The involvement of university faculty members in social planning: motivating and hindering factors

The research examines factors that affect the involvement of university faculty members in social planning activities. It examines the impact of philanthropic views compared with the exchange relations approach, both on personal and organizational levels, as well as the contribution of several characteristics of the relationship between faculty members and institutions.     

论高校书院式学术氛围之营造

古代书院在长期的发展过程中形成的一系列鲜明的特点如重、视人格陶冶、提倡自修钻研、教研合一、师生关系和谐融洽和提倡学术争鸣等，对目前我国高校学术氛围的营造具有很大的借鉴意义。     

历史语言研究所的抗战史学初探

历史语言研究所是中国第一个现代意义上的史学研究专门机构，它成功地开创了多学科联合的集团式合作研究模式，引介并运用了新的方法于史学研究，成绩斐然。史主所学多接受了现代史学方法的训练，名家辈出，尤以重史料、考据而自成一派。、九一八”事挛一，国运日蹙，史语所学出入于学术与现实之间，在我国的社会科学界揭起了一面抗战大旋，即“抗战史学”。     

Gender differences in research areas,methods and topics: Can people and thing orientations explain the results?

Although the gender gap in academia has narrowed, females are underrepresented within some fields in the USA. Prior research suggests that the imbalances between science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields may be partly due to greater male interest in things and greater female interest in people, or to off-putting masculine cultures in some disciplines. To seek more detailed insights across all subjects, this article compares practising US male and female researchers between and within 285 narrow Scopus fields inside 26 broad fields from their first-authored articles published in 2017. The comparison is based on publishing fields and the words used in article titles, abstracts, and keywords. The results cannot be fully explained by the people/thing dimensions. Exceptions include greater female interest in veterinary science and cell biology and greater male interest in abstraction, patients, and power/control fields, such as politics and law. These may be due to other factors, such as the ability of a career to provide status or social impact or the availability of alternative careers. As a possible side effect of the partial people/thing relationship, females are more likely to use exploratory and qualitative methods and males are more likely to use quantitative methods. The results suggest that the necessary steps of eliminating explicit and implicit gender bias in academia are insufficient and might be complemented by measures to make fields more attractive to minority genders.     

Gender,academic careers and the sabbatical: a New Zealand case study

This article examines academics’ access to and perceptions of sabbaticals at a research-intensive university in New Zealand. Statistical and inductive analysis of survey data from 915 academics (47% of all academics employed) revealed inequalities in access to and experience of sabbaticals, and highlighted academic, personal and gender issues. Men and women were generally united in their views on how family circumstances, children, childcare, partners, unfairness, inequity, transparency and finances, affected ability to take sabbatical leave, and that lack of transparency and gatekeeping were barriers to access. Yet, women indicated greater concern than men about the application process, adequacy of leave and the role of the Head of Department in accessing sabbaticals. Women were also significantly more likely to be ineligible for sabbaticals owing to casual employment status, and women who were eligible tended to take fewer, shorter sabbaticals. Academics view sabbaticals as vital for career progression and the findings highlight the need to facilitate equitable access to sabbatical leave across an institution. Universities need to audit the uptake of sabbaticals by eligible academics and review the processes associated with application, approval and support for sabbatical leave.     

(De)coloniality and South African academe

ABSTRACT

The colonial nature of South African universities remains a source of debate among students and academics. Decolonization as rethinking academic institutional practices seems less controversial; the specificity of how to decolonize the academia is the core of divergent arguments and contesting ideologies. Consequently, many suggestions and methods for the decolonization of South African universities have been proffered. Although some of these suggestions are pertinent, a critical question about what should South African academe decolonize from needs to be engaged. This requires a critical, theoretical and intellectual discourse of coloniality in order to rethink the academia in South Africa. Drawing from Anibal Quijano’s critical discourse of coloniality of power, this paper (re)visits the nature of coloniality, explores approaches to decolonization and situates these understandings to the academia in postcolonial South Africa. A polycentric approach to decolonization is supported with a goal of decolonization as innovations.     

Women’s participation in academic conferences in Israel

This article examines the participation of women in academic conferences in Israel, a country in which women are under-represented in academia vertically and horizontally. Data were retrieved from announcements of academic conferences in Israel, for one academic year, covering 56 conferences that attracted 997 participations. Participation was measured according to a three-level vertical hierarchy and a three-level horizontal divide that was based on academic discipline. Statistical z-tests and χ² tests were conducted to compare the proportions of male and female participation. Findings show that male participation in conferences was three times that of women. It was also found that the conferences reflected the social agenda in Israel. It is suggested that women are subjected to two forms of gender marginality, one stemming from the gendered division of labour and the other from the characteristics of the academic conferences that reflect the masculine military social agenda in Israel.     

A Subtle Tyranny: Rediscovering the Purpose of the Liberal Arts

Discord in the academy currently manifests in divisions over political correctness, the content of the canon and the defects of modernity. As scholarly and intellectual matters these concerns arise exclusively from the domain of the liberal arts. At their core, these controversies arguably develop from deep epistemic roots reflecting fundamental differences concerning the nature, purpose and value of the liberal arts. At issue is the integrity of the liberal arts and understanding the nature, purpose and value of these fields depends upon appreciating the distinction between professional, theoretical, and moral studies. One can begin to understand these distinctions by considering the contrast in ordinary language between knowledge and wisdom. For it is arguable that while the notion of wisdom is presumably irrelevant to production or dissemination of knowledge in all other disciplines, it is demonstrably central to the purpose and value of both research and teaching in each and every liberal art. If this can be shown then it is possible to understand why emphasis on expertise and professionalism, on knowledge for its own sake undermines commitment to common purposes and concerns. By institutionalizing new patterns of behavior, stress on professionalism changes the nature and conception of liberal arts scholarship in ways that produce deep confusions about meaning and value in these fields. The object of this article is to show that unlike other disciplines the liberal arts depend upon shared purposes and concerns such that participation of in a common moral discourse is essential to the integrity and worth of each field.     

中央研究院出版品国际交换处研究

中央研究院出版品国际交换处自1928年成立至1934年结束移交,历时5载有余。因中央研究院直隶于国民政府,居于国家最高学术研究机构的地位,故该处办理出版品国际交换成绩显著,交换规模空前,在促进中外学术文化交流等方面颇多贡献。通过交换,中央研究院获得了大量国外出版品;同时,国内出版品交换到国外,增进了国外学术界对中国学术文化的了解,为加强彼此间的交流与合作开辟了路径。此外,该处制定的交换规章、结成的交换关系和给予的经费补助,为教育部出版品国际交换处接办交换事务提供了有益借鉴,创造了有利条件。     

Does education corrupt? Theories of grade inflation

Several theories of grade inflation are discussed in this review article. It is argued that grade inflation results from the substitution of criteria specific to the search for truth by criteria of quality control generated outside of academia. Particular mechanisms of the grade inflation that occurs when a university is transformed into a commercial enterprise, an industrial workshop or an extended family (Alma Mater) are discussed in detail.