by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak In my great state, today is the second day of “Common Ground” meetings between legislators, Regents, and university officials. At this event, participants will play shell games, pretending that the answers to easy questions are not easy. They will point fingers at ideological targets, as partisans must do by nature, and build […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak (Updated Below) This short post will be stunningly obvious to anyone with a sense of context. I’ve been reading Dylan Matthews’ Washington Post series on rising university tuition, which confirms what most of us have known for a long time: state cuts to higher education budgets have directly resulted in increased tuition […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak As all nine people who read this blog know, I’m interested in how we talk about things because that language, from where I sit, is equal to reality. Those readers will also know that I think we generally suck at talking about higher education. There are any number of reasons for this: […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak Many have made this point before, and I guess we’ll have to make it again: if your first stop when discussing higher education and cost reform is faculty, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Honestly, there should be a law against think-tank folks writing papers on higher ed, because […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak That sound you hear is the buzz around The Chronicle of Higher Education’s article “The Gates Effect,” which examines what happens when institutions of higher education sacrifice input and influence for big foundation dollars. Responses have been predictably polarizing, with many pointing out that this is another example of corporate creep into higher […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak The refreshing benefit of Oregon’s “Pay It Forward” proposal for higher education is that, for about a week’s time, people stopped saying “MOOC.” Conversely, the painful byproduct of the proposal is that it once again exposes our inability to discuss higher education in a way that doesn’t immediately privilege and protect the […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak With the academic year now behind me, there’s a lot to reflect on. Here’s a sample of what I accomplished this past year in my professional life: I received tenure for the second time, published a book, won a student-nominated teaching award, laid the groundwork for digital humanities at my institution, was […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak I can’t take it any more. In our current literary discourse, we simply suck at talking and writing about Sylvia Plath. The suckiness never subsides; it only increases, as evidenced by Terry Castle’s horror-show review recently published in the New York Review of Books. That review has, rightly, inspired a number of […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak As part of an “innovation group” on my campus, I recently read Jeffrey Selingo’s College (Un)bound. Our group met and had a very lively discussion of the book, especially in regards to how Selingo’s vision of higher ed’s future aligns and departs with our own. That meeting was weeks ago now, but […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak As of late, discussions of “just don’t go” and “just go” to graduate school have been echoing like the 36 Chambers of Shaolin. The argument, of course, is whether or not graduate school is a worthwhile investment, yet there is a broad range of opinion on what that investment and its return […]

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by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak For DS106, or “Digital Storytelling,” images are obviously going to be essential. If you’re like me, mastering Photoshop feels like an impossibility and probably something I should have considered fifteen years ago. Still, one skill I’ve wanted to acquire is how to extract images from their original background. With a little video […]

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak 1. For all edupreneurs who genuflect before the gluttonous god of cost… let’s play hockey. 2. I warned that I wouldn’t be mature enough to avoid making another profound, earth-shattering GIF.  Tweet

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak Well, here is something I’ve always wanted to learn how to do: make an animated GIF. All the cool kids are (have been) doing it. It was mind-numbingly easy and could quickly become an obsession for people who are as immature as I am. I consider this GIF to be a metaphor ...

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak Daily Create 1: Write a 400-word story describing an event from two different characters’ perspectives. The sound of rubber on pebbles. On gravel. The slow crunch of tires turning. It’s the only new sound in a day of new things. I go to the library, check out a book from the third ...

by Chuck Rybak/@chuckrybak Because I could write the same blog post here every day for the next month, regularly titled, “Why Do People Who Talk About Higher Education Know Nothing About Higher Education,” I’ve decided to shift gears a little and dip into a MOOC on “Digital Storytelling,” offered by the University of Mary Washington. ...