From the issue dated June 1, 2001
THE FACULTY
WINNERS AND LOSERS
Ohio State University is having all of its academic departments chip in so that a select few can have the money to move into the top ranks nationally.
WHAT'S OPERA, DOC?
A singing professor and a green balloon make beautiful music in a Davidson College physics course.
THINK GLOBALLY, TALK LOCALLY
A looky lou fixin' to discover regional word usages finds a research method less spendy than traveling and lighter than a frenchee sandwich. Allan Metcalf, a professor of English at MacMurray College, explains.
'TILL SELFISH GAIN NO LONGER STAIN'
Literature and environmental studies must recognize the interdependence of urban and rural landscapes, writes Lawrence Buell, a professor of English at Harvard University.
COURTING DISASTER
Two recent federal-court rulings on academic freedom don't jibe with each other -- and one poses an alarming threat to faculty governance, writes Robert O'Neil, a professor of law at the University of Virginia.
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- WHOSE FAILURE? A new book blames graduate schools, not students, for the huge number of people who stop short of a Ph.D.
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- EMOTIONAL DISTRESS: A New Jersey jury awarded $5.3-million to a professor who had accused Fairleigh Dickinson University of threatening him over a grade dispute.
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- PEER REVIEW: The dean of the Chicago-Kent College of Law provoked a storm of protest by blocking the tenure bid of the legal-writing program's director. ... A constitutional-law expert is leaving an endowed chair at Pepperdine University to become dean of the law school at Catholic University.
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- PROFESSOR UNDER FIRE: A faculty panel at Albright College has postponed consideration of a move to dismiss a leading opponent of the campus's president.
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- SHINING A SPOTLIGHT: A new Web site provides information on the corporate ties of some researchers.
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- CLASSICAL REVIVAL: Loyola University Chicago won't do away with its classics department after all, but it will cut graduate programs.
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- OF SCIENTIFIC INTEREST: The American Association of University Professors is urging faculty members to play a role in drafting policies to deal with conflicts of interest between universities and corporations.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
ROCK-SOLID ART
An art historian recounts how the symbiotic relationship of landscape painters and practitioners of the young science of geology had a profound effect on 19th-century America.
WRONG'S WHAT THEY DO BEST
In a new book on hard country music, a literature scholar uses a close reading of lyrics to explore the notion of down and out.
AUDEN ON SHAKESPEARE
More than 50 years ago, W.H. Auden delivered a series of celebrated lectures on Shakespeare. Arthur Kirsch, a professor emeritus of English at the University of Virginia, describes the daunting, illuminating process of reconstructing them.
THE RIVER'S PULSE
Through gene-expression studies on various organisms, scientists are trying to assess the environmental health of the Kalamazoo River, writes Malcolm G. Scully, The Chronicle's editor at large.
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- VERBATIM: Larry R. Ford, a professor of geography at San Diego State University, says space, no less than architecture, defines the character of a place.
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- HOT TYPE: The American Psychological Association is in hot water again over research in its journals. A scholar says his article about an earlier controversy was accepted and then rejected by American Psychologist.
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- NOTA BENE: The authors of Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism argue that the world's most popular sport will never be popular in the United States.
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- CRISP FORECAST: A British student has designed a toaster that, with the help of a Web site, imprints weather predictions on slices of toast.
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- WHAT THEY'RE READING ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES: a list of best-selling books.
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- NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
CONTROL OF MAUNA KEA
Astronomers seeking great views from a mountaintop in Hawaii find themselves in the middle of a political fight over the rights of Native Hawaiians.
HISPANIC STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
Outreach and scholarships can gradually help bolster Hispanic enrollment rates. Meanwhile, there's no substitute for affirmative action, write Marta Tienda, a sociology professor and director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, and Susan Simonelli, assistant director of the Center for Economic Policy Studies at Princeton.
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- NEW ROLE: The Committee for Education Funding recruited Peter Horton, a Hollywood actor, to pitch the group's campaign to increase federal spending on education to a House of Representatives panel.
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- TRANSITION WATCH: The empty room at the top of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has critics wondering about President Bush's commitment to science. But his supporters say there's no need to worry.
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- CREATURE COMFORTS: Two animal-protection groups have formed a coalition to lobby Congress for expansion of the Animal Welfare Act.
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- CUTTING RED TAPE: The Bush administration released a plan to streamline the process of applying for federal grants.
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- NEW LEADERSHIP: College lobbyists were pleased by Sen. James M. Jeffords's decision to become an independent, which shifts control of the Senate to the Democrats.
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- BUILDING CONFIDENCE: Several research groups have created a voluntary system to increase the oversight of studies involving human subjects.
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- CONTINUING EDUCATION: Employees of the Internal Revenue Service are about to begin taking online courses offered by a university consortium.
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- 'SAFE HARBOR': Pending federal legislation would ease copyright restrictions on some kinds of digital music and video.
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
RENEWAL IN CHATTANOOGA
As a University of Tennessee campus expands into a decaying black neighborhood -- even donating the land for a public school -- not all of the residents support the changes.
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- GIVING GOES UP: Charitable gifts to all types of educational institutions reached a record $28.2-billion in 2000, according to a report, but the increase was the smallest in a quarter-century.
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- PROFESSOR UNDER FIRE: A faculty panel at Albright College has postponed consideration of a move to dismiss a leading opponent of the campus's president.
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- SHINING A SPOTLIGHT: A new Web site provides information on the corporate ties of some researchers.
