January 1, 2021: Year in Review: Public Higher Education

[I thought about skipping my annual year in review series—who really wants to have any more 2020 vision?!—but as I wrote this past weekend’s post, I realized that the year featured significant developments on a handful of central world issues. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy those, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and takeaways, on these and any other 2020 hindsights (and 2021 foresights)!]

Five links to help understand the unfolding assault on public higher education.

1)      My colleague and friend Aruna Krishnamurthy, president of our FSU chapter of the MSCA, invited me to contribute to this vital December newsletter on austerity and activism;

2)      Historian and educator Jonathan W. Wilson wrote a great blog post on the threats to tenured faculty to U Colorado Boulder;

3)      Historian and educator L.D. Burnett wrote for The Chronicle about the targeted right-wing attacks she’s faced, and her institution’s failure to defend her;

4)      The University of Vermont is one of the latest public institutions to propose short-sighted, catastrophic cuts to programs and departments;

5)      And all these stories have to be contextualized in the decades-long under-funding of public higher education that I traced in this Saturday Evening Post column.

If we’re going to reverse these trends and save public higher education in 2021, we’ll need all of our voices and efforts. Solidarity!

December Recap this weekend,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other 2020 reflections you’d share?