Education

School lunches have never been popular. Culturally, school lunches are something often complained about by students for being bland and unappetizing, and by parents as being unhealthy and processed. Michelle Obama’s attempt to make school lunches healthier through her “Let’s Move” campaign has left some students angry, expressing their annoyance with pictures of their school lunches … Continue reading "#ThanksMichelleObama: Ethics and School Lunches"

Continuing my discussions of the ethics of various educational practices, this post finds its focus in what might be the only part students like about test-taking: study guides.  Study guides are an educator’s way to review material pertinent to the test, direct students in what to study for evaluation, and to provide assurance that studying for … Continue reading "Study Guide Ethics"

Explaining the social justice movement that is #DearDePauw.

We have all heard it before: the kid out on the baseball field shouts, “you hit like a girl.” Adults do it too. In fact, just last fall my sister’s soccer coach yelled to his son, “you’re running like a girl,” upsetting many parents in the crowd. To many, to be “like a girl” means … Continue reading "‘Like a Girl:’ A cultural context"

Continued education, especially college, has long been seen as a positive and transformative experience, changing those who enroll and readying them for the world after graduation. But what happens when unhealthy competition enters the mix? Columnist and mother Lucy Clark knows all too well. In her piece, strikingly titled, “My daughter, my beautiful failure,”  Clark details … Continue reading "“My Beautiful Failure” and Competition in Higher Education"

In honor of this week’s Kids for Ca$h documentary screening, it might be good to revisit a school policy with the potential to land misbehaving children in jail: zero tolerance policies.

Come out to Prindle on Tuesday, November 4 at 7 PM for a screening of the film Kids for Ca$h, a riveting, non-fiction thriller about a judicial scandal that shocked America when it catapulted to the headlines in January of 2009, and lead to the wrongful jailing of over 3,000 kids.  The issue of zero tolerance policies … Continue reading "Kids for Ca$h Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion"

What’s the point of a liberal arts degree? Is asking whether it’s useful even a valid question? Inside Higher Ed spotligthts St. John’s College as a model of a broad education, and how just because it may not provide specific technical knowledge, it can give a depth of meaning and understanding to technical subjects — … Continue reading "Is Your Degree Important?"

A recent Gallup poll found that 70% of Americans favor using federal money to expand pre-school programs across the country. There were differences along party lines. Only 53% of Republicans favor the expansion, while 87% of Democrats favor the expansion. To some extent, this disparity is unsurprising. Fans of small government typically concede that government … Continue reading "A Libertarian Argument for Public Education"

The Conflict Studies Program, The Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics, and the Department of Art and Art History are thrilled to announce an upcoming visit by artists Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski, and chef Robert Sayre, of Conflict Kitchen. We will welcome them to campus the week immediately following fall break. Public events include: Public … Continue reading "Conflict Kitchen will be hosted Oct. 27-30 by Prindle, Conflict Studies and the Art Department"

That’s right. This post has the word “ain’t” in its title. So what? In a recent interview, Harvard University Professor of Psychology and celebrated writer, Stephen Pinker, explains the “curse of knowledge,” and his perspective that academia has placed too many old-ruled restrictions on how writers should or should not write. Explaining that the word “ain’t,” … Continue reading "Literary Hazing “Ain’t” Ethical"

Does anyone remember Occupy Wall Street? Hello? Anyone? Well just when you thought they had packed up and gone home, the movement is back and is taking on America’s embedded institutions in a totally different way. The Washington Post recently reported on a story regarding one of the most widely discussed problems in American economics today: the exponential … Continue reading "No Jubilation in For-Profit Education"

Thanks to the D3TV crew for having me on their news show last night, and thanks for posting the clip of my interview. Here’s the interview. In it, I discuss some goals for the Prindle Institute. I talk about two of our new programs, the Prindle Prize program and the Prindle Post. I also discuss … Continue reading "Director Interview with D3TV"

The introduction of technology in the classroom seems like a win-win situation, but psychologists and neuroscientists are hesitant to write handwriting off as a thing of the past. From learning to read to generating new ideas, studies have proven that handwriting enhances a child’s ability to learn. Studies also revealed that messy handwriting also has … Continue reading "Making the Case for Cursive"

Much has been said of the markedly high rates of sexual assaults on college campuses. While the conversations all point to different solutions to the problem, many revolve around the same source: the disproportionate amount of sexual assaults committed within fraternities.

A few weeks ago Spring-Serenity Duvall, an assistant professor of communications at Salem College, banned student emails. It began with a syllabus policy identifying when students could email her for things, the idea being that students simply shouldn’t email for things that they could easily find out for themselves. But the list became complicated, and … Continue reading "Should Professors Ban Student Emails?"

Don’t be fooled by the (sometimes) off-color nature of this examination of the student loan problem. Through the humor, Oliver identifies some serious moral worries about the nature of what we might call the student loan problem. Highlights include: Total student loan debt is more than auto-loan debt and more than credit-card debt. Student loan … Continue reading "Humorous (but Serious) Critique of Student Loan Problem"

By taking on a voice of its own, performance art often eclipses the common perception of art as simply inert. Emma Sulkowicz, a senior Visual Arts major at Colombia University, is doing just this by protesting her rapist’s presence on campus for her senior thesis. In the above video, Sulkowicz shares that she was raped on … Continue reading "Emma Sulkowicz Protests Sexual Assault with Performance Art"

This one is from the archives. We’re going through our recent history and curating as many of the interesting videos that discuss ethical issues. In 2010, Oscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica, delivered the Ubben Lecture at DePauw. View an interesting excerpt here. He talked about issues related to poverty and higher education. Let … Continue reading "Former President of Costa Rica delivers DePauw Ubben Lecture"