Technology and Higher Ed

"Anyone who has made it through the grind of the academic world, whether or not they survived, can (but might not) tell you that it's always imperative to not simply express themselves but to learn how and when to be silent, whether on matters pertaining to students and disciplinary actions, the question of Palestine, or the silently ominous ways in which departmental and programmatic rituals and appointments are decided upon. "

"In other words, economies today lack the spirit of innovation. Labour markets do not need only more technical expertise; they require an increasing number of soft skills, like the ability to think imaginatively, develop creative solutions to complex challenges and adapt to changing circumstances and new constraints."

"Teaching students to transfer their knowledge, say many faculty members and administrators, is also imperative in a world in which troves of information are a mouse-click away. If professors continue to see themselves as dispensers of content, they will have little of lasting value to offer. But if they can train students to transfer their knowledge, students will be endowed with a skill that can serve them long after they graduate."

"It seems to me that when pundits deride the humanities as irrelevant, it's because we aren't, and that poses a threat. Yes, studies in the humanities do raise uncomfortable questions, like when Susan Reverby, a women's studies professor at Wellesley, documented a series of horrific unethical medical experiments that the U.S. Government performed on Guatemalan prisoners in the 1940s. They do make you change your textbooks. They challenge firmly held beliefs about culture, and offer evidence to back it up. People who want humanities research to be "timeless" do not believe that it can or should be timely. They are wrong."

"What do employers really want from college grads? "