Boxing DayPosted December 26, 2014, by Mary Grabar: Happy Boxing Day, the day when servants in Merry Olde England received their gifts. I hope that all the Dissident Profs out there, many of whom labor as adjuncts for very little pay, have a more prosperous year next year. To read some of their stories, please purchase Exiled, the collection of stories from supporters of this site.
Some professors who are not exiled, who are enjoying the largesse of taxpayers through their institutions, are professors who were attacking police on Brooklyn Bridge. like Eric Linsker, an alleged poet who teaches at CUNY College. The graduate of the University of Iowa writing program and attendee of Harvard, writes such profundity as "F--- the police." In a Norman Mailer-like move, he demonstrated his street smarts; fortunately, he and his peers were prevented from throwing garbage pails off the bridge at police officers. Had they succeeded they could have killed innocent officers. Linsker is still scheduled to teach in the spring at full pay. Seems if you quote Plato or the Founding Fathers, you will be lucky to teach freshman classes, but if you write puerile anti-cop poetry and attempt murder on them, you will have steady employment. And maybe a publishing contract for your new book of "poetry."
frightfulOctober 31, 2014, posted by Mary Grabar: Irony Alert, Grit, True Grit, Academic Politboro Punishing Bill Maher. The release of the Department of Education report "Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century" in 2013 seems to have had a residual effect. The report claimed that strictly academic factors were not as important as certain personality traits, like "grit," for success in school--and life. At the risk of suffering the same opprobrium as British English professor Thomas Docherty for being too "ironic," and "sighing and using negative body language," Dissident Prof (former English professor, who like other English professors specializes in "irony") will be ironic about "grit."
College Board-approved TruancyPosted October 3, 2014, by Mary Grabar: What happens when a school board decides not to implement the new AP U.S. History standards wholesale and insist that such courses not present a distorted anti-American version of history? Common Core is creeping into college, taking over the rightful role of professors, as I report at the Selous Foundation, in my article, "Common Core: K-16 Education." It's also creeping in via the AP exams that give students college credit. The College Board, which directs the AP coursework and exams, under the direction of its president David Coleman, "architect" of Common Core, is now using its muscle to usurp local boards of education. The most recent example comes from the Denver area, in Jefferson County.
Several days ago, the teachers union, objecting to the school board’s decision to review the standards, manipulated high school students into staging a multi-day walkout. While most newspapers simply reported that students objected to "censorship" or a biased "conservative" version of American history, Michelle Malkin reported the real story of teachers using the controversy to recruit students to protest for their own aims, keeping the leftist history standards and doing away with teacher evaluations.
at the 2014 People's Climate MarchPosted September 26, 2014, by Mary Grabar: The Dissident Prof was wondering why high school students would be staging walk-outs and protests over history standards, but suspected there had to be some teachers involved. Today's high school and college students are so immersed in stories about the glory days of protests that they will walk out of class and hold up a sign at any opportunity. The Denver Post announced, "Hundreds of Jeffco students walk out in largest school board protest" and then the Huffington Post reported, "Nearly 1,000 Colorado Students Protest a Conservative Call to Change Their History Curriculum." Huff Post reporter Matt Ferner demonstrated he knows his stuff by pening with:
coming to your collegePosted September 19, 2014, by Mary Grabar: College professors, for the most part, have been unconcerned about Common Core and other ways the federal government is beginning to interfere with their ability to determine academic standards and teach their subject matter. But this summer sessions were held across the country to train faculty in adjusting their teaching to the Common Core State Standards. So, we don't have "college and career ready" standards, but "Common Core ready college standards"! Read about it in my article, "Common Core is coming to your college (yes, college)," at the Pope Center today. This is one of the ways the federal government is exercising its control over education from pre-pre K to college.
More Articles...
