What academics can learn from Alan Alda

It may not be entirely surprising, in the rarefied confines of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, to hear a member of the faculty let terms like “randomized controls” and “self efficacy” slip into casual conversation.

But the point of this exchange is to teach professors how to avoid them. Here in a windowless office in the basement of a red brick classroom building near Harvard Square, the faculty member, Mandy Savitz-Romer, has teamed up with the consultant Mary Tamer to translate academic jargon into comprehensible English.

Read more from Time.