From the issue dated February 9, 2001
THE FACULTY
DOCTORAL DIP
A survey reveals that the number of Ph.D.'s conferred in 1999 declined from the previous year, for the first time in 14 years.
DON'T LOOK BACK
Instead of denying it, acknowledge the age gap between you and your students, and try to bridge it with experience and empathy, writes Carl Smith, a professor of American studies, English, and history at Northwestern University.
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- CHARLESTON SOUTHERN IS CRITICIZED: The American Association of University Professors found fault with the university's treatment of faculty members.
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- GENDER EQUITY: Leaders of nine top research universities pledged to promote the fairer treatment of female scientists and engineers.
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- PEER REVIEW: Harvard University outbid Columbia for a trumpet-playing scholar of jazz and African music. ... A new research center at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa seeks faculty members for jobs with "creative" in their titles.
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- SYLLABUS: Students taking "Labor Law" at the University of Denver form a union themselves to learn about collective bargaining from the inside.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
POKING HOLES IN 'BROKEN WINDOWS'
Many scholars are questioning the assumptions behind an enormously influential theory about crime.
LOCKING UP LIGHT
Two teams of physicists have managed to wrestle beams of photons to a standstill, a development that seems to violate the laws of physics.
'UNHAND ME, YOU COWARD!'
J. Randolph Cox, a librarian at Saint Olaf College, finds substance in dime novels, which edified and enthralled generations of readers.
I NEVER PROMISED YOU A RESEARCH TROVE
A biographer finds that, even in death, her subject, the psychoanalyst Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, wields considerable power to shape perceptions. Gail A. Hornstein, a professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke College, describes her work on a just-published book.
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- VERBATIM: The author of Restless Nation: Starting Over in America says the geographic mobility of American society undermines its sense of community.
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- HOT TYPE: In an ad for Contentville, a Web-based publication service, a controversial professor who believes in alien abductions makes recommendations for reading. ... A new book proposes doing away with the Linnaean system for classifying living things.
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- NOTA BENE: In Literary Lives: Biography and the Search for Understanding, David Ellis unpacks the four "explanatory codes" with which biographers explain their subjects' behavior.
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- COPYRIGHT QUANDARY: Legal uncertainty has delayed the publication of research on "digital watermarks."
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- KINDER, GENTLER PIGS: Purdue University geneticists are seeking to breed hogs that will fight less, eat less, and end up weighing more.
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- MAPPING THE BIG APPLE: Researchers at the City University of New York's Hunter College are making final checks on an exceptionally detailed city map.
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- NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
'STANDARDS FOR SUCCESS'
Research universities have started a program through which they hope to influence state policies on tests for high-school students.
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- TOBACCO WARNING: Smoking or chewing tobacco poses a risk to the college-going plans of potential scholarship recipients in South Dakota, the governor warns.
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- LOBBYIST WATCH: John Edward Porter, a supporter of medical research who led the House of Representatives' appropriations panel on education and health spending before retiring in January, has joined a high-powered Washington law firm.
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- POLITICALLY CONNECTED CANDIDATE: The board of the City University of New York was split in its vote on a president for Hunter College, narrowly picking the choice of the governor and the mayor.
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- QUICK THINKING: Thanks to a name change for a House subcommittee, a key lawmaker will retain control of the panel overseeing higher education.
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- SETTING LIMITS: The federal government has issued guidelines for cross-species transplants involving humans.
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- ONLINE DECEPTION? The U.S. Education Department has charged that a Web site misleads applicants for federal student aid.
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- TAX BREAKS: College lobbyists are pushing plans that would help parents and students pay for higher education.
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- REPORT TO CONGRESS: The U.S. Department of Education says a lack of flexibility in student-aid regulations hurts distance education.
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- NEW BILLS IN CONGRESS
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
KNOWLEDGE AS VENTURE CAPITAL
Taking a page from for-profit education, Michael M. Crow, the globe-trotting executive vice provost of Columbia University, seeks out business projects for the university.
REMEMBERING MRS. MAC
The late Millicent McIntosh -- dean at Bryn Mawr, head of the Brearley School, president of Barnard, and mother of five -- was a powerful role model. The novelist Anne Bernays remembers.
A BRAVE NEW WORLD
Corporations need training for employees. With careful attention to educational niches and compatible clients, universities can provide it, writes Jeanne C. Meister, president of Corporate University Xchange.
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- RECALLED TO LIFE: Southern Virginia College, on its deathbed just five years ago, has been reborn as a successful institution catering to Mormon students.
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- PRODUCING COLLEGE APPAREL: The Worker Rights Consortium found "severe ongoing violations" of labor standards at a factory in Mexico.
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- FINANCIAL SUCCESS: Princeton University will spend additional funds from its fast-growing endowment to replace students' loans with grants.
