From the issue dated November 15, 2002
THE FACULTY
MURDER ON CAMPUS
The killing of three professors by a suicidal failing student horrified the University of Arizona and prompted colleges around the country to consider ways of heading off such violence, rare though it is.
- PROTECTIVE MEASURES: Colleges are taking steps to recognize troubled students and prevent shootings.
THE GOLD STANDARD
Stanley Young spent most of a lifetime setting precious stones for Tiffany's and other jewelers. Now he's working with diamonds in the rough at Austin Community College.
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- STATUS CHANGE: Some full-time adjuncts at Western Michigan University win the right to tenure.
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- LIE REVEALED: A professor at the University of California at San Diego who is the state's poet laureate said on his résumé that he had received a college degree, but he had not.
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- PEER REVIEW: Columbia University offers a new chair in Middle Eastern studies to a University of Chicago historian. ... An entrepreneurial business dean goes to the University of California at San Diego to start a school from scratch.
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- SYLLABUS: An interdisciplinary course in philosophy and English at Huntingdon College draws connections between Diogenes and Bart Simpson to help students apply ancient Greek ideas to contemporary culture.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
THE EMPEROR'S NEW SCIENCE
Widely mocked papers by two French TV stars with Ph.D.'s have rocked theoretical physics, raising questions about the field's ability to sift claptrap from quality.
NO LONGER SPEECHLESS
Researchers are making progress in studies of "foreign-accent syndrome," in which people suddenly start talking like non-natives.
READ IT AND WEEP
Pick up a book and you'll find yourself doing more proofreading than reading. Publishers aren't doing their job, writes Robert McHenry, a former editor in chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
FINDING A BALANCE
Regulators act as if any scholar, even a historian, who works with human subjects could put their lives at risk, writes C.K. Gunsalus, a special counsel in the office of university counsel at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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- TIDE OF PASSION: The president of George Washington University got Danielle Steel, the romance novelist, to provide him with a lavish blurb for a book of his speeches.
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- CULTURE WATCH: Our expert evaluates the plausibility of Das Experiment, a German film about psychology research gone awry.
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- VERBATIM: The author of The Re-enchantment of Nature argues that to save the earth, we must get over the idea that science and religion are incompatible.
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- HOT TYPE: An anthropologist with a personal interest in the subject has collected memoirs, including her own, in Aquamarine Blue 5: Personal Stories of College Students With Autism.
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- NOTA BENE: The loss of equilibrium between work and nonwork activities is examined in A Time for Every Purpose: Law and the Balance of Life.
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- NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
BACK IN CHARGE
The Republicans' renewed control of the U.S. Senate will have both immediate and long-term consequences for higher education.
REFERENDUM ROUNDUP
Voters approved a governance shift for Florida's public universities, as well as major bond measures for college construction in Michigan and Virginia.
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- STATES OF CHANGE: Democrats picked up a few gubernatorial seats, but two Democratic governors who were strong backers of higher education lost bids for re-election.
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- SEEKING JUDICIAL REVIEW: Ten states asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case involving affirmative action in admissions at the University of Michigan Law School.
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- LOBBYIST WATCH: The Catholic University of America withdrew from the Association of American Universities, citing differences in mission.
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- THREAT TO FAIR USE? Law professors and academic-library groups are asking a federal appeals court to modify a recent ruling on copyright.
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
OUTSIDER PRESIDENT
When a former corporate chief executive officer became interim leader of the University of Vermont, he was able to take on issues that a new permanent president might have avoided.
MONEY PIT
Improvements to a presidential residence can raise money and morale -- or drag a president down, writes James T. Harris III, president of Widener University.
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- LEAD PLAINTIFF: The University of California system will direct the litigation in a class-action lawsuit by shareholders against Dynegy Inc.
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- POWERBALL PROFITS: The University of Kentucky shares in some of the lottery winnings of a former budget officer.
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- JOBS AT RISK: Stanford University and Duke University, two of the country's wealthiest private institutions, are contemplating staff cuts in an effort to close budget deficits that are expected to worsen.
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- NO QUID PRO QUO: A wealthy philanthropist and the president of Occidental College are denying a published report alleging that the billionaire offered the college a $10-million gift if the president would seek election to the Los Angeles school board.
