Blog & Pod

Incessant coughing is bad. Coughing up blood is worse. Thanks to a serious bout of pneumonia last month, I can now attest to that. An emergency room visit notwithstanding, I doubt I will ever know for sure if the illness and my difficulty breathing were the byproducts of COVID-19. When I visited the ER at … Read More

I was late. We can call it fashionably late. I arrived at the University of California, Riverside campus around 12:15 p.m. on Friday, March 6. Since I am not teaching at UCR this quarter, I do not have an up-to-date parking permit, which means I had to pay for parking. I parked in lot 24 … Read More

To start my new year’s resolutions aright,  I am reflecting back on why am working with the New American Baccalaureate, seeking to empower transformational liberal arts education. The truth is that my commitment to this work does not stem from research on the value of a liberal arts education (although there is plenty of that), … Read More

By James Anderson and Katy Anderson A few years ago, one of us rode handcuffed in the back of a cop car from Bond County Jail to Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, Ill., which would become a near-living hell of a home for two months (prior to a transfer to Decatur Correctional Center). Before getting … Read More

By James Anderson Lately, in an Introduction to Cultural Studies class I’m teaching at the University of California, Riverside, in between oral surgery and putting in work for lecture duties at another institution, I’ve been discussing socioeconomic class on – and as satirized as well as normalized by – The Simpsons. For this multi-part lecture … Read More

By Rob Fried Jon Marcus’ New York Times Article “Radical Survival Strategies for Struggling Colleges,”  turns out to be full of “strategies” that are far from “radical”. Non-elite colleges are losing ground for three reasons: fewer students are enrolling because of high tuition and fear of debt; most liberal arts degrees don’t provide entrepreneurial and … Read More

By Eli Kramer I’m here with good news, “Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s fall 2019 enrollment data shows a strong freshman class and an increase in the freshman to sophomore retention rate. Overall, total enrollment is 11,695, down 8.75 percent from fall 2018,” or so my graduate alma mater presents their current situation to me. One … Read More

by Robert L. Fried, Ed.D., and Eli Kramer, Ph. D. Surrounded and supported by inspiring friends, The New American Baccalaureate Project is joining the movement to transform undergraduate higher education.  Our eyes are on the needs of today’s youth, and also on the future of liberal education and of our democracy. We are a small … Read More

by Robert L. Fried After graduating high school during the summer of 1959, I took the only job I could get, a minimum-wage ($1.25 per hour) worker in an electronics factory in Astoria, Queens. I was consigned to a basement shop making parts for small tape recorders, where I was the only white, middle-class employee.  … Read More