Winter break is here. Time to take a break from your academic chores…or to catch up a bit on some of the longer reads that you weren’t able to get to during the craziest of semesters. Here are a few suggestions. This is not our “best of 2020” list – just a compendium of some good longer pieces that you probably couldn’t get to during the semester. We’d welcome additions to this list, any suggestions that you found particular useful on any of many themes that demanded our attention during the past year and will help prepare us for 2021.
Assessment:
Natasha A. Jankowski, Assessment During a Crisis: Responding to a Global Pandemic (National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, August 2020).
Enrollment trends:
Bryan Alexander, “American Higher Ed Enrollment Declined in Fall 2020. Again.”
Gen Z and the Crisis:
Kim Parker and Ruth Igielnik, “On the Cusp of Adulthood and Facing an Uncertain Future: What We Know About Gen Z So Far,” Pew Research Center, May 14, 2020.
Race, Anti-racism, and Higher Education:
American Council on Education, Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education: A Status Report (2019, with a 2020 Supplement).
Allison N. Ash, Redgina Hill, Stephen N. Risdon, and Alexander Jun, “Anti-Racism in Higher Education: A Model for Change,” Race and Pedagogy Journal 4:3 (2020).
Chronicle of Higher Education (virtual event), “ ‘Is Inclusion Even Possible?’ A Conversation about Race, Class, and Higher Education” (December 16, 2020).
Student learning, pre-college years:
Emma Dorn, Bryan Hancock, Jimmy Sarakatsannis, and Ellen Viruleg, “COVID-19 and students learning in the United States: The Hurt Could Last a Lifetime” (McKinsey & Company, June 2020).
Truth/Knowledge
Jonathan Rauch, “The Constitution of Knowledge,” National Affairs (Fall 2018).
Oliver Traldi, “The Truth is Not Enough,” Heterodox Academy: The Blog (December 2, 2020).
AAUP, “In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education,” January 2020.
Andrew Jewett, “What Attacks on Science Get Wrong: Science is an Institutionalized set of knowledge practices, not a philosophical system,” Chronicle of Higher Education Review, Dec. 9, 2020.
Sophia Rosenfeld, Democracy and Truth: A Short History (Univ. of Pennsylvania, 2019).