Daniel Luzer

Scholars and admissions personnel have long suspected that the SAT test might be a little culturally biased. In 1987 research psychologist Roy Freedle first argued that the test puts black students at a disadvantage. The Educational Testing Service, which administers the test (and once employed Freedle) dismissed his claims. Well now there’s a little more […]

Colorado State University, despite the fact that it’s in the midst of a higher education funding crisis, has come up with a new plan to make tuition more affordable to all low-income Colorado students admitted. From an article by Beckie Supiano in the Chronicle of Higher Education: Through the program, known as the “Commitment to […]

University of New Hampshire English Professor Thomas Newkirk thinks it’s time to slow academics down a little. Reading, after all, can be pleasurable and reading slowly can promote both understanding and enjoyment. According to an Associated Press article by Holly Ramer in the Concord Monitor: Thomas Newkirk isn’t the first or most prominent proponent of […]

The University of Illinois is no longer going spend $98,000 to construct a statue in honor of Stanley Ikenberry, wonderful though Ikenberry no doubt is. According to an article by Jodi Cohen in the Chicago Tribune: The sculpture, which was to hang in the dining hall in the new Ikenberry Commons opening this fall, was […]

Brennan Bird, a senior at the University of California, Davis, decided to try and reduce his consumption by living with his own trash for a year. Starting on New Year’s Day, Bird, began to store every noncompostable bottle, can, wrapper, and piece of paper he used—in his house. Except that, well, people throw out their […]

While the new student-aid regulations the Department of Education revealed Tuesday did not include much anticipated rules about gainful employment, it did include an interesting new component: compensation for recruiting students. According to an article by Caralee Adams in Education Week: The draft regulatory language would prevent the awarding of any bonus, commission, or incentive […]

Maybe racial affirmative action doesn’t really work quite so effectively anymore. According to an article by Mary Beth Marklein in USA Today: Colleges and universities should adopt affirmative-action policies based on socioeconomic status, argues a new report that finds the most disadvantaged students on average score 784 points lower on the SAT than those from […]

In the May/June issue of the Washington Monthly, Jamie Merisotis and Stan Jones offered a plan to help the unemployed without spending a lot of money: help them earn one and two-year college credentials, fast. What the unemployed need are colleges that combine the low-cost and public mission of community colleges with the job-focused plans […]

Adjunct professors at one Chicago university attempted to unionize. Despite a promising beginning, the exercise rapidly descended into farce. Most of the instructors at East-West University, a small, 30-year-old school and the only majority-minority private four-year college in Illinois, are adjunct professors. Since there were some 50 adjunct professors and only 18 full-time faculty members, […]

Technology billionaire Moshe Yanai has donated 40 million shekels – that’s $10.4 million—to establish a special prize for professors at Israel’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology who are good teachers and have “good personal interaction with students.” Students will choose who gets the prize. Yanai, before he made billions figuring out ways to store electronic data, […]