KS's Global Insights into Higher Education

 "Dad, Columbus discovered the New World!" A few days ago, my first-grade daughter jubilantly announced this after reading a biography, leaving me at a loss. Was Columbus truly a great man? Is the history he crafted something to discuss with such exuberance? The notion that 'Columbus's discovery of the New World' emanates from a predominantly Western-centric mindset is no longer a novel perspective. The "New World" they claimed to have discovered was actually an Old World, already inhabited. The so-called Indians were simply indigenous peoples living according to their own customs. Not content with claiming an already inhabited land as 'new', they killed or displaced the natives — a more grievous injustice is hard to imagine from the natives' perspective. In November 2022, the Association for the Study of Higher Education held its conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the conference hall, where I had come with my professor to present a paper, I...