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From the issue dated October 14, 2005 |
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Short SubjectsMASCOT WATCHItems on New Mexico State University's Pete (sans pistol), the big-screen debut of the University of Georgia's Uga, Dixie State College's Harley-riding Red Hawk, and the Brave-less new world of the State University of West Georgia LUCKY BAKER'S DOZEN: Thirteen people in the chemical-engineering department at the University of Toronto will share $1.5-million in winnings in Canada's national lottery. MAYBERRY Ph.D.: Andy Griffith donated his personal letters, collectibles, and annotated scripts from his television shows to the University of North Carolina's Southern Historical Collection. LONG LIVE THE MONARCHS: Each September, thousands of butterflies land in the yard of the president of Kansas State University during their migration south. PROUD DAY FOR ACADEME: The winners of the 2005 Ig Nobel Prizes, for research "that first makes people laugh, then makes them think," have been revealed. The Faculty'THERE'S SOMETHING DIFFERENT'Some professors with Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism, keep it a secret, while others find that disclosure smooths the way with colleagues and students. WE'RE ALL FRIENDS HERERelax. The job talk is just a short, casual way for us to get to know you -- then judge you, ridicule you, and use you as a pawn in our vicious intradepartmental rivalries, writes Cary Nelson, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. PRODUCTIVE PROCRASTINATIONAvoidance can be fruitful, providing you have plenty to do while postponing the most dreaded task. DARK SIDE OF THE MOONA Ph.D. in history who landed a great job on the wrong continent wants to go back home. INTELLECTUAL IMMIGRATIONA philosopher newly arrived from Denmark prepares to tackle the American academic job market. SYLLABUS: In "Radio in Culture and Society," at Boston College, students get an ear-opening introduction to the first electronic mass medium. PEER REVIEW: Erskine B. Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is the new president of the University of North Carolina system. ... Columbia University's economics department recently hired 10 scholars, some of whom are well known. ... David Bbaltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology, will retire at the end of the academic year. Research & BooksSKEWED BY THE NUMBERSDreamed up as a way to rate scientific journals, impact factors now drive decisions about hiring, tenure, and the direction of research itself. FIELDWORK UNDER FIREAnthropologists put themselves at growing risk as they increasingly study poverty, war, disease, racism, and oppression in developing societies, writes Orin Starn, a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University. TELLTALE HERMENEUTICSRichard Wolin, a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, asks, what does the late philosopher Paul Ricoeur's obsession with narrative tell us about his own story? GOING TO SWEDEN: This year's Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics, and medicine have gone to scientists in Australia, France, Germany, and the United States. NOTA BENE: An art historian argues that American playgrounds are becoming so tame that, besides being no fun, they no longer help teach children how to hone their judgment. HOT TYPE: In his new postwar history of Europe, Tony R. Judt says that when the Iron Curtain fell, two ideas of the Continent, "neither separate nor the same," were shoved together in a sudden and uneasy embrace. European culture has been trying to absorb the shock ever since. PROUD DAY FOR ACADEME: The winners of the 2005 Ig Nobel Prizes, for research "that first makes people laugh, then makes them think," have been revealed. Government & PoliticsEDUCATED GUESSESA new federal panel, assigned to develop a national strategy for higher education, is about to meet for the first time, as college officials wonder what direction it will take. CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUEA proposed provision in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act could make professors replace registrars in evaluating transfer credits, writes Alan Contreras, of the Oregon Student Assistance Commission. LITTLE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE: Harriet E. Miers, the U.S. Supreme Court nominee, has been involved in higher education largely as an alumni volunteer. REPOSITORY SELECTED: Human embryonic stem cells will be distributed to researchers by an affiliate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the federal government has decided. AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION CASE: The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a lawsuit challenging a race-conscious admissions policy formerly used at the University of Washington School of Law. DISASTER AID: The U.S. Senate has approved a bill that would provide colleges with additional federal financial aid to help support students affected by the recent hurricanes. LAB-RESEARCH VIOLATIONS: The University of California at San Francisco agreed to pay the federal government $92,500 to settle allegations that it had broken rules for the care of animals. DIPLOMA DATA: A U.S. Education Department survey of colleges receiving federal financial aid found that four-year institutions conferred about 2.2 million degrees during the 2003-4 academic year. GREATER DIVERSITY: Six women and one African-American are among the winners of the prestigious Director's Pioneer Awards from the National Institutes of Health, which was criticized last year for honoring only white men. BIDDING VIOLATION: Snead State Community College failed to seek competitive bids for contracts to renovate its president's primary residence, an Alabama audit has found. PROMOTING GREATER ACCESS: John Edwards, in keeping with a proposal he made during his vice-presidential campaign in 2004, said he and several nonprofit groups would start a pilot program to test a privately financed version of his "College for Everyone" plan. IN BRIEF: a roundup of higher-education news Money & ManagementSTYLE VS. SUBSTANCECampus officials must decide whether to renovate or demolish many poorly built Modernist structures from the 1960s. Some colleges cannot afford either option. WORST-CASE READINESSHurricane Katrina has reminded college administrators yet again that they must plan for emergency situations. STORM WARNINGThe severity of the Gulf Coast hurricanes has taught colleges that they must gird their computer systems for disaster. DISASTER COACHINGCollege athletics officials share insights into disaster planning after their experiences in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. REHEARING POSSIBLE: In a decision that pleased scientists who feared a stifling of research, a federal appeals court has upheld the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's denial of a patent on a DNA sequence in corn genes. GENEROUS STATE OF MIND: The musician Billy Joel has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to college music programs in the past month. HOW THEY GOT THAT GIFT: A former trustee of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System raised $27,276 for scholarships for nontraditional students by riding his bicycle. $25-BILLION AND LOOKING: Harvard University's endowment grew steadily in the 2005 fiscal year, even as the institution has struggled to replace its departed money manager. 