Bob Blaisdell, professor of English at City University of New York’s Kingsborough Community College, has an article up at Inside Higher Ed in which he explains in hilarious detail what being an Ideal Teacher involves.
Apparently one must possess several gorgeously wonderful traits, one must [...]

Last week, monkeys were on the loose in New Haven.
In a strange-enough-to-convince prank, “James A. Perrotti, Chief of Yale Police,” sent an email (from a Gmail account) to the university. Apparently five rhesus monkeys had gotten loose from the Child Study Center. Based on the [...]
For better or for worse, finals week changes our schedules around. Whether it's an 8am class, whose exam time is at night or the library extending its hours beyond its normal closing time. With these changes in schedule and the anxiety that [...]
Nothing takes the edge off of finals week like 1,000 calories of caffeinated sugar and syrup. Photo by flickr user D'Arcy Norman
We start off our Finals Week Prep feature with a classic: rewarding yourself for studying. The idea is' [...]
Traveling last week for work, I burned through several books on innumerable airplanes: Clint Bolick's Voucher Wars (a strikingly human and accessible account of his landmark work on behalf of school choice), Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach (read only if you want to wind up feeling spectacularly defeated and hopeless [...]
Key test for graduate admissions will lose antonyms and analogies, replace some geometry with data analysis, alter scoring, and let test takers move among questions. ETS calls shifts significant; critics see cosmetic changes.
[...]Rob Weir offers tips on designing final exams.
[...]The budget crisis at the University of California illustrates why faculty members can't rely on administrators to guard the real interests of higher education, writes Bob Samuels.
' [...]Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani, a graduate student in anthropology at the State University of New York at Binghamton, has been charged with second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Richard T. Antoun, an emeritus professor of anthropology, The Press & Sun-Bulletin reported. Al-Zahrani, 46, is a Saudi national and he [...]
Can learning how to teach online make professors better teachers in the classroom?
[...]At the 2008 annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools, a presentation on the evaluation of doctoral programs by the National Research Council featured some jokes about the delays in the project, with the expectation that by the time the 2009 meeting came around, the rankings would be [...]
Tempted as higher ed officials might be to ask government and business leaders for more funds, they should focus on other things, public college lobbyists are told.
[...]The ouster of the director of the museum of the Rhode Island School of Design reflects considerable tensions not only over the director but about the role of the museum at the institution, The Boston Globe reported. John Maeda, the president at RISD, clashed with Hope Alswang, the ousted [...]
Miami University of Ohio announced Friday that it will return about $5 million that it received from Thomas Petters, who last week was convicted of running a mammoth Ponzi scheme, The Oxford Press reported. Petters pledged a total of $15 million in honor of his son, John, a [...]
A New York States appeals court has ruled that New York University did not violate the terms of an agreement resolving a tenure dispute when it admitted the son of a former faculty member to a two-year program and not to the four-year program into which he wanted to enroll. [...]
A revised report on Virginia Tech's response to the deadly shootings there in April 2007 is drawing lots of headlines for the information that some officials warned their families about the incident in progress before the campus was told, but university officials say that the implications being drawn are incorrect. [...]
The Arizona Board of Regents voted Friday to raise the ceiling on the number of credits that students can transfer from a community college to a four-year degree program, The Arizona Daily Star reported. The shift -- from 64 to 75 credits -- will allow some students to earn [...]
Two articles in The Dallas Morning News examine issues related to the increased emphasis on Advanced Placement courses at many high schools, at a time that the College Board has encouraged many more schools to participate in the program. One article notes that as the program has grown in [...]
The father of a Harvard University sophomore who killed himself in 2007 is suing the institution, charging that negligence at the university's student health clinic led to the tragedy, The Boston Globe reported. The student sought help because he couldn't study as many hours as some friends, and he' [...]
Lincoln University faculty members vote to keep the class, but to make it optional.
[...]A Louisiana judge last week rejected a lawsuit by Ralph Slaughter, former president of the Southern University System, that claimed he was entitled to compensation for unused vacation and sick leave and that he was treated unfairly when he left office in June, The Baton Rouge Advocate reported. The [...]
Colorado State University's board on Friday voted to adopt policies that will lead to a ban on the carrying of concealed weapons on campus, The Denver Post reported. Most colleges ban the carrying of concealed weapons, and faculty leaders backed the decision. But the student government had urged the [...]
The University of Colorado's ban on weapons extends to simulated weapons. As a result, The Daily Camera reported, students at the Boulder campus who want to play Humans vs. Zombies, a popular student game that typically involves Nerf guns, must do so with balled up socks instead of the [...]
Author discusses new book on the notorious syphilis study.
[...]Faculty members vote to keep health class that set off national debate, but to make it optional.
[...]At the 2008 annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools, a presentation on the evaluation of doctoral programs by the National Research Council featured some jokes about the delays in the project, with the expectation that by the time the 2009 meeting came around, the rankings would be [...]
It's not just that the "proof" of anthropogenic global warming has been faked--but also that the peer review process ratifying the theory has been faked, too. And that's a problem that is not at all confined to climate science--rather, it's a sign of a new, unethical academic norm in which [...]
Here's my list! It mostly focuses on caffeine ingestion and electronics, which I guess is why I write for HackCollege...
Electric Tea KettleI want to be able to write stuff, surf the Web, and enjoy delicious tea...without' [...]
November’s unemployment numbers are in, and they’ve been hailed as both unexpected and not something to get too excited about. While the drop from 10.2 to 10 percent may not sound like a lot, it’s important to remember that, right now, the rate’s staying stable would’ve [...]
Our semesters and quarters are quickly winding down, but that doesn't mean that Discuss Campus is slowing down at all. In fact, we appointed one of our first moderators this week. His handle is insanemo. His real life name is Mohammed Arfeen and' [...]