The side of desire
/When there’s a muddled message, you don’t err on the side of safety. You err on the side of desire. -Maria Konnikova, quoted in The Atlantic
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Articles of interest about higher ed - Nov 23
/***THE VIRUS
Puzzling, often debilitating after-effects plaguing COVID-19 "long-haulers"
COVID Symptoms Usually Appear in This Order, Study Finds
Nurses, doctors use social media to plead for public to take COVID-19 seriously as cases surge
***HIGHER ED & THE VIRUS
Coronavirus cases on college campuses spike, linked to parties
Contact Tracers Are On Front Lines Of Fight Against COVID-19 On Campus
Many colleges are now announcing new shifts to online learning
***THE VIRUS AT SPECIFIC SCHOOLS
University of Alabama considers requiring all staff, students to return to campus in January
Innovative coronavirus testing let Duke keep its doors open
University of Wyoming to move classes online starting Monday
Columbia University bans 70 students for Covid-19 travel violations
As coronavirus cases surge, Cal Poly students head home
***LAYOFFS & FURLOUGHS
Layoffs could continue during second phase of cuts, George Washington University officials say
New Mexico State University delivers update on budgeting and potential employee cuts
Marquette University employees protest potential layoffs amid COVID-19 pandemic
The lowest-paid workers in higher education are suffering the highest job losses ($)
University job losses mirror pain of unequal recession ($)
***COLLEGE FINANCES
College Temporarily Suspends Employee Retirement Contributions
Virginia Tech loses $60 million as pandemic hits budget
Is College Worth It? Decoding New Approaches to Calculating ROI
Top USF faculty question budget cuts. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
***HIGHER ED & POLITICS
What Jill Biden’s Dissertation Reveals About Her Approach to Higher Education
Biden wants to scrap Betsy DeVos' rules on sexual assault in schools. It won't be easy.
Biden’s Education Department Will Move Fast to Reverse Betsy DeVos’s Policies
***HIGHER ED
Many colleges and universities not returning to class after Thanksgiving
University of Arizona plans to acquire Ashford University moves forward
***HUMANITIES
Humanities tell us we were made for times like these
***TEACHING
Homework Is Bad, Research Confirms
***ONLINE CHEATING
Colleges Say They Don’t Need Exam Surveillance Tools to Stop Cheating
How Do I Deal With Cheating in the Age of Zoom? ($)
Students Have To Jump Through Absurd Hoops To Use Exam Monitoring Software
Students rebel over remote test monitoring during the pandemic ($)
Student surveillance and online proctoring
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Academic Senate Votes to Censure Eugenics Professor at California State University, East Bay
Faculty pandemic stress is now chronic
Virginia professor resigns after Facebook post calls Biden supporters 'anti-Christian'
Dear Professor, how honest are you?
***ADMINISTRATORS
Larry Dietz to retire as Illinois State University president in June
Deep Budget and Program Cuts Roil Guilford
State college board announces new president for Jackson State University
TCC Provost Madeline Pumariega named president of Miami
***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to take up Gordon College discrimination suit
Fewer International Students at Christian Colleges
What Poetry Taught Wheaton’s New Provost About Leadership
Facebook post by Virginia Wesleyan dean asks Biden voters to “unfriend” him, causes an uproar at university
Developer shows plans for Moody Bible property
336 quarantine at Indiana Wesleyan
Following end of federal oversight, a Catholic University will no longer recognize faculty union
Surfing course at Point Loma Nazarene University
***RESEARCH
Biomedical observations are often misrepresented in the scientific literature
The expert crowd review solution
Only 24% of the 266 Carnegie R1 and R2 Universities had publicly available authorship policies
Researcher photoshops his name onto a Nature Communications paper
Journals flag concerns in three dozen papers by nutrition researchers
Pharmaceutical advertising biases media reports on drug safety
Author blames “multitasking dementia” for duplicated cancer paper
***STUDENT LIFE
Report: Student Satisfaction Down, but They Still Plan to Enroll
Harvard graduate students demand a ban on Trump officials, Then the pushback began
Many college students adhere to COVID rules, but some are 'reckless' and 'irresponsible'
College kids are going hungry — states can help
Academics, video game makers team up in rare collaboration
***STUDENTS & THANKSGIVING
College students urged not to travel home for Thanksgiving amid COVID-19
How Can My College Student Come Home Safely for Thanksgiving?
