Jobby Job Job

I've been meaning to write a bit more lately about life on the no-longer-so-new job, but I keep putting it off for Juliablogging. By way of punishing my readers for this omission, here's an article from Inside Higher Ed on the growth of quantitative-literacy programs, especially at liberal-arts colleges. Equipping all students to think with and about numbers, despite what the first blowhard commenter thinks, entails much more than just offering remedial math to English-lit majors. In combination with well-designed writing programs and other supracurricular initiatives, quantitative-literacy programs are reshaping the undergradute curriculum by integrating disparate skills and bodies of knowledge in ways that can make students into better thinkers.

My boosterism stems partly from my participation in Carleton's "QuIRK" ("Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge") committee (link may not work off campus), which gets an oblique mention in the article. Suffice to say that it's a hell of a lot of fun and very interesting to boot to participate in this and similar task forces at the college: we're doing some work that is often pioneering and always pedagogically valuable. Plus its an excuse to get free books!