The College Solutions Blog

November 11, 2009

Do you write like a college professor? If you do, rid yourself of the habit. College graduates who write like their college professors could find their job search even harder. The business world favors employees who can write simple, declarative sentences. In contrast, college professors are masters at obfuscation. They write stilted prose. They embrace words with five or six...

September 12, 2009

Here are this week’s round up of the posts that I wrote for CBSMoneyWatch.com. Hope you enjoy them…. The Latest Way Kids Cheat on Exams Teenagers are ingenious so I guess it’s no wonder that they are adept at high-tech cheating.  An alarming survey shows just how prevalent cheating with cell phones is in schools. Lending Money to Hot Shot...

August 26, 2009

Are professors spending too much time publishing and not enough time teaching? Absolutely! What I want to share with you today is an research paper that argues that professors are neglecting students because they are so busying writing papers and books that hardly anybody cares to read. The reason for the fixation on scholarly research is simple, according to Mark...

July 28, 2009

I’m halfway through a scorching college tour with my son Ben. I love visiting colleges, but the relentless weather in Oregon — the temperature reached 105 in Portland today — is insane. I’m thrilled — and I think everybody else is too — when each tour guide herds us all back to the air-conditioned admissions office. This is my second-go-round...

April 3, 2009

On a lark, I decided to attend a conference being held this week in San Diego that is focused on improving the lives of professors.  Understandably this is not a subject that worries families, who are too freaked out about paying for college. The conference, which was sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, brought together heavy-hitter speakers,...

July 6, 2008

Undergraduates have complained for decades about their teaching assistants. If you attend a university, chances are excellent that you will have at least some classes where a graduate student will serve as the teacher. TA’s are cheap and when they are teaching introductory courses, the professors don’t have to do it. And tenured professors love shirking that responsibility. This is...

July 3, 2008

There is a interesting story in The New York Times today about the changing of the guard among professors at colleges and universities. The article suggests that aging Baby Boomer professors, imprinted with the experiences of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, are more liberal in their outlook and that has effected how they teach. What I found...