davidpotash

[davidpotash]

Unpacking Rural Resentment

Understand Wisconsin politics and understanding American politics becomes possible. The “badger state” is a fascinating mix of people, cultures and economies, from industrial to rural. Democrats, Republicans (the party was started in Wisconsin), progressives, socialists and many other groups from across the political spectrum have won office in Wisconsin. From 2011 to 2019, Scott Walker was…

[davidpotash]

Pruning The Ivies

For a recently written full-throated critique of elite private higher education in the United States – not a political action or lawsuit, but instead a book – check out Poison Ivy by Evan Mandery. In lively prose, mixing personal experience with scholarly research, Mandery argues that elite higher education harms students, communities, and the overall educational landscape. The book’s subtitle is…

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Seeing Each Other

Being human is a social activity. Connections between and among fellow humans are how we make meaning, understanding ourselves, our actions and our world. Interacting with each other keeps us healthy, guides us to happiness, and gives us the tools to deal with the many challenges that life brings. Exploring that theme in the workplace and home is at the heart of Allison Pugh’s influential career…

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Shining Light on Community Colleges' Impact

America’s Hidden Economic Engines: How Community Colleges Can Drive Shared Prosperity is a short book from Harvard Education Press. Edited by Rachel Lipson, co-founder of the Project on Workforce at Harvard, and Robert B. Schwartz, emeritus professor of education at Harvard, the volume is part of a larger series on Work and Learning. The workforce initiative brings together faculty from business,…

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Do We Really Have to Disagree So Vehemently?

Read broadly, across the disciplines, and it is amazing what can be found. There might be a narrow monograph here or an obscure treatise over there, but scholarship can surprise and enlighten in so many ways and fields. Come across a tight, well-reasoned work that resonates? One has to share. Matthew Levendusky is a political science associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2023…

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Learning to Love (and Use!) Data

Amid the sea of tutorials, reports, books and worksheets about higher education and data, finding a clearly written study of data and change management is most welcome. Please consider Brad C. Phillips and Jordan E. Horowitz’s Creating a Data-Informed Culture in Community Colleges: A New Model for Educators. While I cannot speak to how new the model might be, I can most definitely attest that…

[davidpotash]

Boys to Emotionally Healthier Men

What happens to far too many many emotionally healthy boys when adolescence hits? In a few short years they transform from trusting, caring and loving teens into macho posers, lonely and fronting in attempts to be masculine. The costs are profound, at the individual and societal levels. While many might recognize the changes in teen boys, Niobe Way, developmental psychologist, has researched it…

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Educational Leadership Primer: Round 1

If I were asked to help a new academic leader, a curious person who knew little about higher education and sought to ground themselves in their new position, I would assign (not recommend) Academic Leadership and Governance in Higher Education. This is a tome, a bible for higher education leadership. The full title includes further explication: “A Guide for Trustees, Leaders, and Aspiring Leaders…

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Organizational Transformation and Governing Boards: Many Ways and No One Path

ASAE, The American Society of Association Executives, is a membership group for those that manage associations, nonprofit and for profit. The organization has a research arm, a Center for Association Leadership, certifications, professional development, and a century plus history. They are good resource, and I recently came across one of their publications that I found to be quite helpful.…

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The Double Meaning of Prey

One of more popular twentieth century novels of manners, love and heartbreak, Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love has been in print since it was first published in 1945. Re-crafted into movies and a television series, the story has struck a nerve over the decades, connecting with different generations. Roman a clef? The book most definitely was closely drawn from Mitford’s own experiences and…

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AGB: Benchmarking Boards

Few of us in academia give deep and consistent thought to higher education governance. We tend to take it for granted until something significantly changes. And rarely, unfortunately, is the change easy and well received. It is understandable, for academic governance can be somewhat of an abstract concept. We are all somewhat familiar with the governance structure at the institution at which we…

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Jewish Eden in the Borscht Belt

A Summer World: The Attempt to Build a Jewish Eden in the Catskills from the Days of the Ghetto to the Rise and Decline of the Borscht Belt is an expansive cultural history from Stefan Kanfer. Published in 1989, when the memories of the Catskills Jewish resorts was still fresh, the book is long on anecdotes, personal stories and jokes – lots and lots of jokes. While the Catskills have changed…

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Young Lincoln, Political Operative

“Leadership is situational” It makes sense, for it is mighty difficult to think of leadership outside of a context, a challenge, a before and an after. But if leadership is contingent, dependent upon the who, where, when and what, how do we understand leaders? What makes them, shapes them, and makes them tick? What is successful leadership all about? Without a doubt one of America’s greatest…

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Reconstruction Culture In The Crescent City

Wandering around in New Orleans during the day invariably means ducking into a restaurant, a bar, a store, a someplace to cool off or for protection from one of the steamy rainstorms that so often punctuate the afternoon. Spend enough time in the city and you’ll no doubt wander into a used bookstore. (that’s an assumption, of course, dear reader of this blog) The city has quite a few, each with a…

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Best Bet for Retaining Value: Local History

A new resident of the Catskills, I have been learning about the area. There have been lots of trips, explorations and conversations. But a local history done by scholars? Is there a better way to get the bigger picture? Possibly – but for this book nerd, please give me the scholarly history! In 1995, Abraham D. Lavender and Clarence B. Steinberg wrote Jewish Farmers of the Catskills: A Century…

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In Praise of the Accessible: Penguin's Collection of Japanese Short Stories

A conversation with a colleague who is deep into Japanese history started me thinking: what have I read recently from Japan? Or by Japanese writers? There was a stretch when many I know were referencing Haruki Murikami, but beyond his work? While I may be up on some popular culture, my knowledge of Japanese fiction and literature is minuscule. The discussion called for action, so I picked up a…

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Hope From Hyde Park

People are stressed about politics. The rhetoric, the drama, the threats, and the concerns – they all appear to be on the upswing. Is every election “the most important in recent memory” or is 2024 different? It most certainly has been historic, with the media avidly covering the changes, the shifting expectations and the ever more extreme positioning. We are in a period of extreme partisanship,…