Age 70 retirement for faculty: An institutional approach

Postponed faculty retirements, combined with declining student enrollments and persistent inflation, are causing increasing concern in higher education. The 1978 Amendments to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act establish the mandatory retirement age at 70, but exempt tenured faculty from this provision until 1982. The legislation focuses attention on the retirement aspect of the problem, and researchers are busy analyzing the issue to help the industry plan for the impact of the new law.Most analysts approach the task from the aggregate perspective, and apply industry norms to individual institutions. The variations among institutions undermines the validity of this approach. This article demonstrates the problems of the aggregate analysis, and offers an alternative for individual institutions.     

The History of the Planar Elastica: Insights into Mechanics and Scientific Method

Euler’s formula for the buckling of an elastic column is widely used in engineering design. However, only a handful of engineers will be familiar with Euler’s classic paper De Curvis Elasticis in which the formula is derived. In addition to the Euler Buckling Formula, De Curvis Elasticis classifies all the bent configurations of elastic rod—a landmark in the development of a rational theory of continuum mechanics. As a historical case study, Euler’s work on elastic rods offers an insight into some important concepts which underlie mechanics. It sheds light on the search for unifying principles of mechanics and the role of analysis. The connection between results obtained from theory and those obtained from experiments on rods, highlights two different approaches to scientific discovery, which can be traced back to Bacon, Descartes and Galileo. The bent rod also has an analogy in dynamics, with a pendulum, which highlights the crucial distinctions between initial value and boundary value problems and between linear and nonlinear differential equations. In addition to benefiting from the overview which a historical study provides, the particular problem of the elastica offers students of science and engineering a clear elucidation of the connection between mathematics and real-world engineering, issues which still have relevance today.

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Economic Fundamentalism, Globalization, and the Public Remains of Education

Economic fundamentalism as the new colonialism. Features of global religious fundamentalism. The historical rise of economic fundamentalism in the West since the end of the Cold War. The impact of economic fundamentalism on national identity, governmental power, and educational policy. Education in the age of globalization.