The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they'd already solved. They're open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking. -Jeff Bezos

December 13, 2020

From gang member to Missouri teacher of the year

December 13, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

#GOODNEWS

December 12, 2020

The Texas School For The Deaf’s Football Team Wins State Championship For 1st Time

December 12, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

#GOODNEWS

December 12, 2020

Acting your age

December 12, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

The older you get, the more important it is not to act your age. -Ashleigh Brilliant

December 11, 2020

Articles of interest about higher ed - Dec 11

December 11, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

***THE VIRUS

Tracking how the coronavirus is impacting colleges

Kids catch and spread coronavirus half as much as adults, Iceland study confirms

***CUTS AT COLLEGES

University of Evansville admin proposes cutting quarter of the faculty, nixing 17 majors

Marquette University To Cut 225 Faculty And Staff Positions

UC Berkeley announces sweeping pay cuts

Hit by Covid-19, Colleges Do the Unthinkable and Cut Tenure ($)

Western Oregon University plans to eliminate several majors and programs

University of Vermont provost stands by the administration’s plan to cut 23 humanities programs

UMass, workers square off over furloughs as universities face massive budget gap

***COLLEGE FINANCES

Moody's Sees Negative Outlook for Community Colleges

Cord-cutting and unbundling caused a massive shakeup in the TV industry—the same type of change is coming to colleges

***THE SPRING SEMESTER

Faculty members revolt over Univ of North Carolina plans to triple number of students living on campus next semester

Some colleges that played this semester safe are planning to expand in-person options for students in the spring

Some Colleges Plan to Bring Back More Students in the Spring ($)

Colleges Are Canceling Spring Break. In Its Place: ‘Wellness Days’ ($)

Is Cal State's plan for in-person classes next fall an early indicator?

***HUMANITIES

Why the Humanities Are in Decline

***ONLINE CLASSES

Teaching: How to Make Breakout Rooms Work Better

A New Report Confirms Our Fears About Remote Learning's Impact on Students

Remote learning widens equity gap ($)

Students Struggling With Online Learning A ‘Wake Up Call’ For Universities

A practical guide to working remotely with all 16 personality types

Microsoft files patent for a system to monitor employees' body language and facial expressions during work meetings

***HIGHER ED IN COURT

Black employees at Southwestern College file lawsuit against school

Supreme Court rejects appeal to limit transgender students

Syracuse University sued for millions over going virtual during coronavirus pandemic

Supreme Court denies LSU's attempt to claim immunity from lawsuit in death of fraternity pledge

Temple settles for $700K with Ed Dept over false U.S. News rankings data

***STUDENT CHEATING

Privacy group files complaint against five online test-proctoring services

Associated Press Publishes List of “Best Essay Writing Services”

Why Russian undergraduates cheat and how they rationalise it for themselves and others

How teachers prevent cheating during distance learning

Poor Security at Online Proctoring Company May Have Put Student Data at Risk

Automated Proctors Watch Students. Now Senators Are Watching These Companies.

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Student arrested after taking Fresno college teacher hostage

UT professor files new libel suits against students who accuse him of promoting pedophilia

Ferris State U professor put on leave after student newspaper uncovers a history of science denial

Law Professor Says He Was Suspended Without Cause

Public protector investigating UCT professor’s alleged plagiarism

Three Options For Reforming College Faculty Tenure

Chapman professor draws attention, reprimand as Trump’s lawyer in Texas lawsuit

Univ of Washington professor fired after investigation finds sexual misconduct with 17-year-old student

***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

The 33,000-square-foot expansion at Trevecca Nazarene University will house the physician assistant program

Jerry Falwell Jr. drops defamation suit against Liberty University

St. Edward's University introduces new president

***RESEARCH

How to write a superb literature review

Two papers using the same data about the same topic were published in the same surgical journal one month apart. They came up with completely opposite conclusions.