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- POLITICALLY CONNECTED CANDIDATE: The board of the City University of New York was split in its vote on a president for Hunter College, narrowly picking the choice of the governor and the mayor.
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- E-MAIL BLUNDER: The president of Columbia College Chicago was chagrined to discover that he had accidentally sent an embarrassingly personal message to the entire faculty.
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- THE HOUSE OF POE: New York University has agreed to preserve the facade of a building, once occupied by Edgar Allan Poe, that it wants to demolish.
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- SQUIRREL RANKINGS: A Web site rates campuses based on their populations of the bushy-tailed rodents.
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- FOUNDATION GRANTS; GIFTS AND BEQUESTS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
FATHOM SHIFTS GEARS
A for-profit Web venture backed by Columbia and several other major universities is changing its strategies for marketing and content, hoping to find a way to make a profit.
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- COUNT CAREFULLY: Researchers studying Internet usage should learn from mistakes made in charting television audiences, two scholars warn.
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- ALLIED FRONT: Four state institutions are collaborating in an effort to get better service from distance-learning vendors.
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- REPORT TO CONGRESS: The U.S. Department of Education says a lack of flexibility in student-aid regulations hurts distance education.
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- COPYRIGHT QUANDARY: Legal uncertainty has delayed the publication of research on "digital watermarks."
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- EYEVISION: A technology created at Carnegie Mellon University was unveiled to television viewers on the Super Bowl broadcast.
ATHLETICS
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- ACADEMIC FRAUD SUSPECTED: Iowa Central Community College, facing a criminal investigation, forfeited all seven of last fall's football victories.
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- TRAGEDY FOR OKLAHOMA STATE: Two basketball players and six others affiliated with the program were killed in a plane crash.
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- PEOPLE IN ATHLETICS
STUDENTS
THE NEW CAMPUS GYM
Colleges are building expensive facilities, complete with elevated tracks, water slides, and high-tech fitness rooms.
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- SURVIVAL GUIDE: A new book by a former student, now a doctor, offers strategies for relieving stress in medical school.
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- ONLINE DECEPTION? The U.S. Education Department has charged that a Web site misleads applicants for federal student aid.
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- FINANCIAL SUCCESS: Princeton University will spend additional funds from its fast-growing endowment to replace students' loans with grants.
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- CURVE TAKES A TUMBLE: The University of Pennsylvania's economics department abolished the grading curve that had bedeviled students in introductory courses.
INTERNATIONAL
SECOND-CLASS STUDENTS
Koreans in Japan run their own school systems -- with money from both North and South Korea -- but stand little chance in Japanese higher education.
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- WORLD BEAT: A Scottish university has created an archive of political songs. ... Iranian students use a Web site to protest the country's conservative rulers. ... A new handbook profiles academic networks in Europe.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
I NEVER PROMISED YOU A RESEARCH TROVE
A biographer finds that, even in death, her subject, the psychoanalyst Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, wields considerable power to shape perceptions. Gail A. Hornstein, a professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke College, describes her work on a just-published book.
REMEMBERING MRS. MAC
The late Millicent McIntosh -- dean at Bryn Mawr, head of the Brearley School, president of Barnard, and mother of five -- was a powerful role model. The novelist Anne Bernays remembers.
A BRAVE NEW WORLD
Corporations need training for employees. With careful attention to educational niches and compatible clients, universities can provide it, writes Jeanne C. Meister, president of Corporate University Xchange.
FROM PAGE TO SCREEN
Literal-minded reverence for text isn't always the best approach in adapting a book for film. For example, The Claim changes a Thomas Hardy story to preserve his novel's essence, writes Steve Vineberg, a professor of theater at the College of the Holy Cross.
DESPERATELY SEEKING SCHUBERT
Shy "prince of song" or hard-drinking hedonist? Christopher H. Gibbs, a Schubert biographer and an assistant professor of music at the State University of New York at Buffalo, sifts through reductionist myths in search of a wistful and multifaceted artist.
'PEOPLE OF THE PALMS'
For the Achuar of Ecuador, ecotourism offers the best hope for preserving their rain forest and their culture, writes Malcolm G. Scully, The Chronicle's editor at large.
INX
A group of more than 50 graphic social satirists has provocatively portrayed two decades of an imperfect world.
DON'T LOOK BACK
Instead of denying it, acknowledge the age gap between you and your students, and try to bridge it with experience and empathy, writes Carl Smith, a professor of American studies, English, and history at Northwestern University.
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- MELANGE: selections from recent books and journals of interest to academe.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GAZETTE
BULLETIN BOARD JOB NOTICES
DETAILS OF AVAILABLE POSTS,
including teaching and research positions in higher education, administrative and executive jobs, and openings outside academe
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