard and whose stories remain untold. 

    “One of the most dangerous aspects of book bans is that they often target marginalized voices,” McIntosh said. “When we remove these stories, we’re not just censoring books. We’re erasing experiences and perspectives that are crucial for understanding the world around us.”

    The ongoing debate over book bans isn’t only about stories; it’s about who gets to decide what topics are worth exploring. And that struggle isn’t limited to the United States. Across continents, governments and school systems are making similar decisions about which perspectives are allowed to exist and which are erased.

    As long as books continue to disappear from shelves, that debate will continue shaping free expression and education for years to come.


    Questions to consider:

    • Why would some groups want to ban whole classrooms from access to particular books?

    • Why are books about people of color or are about themes of gender identity often the target of bans?

    • Do you think some books should be kept from children? Which ones and why?


     

    Source link

  • Colleges, Students Prefer Inclusive Access Models for Books

    Colleges, Students Prefer Inclusive Access Models for Books

    College affordability is one of the chief concerns of students, families, taxpayers and lawmakers in the U.S., and it extends beyond tuition prices.

    Costly course materials can impede student access and success in the classroom. Over half of college students say the high price of course materials has pushed them to enroll in fewer classes or opt out of a specific course, according to a 2023 survey.

    A new report from Tyton Partners, published today, finds that affordable-access programs that provide necessary materials can save students money and improve their outcomes. The report pulls data from surveys of students, administrators and faculty, as well as market research on the topic.

    The background: Affordable-access programs, also called inclusive-access programs, bill students directly for their textbooks as part of their tuition and fees. Through negotiations among publishers, institutions and campus bookstores, students pay a below-market rate for their course materials, which are often digital.

    This model ensures all students start the term with access to the required textbooks and course materials, allowing them to apply financial aid to textbook costs, which removes out-of-pocket expenses at the start of the term. A 2023 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed found that over half of respondents have avoided buying or renting a book for class due to costs.

    The first federal regulations for affordable-access programs were set in 2015 to help cap course material costs and spur utilization of inclusive access on campuses. In 2024, the Biden administration sought to redefine inclusive access by making models opt-in to provide students with greater autonomy, but the plan was ultimately paused. Most colleges have an opt-out model of affordable-access programs, requiring students to elect to be removed, according to Tyton’s report.

    Critics of affordable-access programs argue that an across-the-board rate eliminates students’ ability to employ their own cost-saving methods, such as buying books secondhand or using open educational resources. Students often lose access to digital resources at the end of the term, limiting their ability to reuse or reference them.

    Findings from Tyton Partners’ research point to the value of day-one course materials for student success, which can be provided through opt-out inclusive-access models.

    The report: Affordable-access programs are tied to lower costs for participating students, according to the report. The average digital list price for course materials per class was $91, but the average price for course materials for students in an inclusive-access program was $58 per class. (A 2023 survey found the average student spent about $285 on course materials in the 2022–23 academic year, or roughly $33 per item.)

    Opt-out affordable-access models have also placed downward pricing pressure on the market; the compound annual growth rate of course materials declined from 6.1 percent to 0.3 percent since the 2015 ED regulations.

    A student survey by Tyton found that 61 percent of respondents favor affordable-access models compared to buying (13 percent), renting (11 percent) or borrowing (10 percent) course materials.

    Another Angle

    The Tyton Partners report identifies opt-out affordable access as one intervention that can ensure all students have access to course materials on day one, which is tied to better student outcomes.

    Open educational resources, which are not mentioned in the report, are another method of ensuring students have access to digital course materials at the start of the term at no additional cost to the student.

    Among students participating in inclusive access, 84 percent said they felt satisfied or neutral about their user experience, according to a survey by the National Association of College Stores. Students who had a positive view of inclusive access cited the convenience of not shopping for materials (80 percent), day-one access (78 percent) and knowing all their course materials are correct (71 percent) as the top benefits.

    Among colleges that do offer inclusive access, those with opt-out models see higher student participation than those with opt-in models (96 percent versus 36 percent, respectively). Administrators report that some students, especially first-year and first-generation students, are less likely to engage in opt-in models and may then struggle because they lack the required materials, which researchers argue enables gaps to persist in student outcomes.