***STUDENT LIFE

Dartmouth College revoked the on-campus privileges of 86 students who violated COVID-19 policies during fall term

What It's Like To Apply To College During The Pandemic

Completing College National and State Reports

More high school seniors skip out on college planning amid COVID-19

College Students Reflect On Another Semester During The Pandemic

Columbia students threaten to withhold tuition fees amid Covid protest

Inside one of the largest college journalism collaborations ever

***FREE SPEECH

Cambridge University rejects proposal it be 'respectful' of all views

Report: 88% of universities restrict expression — and online classes are especially dangerous for student speech

Education Department Blasts 'Culture of Censorship' at Colleges ($)

***RACIAL ISSUES ON CAMPUS

Johns Hopkins, long believed by university to be abolitionist, owned slaves, records show

NC State investigating employee accused of Proud Boys membership

University of Dallas Student Gov can't decide whether to approve a club focused on racial justice

Lehigh College of Education plagiarized anti-racism section

Why Is Auburn University Losing Black Students?

***SEXUAL HARRASSMENT & ASSAULT

Biden vows ’quick end’ to DeVos’ sexual misconduct rule

Students join forces to fight campus sexual assault as Instagram accounts reveal disturbing pattern

Lawsuit: lax Eckerd College security led to rape

December 11, 2020

Bless you Prison

December 11, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.

That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: ‘Bless you, prison!’ I…have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: ‘Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!’”

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (Born Dec. 11, 1918), The Gulag Archipelago

December 10, 2020

Articles of interest about journalism, fakes, the virus, writing, and more - December 10

December 10, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

***THE VIRUS

More than a third of Americans live in areas where hospitals are running critically short of intensive care beds ($)

First signs of Thanksgiving COVID-19 wave emerge

Your Old Radiator Is a Pandemic-Fighting Weapon

Should I wipe down groceries during the pandemic?

Nearly all coronavirus transmission happens in these 5 places

British Study: Low infection rates in schools

***THE VACCINES

The vaccines will be much less effective if introduced where the coronavirus is raging

Here’s Why Vaccinated People Still Need to Wear a Mask ($)

C.D.C. Call for Data on Vaccine Recipients Raises Alarm Over Privacy ($)

***VENTILATORS

Who Decides Which COVID-19 Patients Get Ventilators?

The U.S. Has Passed the Hospital Breaking Point

***JOURNALISM

Neo-Nazi group member who threatened journalist gets prison time

A massive cross-border collaboration to finish the investigations of a murdered Mexican journalist

Appeals Court hands journalists big Freedom of Information Act win for gun data access

Half of U.S. adults don't know that Facebook does not do original news reporting

ICE Is Trying To Force BuzzFeed News To Divulge Its Sources

What can we learn from the local news anchor who has helped thousands of Americans get unemployment benefits?

A scientific search engine that generates one-sentence summaries of research papers

A Deputy Prosecutor Was Fired for telling Journalists about his state giving Jail Time to People Who Fall Behind on Rent

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Substack isn’t a new model for journalism — it’s a very old one

Inside Patch's new local newsletter platform

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

Radio Disney Shutting Down Amid Restructuring

Did Google and Facebook kill the media revenue model? The Platforms vs legacy media

***WRITING & READING

When sound science meets imperfect grammar

The 25 Best Children’s Books of 2020

Sri Lankan man and his mobile library bring books to kids in remote areas

How to Gather the Oral Histories of COVID-19

Independent Bookstores Are Fighting Back Against Amazon Via a New Online Platform

The Future of Online Marketing: Automated Copywriting

***FAKES & FRAUDS

GOP State Commissioner Won't Impose COVID Workplace Measures, Says Virus 'Not Proven Likely to Cause Serious Physical Harm'

Anti-Vaccine Doctor Has Been Invited to Testify Before Senate Committee

Homeowners in the Seattle suburbs have been getting disturbing visits from members of the Moorish sovereign citizen movement

