New Books In Education

In 1988, Sandi and Larry Zobrest sued a suburban Tucson, Arizona, school district that had denied their hearing-impaired son a taxpayer-funded interpreter in his Roman Catholic high school. The Catalina Foothills School District argued that providing a public resource for a private, religious school created an unlawful crossover between church and state. The Zobrests, however, claimed that the district had infringed on both their First Amendment right to freedom of religion and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In Disability Rights and Religious Liberty in Education: The Story Behind Zobrest V. Catalina Foothills School District (U Illinois Press, 2020), Bruce J. Dierenfield and David A. Gerber use the Zobrests' story to examine the complex history and jurisprudence of disability accommodation and educational mainstreaming. They look at the family's effort to acquire educational resources for their son starting in early childhood and the choices the Zobrests made to prepare him for life

This episode is the edited version of a live event held on June 17 2022 to celebrate the launch of Finding Your Purpose: a Higher Calling Workbook for Justice-Oriented Scholars in an Unjust World. Higher Calling is a project for everyone who decided to become a scholar because they believed in the mission of higher education, and specifically, for everyone who saw participating in and working for higher education as a way to turn the pursuit of justice into a career. It aims to help you understand how to better align a career in academia with your sense of purpose; how to recognize when your purposes are no longer served by academia; how to pursue scholarly purpose outside of an academic career; and when and how to fight back against the broken system which is higher education in the United States. At times, one may wonder if the compromises are too great, the labor conditions untenable, or the barriers to doing meaningful work too high. This project aims to help you navigate these moments alone and in commun

Nathan Long shares insights from his career leading successful growth strategies for two small private universities. Saybrook University was formed in the 1970s by some of the leading scholars and practitioners in the field of humanist psychology and was an early pioneer in online/hybrid and residential conference education. Long discusses the many benefits to Saybrook of being part of the TCS Education System (see earlier interview with TCS founder Michael Horowitz), one of the few national, non-profit systems of higher education. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, a bill purportedly meant to revive U.S. dominance in research and development. “We used to rank number one in the world in research and development; now we rank number nine,” Biden said at the signing ceremony. “China was number eight decades ago; now they are number two.” And a recent study from Japan’s science ministry reported that China now leads the world not just in quantity of scientific research, but in quality too. The success of the U.S.--and perhaps China, into the future–is due to the “research university”, an academic institution that offers professors the freedom to study and research, and students the freedom to learn, leading to high-quality academic output. Those universities are the subject of Professor William Kirby’s Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China (Harvard University Press, 2022). In this interview, Professor Kirby and I talk about the research university: Humbo

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: Why Aaron Basko thinks we are looking at student success backwards. How asking alums why they stayed at a school often tells us more about student needs than asking the students who are withdrawing why they leave. What the “Big Six” for student success is. What two things to evaluate as you decide which college or university will be the right “fit” for you. His advice to parents and incoming students. Our guest is: Aaron Basko, who currently serves as Associate Vice President for Enrollment Services at the University of Lynchburg, in Lynchburg Virginia. With 25 years of experience serving as an enrollment growth specialist and student success strategist for multiple institutions, Aaron has been part of the leadership team that engineered historic growth comebacks at three different colleges and universities. Aaron specializes in creating cross-functional teams for strategic enrollment planning and retention success. A thought leader and a

According to A Problem of Fit: How the Complexity of College Pricing Hurts Students—and Universities (U Chicago Press, 2022) a college education doesn't come with a sticker price and perhaps, he argues, it should. Millions of Americans miss out on the economic benefits of a college education because of concerns around the costs. Financial aid systems offer limited help and produce uneven distributions. In the United States today, the systems meant to improve access to education have in fact added a new layer of deterrence. In A Problem of Fit Levine examines the role of financial aid systems in facilitating (and discouraging) access to college. If markets require prices in order to function optimally, then the American higher-education system--rife as it is with hidden and variable costs--amounts to a market failure. It's a problem of price transparency, not just affordability. Ensuring that students understand exactly what college will cost, including financial aid, could lift the lid on not only college att

You Are Your Own Best Teacher!: Sparking the Imagination and Intellect of Tweens (Essential Books, 2022) provides a variety of teachable antidotes to the punishing forces bearing down on youngsters from harmful marketing, the insidious grip of 'virtual reality' and the tyranny of peer groups. Apprehensive parents and burdened teachers will delight in the lessons of this book for Tweens (9-12 year olds). Tweens, who are whipsawed by relentless distractions, profit-driven manipulations and oncoming addictions, are guided toward elevating their own sense of significance, protection and realizable achievements. Claire Nader introduces the young to Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass and Helen Keller to illustrate their profound awareness and discipline.  Claire Nader is a social scientist and activist. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newb

