Free Republic

A professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga hid a $50 cash prize on campus to prove that students don't throughly read the class syllabus Kenyon Wilson, the associate head of performing arts at the college, decided to hide $50 in a locker and bury the combination in the middle of his syllabus The crisp $50 bill and the note that went along with it were untouched by Wilson's 70 students after finals were over

I was recently invited to visit the second National Conservative Conference in Orlando, the first in-person conference of this movement, since its birth in 2019. I had the opportunity to hear a talk by conservative activist Christopher Rufo about the policies of counterrevolution against critical theory in the country’s institutions, including its colleges and universities. Rufo was the man who single-handedly waged a war on critical race theory (CRT), and was instrumental in shaping policies under the previous administration. Recently, his strategy was vindicated in Virginia elections where education was the second-highest important issue polled, and handed the Republicans their...

The priority deadline for Texas students to complete the Free Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) is on January 15. Texas high school students are required to submit that application to graduate... “It was a great struggle filling out the FAFSA,” Martinez said. Millions of students face the same struggle of filling out the FAFSA. Some say that the application is too complicated for some. Congressman Doggett has been working for years to make it simple.

"By choosing your courses carefully, you can avoid the progressive sermonizing that passes for scholarship in some departments, but everyone has to undergo the orientation and first-year programs. You may have come to study computer science or literature or biochemistry, but first you’ll have to learn about social justice, environmental sustainability, gender pronouns, and microaggressions. You may have been planning to succeed by hard work, but first you’ll have to acknowledge your privilege or discover your victimhood. If you arrived at college hoping to broaden your intellectual horizons, you’ll quickly be instructed which ideas are off-limits." Read it and weep

Penn administration 'strongly advise' its swimmers to avoid talking to the media about the situation surrounding Thomas.. ... Even after a Wednesday team meeting where a source says Penn administration "strongly advised" its swimmers to avoid talking to the media about the situation surrounding transgender Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, a second female Penn swimmer has stepped forward to speak out ... The second female Penn swimmer to speak out, who was granted anonymity due to what is viewed as threats from the university, activists, and the political climate, wants people to know that Penn swimmers are "angry" over the lack...

A liberal arts college in Vermont announced on Thursday that it will be switching to virtual learning after the school learned of several dozen confirmed COVID-19 cases on campus. Officials from Middlebury College said in a letter posted Thursday that they had learned of 34 confirmed COVID-19 cases early that morning. They said that a total of 49 students had confirmed COVID-19 cases in addition to one confirmed case among employees. As a result, classes will be remote for the remainder of the semester, and final exams will also be administered remotely. Students were also urged to leave campus if...

A teammate of Lia Thomas on the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team has spoken out as the transgender swimmer has shattered school records. SNIP “Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this. Our coach [Mike Schnur] just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do,” the female Penn swimmer said. “When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing.’ It’s very fake.”

There’s something rotten in American journalism schools. From a tendency toward bias to outright activism, journalism in higher education is not what it should be: a place to guide young writers through a liberal education that teaches them how to think, report, and write clearly. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s attempted hiring of Nikole Hannah-Jones this year is the latest in a line of incidents that show how far journalism schools have drifted away from what they should be. In 1904, famed editor and newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer published an essay in The North American Review defending...

After a fantastic regular season of college football, these four players were named as finalists for the Heisman Trophy, set to be handed out on Saturday, Dec. 11.On Monday, four finalists for the Heisman Trophy were announced on ESPN and revealed by 2011 Heisman winner Robert Griffin III: Michigan defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, Pittsburgh quarterback Kenny Pickett, Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud and Alabama quarterback Bryce Young. This is the third year in a row there have been four Heisman finalists. The Heisman Trophy Trust announced recently it will now invite four finalists annually to New York City for the...

Bowl Season is a full season again in 2021.There are a total of 43 postseason games with 84 teams, starting with the Bahamas Bowl on Dec. 17 and ending with the College Football Playoff championship game on Jan. 10. This year’s CFP semifinals are on Dec. 31 with No. 1 Alabama taking on No. 4 Cincinnati in the Cotton Bowl Classic and No. 2 Michigan facing No. 3 Georgia in the Orange Bowl. The New Year’s Day Six slate is loaded, and there are more than enough bowl games to get through the holidays. MORE: Every FBS coaching change in...

Often, incoming freshmen receive their first university assignment before the school year even begins: the summer reading. Many institutions see the summer reading assignment as an opportunity for new students to develop a sense of camaraderie. By reading the same book, the idea is that students will engage in thought-provoking conversations and have a shared educational experience. Common reading programs are an opportunity to start students’ education on an intellectual high note. Before the semester even begins, students can begin grappling with good reading material that will prepare them for an academically rigorous time in college. Unfortunately, research from the...

