In general, in the past, students have enjoyed this seminar (they said), but they thought the reading was too heavy. This is a side-effect of the fact that higher education is a complex endeavor and requires quite a bit of background reading as context. I have been contemplating how to deal with this, and am going to try another solution that will reduce significantly the reading compared to the last few semesters. I am working on redoing the syllabus, but it will take me more time compared with just tweaking the old one.
I have decided to reuse a book I used last year, American Higher Education in Crisis?: What Everyone Needs to Know by Goldie Blumenstyk (Oxford, 2015). It’s a well-regarded book chock full of up-to-date information, although it also isn’t as lively and journalistic than the Selingo. But it has a lot of statistics and packs in a fair amount of info which reduces the amount of other reading you will have to do. You may be able to borrow a copy from someone who took last year’s seminar with me, and it’s on Amazon and also available Kindle. Get it as soon as you can, but we probably won’t use it until week after next.
Tahir is looking into whether I can have you post assignments that only I can see on Word Press, but it appears it was not designed to do some of the things that Blackboard does. I may set up a simple Blackboard page for your work products as I can’t really handle them in my already over-the-top college email, but for the questions you are doing for the Selingo book, just post them on the blog Tahir set up. He says you will all know how to do this.
See you on Wednesday. Come ready to discuss.
Prof. Hainline