    Researchers compared two community colleges and found that students who participated in an opt-out equitable-access program had higher course completion and lower withdrawal rates, compared to their peers who opted in. Learners from underrepresented minority backgrounds, including Black and multiracial students, saw greater gains as well.

    While a majority of students indicated a preference for inclusive-access models, it’s still paramount that institutions help students fully understand the benefits of participation and offer them seamless opportunities to opt out, according to Tyton’s report.

    After adopting inclusive access, institutions were likely to increase offerings and expand the number of courses within the model. A majority of surveyed faculty members (75 percent) said their institution should maintain or increase affordable-access model usage.

    Report authors noted a higher administrative burden in an opt-in model, because costs are applied and resources given to each individual student who opts in, rather than simply removing students who opt out. “Since no technology currently automates the opt-in process, most institutions would need to expand their academic affairs, faculty affairs and information technology teams to handle the increased workload under opt-in models,” according to the report.

    Get more content like this directly to your inbox. Subscribe here.

    Source link

  • 400 Books Removed From Naval Academy Library

    400 Books Removed From Naval Academy Library

    The U.S. Naval Academy has culled 400 books deemed to promote to diversity, equity and/or inclusion from its library at the insistence of the Trump administration, according to the Associated Press.

    Last week, the Naval Academy, located in Annapolis, Md., identified 900 potential books to review in response to orders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office to remove books containing DEI-related content, The New York Times reported. That list included The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., Einstein on Race and Racism, and a biography of Jackie Robinson. A list of the books that were ultimately removed has not been released.

    The nation’s five military academies were also told in February to eliminate admissions “quotas” related to sex, ethnicity or race after President Trump signed an executive order to remove “any preference based on race or sex” from the military. Both the Naval and Air Force Academies have also completed curriculum reviews to remove materials that allegedly promote DEI, and a West Point official also told the AP that it was prepared to review both curriculum and library materials if directed to do so by the Army.

    Source link

  • CASEL Becomes New Home for Engaging Schools Resources

    CASEL Becomes New Home for Engaging Schools Resources

    The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) recently announced that it has become the new steward of Engaging Schools’ extensive body of educational resources. With Engaging Schools set to close in early 2025 after more than four decades of impact, CASEL will ensure the organization’s valuable tools, books, and frameworks remain available to educators worldwide.

    As part of this transition, CASEL is making these resources freely accessible to the public. Over time, CASEL will integrate elements of Engaging Schools’ work into several areas including the free Guide for Schoolwide SEL to further advance high-quality, evidence-based SEL implementation in schools and districts.

    “For more than 40 years, Engaging Schools has helped educators create safe and supportive learning environments where students thrive,” said Aaliyah A. Samuel, president and CEO of CASEL. “We are honored to carry forward their legacy by making these resources widely available and embedding them into our work to create school communities that prioritize academic, social, and emotional development.”

    Engaging Schools has long been recognized for its contributions to fostering inclusive school climates, strengthening restorative and equitable  discipline, and advancing engaging  teaching practices. 

    “We take immense pride in the lasting impact of Engaging Schools’ work,” said Larry Dieringer, Executive Director of Engaging Schools. “Though our organization’s chapter is closing, we are deeply grateful to CASEL for ensuring our resources continue to benefit educators and students for years to come.”

    For more than 30 years, CASEL has been a trusted leader in advancing SEL through research, practice, and policy. By integrating Engaging Schools’ resources into its offerings, CASEL reaffirms its commitment to supporting educators with the tools they need to create engaging, inclusive, and academically rich learning environments.

    To access Engaging Schools’ resources now available through CASEL, visit casel.org/engagingschools.

    Kevin Hogan
    Latest posts by Kevin Hogan (see all)

    Source link

  • An early look at 2023–24 financial returns shows providers working hard to balance the books

    An early look at 2023–24 financial returns shows providers working hard to balance the books

    In most larger UK providers of higher education, the 2023–24 financial year ended on 31 July 2024.

    Five months and two weeks after this date (so, on or before 14 January 2025) providers are obliged to have published (and communicated to regulators) audited financial statements for that year.

