On making our academic writing a little more reader friendly.

References mentioned this episode:

• Laura Portwood-Stacer. 2025. Make Your Manuscript Work: A Guide to Developmental Editing for Scholarly Writers. Princeton University Press.
• Laura Portwood-Stacer. 2021. The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors. Princeton University Press.
• LauraPortwoodStacer.com
• Manuscript Works Newsletter
• Elizabeth Wayland Barber. 2024. Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years. W. W. Norton.
• Charles C. Mann. 2006. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2nd edition). Penguin Random House.
• Kenneth L. Feder. 2025. Native America: The Story of the First Peoples. Princeton University Press.

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Get in touch. Want to request a topic or pitch an episode? Email Lauren at shephell@iu.edu

And, do US academics face a similar situation today?

References mentioned this episode:

• Frank Stahnisch. 2025. Great Minds in Despair: The Forced Migration of German-Speaking Neuroscientists to North America, 1933 to 1989. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
• Susan E. Cayleff. 2016. Nature's Path: A History of Naturopathic Healing in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Christopher Lawrence and George Weisz, eds. 1998. Holism: Greater Than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine, 1920-1950. Oxford University Press.
• Kenneth J. Zahorski. 1994. The Sabbatical Mentor: A Practical Guide to Successful Sabbaticals. Anker Pub Co.
• Frank Stahnisch’s faculty page

Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

Get in touch. Want to request a topic or pitch an episode? Email Lauren at shephell@iu.edu

We forgot to mention Bob Jones was the son of a Confederate veteran.

References mentioned this episode:

• Adam Laats’s website
• Adam Laats. April 28, 2025. Trump Is Out for Revenge. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
• Jim Fraser. 2025. Religion and the American University. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

Get in touch. Want to request a topic or pitch an episode? Email Lauren at shephell@iu.edu

On the creation of the statistical tests we often use in human behavioral research, especially in the fields of psychology, education, economics, and political science.

References mentioned this episode:

• Akira O’Connor and Erin Robbins. 2024.Colonised Minds: Narratives that Shape Psychology. Sage.
• Akira O’Connor’s website: aoc.omg.lol
• Resources from Culture Club

Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

Get in touch. Want to request a topic or pitch an episode? Email Lauren at shephell@iu.edu

From Johnson’s Great Society to Clinton’s crime bill, Reiko Hillyer discusses the “rise and fall” of higher education in US prisons. Plus, she shares her experience as a professor who teaches in prisons.

References mentioned this episode:

• Reiko Hillyer. 2024. A Wall is Just a Wall: The Permeability of the Prison in 20th Century America. Duke University Press.
• Piper Hutchinson. May 2, 2025. “Guts, glory and opportunity on the outside.” Louisiana Illuminator.
• Classroom 4 film https://www.classroom4film.com/
• Mneesha Gellman. 2022. Education Behind the Wall: Why and How We Teach in Prison. Brandeis University Press.
• Justin McDevitt and Mneesha Gellman. 2024. Unlocking Learning: International Perspectives on Education in Prison. Brandeis University Press.
• Lyndsay Faye. 2019. The Paragon Hotel. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
• Attica Locke. 2012. The Cutting Season. Amistad.

Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

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Louisiana State Penitentiary, a former plantation known simply as “Angola," is a site of higher education. Journalist Piper Hutchinson explains.

References mentioned this episode:

• Piper Hutchinson. May 2, 2025. “Guts, glory and opportunity on the outside.” Louisiana Illuminator.
• Piper Hutchinson’s Substack: Louisiana Higher Ed Weekly
• This is a crawfish
• Daniel Bergner. God of the Rodeo: The Search for Hope, Faith, and a Six-Second Ride in Louisiana's Angola Prison.
• Octavia Butler. Dawn.
• Douglas A. Campbell and Jon DePue. 2024. Beyond Justification: Liberating Paul’s Gospel.

Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

Get in touch. Want to request a topic or pitch an episode? Email Lauren at shephell@iu.edu

In 2025, 45 million Americans owe more than $1.7 trillion in college debt. Ellie Shermer explains: “the story of skyrocketing college debt is not merely one of good intentions gone wrong. In fact, the federal student loan program was never supposed to make college affordable.”

References mentioned this episode:

• Elizabeth Tandy Shermer. 2021. Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt. Harvard University Press.
• Education Data Initiative statistics on student debt
• Get involved with our friends at the Debt Collective to cancel student debt
• Shermer’s Bluesky
• William C. Mao and Veronica H. Paulus. May 2, 2025. Harvard University Press Employees Say Director Drove Down Acquisitions and Morale. Harvard Crimson.

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Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

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That degree.

References mentioned this episode:

• Erik Baker. 2025. Make Your Own Job: The Entrepreneurial Work Ethic in Modern America. Harvard University Press.
• Erik Baker’s website
• Simon Callow’s Orson Welles series
• The Drift magazine
• Follow Erik on Twitter @erikmbaker and Bluesky @erikmbaker.bsky.social

Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

Get in touch. Want to request a topic or pitch an episode? Email Lauren at shephell@iu.edu