Indiana officials emphasize caution for students headed home
***STUDENT APPLICATIONS
College applicants are down, especially among low-income students, Common App says
Pandemic pushes steep drop in foreign college students
***FREE SPEECH
GOP student group's tweets don't violate university policy, Iowa State says
Why Charges Against Protesters Are Being Dismissed by the Thousand
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
LSU mishandled sexual misconduct complaints against students, including top athletes
***RACIAL ISSUES ON CAMPUS
A Maryland college honors the lives of enslaved people
California State University faculty, administrators remain at odds over ethnic studies requirement
Appeals Court Rules Harvard Can Use Race-Based ‘Tips’ During Admissions Process
UC Berkeley removed the names of 'racist' figures from two of its buildings
Alexandria turns Controversy into Opportunity by Teaching the history of Confederate Namesakes
Self-renewal & great conviction
/The self-renewing person is highly motivated. The walls that hem us in as we grow older forms channels of least resistance. If we stay in the channels, all is easy. To get out requires some extra drive, enthusiasm or energy.
Everyone has noted the abundant resources of energy that seem available to those who enjoy what they are doing or find meaning in what they are doing. Self-renewing people know that if they have no great conviction about what they are doing they had better find something that they can have great conviction about. All of us cannot spend all of our time pursuing or deepest convictions. But all of us, either in our careers or as part-time activities, should be doing something about which we care deeply.
John Gardner, Self-Renewal
Never too Late
/It is never too late to be what you might have been. -George Eliot (born Nov. 22, 1819)
Reframing
/Reframe the other side’s accusations as opportunities to talk about problems.
A cloud of Atoms
/If (my wife) 'is not,' then she never was. I mistook a cloud of atoms for a person. There aren't, and never were, any people. Death only reveals the vacuity that was always there. What we call the living are simply those who have not yet been unmasked. All equally bankrupt, but some not yet declared. But this must be nonsense; vacuity revealed to whom? Bankruptcy declared to whom? To other boxes of fireworks or clouds of atoms. I will never believe — more strictly I can't believe — that one set of physical events could be, or make, a mistake about other sets.
CS Lewis, A Grief Observed
The limits of reason
/Reason is not omni-competent.
Articles of interest about religion (and the virus) - Nov 19
/***THE VIRUS
Lockdowns could be avoided if 95% of people wore masks, says WHO
Covid-19 Expert: Americans Will Start Dying in ER Waiting Rooms
The Coronavirus Is Airborne Indoors. But We’re Still Scrubbing Surfaces. ($)
38 percent of Americans planning on having Thanksgiving dinner with 10 or more people
Coronavirus invades men’s reproductive organs, can affect their fertility
'Breakthrough finding' reveals why certain Covid-19 patients die
Is it safe to eat at outdoor restaurants with tents and barriers?
***RELIGION & THE VIRUS
Televangelist who blamed COVID-19 on premarital sex dies from virus
***RELIGION AND POLITICS
In 2018, Worldwide Government Restrictions on Religion Reach Highest Level in More Than a Decade
How Biden swung the religious vote
Family split over son’s support of Trump politics threatens Billy Graham’s legacy
Evangelicals in Midwest who ditched Trump cost him the election, early data suggests
Trump wins white evangelicals, Catholics split
Sekulow-run Christian charities steered $65M to the Trump lawyer and his family
***EVANGELICAL CHANGES
Why the Partisan Divide? The U.S. Is Becoming More Secular—and More Religious
Trump has changed the way evangelical Christians think about the apocalypse
The Evangelical Reckoning Begins ($)
Why Evangelicals Aren't What They Used to Be
Christian Conservatives Respond to Trump’s Loss and Look Ahead
***CATHOLIC
Sainted too soon? Vatican report fast John Paul II in harsh new light
Catholics divided as bishops examine Biden’s abortion stance
***MEGACHURCHES
US Megachurches Are Getting Bigger and Thinking Smaller
Bigger Than Its Pastor: What Hillsong's Post-Carl Lentz Future Looks Like
L.A. megachurch pastor mocks pandemic health orders, even as church members fall ill
***RELIGION
Sony acquires faith-based streaming service
Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, as E-mailed by Your Passive-Aggressive Co-Worker
When praise is a detriment to learning
/Certain kinds of verbal praise can be detrimental to learning. Young children who constantly hear “person” praise (“you’re so smart to do this well”) as opposed to “task” praise (“you did that well”) are more likely to believe that intelligence is fixed rather than expandable with hard work. When they subsequently face setbacks after receiving person praise, their views of intelligence can cause them to develop a sense of helplessness (“I’m not as smart as I once thought I was”).
