Weekend Reading: In Like a Lion Edition

Welcome to the weekend, ProfHackers.

The higher ed landscape was rocked this week with the news of the imminent closure of Sweet Briar College. Inside Higher Ed broke the news on Tuesday afternoon. In the aftermath of the announcement, many questions are being asked. The Christian Science Monitor asks, “Are Women’s Colleges Still Relevant?” (Disclosure, I teach at a women’s college, so for me the answer is a resounding YES). Bloomberg View asserts that Sweet Briar is closing “the right way.” Inside Higher ed tries to explain where the endowment will go. A crowd-funding effort to save the college is underway. Our own Chronicle suggests “Sweet Briar’s Demise is a Cautionary Tale for Small Colleges. In a more dramatic fashion,, Bloomberg Business claims, “Small U.S. Colleges Battle Death Spiral as Enrollment Drops.”

A powerful take on #thedress.

On a happier note, according to journalist Connor Sheets, “Harper Lee appears to be fully lucid.”

Have you tried the newest Starbucks concoction, the Flat White? Did you know that there’s a great deal of discussion about what exactly the Flat White is and what it should be?

What about Popcorn Time, a site which Quartz has claimed to be “the most fascinating story on the internet at the moment” and “Netflix for pirates”? Bloomberg has proclaimed, “This torrenting app is too good to be legal.” In a nutshell, Popcorn Time is a controversial app based out of the Netherlands that allows users to watch video for free via bit torrent technology.

If you have ever wondering about the life of a literary agent, this Guernica interview with Chris Parris-Lamb is worth your time.

From the Chronicle, “The Benefit of No-Tech Note-Taking.” (Since when are pen and paper not technology? They aren’t cutting edge technology, granted, at least my Pilor G-2s and legals pads aren’t the latest and greatest, but technology they still are . . .)

A collection of random, cool things from the internet site MessyNessyChic.

Finally, this weekend is Daylight-Savings time for many of our readers. Here are some tips from WEB MD to ease the effects of springing forward

Our video of the week is inspired, in a way, by the ransom cool things post: a skating boarding tortoise:

[Creative Commons licensed image by Flickr user Michael Bentley].