Looking for a great college to launch your life?

August 19, 2008

High school seniors should be firming up their choices for colleges to apply to in the next couple of months — early decision applications will be due in November for some schools.

Students looking for a great college should consider looking at one or more of the 40 outstanding small colleges and universities that have banded together in a group known as Colleges that Change Lives. Each is an outstanding institution that has a reputation for taking good kids and helping them transform into great people.

There are more than a dozen events planned around the nation where a score or more of the colleges will show up in one location to talk to high school students and their parents. You really should consider attending one of these events if one is close by.

We attended an event in Houston last year. Our younger son, James, eventually chose Lawrence University, a school he knew almost nothing about before that afternoon.  (It appears Lawrence recovered its sanity after recruiting me to play football back in, uh, a few years ago.  I didn’t attend Lawrence, and I’m greatly amused that my son will.)

Here, stolen directly from CTCL’s website, is the list of cities where events are scheduled this fall, and an interactive map. Clicking on the hot links will take you to CTCL’s site with details about the meet ups.

Colleges That Change Lives, 2008 events

LOCATION INDEX:
Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Boston, MA
Chicago, IL [2]
Columbus, OH
Denver, CO
Houston, TX
Indianapolis, IN
Kansas City, KS
Latin America
Los Angeles, CA
Minneapolis, MN
Nashville, TN
New York, NY [2]
Philadelphia, PA
Portland, OR
Raleigh-Durham, NC
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA [2]
Seattle, WA
St. Louis, MO
Tulsa, OK
Washington, D.C. [2]

7 Comments | College, Education quality, Education success, Family, Higher education, History, Life | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Beloit College Mindset list: No caller ID? No GPS?

August 19, 2008

Beloit College’s Mindset list is an annual event, now. The college puts together a list of things entering college freshman have never done without, trying to help faculty understand what freshman are thinking, and not thinking.

This year’s list, for the entering class of 2012, holds a few jolts for anyone over the age of 30. One last minute change was required, however, when Bret Favre left the Green Bay Packers for the New York Jets.

Here’s the list, and it continues below the fold:

Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.

  1. For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.
  2. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
  3. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
  4. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
  5. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
  6. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
  7. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
  8. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
  9. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.”
  10. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
  11. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
  12. All have had a relative — or known about a friend’s relative — who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
  13. As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”
  14. Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando.
  15. Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
  16. Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style.
  17. Haagen-Dazs ice cream has always come in quarts.
  18. Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.
  19. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
  20. Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
  21. The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | College, Education, History, Politics, Science, Teaching, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Religion as science in Texas: Graduate degrees in creationism?

December 14, 2007

The venerable missionary group known as the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) moved its headquarters from California to Dallas a few months ago. Anyone who follows science education in America is familiar with this group, who deny that the Earth can be more than a few thousands of years old, who argue that geology, astronomy, chemistry and biology are all based on faulty premises.

Dallas is a good location for a missionary agency that flies to churches around the U.S. to make pitches for money and preach the gospel of their cult. DFW Airport provides same-day flights to most of the U.S. Airlines are glad to have their business.

Years ago ICR tried to get approval from the State of California to grant graduate degrees in science, because their brand of creationism is not taught in any research university, or any other institution with an ethics code that strives for good information and well-educated graduates. ICR got permission only after setting up their own accrediting organization which winks, blinks and turns a blind eye to what actually goes on in science courses taught there. It is unclear if anyone has kept count, but there appear to be a few people with advanced degrees in science from this group, perhaps teaching in the public schools, or in charter schools, or in odd parochial settings.

With a new home in Texas, ICR needs permission of Texas authorities to grant graduate degrees. Texas Observer reported that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board put off consideration of the issue until their meeting of January 24 (no action was planned for this meeting, so failure to grant this authority to ICR should not be taken as any sign that the board is opposed to granting it).

Humor aside, this is a major assault on the integrity of education in Texas. For example, here is a statement on college quality from the Higher Education Coordinating Board; do you think ICR’s program contributes in any way, or detracts from these goals?

Enrolling and graduating hundreds of thousands more students is a step in the right direction. But getting a degree in a poor quality program will not give people the competitive edge they need in today’s world economy. Academic rigor and excellence are essential – both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. We also need to attract and support more research in the state for the academic and economic benefits it provides.

Check out the Texas Observer‘s longer post on the issue, and since comments are not enabled there, how about stating here your views on the issue? Comment away.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Texas Citizens for Science.

No, this is not a joke.  Here is the agenda for the meeting this week, in .pdf form.

20 Comments | College, Creationism, Education, Education quality, Ethics, Higher education, Rampant stupidity, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Why not treat kindergarteners like college students?

November 18, 2007

Vouchers in Utah have the wooden stake right in the heart. That’s one proposal in one state. More voucher proposals are promised, and the debate continues.

Voucher advocates generally make a plea that colleges have something akin to school vouchers with Pell Grants (Basic Education Opportunity Grants), Stafford Grants, the GI Bill and other federal programs, plus many state programs, which give money to a student to use at a college of the student’s choice.

Why won’t this work for kindergartners, 8th graders and 10th graders? the voucher advocates ask.

The short answer is that we regard college students as adults. Beyond that are several other differences between elementary schools and colleges that we should, perhaps, explore.

Texas Ed: Comments on Education from Texas has a couple of posts that provide some insights to the issues. In the first one, “We Have Vouchers for Higher Education,” the question is raised about why not let elementary students operate like veterans, and take their government money where they choose to.