    I’ve got a list of 160 large, well known, providers of higher education who should, by now, have made this disclosure – 43 of them are yet to do so. Of the 117 that have, just 15 (under 13 per cent) posted a deficit for that financial year (to be fair, this includes eight providers in Wales, where the deadline – for bilingual accounts – is the end of the month). This was as of the data of publication, there’s been a few more been discovered since then and I have added some to the charts below.

    If you’ve been aware of individual providers, mission groups, representative bodies, trade unions, regulators, and politicians coming together to make the case that the sector is severely underfunded this may surprise you. If you work in an institution that is curtailing courses, making staff redundant, and undergoing the latest in a long series of cost-cutting exercises, the knowledge that your university has posted a surplus may make you angry.

    But these results are not surprising, and a surplus should not make you angry (there are plenty of other reasons to be angry…) Understanding what an annual account is for, what a surplus is, why a university will pull out all of the stops to post a surplus, and what are the more alarming underpinning signals that we should be aware of will help you understand why we have what – on the face of it – feels like a counter-intuitive position in university finances.

    Why are so many results missing?

    There’s a range of reasons why a provider may submit accounts late – those who are yet to publish will already be deep in conversation with regulators about the issues that may have caused what is, technically, a breach of a regulatory condition. In England, this is registration condition E3. which is underpinned by the accounts direction.

    If you are expecting regulators to get busy issuing fines or sanctions for late submissions – you should pause. There’s a huge problem with public sector audit capacity in the UK – the big players have discrete teams that move on an annual cycle between higher education, NHS, and local government audit. You don’t need to have read too much into public finances to know that our councils are under serious pressure right now – and this pressure results in audit delays, hitting the same teams who will be acting as external university auditors.

    That’s one key source of delay. The other would be the complexities within university annual accounts, and university finances more generally, that offer any number of reasons why the audit signoff might happen later than hoped.

    To be clear, very few of these reasons are going to be cheerful ones. If a provider has yet to publish its accounts because they have not signed off their accounts, it is likely to be engaging with external auditors about the conditions under which they will sign off accounts.

    To give one example of what might happen – a university has an outstanding loan with a covenant attached to it based on financial performance (say, a certain level of growth each year). In 2023–24, it did not reach this target, so needs to renegotiate the covenant, which may make repayments harder (or spread out over a longer period). The auditor will need to wait until this is settled before it signs off the accounts – technically if you are in breach of covenant the whole debt is repayable immediately, something which would make you fail your going concern test.

    We’ve covered covenants on the site before – a lender of whatever sort will offer finance at an attractive rate provided certain conditions are met. These can include things like use of investment (did you actually build the new business school you borrowed money to build?), growth (in terms of finances or student numbers), ESG (are you doing good things as regards environment, society, and governance?) and good standing (are you in trouble with the regulator?) – but at a fundamental level will require a sense that your business is financially viable. If covenant conditions are breached lenders will be keen to help if they hear in advance, but your cost of borrowing (the interest rate charged, bluntly) will rise. And you will find it harder to raise finance in future.

    This is an environment where it is already hard to raise finance – and in establishing new borrowing, or new revolving credit (kind of like an overdraft facility) many universities will end up paying more than in previous years. This all needs to be shown in the accounts.

    Going concern

    When your auditor signs off your accounts, you would very much hope that it will agree that they represent a “going concern” – simply put, that in most plausible scenarios you will have enough money to cover your costs during the next 12 months. If your auditor disagrees that you are a going concern you are in serious trouble – all of the 117 sets of accounts I have read so far have been agreed on a going concern basis.

    This designation tells everyone from regulators to lenders to other stakeholders that your business is viable for the next year – and comes into force on the day your accounts are signed off by the university and external auditor. This is nearly always for a specific technical reason – additional information that is needed in order to make the determination. For some late publications, it is possible that the delay is a deliberate plan to make the designation last as far into the following financial years as possible. This year (2024–25) is even more bleak than last year – anything that keeps finance cheaper (or available!) for longer will be helpful.

    Breaking even and beyond

    So your provider had a surplus last year – that’s good right? It means it took in more money than it spent? Up to a point.

    In 2023–24 we got the very welcome news that Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) has been revalued and contributions reduced for both members and employers. From the annual accounts perspective, this will have lowered staff costs (very often one of the most significant costs, if not the most significant cost, for most) in USS institutions. Conversely, the increase in Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS) contributions will have substantially raised costs in institutions required by law (yes, really!) to offer that scheme to staff.