- Contraries: Back to School, Bucket Challenges, and Recommended Reading
- Bill Ayers on Freedom of Speech and the Assassination of Robert Kennedy
- Contraries: The Ferguson Riots and Lessons from 1964
- Contraries: History Revised and Reviled
- Plagiarism: Students Fail, Politicians Resign, But Professors Go Back to Work
- Contraries:Teachers Newsletter, Too Much Fruit
- Honoring Larry Grathwohl
- No April Fool's
- Common Core: State of Union, College English, Parental Engagement
- Confronting the Common Core: Highlights
- Common Core, Discipline, Equality of Outcome, the Heavy Hand of Ed
- Common Core, Our Stories, and More
- Dissident Prof 2013: The Funny, the Sad, the Scary
- Recommended Reading & Books for Christmas










Food prices are also on the rise. In January of 2009, the month President Obama was inaugurated, the average price of a pound of ground beef was $2.36. In April of 2012, the price had risen to $2.998, essentially $3.00, a change of roughly 27 percent. Bacon, another American favorite, rose from $3.73 per pound to $4.53 per pound in that same time frame, representing a 22 percent increase.
The economics of inflation are so simple that it can be learned in economics 101 classes. As a student, I would know. Increasing the money supply (printing money) leads to higher inflation and less bang for each buck. Incentivizing ethanol production leads to less corn for food, and higher prices for that food. For products like corn fed beef, the rise in input prices leads to a rise in final prices, and in regards to oil, cutting off the supply by banning off shore drilling or rejecting the Keystone Pipeline leads to lower supply, thus higher prices.
William Matheson is a college student at Emory University. He is studying business and hopes find success in both business and military service in his future.
It is clear, after examining the language, that the government does not bestow the rights to the people. Instead, it simply states that Congress cannot make laws “abridging” or “prohibiting” such things. After all, no document, even the U.S. Constitution, can bestow these rights, because all possess them at birth. Therefore, as opposed to providing the people with rights, the federal government, under the United States Constitution, acts as a protector of the rights.
To the contrary, the so-called “right” to health care does come with a price. Birth control did not appear out of nowhere and spread across the market. Instead, it was created through countless hours of research, testing, and human labor. The same can be said for health care. Surgeons do not grow on trees. In order to receive birth control, health care, or college education, a price must be paid for the resources used and the services provided. If these are rights, then it logically follows that they must be provided to individuals free of charge. After all, my other rights do not come with a price tag. They are mine at birth, so how can a price be put on them? Surely imposing a burden on one to exercise his rights is a form of denying said rights.
A Ho Chi Zinn Week by Mary Grabar, posted July 27, 2012: The historians have spoken! And they have deemed The Jefferson Lies by David Barton and endorsed by Glenn Beck as the least credible history book in print. That was the finding in
Starve the Beast! (yes, Big Bird) by Mary Grabar, posted July 20, 2012. Although it might seem hopeless with a Democrat-controlled Senate, funds should be eliminated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and for
By Mary Grabar, Posted July 13, 2012: Dissident Prof was in Rochester, New York, last week visiting family and chomping down on those yummy white hots and Abbott’s frozen custard, so she was unaware that the National Education Association was holding its convention during the Fourth of July in Washington.
Dissident Prof allies helped spread the word about the bribery scandal at a Georgia State University Teach-In. Minding the Campus posted "
The big news last week--because it was made big news by the media and exploitative politicians--was the Trayvon Martin case. Students streamed out of classes, where if the professoriate were doing their duty they might learn about due process, to
Dissident Prof has incorporated! Dissident Prof is now registered as a non-profit corporation in the state of Georgia as Dissident Prof Education Project, Inc. Just got the checking account and EIN number. Now for the IRS paperwork. Dissident Prof believes she has 27 months to file the paperwork, so contributions might be tax-deductible now. She is a bit behind in dispatches because of all the paperwork, but promises not to take 27 months!
By Scott Herring, posted April 25, 2012 The National Association of Scholars recently released one of the most thorough autopsies of political bias in a university system I have ever seen, and happily, the university system is my own.
By Mary Grabar, Posted June 25, 2012, originally posted at National Association of Scholars,
On Contemporary Academic Discourse by Ewa Thompson, Rice University