Former Harvard cancer researcher faked a dozen images, say Feds

I Published a Fake Paper in a ‘Peer-Reviewed’ Journal

The internet is not ready for the flood of AI-generated text

***QANON

Former Trump lawyer finds an ally in operator of QAnon’s Internet home

The making of the QAnon conspiracy cult

The QAnon conspiracy is fake. The harm it's doing to child welfare groups is real

QAnon's Rise in Japan Shows Its Global Spread ($)

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Twitch Cracks Down on Hate Speech and Harassment ($)

Facebook hit with massive antitrust lawsuit from 46 states

Facebook reportedly tweaked its algorithm but it failed to decrease engagement on ideologically aligned pages

Reddit reveals daily active user count for the first time: 52 million

***LANGUAGE

The words that actually persuade people on the pandemic

Merriam-Webster's top word of 2020 not a shocker: pandemic

Research Finds Brains Work Harder While Processing Descriptions Of Motion In Other Languages

***LITERATURE

"The Great Gatsby" and other 1925 Works Will Soon Enter the Public Domain

Dispute Erupts Over Translation Rights to New Nobel Laureate ($)

Questions raised over charity seeking to buy JRR Tolkien's Oxford house

Louise Glück, forgoing fanfare, accepts Nobel Prize in Literature at home

John Steinbeck, Bard of the American Worker

***CS LEWIS

Ten Things You (Probably) Don’t Know About C. S. Lewis

CS Lewis Expert Walter Hooper dies

***POETRY

We went looking for poetry

Poet uses runaway slave ads to tell a story of resistance

December 10, 2020

Disarming anger and lust

December 10, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

The surest means of disarming an anger or a lust (is) to turn your attention from the girl or the insult and start examining the passion itself. –CS Lewis

December 09, 2020

A Texas high school opened a grocery store for struggling families where good deeds are accepted as payment

December 09, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

#GOODNEWS

Read the story here

December 09, 2020

Embracing Hard Work

December 09, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

Think about how a typical English class works: You read a “great work” by a famous author, discussing what the messages are, and how the author uses language, structure, and imagery to convey them. You memorize particularly pithy quotes to be regurgitated on the exam, and perhaps later on second dates. Students are rarely encouraged to peek at early drafts of those works. All they see is the final product, lovingly polished by both writer and editor to a very high shine. When the teacher asks “What is the author saying here?” no one ever suggests that the answer might be “He didn’t quite know” or “That sentence was part of a key scene in an earlier draft, and he forgot to take it out in revision.”

Or consider a science survey class. It consists almost entirely of the theories that turned out to be right—not the folks who believed in the mythical “N-rays,” declared that human beings had forty-eight chromosomes, or saw imaginary canals on Mars. When we do read about falsified scientific theories of the past—Lamarckian evolution, phrenology, reproduction by “spontaneous generation”—the people who believed in them frequently come across as ludicrous yokels, even though many of them were distinguished scientists who made real contributions to their fields.

No wonder students get the idea that being a good writer is defined by not writing bad stuff.

Megan Mcardle writing in the Atlantic

December 08, 2020

Some days

December 08, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

Some days you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue.

December 07, 2020

26-Year-Old Turns ‘Mistake’ of Being Added to an Honors Geometry Class to Becoming a Rocket Scientist

December 07, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

#GOODNEWS

‘I Am the Dopest NASA Engineer You Will Ever Meet’

December 07, 2020

Napping Through Life

December 07, 2020/ Stephen Goforth

For men and women who have accepted the reality of change, the need for endless learning and trying is a way of living, a way of thinking, a way of being awake and ready. Life isn’t a train ride where you choose your destination, pay your fare and settle back for a nap. It’s a cycle ride over uncertain terrain, which you in the driver’s seat, constantly correcting your balance and determining the direction of progress. It’s difficult, sometimes profoundly painful. But its better than napping through life.

John Gardner, Self-Renewal