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- RSVP: Colleges' presidential inaugurations and invitations to the events may say a lot about the personalities of the new leaders -- and the institutions.
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- TIDE OF PASSION: The president of George Washington University got Danielle Steel, the romance novelist, to provide him with a lavish blurb for a book of his speeches.
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- PEER REVIEW: Columbia University offers a new chair in Middle Eastern studies to a University of Chicago historian. ... An entrepreneurial business dean goes to the University of California at San Diego to start a school from scratch.
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- BOND-RATING UPDATE
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
CAN WE CLICK?
Colleges are offering online counseling services, but the risk of lawsuits is directing the types of services offered.
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- VIRTUAL SENSE OF TOUCH: Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University College London reached out to each other across the Atlantic via a high-speed computer network.
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- HOUR OF CHANGE: The U.S. Department of Education has killed a financial-aid restriction known as the 12-hour rule because, distance educators said, it interfered with innovation.
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- TWIN EYES ON THE SKY: The Gemini Observatory, comprising a pair of telescopes 7,000 miles apart, will rely on the Internet2 network to operate them in tandem.
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- THREAT TO FAIR USE? Law professors and academic-library groups are asking a federal appeals court to modify a recent ruling on copyright.
STUDENTS
TODAY, TEXAS. TOMORROW ...
Three of the members of Cruiserweight, a rock band in Austin, Tex., have put their college educations on hold while they pursue fame, artistic satisfaction, and a major recording deal.
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- NOTEBOOK: Three new books by insiders offer advice on how to succeed at college.
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- CATCH-9/11: A Fairfield University student whose father was killed in the September 11 attacks has been told she is ineligible for a scholarship designed for the victims' survivors.
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- SKIN-DEEP ENLIGHTENMENT: College students know that tanning can be dangerous, but they continue to do it all the same, a survey has found.
INTERNATIONAL
WAITING FOR VISAS. AND WAITING ...
For students seeking to study in the United States from countries around the world, the delays caused by intensified security checks are calling attention to a process that many say was already deeply flawed.
- RESTLESS IN LAHORE: A Pakistani student who wants to study architecture at the University of Texas at Austin is watching the Cartoon Network instead.
- PERSISTENT CHINESE STUDENT: A young woman in Shanghai who wants a master's degree in educational technology tries to reach American universities.
- STRANDED IN SAUDI ARABIA: A student from the desert kingdom is waiting for a visa renewal so he can return to the University of Kansas.
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- BOOK FLAP: A British academic publisher has refused to sell one of its titles to an Israeli university, as part of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
READ IT AND WEEP
Pick up a book and you'll find yourself doing more proofreading than reading. Publishers aren't doing their job, writes Robert McHenry, a former editor in chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
SCARCELY MORAL
An ethical system that ignores the finite nature of our planet's natural resources isn't very ethical after all, write Herschel Elliott, an emeritus associate professor of philosophy at the University of Florida, and Richard D. Lamm, a professor at the University of Denver.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
Are some current events too current for use in the classroom? Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle, weighs in.
CRIME AND SOCIETY
We have come to regard arrest and imprisonment as fundamental props of our mass culture, writes Sasha Abramsky, a freelance writer.
DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL
In America, Gail A. Hornstein, a professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke College, feels like a scholar. In England, she feels like a Jewish scholar, all the more so when she doesn't acknowledge her faith.
MONEY PIT
Improvements to a presidential residence can raise money and morale -- or drag a president down, writes James T. Harris III, president of Widener University.
SIRKULAR LOGIC
Did the director Douglas Sirk wallow in '50s cultural mores, or subvert them? Theorists continue the debate as the filmmaker Todd Haynes offers his Sirk hommage, writes Thomas Doherty, an associate professor of film studies at Brandeis University.
CITY SEEN
An exhibit celebrates Cleveland as a work of art in progress.
FINDING A BALANCE
Regulators act as if any scholar, even a historian, who works with human subjects could put their lives at risk, writes C.K. Gunsalus, a special counsel in the office of university counsel at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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- POLITICAL MARTYRS: Following an outpouring of grief for Sen. Paul Wellstone, scholars explain why the deaths of certain political leaders evoke such strong feelings among Americans.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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