Insider (formerly Business Insider) published what was meant to be a heart-rending story about a single mom burdened with $430,000 in student debt and a sick child, all to help promote student loan forgiveness. Instead, the article should remind us that degree jockeys in the liberal arts are, for the most part, incredibly foolish. “Maria” is a 48-year-old with a Ph.D. in some unidentified major (but it’s clearly in the liberal arts), who took out $360,000 in student loans to get her degree. Insider assures us that Maria was very thoughtful about borrowing the money:Maria had a goal to teach...

Bowl Season is here. This year’s bowl season includes 42 games between FBS teams. A total of 84 bowl-eligible schools will participate in the postseason. The College Football Playoff championship game is Jan. 10 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The semifinals are Dec. 31 at the Capital One Orange Bowl and Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic. The NCAA approved one last bowl game this week so all teams could participate. Sporting News will track those selections Sunday: College football bowl schedule 2021-22 Date Bowl Time TV MATCHUP Dec. 17 Bahamas Bowl 12 p.m. ESPN - Dec. 17 Cure Bowl 6...

Given the enormity of the public and private investment in US higher education, of course we should evaluate its effectiveness. But, how? It is claimed that over 200 higher education institutions administer the one-size-fits-all Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA). When administered pre-post—that is, near the beginning and then again near the end of a student’s program—the difference in scores on equivalent forms of the same test (i.e., the “gain score”) represents how much students have learned in that program. Or does it? Everyone knows that any one test cannot be valid in all contexts. Administering an advanced calculus exam to kindergarteners...

Source: peterspiroUndergraduate enrollment is down 6.5 percent from 2019. But don’t panic—it’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s an opportunity. As it turns out, more students are opting to embark on a career right away instead of going into debt to pay for higher education. This may sound the recruitment alarms through the halls of colleges and universities, but it’s an opportunity to take a closer look at something America has known but largely ignored for many years. College isn’t the only pathway to a successful career. Four-year degrees are unsurprisingly losing their luster. A recent study from the...

Following research about college students from before COVID-19 with a survey at the pandemic's Year I mark, an international team of scientists detected no improvement in the students' mental well-being even after the introduction of vaccines and the easing of social distancing methods, let alone a return to campuses in many instances. In fact, the researchers in spring 2021 found marked declines in both physical and emotional health—students sustained a 35% decline in their number of daily steps and a 36% increase in the number at risk of clinical depression, or roughly half of the total students surveyed. The scientists,...

In early October, Bright Sheng, a professor of music at the University of Michigan, played the 1965 rendition of Shakespeare’s Othello for his undergraduate class. The film starred Laurence Olivier, who was wearing black makeup, as the titular character. Having no concern for context or artistry, the university community revolted, deeming the film (and Sheng by association) racist. As a result, Sheng was temporarily removed from the classroom, and placed under investigation. Michigan administrators knew that Sheng had done nothing wrong. He showed his class a movie that cannot, in any sense of the word, be considered obscene, and Sheng...

The final College Football Playoff rankings will be announced Sunday. The 2021 college football season has been filled with unexpected upsets and coaching moves, but the playoff picture has come into focus. With conference championship week here, there are several intriguing playoff scenarios. Four conference championship games will help clear up that picture. Here are the games to watch: ◾Big 12: Oklahoma State vs. Baylor, 12 p.m. (ABC) ◾SEC: Alabama vs. Georgia, 4 p.m. (CBS) ◾AAC: Houston vs. Cincinnati, 4 p.m. (ABC) ◾Big Ten: Iowa vs. Michigan, 8 p.m. (FOX)MORE: Picks against the spread for Championship WeekThose games will help...

Researchers say that is a conservative estimateA new report from the American Enterprise Institute found that nearly 20 percent of university faculty job listings require a pledge of support for diversity.“Across all 999 jobs [reviewed by the think tank], we find that 19 percent require diversity statements, while 68 percent include the terms ‘diversity’ or ‘diverse’ in some fashion, often as a way of describing the university environment,” the report said.And the researchers told The College Fix that the number is a conservative estimate and they were not surprised with the results.“I was not surprised to learn that 1 in...

It would only require one or two results this weekend – none of them farfetched – for Notre Dame to reach the College Football Playoff for the third time in four seasons, including each of the past two. Maybe Georgia blows out Alabama. Maybe Baylor or Iowa beat Oklahoma State or Michigan. Maybe Cincinnati stumbles. That’s it. That’s all it would take. If it happens, Notre Dame will compete once again in the playoff … only this time without its head coach. It is the latest example of a sport gone mad – with money, with realignment, with championship aspirations,...