Major Schools in Tri-State Area to Require Vaccine
Cornell, Columbia, St. John’s, Rutgers all intend to require vaccination for returning students in fall 2021 with limited exceptions.
How to be a Great Guest Speaker
Class visitors can be a welcome addition to just about any college course at any level. Instructors and students alike can benefit immensely from the insights, perspectives and change of pace provided by guest speakers. Full disclosure, however, early on in my academic career, I wasn’t a huge proponent of guest speakers and, in fact, […]
Improving Asynchronous Online Discussions
As an experienced online teacher, I have long felt that synchronous pedagogy can be as effective, fulfilling and exciting in a technology-mediated environment as it can be in a face-to-face classroom setting. However, full disclosure, my experience with the asynchronous components has been a bit more challenging. I’ve set out this semester trying to understand […]
The Importance of Understanding the History of Higher Ed
Fascinating article by Steven Mintz in Inside Higher Ed, in which he makes the argument that the history of higher ed is both critical to understand and, at the same time, less and less well understood. Two particularly-interesting points: (1) The early historical importance of non-tenure track faculty …the professionalization of the faculty meant that […]
Hello World, This is Proffing
Hello world! … or at least the small sliver of it that may be interested in this site. I want to take a moment to lay out here my vision for proffing.com. As an academic and social scientist over the past two-plus decades, I’ve watched with fascination the change — more evolution than revolution, perhaps […]