Higher Education

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Local heroes of 2011

Simon Moore and Linda Katz
In the 14th annual edition of the Providence Phoenix 's Best issue, we highlight people and organizations who are doing exceptionally good work.
By DANIEL MCGOWAN AND MARION DAVIS | April 20, 2011

2010 Muzzle Awards on campus

Harvard and Yale once again lead the way . . . for academic censorship
Harvard and Yale universities felt the sting of the global economic collapse firsthand in 2009, as the endowments of these stalwart New England Ivy League members dropped by nearly a third. The schools didn’t fare much better in the free marketplace of ideas, either.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | June 30, 2010

Boston After Dark: Glory, Old

Posters of protest at Massachusetts College of Art
Since the national student strike began, the Massachusetts College of Art, on Brookline Avenue in Boston, has undergone a remarkable change.
By THEODORE GROSS | June 03, 2010

BU offers the class of 1970 a second chance at complacency

After School Special
Boston University’s class of 2010 celebrates its commencement this weekend, and BU has invited the class of 1970 to tag along.
By CLIF GARBODEN | May 12, 2010

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At the Cable Car: The wind-lashed and sea-worn

Surf’s Up
On a recent Sunday, the usual grad school crowd at the Cable Car Cinema in Providence gave way to something different — the wind-lashed faces and sea-worn hands of Rhode Island’s oft-ignored surfing community.
By ABIGAIL CROCKER | May 12, 2010

Ledge Lessons

We love you, stressed-out college kids! So relax, and remember how good you have it.
As advocates of higher education and living as long as medically possible, we were sad to read that, according to new-media-powerhouse Web site the Daily Beast, Greater Boston is home to not one but five of the most stressful colleges in the United States.
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 28, 2010

Students gone wild

Tufts naked quad run
When it comes to warding off stress, every college has its own traditions. Some quell student woes with late-night pancakes. Some offer free movie nights. But only at Tufts University in Medford does release of academic tension involve hundreds of synchronized derrières bobbing up and down in below-freezing temperatures.
By ALEXIS HAUK | March 17, 2010

Back to school

Coloring outside the educational lines
Some of us know (or think we know) our paths from a young age. We follow those trails through 12 years of school, and then four (plus) more. Some of us don't. We flounder, we search, we know what we want but we don't know how to achieve it. The crucial component in all these scenarios? Education.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | January 20, 2010

Instead of cuts: guts

Raise taxes on the rich? Only one candidate says ‘yes’?
Let’s assume, reader, that you’re concerned about economic and social justice. For those in real need — people who are poor, sick, old, mentally ill, addicted, disabled — you want decent care. You’re concerned, too, about proper funding of schools, community colleges, and university campuses.
By LANCE TAPLEY | January 06, 2010

Review: The House of the Devil

The '80s revival hits the horror genre
Have you walked near a college campus lately? You might notice that the ’80s are creeping into fashion, the way the ’70s did a few years back, and with the same lack of irony. It’s happening in cinemas, too — something that’s not entirely unwelcome when it comes to the horror genre.
By BRETT MICHEL | December 02, 2009

Youth to power

Going Green
Bates College junior Robert Friedman will be missing a couple weeks of class in December.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | November 24, 2009

Ex-USM staffers claim age discrimination

Litigation Watch
In complaints filed with the University of Southern Maine's Office of Campus Diversity and Equity, a state legislator and five former colleagues allege they were discriminated against in a recent department restructuring because of their ages. The complainants' ages range between 56 and 63.
By JEFF INGLIS | November 18, 2009

Inside the term-paper machine

The black market of term papers exposed
It’s never been easier for college students to hire someone else to write their term papers for them.
By COLMAN HERMAN | November 04, 2009

Free speech again quashed at Harvard

RSVPeeved Dept.
It should come as no surprise to readers of “Freedom Watch” that yet another instance of political, intellectual, and academic censorship has sprung up at Harvard, the self-touted pinnacle of higher education.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | October 21, 2009

Rhode Island’s pride is showing

Finally, some good ‘news!’ Plus, Brown slips, the Patriots slide, and more
There was much to-do and flexing of cultural muscles and civic pride as Our Little Towne placed in the top 10 in many prestigious categories in Travel & Leisure magazine’s 2009 survey of “America’s Favorite Cities.”
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | October 16, 2009

Course correction

Out of school and out of work? Don’t enroll in a grad program just yet — adult-education coures could do (and land you) the job.
So it unfolded on Facebook, the story of this down-on-his-luck recent graduate in possession of a bachelor’s degree in the liberal arts from a respected area school.
By VANESSA CZARNECKI | October 14, 2009

Prep Yourself!