    That’s some of the movement in staff costs. However, for USS, the value of future contributions to the current calculated scheme debt (which is shared among all active employers in the scheme) has also fallen. Indeed, as the scheme is currently in surplus, it shows as income rather than expenditure This is not money that the university actually has available to spend, but the drop shows out in staff costs – though most affected separate this out into a separate line it also shows up in the overall surplus or deficit (to be clear this is the accounting rules, there’s no subterfuge here: if you are interested in why I can only point you to BUFDG’s magisterial “Accounting for Pensions” guidelines).

    For this reason, many USS providers show a much healthier balance than accurately reflects a surplus they can actually spend or invest. This gives them the appearance of having performed as a group much better than TPS institutions, where the increase in contributions has made it more expensive to employ staff.

    Here I show the level of reported surplus(deficit) after tax, both with and without the USS valuation effect. Removing the impact of valuation puts 35 providers (including big names like Hull, Birmingham, and York) in deficit based on financial statements published so far.

    [Full screen]

    And here I show underlying changes in staff costs (without the USS valuation effect). This is the raw spend on employing staff, including pay and pensions contributions. A drop could indicate that economies have been sought – employing fewer staff, employing different (cheaper) staff, or changes in terms and conditions. But it also indicates underlying changes in TPS contributions (up) or USS contributions (down) with respect to current employees on those schemes.

    [Full screen]

    Charts updated 11am 27 January to remove a handful of discrepancies.

    Fee income

    For most universities the main outgoing is staff costs, and the main source of income is tuition fees. Much has been made of the dwindling spending power of home undergraduate fees because of a failure to uprate with inflation, but this line in the accounts also includes unregulated fees – most notably international fees and postgraduate fees. The full name of the line in the accounts is “tuition fees and educational contracts”, so if your provider does a lot of bespoke work for employers this will also show up here.

    Both of these areas of provision have seen significant expansion in many providers over recent years – and the signs are that 2023–24 was another data point aligned with this trend for postgraduate provision. For this reason, the total amount of fee income has risen in a lot of cases, and when we get provider level UCAS data shortly it will make it clear that just how much of this is due to unregulated fees. International fees are another matter, and again we need the UCAS end of cycle data to unpick it, but it appears from visa applications and acceptances that from some countries (China, for example) demand has remained stable, while for others (Nigeria, India) demand has fallen.

    Here I show fee income for the past two years, and the difference. This is total fee income, and does not discriminate between types of fees.

    [Full screen]

    One very important thing to bear in mind is that these are figures for the financial year, and represent fees relating to that year rather than the total amount of fees per student enrolled. For example, if a student started in January (an increasingly common start point for some courses at some institutions) you will only see the proportion of fees that had been paid by 31 July shown in the accounts. If you teach a lot of nursing students who start at non-traditional times of the year this will have a notable impact, as will a failure to recruit as many international students as you had hoped to do in January 2024 (though this will also show up in next year’s accounts).

    And it is also worth bearing in mind that income from fees paid with respect to students registered at the provider but studying somewhere else via an academic partnership, or involved in a franchise arrangement (something that has seen a lot of growth in some providers) shows up in this budget line.

    Other movements

    Quite a number of providers have drawn down investments or made use of unrestricted reserves. This is very much as you would expect, these are very much “rainy day” provisions and even if it is not actually raining now the storm clouds are gathering. Using money like this is a big step though – you can only spend it once, and the decision to spend it needs to link to plans not to need to spend it in the near future. So even if your balance looks healthy, a shift like this speaks eloquently of the kinds of cost-saving measures (up to and including course closures and staff redundancy) that you may currently see happening around you.

    Similarly, a provider may choose to sell assets – usually buildings – that it does not have an immediate or future use for. The costs of running and maintaining a building can quickly add up – a decision to sell releases the capital and can also cut running costs. Other providers choose to hang on to buildings (perhaps as assets that can be sold in future) but drastically cut maintenance and running costs for this reason. Again, you can (of course) only sell a building once, and a longer term maintenance pause can make it very expensive to put your estates back into use. I should note that the overall condition of university estates is not great and is declining (as you can read in the AUDE Estates Management Report) , precisely because providers have already started doing stuff like this. If the heating seems to be struggling, if the window doesn’t open, that’s why.