'GAG ORDER'? The American Association of University Professors has sharply criticized the Stevens Institute of Technology for its proposed institutional code of ethics. FOR NEED-BASED FINANCIAL AID: Duke University will receive a gift of $75-million, the largest in its history, from the independent Duke Endowment. TIAA-CREF LIMITS MARKET: In response to new laws, the pension-fund giant will stop serving overseas institutions. PLANNING TO REOPEN: Some Gulf Coast colleges damaged by Hurricane Rita expect to resume classes in October. PEER REVIEW: Erskine B. Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is the new president of the University of North Carolina system. ... Columbia University's economics department recently hired 10 scholars, some of whom are well known. ... David Bbaltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology, will retire at the end of the academic year. Information TechnologySTORM WARNINGThe severity of the Gulf Coast hurricanes has taught colleges that they must gird their computer systems for disaster. ONLINE: Law students are creating a Web-based guide to relevant state and federal statutes for residents of hurricane-stricken areas and their lawyers. ... More than 5,500 students will take at least one online course from the University of New Orleans this semester. COLLABORATIVE DEFENSE: A group of colleges will try out software that can track hacker attacks and aggregate the data online, so that administrators can see the big picture. COURT CASE PENDING: A lucrative patent on Web-browser technology held by the University of California has been affirmed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. SCANNING THE FUTURE? Yahoo has joined academic and other libraries in a project that, like the effort by Google, would digitize the texts of millions of books. AthleticsDISASTER COACHINGCollege athletics officials share insights into disaster planning after their experiences in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. SOME MASCOTS ENDORSED: After the NCAA announced that college teams with "hostile and abusive" nicknames would be banned from competition, some colleges are getting waivers by soliciting support from American Indians. 2-IN-4 RULE SURVIVES: The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an antitrust case that had challenged the National Collegiate Athletic Association's rule limiting colleges' participation in preseason basketball tournaments. StudentsREADY OR NOTColleges need to work with high schools to ensure that students meet clear benchmarks before pursuing postsecondary studies, write Charles B. Reed, chancellor of the California State University System, and Kristin D. Conklin, a program director at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. RELIGION BY RACE: Secondary results of a study on spirituality among college students show that African-American students are more likely to believe in God than are students of other races. NO ADDITIONAL THREAT: An explosion at the University of Oklahoma during a football game involved a student's suicide, police said. $27,500 PENALTY: The U.S. Education Department has fined Miami University of Ohio for failing to inform victims of sexual assault about the outcomes of disciplinary proceedings against their alleged attackers. InternationalSTANDARDS AND PROFITSSeveral Australian universities have been accused of lowering standards in overseas programs to increase their lucrative foreign enrollments. GREEN IS FOR HOPEIn a violence-racked slum of Rio de Janeiro, a group of students from Temple University uses rooftop vegetable gardens to plant the prospect of a better life there. LOST IN TRANSLATIONA Fulbright teaching stint in Indonesia persuades a historian that America's cultural diplomacy is in tatters. Richard Pells, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, describes the experience. FAR-EASTERN EXCHANGE: A new program allows college students from Tokyo to take classes in Beijing. NOTHING TOXIC FOUND: Two suspicious letters, which turned out to contain nothing toxic, led to the evacuation of the University of Calgary's biosciences building this month. BACK IN CLASS: After the student-union president at England's Middlesex University apologized for inviting a controversial Muslim speaker to the campus, his suspension was revoked. POLICE RAID IN HARARE: The vice chancellor of Great Zimbabwe University has been arrested, the latest turn in its two-year-old conflict with the government. Notes From AcademeGREEN IS FOR HOPEIn a violence-racked slum of Rio de Janeiro, a group of students from Temple University uses rooftop vegetable gardens to plant the prospect of a better life there. The Chronicle ReviewWE'RE ALL FRIENDS HERERelax. The job talk is just a short, casual way for us to get to know you -- then judge you, ridicule you, and use you as a pawn in our vicious intradepartmental rivalries, writes Cary Nelson, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. LOST IN TRANSLATIONA Fulbright teaching stint in Indonesia persuades a historian that America's cultural diplomacy is in tatters. Richard Pells, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, describes the experience. FIELDWORK UNDER FIREAnthropologists put themselves at growing risk as they increasingly study poverty, war, disease, racism, and oppression in developing societies, writes Orin Starn, a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University. TELLTALE HERMENEUTICSRichard Wolin, a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, asks, what does the late philosopher Paul Ricoeur's obsession with narrative tell us about his own story? CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUEA proposed provision in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act could make professors replace registrars in evaluating transfer credits, writes Alan Contreras, of the Oregon Student Assistance Commission. EDIFICE WRECKSThe photo-journalist Danny Lyon observes the demolition of lower Manhattan. READY OR NOTColleges need to work with high schools to ensure that students meet clear benchmarks before pursuing postsecondary studies, write Charles B. Reed, chancellor of the California State University System, and Kristin D. Conklin, a program director at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. MELANGE: Selections from books of interest to academe Letters to the EditorChronicle CareersPRODUCTIVE PROCRASTINATIONAvoidance can be fruitful, providing you have plenty to do while postponing the most dreaded task. DARK SIDE OF THE MOONA Ph.D. in history who landed a great job on the wrong continent wants to go back home. INTELLECTUAL IMMIGRATIONA philosopher newly arrived from Denmark prepares to tackle the American academic job market. Gazette |