Monthly Archive for September, 2011

Staff, The Economist

Minister Anna Diamantopoulou

GREEKS are not exactly short of bad news, but here is something to raise their spirits. For the first time in the country’s two-year crisis, the governing socialists and opposition conservatives have agreed on a bill in parliament. A new law to reform universities was overwhelmingly approved on August 24th. “It’s the best piece of legislation on education in 30 years,” says a Greek academic.

The state spends more per student than almost any other European Union member, but the quality of university and college education (with a handful of exceptions) is dismally low. Until the crisis hit, about 30,000 Greeks a year studied abroad. Many stayed on, depriving the country of talented professionals.

At a Greek university students take an average of 7.6 years to complete a first degree. Tuition is free but teachers make few demands, so many students turn to political activism. An “asylum” law forbade the police from entering university premises. This encouraged drug-dealing and the stockpiling of petrol bombs on campus.

To Read More…

By Akim Reinhardt, 3 Quarks Daily

On Thursday I will put a summer of research and writing behind me and return to my professorial duties in the classroom.  When I do, I will greet a fresh crop of college students, as I have done every year since 1999.

I often get asked if I notice any difference, if students have gotten “better” or “worse” over the years since I first began teaching.  The question itself can often be a bit loaded; the person posing it may be expecting me to confirm their suspicions.  The truth, however, is a little more complex, which is why I often answer: “Both.”  It seems to me that as time goes by, the students entering my classroom, on the whole, are getting better at some things and worse at others.

My home institution, Towson University in suburban Baltimore, is a good place to observe such trends and vacillations among American college students.  Originally founded as the Maryland state normal college for training K-12 teachers, it first opened in 1866 with eleven students in a Red Man’s social club in downtown Baltimore.  It has since grown into a full fledged university, its ongoing expansion reflected in its name changes over the years: Maryland State Normal School (1866); Towson State Teacher’s College (1935); Towson State College (1963); Towson State University (1976); Towson University (1997).

To Read More…

By Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed

CHICAGO — For a stranger, the main library at the University of Illinois at Chicago can be hard to find. The directions I got from a pair of clerks at the credit union in the student center have proven unreliable. I now find myself adrift among ash trees and drab geometric buildings.

Finally, I call for help. Firouzeh Logan, a reference librarian here, soon appears and guides me where I need to go. Several unmarked pathways and an escalator ride later, I am in a private room on the second floor of the library, surrounded by librarians eager to answer my questions.

Most students never make it this far.

This is one of the sobering truths these librarians, representing a group of Illinois universities, have learned over the course of a two-year, five-campus ethnographic study examining how students view and use their campus libraries: students rarely ask librarians for help, even when they need it. The idea of a librarian as an academic expert who is available to talk about assignments and hold their hands through the research process is, in fact, foreign to most students. Those who even have the word “librarian” in their vocabularies often think library staff are only good for pointing to different sections of the stacks.

To Read More…