    In some cases we have seen decisions to pause capital programmes – not borrowing money and not building buildings as was previously planned. Here, the university makes an on-paper saving equivalent to the cost of finance if it was going to borrow money, or frees up reserves for other uses if it was using its own funds. Capital programmes don’t just include buildings – perhaps investment in software (the kind of big enterprise systems that make it possible to run your university) has been paused, and you are left struggling with outdated or unsuitable finance, admissions, or student record systems.

    Where we are talking about pausing building programmes it is important to remember that these exist to facilitate expansion or strategic plans for growth. The “shiny new building” is often perceived as a vice chancellor’s vanity project – in reality that new business school and the recruitment it makes possible may represent the university’s best hope of growing home fee income faster than inflation.

    What’s next?

    We see financial information substantially after the financial year ends – and for most larger providers this comes alongside the submission of an annual financial return to their regulator. We know for instance that the Office for Students is now looking at ways of getting in year data in areas where it has significant concerns, but financial data (by dint of it being checked carefully and audited) is generally historic in nature.

    For this reason what is happening on your campus right now is something that only your finance department has any hope of understanding, and there may be unexpected pressures currently driving strategy that are not shown (or even hinted at) in last years’ accounts. Your colleagues in finance and planning teams are working hard to forecast the end of year result, to calculate the KFIs (Key Financial Indicators) that others rely on, and to plan for the issues that could arise in the 2025 audit. The finance business partners or faculty accountants – or whatever name they have where you work – will be gathering information, exploring and explaining scenarios, and anticipating pressures that may require a change in financial strategy.

    The data I have presented here is drawn from published accounts – the data submitted to regulators that eventually ends up on HESA may be modified and resubmitted as understanding and situations change – for this reason come the early summer figures might look very different than what are presented here (I should also add I have transcribed these by hand – for which service you should absolutely buy me a pint) – so although I have done my best I may have made transcription errors which I will gladly and speedily correct.

    However scary your university accounts may be, I would caution that the next set (2024–25 financial year) will be even more scary. The point at which the home undergraduate fee increase in England kicks in for those eligible to charge it (2025–26) feels a long way off, and we have the rise in National Insurance Contributions (due April 2025) to contend with before then.

    There are a small but significant number of large providers looking at an unplanned deficit for 2024–25, as you might expect they will already be in contact with their regulator and their bank. Stay safe out there.

    If you are interested in institutional finances, I must insist that you read the superb BUFDG publication “Understanding University Finance” – it is both the most readable and the most comprehensive explanation of annual university accounts you will find.

    Source link

  • Books reviewed in 2024

    Books reviewed in 2024

    Mostly, I’m interested in what books you read in 2024.

    Let me know if there is any overlap between the books I reviewed and what you read.

    Here are the books I wrote about in 2024:

    ‘Never Enough’ and the Roots of Our College Student Mental Health Crisis: Can universities be a counterweight to a toxic achievement culture?

    Failure, Academic Careers and ‘Right Kind of Wrong’: Care to share your career failures with our Inside Higher Ed community?

    The cover of Right Kind of Wrong by Amy Edmondson

    The Ed-Tech ‘Blood in the Machine’: Can the 19th-century Luddite movement help us think about the corporate digitization of education?

    The cover of Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant

    An Imagined ‘Economics in America’ Dinner Conversation on Inequality in Higher Education: What I’d ask Sir Angus Deaton.

    The cover of Economics in America by Angus Deaton

    Universities and the ‘Material World’: What is higher education made of?

    The cover of Material World by Ed Conway

    Scaled Online Learning as Higher Ed’s ‘Pandora’s Box’: And other imperfect academic equivalencies inspired by a fantastic book on the history of prestige TV.

    The cover of the book Pandora’s Box by Peter Biskind.

    Is ‘Filterworld’ Coming for Higher Ed? On algorithms and educators.

    The cover of Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka

    Campuses, Climate Change and ‘How Infrastructure Works’:
    Understanding how the infrastructural systems that enable our campuses to run are dependent on stable climate.