In the second, “Vouchers Are About Choice, Not Quality,” we get a glimpse of real life — parents fighting to keep open their neighborhood school, despite there being better performing schools available to take their kids.

We might want to compare systems, at least briefly.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | College, Education quality, Education reform, Teacher Pay, Teaching, Technology, Tenure | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Creationist upwelling in Iowa creates muddy water

September 26, 2007

The Des Moines Register followed up on the story of the community college professor who said he was fired for teaching the Bible as literature, and not as religion, in a class on western civilization.

I still think the fired teacher, Steve Bitterman, could have a contract claim against the school.  But the article points out that adjunct faculty often do live in a sort of “adjunct hell,” in which they have few rights, but lots of obligations, all at something less than half-pay.

But that’s not news.

Leave a Comment » | Academic freedom, College, Creationism, Religion, Teaching | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

UC-Irvine, Chemerinsky patch it up

September 18, 2007

Erwin Chemerinsky has agreed, again, to take the post of dean at the new law school at the University of California at Irvine.

Leaping off a bit from what Brian Leiter said earlier, that deans really don’t have any academic freedom of their own, we should note that being dean occupies more than every waking moment of a person’s life.  There are few who can do the dean’s job and continue their previous scholarship output at the same high level.  Anyone who might have been concerned about Chemerinsky’s politics can take some solace in the fact that he will certainly have to cut back on his studies and writing at least a little, in order to do his duties.

UC-Irvine’s school will open with very high expectations.  If Chemerinsky does half the job as dean that he is capable of doing, the entering class will carry with it some jealousy, or at least some wistfulness, from a lot of attorneys who will wish they could have had the experience.

If egos as big as those involved in this affair can shake hands and patch over a serious disagreement, there is hope for mankind.

Leave a Comment » | Academic freedom, College, Law, Leadership, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

UC Irvine works to rehire Chemerinsky; OC Republicans make trouble

September 15, 2007

If you can figure some way to interpret this story in the LA Times as other than the Orange County Republicans don’t want a good, powerful dean of the UC-Irvine law school, let me know in comments. (This is a follow-up of my earlier post.)

This is one more case of Republicans working hard to keep education from being first rate, out of misplaced fear of what well-educated people can do. Uneducated peasants don’t contradict the priests, Jefferson and Madison observed. The OC Republicans know that.

Constitutional law is a good thing, they seem to be saying, so long as it never works to protect the poor, people accused or convicted of criminals, or citizens injured by corporations.

It’s an interesting barrel Chemerinsky has them over; much of the commentary, even among conservatives opposed to Chemerinsky’s views, has it that UC-Irvine will be unable to attract a first-rate dean, and a first-rate faculty, now that this ugly politics cat is out of the bag. If they cannot strike a deal with Chemerinsky to be rehired, they are in real trouble.

Let me say that I don’t put a lot of credence in the claims that pressure from outsiders is a strong motivating force in this crash.  Having worked for both Democrats and Republicans, I’ve seen this too often, and it has all the symptoms of big donor demands to take back a perfectly rational decision for unholy political purposes.  My experience, mostly from the Republican side, is that this is almost exclusively a Republican phenomenon, that big donors expect public institutions to which they donate to dance to their fiddlers.  (There are exceptions, of course.  But let me say:  Ray Donovan.)

Maybe he can negotiate to require the Republican politicians who oppose his hiring to attend a 1st year Constitutional law class that Chemerinsky would teach, and they would have to do it for a grade that will be published. That would be a huge win all the way around, I think:  Chemerinsky gets the job, UC-Irvine gets a the fast-track to high quality legal education, Republicans get a chance to know and understand Chemerinsky in the classroom, and some much needed education about the Constitution sinks into the Republicans.

Dream big, I always say.

Other sources:

Leave a Comment » | Academic freedom, Bill of Rights, College, Education, Education quality, Graduate study, Teacher Pay, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Academic freedom: No liberals need apply?

September 13, 2007

(No, this isn’t a proper academic freedom issue; disgraceful, but not an issue of viewpoint suppression. Conservatives who claim such things when the shoe is on the right foot still won’t complain, though, I’ll bet.)

The University of California at Irvine is in the process of setting up a new law school. They had asked distinguished law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke to be dean, and he’d agreed.

Then, abruptly, UC-Irvine asked to cancel the contract — conservatives opposed Chemerinsky, according to one claim.

Sources and commentary:

(Waiting for conservatives who complained about breaches of academic freedom for conservatives to explain the injustice . . . still waiting . . . still waiting . . .)
Not waiting any more. Instapundit links to a bunch of conservatives who have sprung to Chemerinsky’s defense. Great news that they’d do it at all!

6 Comments | Academic freedom, Accuracy, College, Education, Law, Leadership, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Pushing them out of the nest

August 29, 2007

It’s been an interesting last few days. Saturday we drove to Austin to catch a session with a group called Colleges That Change Lives (CTCL), as younger son James is looking hard to find a good college fit for next fall. Sunday, Troop 355 honored its fifth Eagle this year (one of the five being James), and then we attended the ordination of a friend from our congregation, a recent graduate from Brite Divinity at TCU.

School started yesterday across Texas.

This afternoon older son Kenny popped in for a quick laundry run and to pick up some items he needs for the start of his third year at UT-Dallas.

So much change, all the time.

Over at Musings of a Dinosaur, a touching piece about sending the young ones off to college, in contrast to our own college trips 30 or so years ago.  Teachers have more to send off to college, more often.  Either that’s what ages us, or it’s what keeps us young.

6 Comments | College, Education, Family, First day, History, Life | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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