When researchers asked these children to describe what made them feel smart, they talked about tasks they found easy, that required little effort, and they could do before anyone else without making mistakes. In contrast, their peers who they thought they got smarter by trying harder and learning new things said they felt intelligent when they didn’t understand something, tried really hard, and then go it, or figured out something new.
In other words, the children with the fixed view of intelligence and a sense of helplessness felt smart only when they avoided those activities most likely to help them learn – struggling, grappling, and making mistakes.
These children are likely to have “performance goals”. They want to achieve perfection or get the “right” answer to impress other people because they want to appear to be one of the “smart people”. They are afraid of making mistakes. They will often carefully calculate how much they need to achieve to win the proper praise and do no more than that, for fear that they might fail in the eyes of others. Some of these people do excel by some standards, but they still achieve primarily for the sake of that external recognition and fall short of where they might go.
In contrast, students who believe that they can become more intelligent by learning (a “mastery orientation’) often work essentially to increase their own competence (adopting “learning goals”), not to win rewards. They are more likely to take risks in learning, to try harder tasks, and consequently learn more than children who are performance-oriented.
Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do
Most Completely Alive
/It is when we are in transition that we are most completely alive. I have often asked groups of individuals that I am working with to introduce themselves, one to another, referring only to those things that are not changing in their lives.
The results is a soft murmur of voices talking about where they live and how many children they have and what kind of work they do. After everyone has had a few minutes of that, I ask them to reintroduce themselves to each other, speaking this time only of the things that are changing in their lives.
There is usually a moment of nervous laughter, then a little pause, then there is a wave of talk about the gains and losses that they are experiencing. Before a minute has passed, voices are rising and falling. Intonations are full of energy. There is laughter. Hands are moving in gesture.
Without fail, the second introduction is far more alive than the first—even though it is by what is not changing in our lives that we customarily define ourselves or are defined by the academics who want to describe us in terms of the categories we fall into.
If you asked the people who had done the two introductions, most of them would say that they are tied of things changing all the time and that they wish that their lives would settle down. Yet it is when they talk about all the changes that they are most animated and energized.
Actually, it is not the fact of being in transition that most people mind, but rather that they cannot place their experience of being in transition within any larger, meaningful context.
William Bridges, The Way of Transitions
When worry paralyzes
/Worry can literally paralyze us, sapping our energy and strength. People who worry are not merely concerned about their present and future circumstances; they have a mental agenda of the way things must occur. The worrier’s mind is so captivated by what ought or ought not to be, that he can only respond with duress and despair when situations displease him.
Les Carter, Imperative People: Those Who Must Be in Control
The real voyage of discovery
/The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
Articles of interest about journalism, fakes, frauds, and more - Nov 13
/***JOURNALISM
NY Governor Cuomo Signs Anti-SLAPP Law
Ruth Shalit just wrote for the Atlantic. Would readers know it from the byline?
The Brown Institute’s Local News Lab is developing “smart paywalls” for local newsrooms
The Atlantic makes a whopper of a correction to story
ESPN Confirms Future Shut Down of Esports Editorial Operations
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
About 500 people are taking buyouts at Gannett
Nearly 2,800 newspaper companies received paycheck protection loans, and most were under $150K
Gun-toting St. Louis couple sue news photographer over infamous image
***FAKES & FRAUDS
Inside the Bizarre Publishing Ring That Linked 5G to Coronavirus
Why the Hydroxychloroquine Myth Persists
Pre-bunkers have been found to be more effective than debunking
What’s the “greatest” scientific fraud of all time?
Fact-Checked on Facebook and Twitter, Conservatives Switch Their Apps
***ELECTION FRAUD
One America News spreads debunked elections claims
How claims of voter fraud were supercharged by bad science
The Times Called Officials in Every State: No Evidence of Voter Fraud
***QANON
House GOP leader defends newly elected members who have supported QAnon
The QAnon conspiracy theory faces an identity crisis
How QAnon uses satanic rhetoric to set up a narrative of ‘good vs. evil’
Judge: QAnon Conspiracy Theorists Can’t Force YouTube to Carry Their Videos
***FREE SPEECH
Supreme Court throws out First Amendment ruling against Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson
Trademarks and the First Amendment: Litigation Trends
***PRIVACY & SECURITY
Facial recognition used to arrest protestor at Trump bible photo op
FTC Reaches Settlement With Zoom Over Privacy, Security Issues
***LANGUAGE
Paranormal claims and other pseudoscience often bedevil the study of language
Oxford dictionaries change 'sexist' and outdated definitions of the word 'woman'
***LITERATURE
The Meaning of a College Literature Class — During a Pandemic and Always
Five famous doctors in literature
***POETRY
The Poem That Inspired Radical Black Women to Organize
The Poet’s Tree Serves Up Weekly Interviews, Performance, Activities
A poor self-image
/A poor self-image is not to be equated with humility or the mark of a servant. -Charles Swindoll
Angry Thoughts
/Problems of anger begin as seed thoughts of self-pity, discouragement, jealousy, or some other negative thought. One’s thought life is the key ingredient in behavioral and emotional control; therefore, thoughts prior to and during times of anger are important. Thoughts give emotional feelings prolonged existence and strength, and lend interpretation to vague emotions.