    The cover of How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World by Deb Chachra

    Reading ‘On the Move’ and Thinking Mostly About Climate Change:
    Another excellent book to place in conversation with Universities on Fire.

     Cover of “On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America” by Abrahm Lustgarten

    ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’ and the Adaptable Campus: Climate change and higher education’s built environment.

    Cover of “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming” by David Wallace-Wells

    Higher Ed and ‘Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm’: Climate change and the eight most interesting colleges and universities in the U.S.

    Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm by Susan Crawford book cover

    ‘The Displacements’ and the Need for a Climate Change Academic Novel: A call to combine climate and campus fiction.

    Cover of The Displacements, a novel by Bruce Holsinger

    ‘The English Experience’ Rounds Out the ‘Dear Committee’ Trilogy:
    Wondering how this novel, which is in part about teaching students to write, might have been different if written after the release of ChatGPT.

    Cover of The English Experience: A Novel by Julie Schumacher

    ‘Supercommunicators’ and the Challenges of Hybrid Professional Academic Work: Why hybrid university work is better but feels worse, and where learning to be better digital communicators may help.

    Cover of "Supercommunicators" by Charles Duhigg

    Why Universities Need to Decarbonize ‘Five Times Faster’: Higher education and the economics of climate change.

    Cover of Five Times Faster by Simon Sharpe

    The Election, ‘Our Final Warning’ and Us: Where Universities on Fire meets Six Degrees of Climate Emergency.

    Cover of Our Final Warning by Mark Lynas

    ‘How the World Ran Out of Everything’ and ‘Recentering Learning’: Economic and higher education lessons from the pandemic.

    The cover of How the World Ran Out of Everything by Peter Goodman

    University Culture and ‘The Geek Way’: What higher ed should absorb and reject from tech culture.

    Cover of The Geek Way by Andrew McAfee

    Introducing ‘Recentering Learning’: The sections, chapter titles and authors from our new co-edited book.

    The cover of Recentering Learning

    Source link

  • ALP 2023: Another Successful Association Leadership Program Is in the Books – CUPA-HR

    ALP 2023: Another Successful Association Leadership Program Is in the Books – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | July 26, 2023

    This blog post was contributed by Jennifer Addleman, member of CUPA-HR’s Southern Region board of directors and HR director at Rollins College.

    And that’s a wrap on CUPA-HR’s 2023 Association Leadership Program (ALP) in Omaha, Nebraska! On July 13-14, leaders from CUPA-HR’s national, regional and chapter boards, as well as CUPA-HR’s corporate partners, gathered to discuss higher ed HR challenges, share successes, make connections and build relationships. I was fortunate to attend as a representative from the Southern Region board, and my mind is still reeling from two full days of content and networking with talented HR leaders from across the country. Here are some of my takeaways:

    • Lead with positivity, start with a win, and end with gratitude.
    • So much is happening on the regulatory and legislative front that will affect higher ed and the labor and employment landscape, and CUPA-HR is serving as the voice of higher ed on these issues with lawmakers.
    • The CUPA-HR Knowledge Center continues to be a go-to resource for all things higher ed HR. In addition to HR toolkits that are constantly being updated or added, you’ll also find DEI resources, e-learning courses, a job description index, CUPA-HR’s Higher Ed HR Magazine and more. If you haven’t checked out the Knowledge Center lately, I encourage you to do so!
    • We in higher ed HR are doing important work — what we do matters, and we are impacting lives.
    • CUPA-HR continues to do valuable work in data collection and research — our data is the platinum standard! Learn more about CUPA-HR’s research in the Research Center (find the link in the menu on the CUPA-HR home page).
    • We must continue to make mental health a priority. As HR practitioners, we often prioritize taking care of others, but we should not be ashamed to take care of ourselves first! Find resources in the Mental Health and Health and Well-Being Knowledge Center toolkits.
    • You can walk to Iowa from Omaha! Who knew!

    Sharing some quality time with higher ed HR peers from across the country, commiserating about and discussing strategies to overcome our biggest challenges, and meeting new people and making new connections is what CUPA-HR’s Association Leadership Program is all about. If you’re considering exploring volunteer leadership opportunities within the association, do it! You won’t regret it — in fact, you’re guaranteed to learn and grow, and have a great time doing it!



    Source link