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- CLASSICAL REVIVAL: Loyola University Chicago won't do away with its classics department after all, but it will cut graduate programs.
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- OF SCIENTIFIC INTEREST: The American Association of University Professors is urging faculty members to play a role in drafting policies to deal with conflicts of interest between universities and corporations.
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- WHAT'S IN A NAME? Seton Hill College is seeking to become a university.
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- FOUNDATION GRANTS; GIFTS AND BEQUESTS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
HARVESTING KNOWLEDGE
A graduate student at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln uses his distance-education courses to improve production on his family's farm.
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- IN THE RED, BUT IN THE PINK: The University System of Georgia's pilot program to supply laptops to students is ending after three years with a debt of $1.5-million, but those involved say the effort was successful.
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- COMPARING RESULTS: A study of M.B.A. courses by Canadian researchers found advantages to online classrooms over the traditional variety.
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- GOING PUBLIC: A Web site expresses parents' anger over their son's near-drowning at a camp run by Greenfield Community College.
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- CONTINUING EDUCATION: Employees of the Internal Revenue Service are about to begin taking online courses offered by a university consortium.
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- 'SAFE HARBOR': Pending federal legislation would ease copyright restrictions on some kinds of digital music and video.
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- LOGGING IN WITH: Eric Eldred, an online publisher of classic literature, who has challenged a 1998 law that keeps copyrighted works out of the public domain for an additional 20 years.
STUDENTS
RISING COSTS
Many private colleges plan to raise tuition for next year not just by more than the rate of inflation, but also by more than the increases of recent years.
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- ANTI-SLACKER EFFORT: A report suggests ways that colleges can reduce the costs of remedial education by helping high schools deal with "senior slump."
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- CRACKING DOWN: A student's death has prompted a campaign in the California State University System against alcohol abuse.
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- CHANGING TIMES: Lane Community College is embroiled in a dispute with a male-to-female transgender student who wants to be able to use a women's locker room.
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- CAFFEINE HEADACHE: As part of a performance-art piece by an Amherst College student, campus dining facilities banned coffee for a day.
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- PUT THAT BUILDING ON A DIET: Student pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology installed a gigantic mock weight atop the campus's Great Dome.
ATHLETICS
PRACTICE MAKES PROBLEMS
The National Collegiate Athletic Association limits athletes to spending 20 hours a week on sports, but critics say the rule is unclear and regularly flouted.
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- OUT OF THE GAME: The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities fired its women's basketball coach for allegedly lending money to a player and committing other violations of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.
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- FROM THE BENCH: A federal appeals court made what is probably the final ruling against a group of black athletes who had charged the National Collegiate Athletic Association with racially discriminatory eligibility standards.
INTERNATIONAL
COMPETITION FOR GERMAN LAW SCHOOLS
A new private institution, offering a modern, international curriculum -- and charging tuition -- attracts many top students.
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- WORLD BEAT: A French-language university is planned for Cairo. ... The United Nations Development Program has asked for money to help Palestinian university students.
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- RELIGIOUS RIGHTS OR BIAS? Canada's Supreme Court ruled that a schoolteachers' group cannot deny certification to a religious college's teacher-training program because of its antigay policies.
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- TOUGH TURKEY: The only private university associated with the country's Islamist movement was ordered to stop admitting new students, in part to punish it for not enforcing a ban on Islamic head scarves.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
AUDEN ON SHAKESPEARE
More than 50 years ago, W.H. Auden delivered a series of celebrated lectures on Shakespeare. Arthur Kirsch, a professor emeritus of English at the University of Virginia, describes the daunting, illuminating process of reconstructing them.
THINK GLOBALLY, TALK LOCALLY
A looky lou fixin' to discover regional word usages finds a research method less spendy than traveling and lighter than a frenchee sandwich. Allan Metcalf, a professor of English at MacMurray College, explains.
MIND THE GAP
Book editors at a conference in Jerusalem confronted the English-language dominance of global publishing, writes Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle and literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
THE ADDITION
The fourth installment of a six-part novella about constructing a life, by Roland Merullo, a visiting lecturer in fiction writing at Amherst College.
HISPANIC STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
Outreach and scholarships can gradually help bolster Hispanic enrollment rates. Meanwhile, there's no substitute for affirmative action, write Marta Tienda, a sociology professor and director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, and Susan Simonelli, assistant director of the Center for Economic Policy Studies at Princeton.
'TILL SELFISH GAIN NO LONGER STAIN'
Literature and environmental studies must recognize the interdependence of urban and rural landscapes, writes Lawrence Buell, a professor of English at Harvard University.
THE RIVER'S PULSE
Through gene-expression studies on various organisms, scientists are trying to assess the environmental health of the Kalamazoo River, writes Malcolm G. Scully, The Chronicle's editor at large.
EYE TO EYE
On a viewer's voyage toward an artist's perspective, the trip matters more than the destination, writes Tony Neuhoff, a writer in Chicago.
MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT
When playwrights and their critics publicly joust over history, what are they trying to prove? asks Julia M. Klein, a cultural reporter and critic based in Philadelphia.
A NEW LEAF
The painter Alexa Kleinbard reminds us of the beauty we are sacrificing to "unbridled consumption."
COURTING DISASTER
Two recent federal-court rulings on academic freedom don't jibe with each other -- and one poses an alarming threat to faculty governance, writes Robert O'Neil, a professor of law at the University of Virginia.
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- DECONSTRUCT THIS: Three scholars give their views on the role of competition in our lives.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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