Okay, here’s a lesson we all need to hear. As so many things that pop into this column, I borrowed it from someone else, this time from a bright and imaginative person who teaches at Duke in Durham, N. C. and surprised me just about totally. Duke is heads over heels into the woke frame […]
January 29, 2018
Not too long ago the University held a “Harbor Training” workshop for faculty, staff, and graduate students to “have an opportunity to develop their knowledge of resources available to victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking in a Harbor training session available through the Women’s Resource Center.” That’s good. Furthermore, the flyer said the […]
September 14, 2017
There is a war on these days between the intellectual world and the rest of us. Who are intellectuals? Basically, it is those who embrace and esteem the world of the mind higher than the common world most of us inhabit. Merriam-Webster defines intellectual as someone chiefly guided by the intellect rather than emotion or […]
February 11, 2017
Well, if you know me a bit, you’ll think the old history prof is sounding off. “You gotta take history or you’ll be an ignoramus, or worse.” Maybe a politician I’m thinking, but not saying it. But I want to take up a larger issue, although I admit a partiality to history. It has been […]
February 11, 2017
“Old fashioned” and “useless” I thought could be me and my cohort of pre-boomers (those born before 1946) on our way into retirement homes and given to just doddering around the garden watering the petunias. Writing cursive, or “long hand” as we used to say, is, I quickly discovered from a short search on the […]
November 29, 2016
Here I go again, into No Man’s Land. I am of course not literally stepping out into No Man’s Land, but I will no doubt offend a few readers. So here goes. The following invitation to a webinar (google it if you are interested) arrived in my email inbox last week. Invitation: “Retention through Response: […]
September 4, 2016
The impact of education in this country is huge. And well it should be. It is through education that we bring our children into the world of adults with the values and knowledge and opportunities we want them to have. We all have a stake in education, from K-12 through college and beyond to graduate […]
April 10, 2016
Not too long ago I was listening to a conversation behind me that I wasn’t particularly interested in. But the volume and the proximity of the older lady and the young man was such that I couldn’t help but hear it. The service in Church had not yet begun and people were wandering in and […]
November 1, 2015
In last week’s column I lamented the state of knowledge in the country. I promised to propose a fix. This is it. We need to reexamine closely the values and ethics which gave this country its distinctive character. And then, before the collective memory of those attributes fades away into some corner of our memory, […]
October 24, 2015
As I prepared to submit my midterm grades on a course I am teaching online this semester, I tried to remember back when I was eighteen or nineteen and also in college. Was I treated like we treat students today? We handfeed them, pamper them, watch over them like the proverbial soccer moms, make things […]
July 27, 2021
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