An incisive case study of changemaking in action, Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership (Harvard Education Press, 2021) analyzes the complex process of racial equity reform within K-12 schools. Scholar Decoteau J. Irby emphasizes that racial equity is dynamic, shifting as our emerging racial consciousness evolves and as racism asserts itself anew. Those who accept the challenge of reform find themselves "stuck improving," caught in a perpetual dilemma of both making progress and finding ever more progress to be made. Rather than dismissing stuckness as failure, Irby embraces it as an inextricable part of the improvement process. Irby brings readers into a large suburban high school as school leaders strive to redress racial inequities among the school's increasingly diverse student population. Over a five-year period, he witnesses both progress and setbacks in the leaders' attempts to provide an educational environment that is intellectually, socioemotionally, and culturally affirming. Looking

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: The Open Learning Initiative (OLIve) operating out of Central European University. The importance of language related to students experiencing displacement. How our guests center theory-informed practice in their work. Three proposals for opening up the university to promote transformative experiences. Advice to others in the field initiating programs for displaced students. Our guests are: Dr. Ian M. Cook and Dr. Prem Kumar Rajaram, two of the three editors of Opening Up the University: Teaching and Learning with Refugees. Dr. Celine Cantat is also an editor on the volume. Ian M. Cook is Director of Studies at the Open Learning Initiative (OLIve), Budapest located at Central European University (CEU). An anthropologist by training, his work focuses on urban India, environmental justice, access to higher education, and podcasting. He strives to make scholarly practice more collaborative and multimodal. He is part of the Allegra Lab editor

Picture a typical computer geek. Likely white, male, and someone you’d say has a “natural instinct” for technology. Yet, after six years teaching technology classes to first-generation, low-income middle school students in Oakland, California, Cassidy Puckett has seen firsthand that being good with technology is not something people are born with—it’s something they learn. In Redefining Geek: Bias and the Five Hidden Habits of Tech-Savvy Teens (U Chicago Press, 2022), she overturns the stereotypes around the digitally savvy and identifies the habits that can help everyone cultivate their inner geek. Drawing on observations and interviews with a diverse group of students around the country, Puckett zeroes in on five technology learning habits that enable tech-savvy teens to learn new technologies: a willingness to try and fail, management of frustration and boredom, use of models, and the abilities to use design logic and identify efficiencies. In Redefining Geek, she shows how to measure and build these habit

In Community College Mathematics: Past, Present, and Future (CRC Press, 2022), Brian Cafarella addresses the key questions: How can we build a future model for community college gatekeeper math classes that is both successful and sustainable? Additionally, how can we learn from the past and the present to build such a model? From the 1970’s to the pandemic in the early 2020’s, the book uses interviews with 30 community college faculty members from seven community colleges to explore math curricula as well as trends, initiatives, teaching practices, and mandates that have impacted community college mathematics. Brian Cafarella is a professor in mathematics at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. He has taught a variety of courses ranging from developmental math through pre-calculus. Brian is a past recipient of the Roeche Award for teaching excellence and a past recipient of the Ohio Magazine Award for excellence in education. Marc Goulet is Professor in mathematics and Associate Dean in the College of

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: How both of today’s guests became involved in higher education in prison. Why this work is personal to them. Funding and representation issues in higher education in prison. The complexities of supporting students who are incarcerated without supporting the carceral system. And a discussion of the Journal of Higher Education in Prison. Our guest is: Dr. Erin Corbett, who earned her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, where her dissertation examined the relationship between educational attainment level and post-release employment outcomes for formerly incarcerated people in Connecticut. While pursuing her doctorate, Erin launched a nonprofit that provides not-for-credit, postsecondary level courses in three correctional facilities in Connecticut. She has also taught in correctional facilities in Rhode Island with College Unbound, and guest lectured to incarcerated students in the Iowa through the University of Iowa Liberal Arts

Providing your children with a good education is one of the best gifts you can give. But it’s not straightforward. Education costs and student loan debt are skyrocketing. In some cases, college costs upwards of $300,000 for four years. And calculations for financial aid and merit awards are complex and opaque. How do you find the best education options that fit your budget and are right for your child? And how do you save for your kids’ college without wrecking your own retirement, or putting your other goals completely out of reach? Ann Garcia―known as The College Financial Lady―is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and college finance expert, and is here to help. In How to Pay for College, Ann shows you how to develop a financial plan for college that really works, including: How to save and how much to save. How to find good college choices that fit your budget. How to get scholarships and tax benefits. How to talk to your kids about the costs and benefits of going to college. Plus invaluable information