You’ve decided to go back to school. Now what?
So the economy sucks, you’re in a miserable rut at work, and you’re not getting any younger. What are you going to do about it?
By RYAN STEWART | October 14, 2009

Time for law to end torture

Letters to the Portland Editor, September 18, 2009
In a collaborative effort between human-rights activists and incarcerated Mainers, a bill to end the use and abuse of solitary confinement has been drafted and will be submitted to legislators soon.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | September 16, 2009

Prison activist: Board chairman wrong

Letters to the Portland Editor, September 11, 2009
I just finished reading the letter from Jon Wilson. Mr. Tapley was correct, the Board of Visitors is not living up to its mandate to represent the public's concerns about the Maine State Prison, nor is it minimally accountable in that it never filed an annual report until provoked by the scrutiny of Mr. Tapley's investigative journalism.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | September 09, 2009

Mike's Bánh-Mì

A great Vietnamese sandwich for both beginners and advanced eaters
Someday I'll be able to review a bánh-mì joint without providing a primer. But as a raft of new college students are arriving from the provinces, I'll once again offer Bánh Mì 101.
By MC SLIM JB | September 02, 2009

Miraculous Appearances

Phoenix questions prompt action
Two weeks after the Phoenix began its prison Board of Visitors interviews, which revealed the group had not produced annual reports as required by law and had not met with the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee in years, reports for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 suddenly materialized.
By LANCE TAPLEY | August 17, 2009

Rethinking liberal arts in the digital age

Liberal Arts is due for an update
They didn't teach genderfuck, iteration, or micropolitics when I was in college. But times have changed.
By MIKE MILIARD | July 23, 2009

Cyberchondriacs

Online health info can make you crazy
Last year, a co-worker (who shall remain nameless to save her from additional embarrassment) discovered a bug bite on her leg. It was slightly different than a typical mosquito bite; it was more bruise-like, and a bit painful to the touch. Not having any insect-bite specialists on hand, my colleague turned to the Internet for help identifying the source of her ailment.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | July 22, 2009

Muzzle Awards: Collegiate Division

New England campuses muzzle free speech
In a 1957 Supreme Court decision upholding the free-speech rights of university professors ( Sweezy v. New Hampshire ), Justice Felix Frankfurter quoted prominent South African scholars on the importance of academic freedom.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | July 10, 2009

Come on home

Lyle Divinsky croons his way back into town
What's that about the apple and the tree? With college degree in hand, Lyle Divinsky returns to his Portland stomping grounds with a debut CD, Traveling Man , that not only features dad Phil Divinsky's drummer (Marty Joyce), bassist (Peter Masterson), and guitarist (Andy Argondizza) from the ToneKings, but plays in a Motown/R&B sandbox.
By SAM PFEIFLE | June 03, 2009

Law students luckier than the rest

Letters to the Boston editor, May 8, 2009
While I know it has been extremely difficult for recent law-school graduates to find employment this year, the data in Kara Baskin’s story was not accurate. Ninety-two percent of our class of 2008 was employed within six months after graduation.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | May 06, 2009

Braziliant

'Brazil on Screen 2009,' Mass Art shorts, and spring sales at Mass Art and the SMFA
As if puny, leaf-free trees and a general lack of flowers in late April weren't enough of a message to the post-winter season to hurry its shit up, art schools across Boston are poised to open their annual May fundraisers, all in the name of spring.
By EVAN J. GARZA | April 29, 2009

Nervous, stressed, and depressed, LLC

What's a recent law grad expected to do in this economy?
Twenty-seven-year-old Jesse White is a temporary staff attorney at a domestic-violence nonprofit in the South End.
By KARA BASKIN | April 30, 2009

Bytes of knowledge

Getting the most from an online education
Once upon a time, we thought it was novel to be able to buy books in our bathrobes.
By CLEA SIMON | April 29, 2009