The Essentials

President David Skorton offers students advice about choosing the college that’s best for them in a CNN blog. Among his tips: “First, the faculty …” he writes. “Check out the proportion of faculty who have a Ph.D. or the highest professional degree in their field. Faculty experience in a non-academic setting can be a plus, especially [...]

Universities like Cornell that help inmates get degrees are saving society a bundle. So say President David Skorton and Professor Glenn Altschuler in their Forbes blog today, citing the success of The Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP). CPEP  brings volunteer Cornell faculty and graduate students to teach a college-level liberal arts curriculum, in subjects ranging from genetics to poetry, [...]

In a Huffington Post blog post, President David Skorton writers about a way to alleviate the United States’ physician shortage: “The U.S. already employs a substantial proportion of physicians (about a quarter) and other health workers (about a fifth) who were educated or trained overseas, and we could easily employ more of them without taking [...]

In their latest Forbes blog post, President David Skorton and American studies professor Glenn Altschuler look at guns on campus: “Given a sense of urgency by the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the gun control debate rages on across the nation. Less well known is that this year many state legislatures will consider whether to require public [...]

In their newest Forbes blog post, Cornell President David Skorton and American studies professor Glenn Altschuler look at MOOCs: massive open online course. Most MOOCs, including those offered by the best universities, don’t offer credit. But they can expose a school’s star faculty to potentially enormous audiences. They write: “Cornell University, which expects to join a MOOC consortium soon, has already [...]

In their newest Forbes blog post, Cornell President David Skorton and American studies professor Glenn Altschuler look at binge drinking on campus. ”… about 25 percent of college students report negative academic consequences of their drinking, including missing class, falling behind, doing poorly on exams or papers and receiving lower grades overall. The long-term effects include a higher risk of lifelong [...]

In their newest Forbes blog post, Cornell President David Skorton and American studies professor Glenn Altschuler write an open letter to President Obama as he begins his second term. They offer six ideas to invest in higher education, urge Obama to push for passage of the DREAM Act and double the research budgets of government agencies.

In their Forbes blog post today, President David Skorton and Glenn Altschuler, professor of American studies, write: “Regular readers of our column know that we are unabashed fans and supporters of the humanities and the creative and performing arts. We believe that the world’s thorniest problems will not be solved—nor will our nation be secure — without [...]

In their latest Forbes blog post, President David Skorton and Glenn Altschuler, professor of American studies, discuss the role of universities in the fracking debate: “In Ithaca, N.Y., where we live, as elsewhere, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to gain access to shale natural gas (fracking) is a hot-button issue. New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo is considering whether [...]

In their second Forbes magazine blog post, President David Skorton and Glenn Altschuler, professor of American studies, tackle America’s foreign language deficit. They note millions of college and high school students will not study foreign languages this semester due to cuts. The demand is there, they say: “More and more students and their parents understand [...]