In the late nineteenth century, medical educators intent on transforming American physicians into scientifically trained, elite professionals recognized the value of medical school design for their reform efforts. Between 1893 and 1940, nearly every medical college in the country rebuilt or substantially renovated its facility. In Building Schools, Making Doctors: Architecture and the Modern American Physician (U Pittsburgh Press, 2022), Katherine Carroll reveals how the schools constructed during this fifty-year period did more than passively house a remodeled system of medical training; they actively participated in defining and promoting an innovative pedagogy, modern science, and the new physician. Interdisciplinary and wide ranging, her study moves architecture from the periphery of medical education to the center, uncovering a network of medical educators, architects, and philanthropists who believed that the educational environment itself shaped how students learned and the type of physicians they beca

Archives are much more than silent repositories of historical material. They are rich sites for teaching and learning, for collaboration and for creative and critical exploration of our past, present and future. In their new book, Teaching through the Archives: Text, Collaboration, and Activism (Southern Illinois University Press, 2022), Tarez Samra Graban and Wendy Hayden bring together 37 contributors to explore the many possible uses of archival collections in the teaching of writing and history and in generating scholarly collaboration, pedagogical experimentation and community building within and beyond the university. Section I focuses on how approaching the archive primarily as text fosters habits of mind essential for creating and using archives, for critiquing or inventing knowledge-making practices, and for being good stewards of private and public collections. Section II argues for conducting archival projects as collaboration through experiential learning and for developing a preservationist consc

Listen to this interview with Jo Mackiewicz, professor of rhetoric and professional communication at Iowa State University, and with Isabelle Thompson, emerita professor of technical and professional communication and former coordinator of the English Center at Auburn University. We talk about their book Talk about Writing: The Tutoring Strategies of Experienced Writing Center Tutors (Routledge, 2018) and writing. Jo Mackiewicz : "The more I think about writing center interactions and write books about it, the more I think that the value a tutor brings to learning is this: to show students a thinking process, to show students an analysis process about writing — to show them a self-questioning of yourself as writer, and also a questioning of any sort of text, a questioning of your relationship to the text, a questioning of what you know about the subject matter, of how you evaluate your handling of that subject matter. Tutors model this process for student writers." Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.c

Listen to this interview of Nicholas Rowe, researcher and educator based in Finland. We talk his book The Realities of Completing a PhD: How to Plan for Success (Routledge, 2021) and about what needs to change. Nicholas Rowe : "Writing for different purposes, for different audiences is a huge skill, because people are going to need this communication skill in their research proposal when they present their ideas to advisors, but also in their publications when they share their ideas with colleagues. Now, of courses, everybody's systems and processes are different, but the key communicative skills that you need are fairly much the same, and if you don't need them at one stage of a project, you're going to need them at another." Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

A special opportunity to hear from Sara Custer, editor of The Campus (Times Higher Education), about the role of journalism and reporting in higher education. Avi and Sara cover topics ranging from the role of media in increasing cross-institution collaboration and sharing during the pandemic to how universities can do a better job supporting their junior scholars. Also, don't miss out on the opportunity to learn how you can publish in Times Higher Education yourself! Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

How can a library change the world? How can an art library change the art school or the gallery? Or even an art practice? In Shelf Documents: Art Library as Practice (Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, 2021), artists, writers, curators, teachers, and librarians reflect on how they can use the beloved library as a source of inspiration or a field of action. In thinking about diversity in collections, the publication proposes art libraries as sites of intersubjective communion. shelf documents is rooted in a collaborative book acquisition project, initiated by the artist Heide Hinrichs at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, in which her group integrated over 200 new titles in art libraries as a way to fill gaps, to amplify voices, and seek out the self-initiated or the overlooked. Heide Hinrichs, Elizabeth Haines, and Jo-ey Tang speak to Pierre d’Alancaisez about working with institutions, working slowly, and working together to interfere with the permanence of libraries. Heide Hinrichs is an artist

The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality (Routledge, 2021) is about methods for using observational data to make causal inferences. It provides an extensive discussion of causality and the variety of both obvious and subtle challenges to inferring a causal relationship between the variables, using causal diagrams. It then goes through the major techniques that economists use to address these challenges, including regression, matching, simulation, fixed effects, event studies, differences-in-differences, instrumental variables, and regression discontinuity. The book is designed to be accessible to students or practitioners without the extensive math background that is taken for granted in typical econometrics textbooks. Instead, the emphasis is on the intuition behind the techniques and how to implement them with the widely-used programming languages R, Stata, and Python. Nick C. Huntington-Klein is an Assistant Professor at Seattle University. His research focuses on econometrics and highe