In light of the shooting in Charleston, it didn’t feel right just going back to talking about higher education issues or how to write more productively. Instead, I’m going to take a page from Jon Stewart’s book and share his monologue on the Charleston shooting.
“I didn’t do my job today, so I apologize. I got nothing for you, in terms of jokes and sounds, because of what happened in South Carolina.
After the conclusion of each semester, I always eagerly await my student course evaluations. I know many faculty that dislike student evaluations. I share the concerns about the overweighted importance that evaluations can sometimes hold over an instructor’s career. However, I also appreciate hearing from my students and trying to improve. In today’s post, I will share how to read student course evaluations to reflect upon and improve your teaching.
Student course evaluations may be like the oft-quoted Winston Churchill line, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried.”
I firmly believe that if you follow the five steps I describe below that you will find student course evaluations productive and useful for improving future classes.
One of the joys and curses of academic writing is that we can always do better. Writing is a skill that can be continually improved. Before I begin any writing project, I identify a model that I use as a guide for how to structure my article, chapter, or book. I find this to be a tremendous help in thinking about my project and provides me a concrete targets to shoot for when writing. In today’s post, I will share how to use a model to write better journal articles and improve your success at academic publishing.
Model articles can offer important tips such as how long various sections should be or how to craft the implications for your study.
At first glance, Wisconsin and North Carolina do not seem to have much in common. Brats vs. Barbecue. Football vs. Basketball. Cheeseheads vs. Tar Heels. North Carolina has 4 million more people than Wisconsin. North Carolina gets an average of 5 inches of snow per year. Wisconsin gets that much in November alone. Despite the differences between the states, they both have had one thing in common that has led substantially to the success of both both states: a great university system. Sadly, they also have something else in common these days: political leaders seemingly hellbent on destroying their great university systems. When reviewing the higher education policies in these states, you can easily see that both serve as a recipe to destroy a great public higher education system.
As much as (if not more than) nearly any public university system in the country, the University of North Carolina and the University of Wisconsin lifted their states socially and economically. Both are known for world class research and offering high quality education to their state’s population.
Moreover, both university systems have a long history of service to the state eschewing the Ivory Tower trend.
Simply put, UNC and UW have been models for a great public higher education system for generations.
The NCAA has issued the formal Notice of Allegations (NOA) against the University of North Carolina related to the ongoing academic scandal at the institution. The allegations contain no major bombshells or smoking guns. Rather, the facts related to the case have been fairly well known for a while now. However, there is a point that has been lost in much of the blame, finger pointing, public relations maneuvering, and the thousands of words written about this issue. This point was clear in the NOA and must be acknowledged by all parties: UNC faculty lost institutional control of the academic integrity of the university.
I have written before about my belief that the scandal was the substantially a governance failing. I’ve also said that I don’t care about athletics or athletic penalties- I want to repair and restore the academic integrity of the university.
