New Books in Higher Education

In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering our Cities (Bold Type Books, 2021) by Dr. Davarian Baldwin examines the political economy of the American university over the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries. He brings a Black Studies lens to interrogate the ways that universities hide behind the notion of administering public goods to protect their tax-exempt status while...

We are delighted to present All for One and One for All: Public Seminar Series on Mental Health in Academia and Society. All for One and One for All talks will shine the light on and discuss mental health issues in academia across all levels – from students to faculty, as well as in wider society. Seminars are held online once per month on Wednesdays at 5pm CEST/ 11am EST and free for all to atten...

In Humanist Reason: A History, an Argument, a Plan (Columbia UP, 2021), Eric Hayot develops the concept of “humanist reason” to understand the nature and purpose of humanist intellectual work and lays out a serious of principles that undergird this core idea. Rather than appealing to familiar ethical or moral rationales for the importance of the humanities, Humanist Reason lays out a new vision th...

With radical changes being engineered in society, education systems everywhere need to match up. As part of our podcast, Humanities Matter, the all-new series, Quality Education, looks at ways to improve these systems. Higher education has traditionally been viewed as a privilege affordable to only specific strata of society, mainly higher income groups. However, this trend is now changing, with g...

Today I talked to Anne F. Harris. Anne wears two hats: she's a medieval art historian and president of Grinnell College. We talked about her new book Medieval Art 250-1450: Matter, Making, and Meaning (Oxford University Press, 2021), which she co-authored with Nancy M. Thompson. We also discussed the significance and relevance of Medieval art today, the transition from teaching to administration,...

We speak with Elizabeth Kiss about the design and launch of the very successful SUMMIT initiative that led Agnes Scott College to be recognized as “the most innovative liberal arts college” in the U.S. SUMMIT features four distinctive elements that are a part of every Agnes Scott undergrad’s education: a global immersive experience, leadership, a personal Board of Advisors, and a digital portfolio...

We are delighted to present All for One and One for All: Public Seminar Series on Mental Health in Academia and Society. All for One and One for All talks will shine the light on and discuss mental health issues in academia across all levels – from students to faculty, as well as in wider society. Seminars are held online once per month on Wednesdays at 5pm CEST/ 11am EST and free for all to atten...

Under Bill Carroll’s leadership, Benedictine University, in Lisle Illinois became the fastest growing university in the U.S. from 2000-12. Carroll describes how Benedictine was able to expand from 1400 to over 10,000 students and become one of the most diverse universities in the US by “adding multiple legs to the table”, with each leg being a new type of student served through a new program. Thes...

Father Steve Katsouros, founder and CEO of the Come To Believe Network, shares the inspirational story of the founding of Arrupe College at Loyola University Chicago which has been recognized as a national model for increasing the college graduation rates for low-income students of color. Arrupe operates as a two-year, liberal arts college within the University that has been able to quadruple the...

"How To Be Wrong" is a podcast series hosted by John J. Kaag, Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and John W. Traphagan, Professor of Religious Studies and in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas at Austin. The series explores mistakes, errors, and the importance of embracing intellectual humility in a world that seems...

President Botstein shares insights from his remarkable career which started as the youngest college president in the U.S. at just 23, when he joined the experimental Franconia College in New Hampshire and has continued through 46 years as the visionary leader of Bard College. He describes in detail 4 major innovations he has launched at Bard: 1) the Early College network in 7 cities across the U.S...

At the New Books Network, we love university presses. So we're happy to tell you about University Press Week, the annual celebration of UPs and their important work. Today I talked to Lisa Bayer, the director of the University of Georgia Press and the president of the Association of University Presses. We discuss a lot of things--open access, business models, libraries, peer review, careers in UP...

There is an epidemic of bad thinking in the world today. An alarming number of people are embracing crazy, even dangerous ideas. They believe that vaccinations cause autism. They reject the scientific consensus on climate change as a “hoax.” And they blame the spread of COVID-19 on the 5G network or a Chinese cabal. Worse, bad thinking drives bad acting—it even inspired a mob to storm the U.S. Cap...

In Part II of this interview, TCS Education Founder Michael Horowitz discusses the evolution of the TCS system from its origins in Chicago to a national system that now includes students from all 50 states pursuing a wide range of undergraduate and professional degrees. He provides multiple examples of the benefits of TCS’s model of “radical cooperation”, while also discussing why there have been...

Digital games for learning are now commonplace, used in settings that range from K–12 education to advanced medical training. In Making Games for Impact (MIT Press, 2021), Kurt Squire examines the ways that games make an impact on learning, investigating how designers and developers incorporate authentic social impact goals, build a team, and work with experts in order to make games that are effec...

This episode feature an interview with Michael Alexander, one of the most innovative small university presidents in the U.S. He discusses a number of the innovations during his 15-year tenure at Lasell University located in the suburbs of Boston, MA: Lasell Village, a very successful retirement community where residents sign up to be full-time students for the rest of their lives, Lasell Works and...

Jean Hopman’s book Surviving Emotional Work for Teachers: Improving Wellbeing and Professional Learning Through Reflexive Practice (Routledge, 2020), is a guide to improving teachers' wellbeing and practice through support of their emotional workload. The book argues that teachers should be given a formal opportunity to debrief on challenging events, allowing them to reflect on and reframe these e...

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: Dr. Liz Faber’s long road from completed PhD to dream job Why academia said she was a failure The financial reasons she worked two academic jobs at once The importance of speaking out about pay-scale and departmental inequities Putting kindness in the classroom Why you have to define your own success Our guest is: Dr. Liz W Faber, an...

In this episode, Daniel Peris, the host of the “Keep Calm and Carry On Investing” podcast, and David Finegold have a wide-ranging discussion of economics and governance questions inherent in K-12 and higher education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Book workshops produce great books, but too few scholars have access to the resources needed to organize and execute one, especially scholars at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Asian American and Pacific Islander Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities. The 2021 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting in Seattle, launche...

Listen to this interview of Elena Cotos, Director of the Center for Communication Excellence at the Graduate College (Iowa State University) and also Associate Professor in the English Department (Iowa State University). We talk about the needs of both students and faculty for training in scholarly communication, and we talk about one excellent way that those needs are being met, the Center for Co...

Michael Horowitz discusses the origins and evolution of The Cooperative Solution (TCS) Education System, which was created in 2009 as a spinout from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. TCS is one of the only private, non-profit systems of separately accredited schools and colleges in the U.S., with each of the 6 members focusing on different educational niches, while benefitting from ce...

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: Why White professors need to teach about race and racism in their courses The gap between “inside” and “outside” knowledge How to effectively provide data in an atmosphere of strong emotions Why having debates and discussing misinformation won’t work The reasons students resist learning about race and racism How to meet students wher...

In Complaint! (Duke UP, 2021), Sara Ahmed examines what we can learn about power from those who complain about abuses of power. Drawing on oral and written testimonies from academics and students who have made complaints about harassment, bullying, and unequal working conditions at universities, Ahmed explores the gap between what is supposed to happen when complaints are made and what actually ha...

Judy McLaughlin has helped prepare over 1000 college and university presidents to take on the varied responsibilities of their role since founding the Harvard Seminar for New Presidents in 1990. The Seminar was based on over a decade of research she and her colleagues conducted on the presidential search process, and the need they identified to provide a safe, confidential space for these leaders...