Welcome to Thinking About Colleges and Universities

Hello there.

What

My name is Nicolas Babarskis and this site serves as a public journal of my thinking on colleges and universities. I have 14 years of experience working in postsecondary education settings, primarily in student support services, and for the last 3 years I have been pursuing a PhD in Higher Adult and Lifelong Education from Michigan State University.

Most of my writing topics of interest are associated with how bureaucracy, rationalization, and broader socio-political dynamics influence college or university behavior. So if you are a fan of social theory, education policy, and organizational behavior, this might be site worth following.

Why

Why keep a public journal? Accountability.

I find that I write more sharply and with more focus if I know that someone else may engage with it. As a doctoral student I spend large portions of my day in my own head and at some point I need to put those ideas to paper, whether for a class assignment or for the furtherance of research projects. Posting here is a means of transforming some of that head material into "paper" material.

How

I plan to post at least once a week on a postsecondary education topic. Sometimes it may be as simple as a quote from another author, or it could be a more extensive reflection on a particular theory, research method, or scholarly discourse I'm contending with.

So What

I'm a U.S. citizen and I believe our educational institutions are a major organ that sustains and promotes our liberal ideals of representative democracy. I think about colleges and universities because I also think a lot about the state of U.S. civic institutions and what their health might mean for civil rights and collective prosperity.

A pluralistic society is difficult to sustain without our diverse ecosystem of educational institutions. Colleges and universities also play an important role in the prosperity of our nation through the original research they provide. They contribute to our cultural landscape through the psychological and social development they cultivate in their participants. If you too think that colleges and universities are important on the national or global stage then this might be a place to think with me about how we ensure their health and flourishing.