When anger feelings begin, people should “listen” to themselves think. Their minds are constantly making value judgments, decisions, and comparisons. Therefore, there always exists the opportunity to intercept anger by changing these thoughts.
Mark Cosgrove, Counseling for Anger
Articles of interest about higher ed - Nov 11
/***HIGHER ED & POLITICS
What Community Colleges Won and Lost on Nov. 3
With DeVos out, Biden plans series of reversals on education
Kamala Harris to be first vice president who graduated from HBCU
***HIGHER ED
The colleges with virtually no coronavirus cases
***LAYOFFS & FURLOUGHS
Faculty, administration clash at Misericordia University over tenure and layoffs
Colleges Have Shed a Tenth of Their Employees Since the Pandemic Began ($)
Major Cuts Ahead For Guilford College Faculty
Turmoil Marquette planned cuts
**PROGRAMS CUT
Doane’s Board of Trustees approved budget cuts that could eliminate 18 academic programs
Clemson to discontinue men’s track and field and cross country program
Western Michigan University to consider ending Cooley Law School affiliation
***COLLEGE FINANCES
Nearly All States Suffer Declines in Education Jobs
Authors discuss recent book 'Runaway College Costs'
Employers boosting programs that cover tuition amid pandemic
***EDUCATION IN COURT
Professor claims Brooklyn College unfairly gave him the boot
Suit accuses Lycoming College of tolerating sexual misconduct of female students
Appeals Court Rules Against University of Texas in Free Speech Lawsuit
Supreme Court ruling: Dayton shooter school records will not be released
***HUMANITIES
Can These Colleges Be Saved? Whither the small liberal arts college?
Survey on American Attitudes on the Humanities
***ONLINE CHEATING
Problems using the Canvas Activity Log to catch cheating
Online cheating surges during the pandemic; universities struggle to find a solution ($)
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Professors fight Face-to-Face Teaching Mandates
The Pandemic Is Dragging On. Professors Are Burning Out ($)
Doane accused of making false copyright complaint against faculty website
***ADMINISTRATORS
U of West Georgia faculty: No-confidence vote in president
Belmont University President to retire after two decades at the helm
***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
Many Christian university are trying to look cheaper than they really are
Cornerstone University’s president to step down in 2021
Southwestern Baptist adjunct professor, wife, struck and killed by drag racer
Assumption University president ‘deeply’ regrets that language in document hurt LGBTQIA students
College Student, 20, Found Dead in Dorm Room at Christian college After Testing Positive to COVID-19
***LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
Liberty Moves Toward Separate President, Chancellor
Lynchburg judge unseals documents in Falwell defamation suit
John Piper’s Liberty Convocation Pulled After Election Post
***RESEARCH
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Scholarly Research Integrity
Improper publishing incentives in science put under microscope around the world
***STUDENT LIFE
The Big Question: Is a College Degree Still Worth It? ($)
Meet Covid-19’s Freshman Class
College applications slide, especially for low-income students
Nearly half of high school seniors haven't started applying to college, survey reveals
Analysis sheds first light on youth voting trends
***STUDENT MEDIA
The Enduring Relevance of College Radio
Covid Is the Big Story on Campus. College Reporters Have the Scoop ($)
Doane to cut budget of Doane Student Media
Reporting by High school journalism students takes down the head of Kentucky police
***ENROLLMENT
Cal State schools see enrollments surge during COVID-19 pandemic
Five of the 10 Church of Christ-affiliated universities have record enrollments this fall
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Advocates say updates to Stanford sexual misconduct policy don’t fix narrow scope
New Title IX Rules Regarding Rape Assailed by Alleged Victim
***RACIAL ISSUES ON CAMPUS
Student’s racist video sparks First Amendment controversy at FAU
Texas band won't play at final 2 home games amid dispute over spirit song tied to minstrel shows