From the issue dated June 7, 2002
THE FACULTY
MUSIC'S OPEN SECRET
Sexual harassment has long been a problem in music departments. Two cases at top public colleges draw attention to the issue.
MOTHER LOAD
The only thing more difficult for academic women than having babies in graduate school is having them later, writes Kathryn Lynch, a professor of English at Wellesley College.
MORTALITY 101
Colleges say they prepare students for life. They should also educate them about death, write Edward R. Ratner and John Y. Song, bioethicists and assistant professors of medicine at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
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- BATTLE FOR ADJUNCTS: At New York University, the United Automobile Workers and the American Federation of Teachers are vying to represent part-timers.
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- PEER REVIEW: The University of Michigan names its first female president. ... The Pima County Community College District is going back to the drawing board after two of its four chancellor finalists dropped out of the running.
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- ORDER OUT OF CHAOS: An organizational consultant helps academics with paper-packed offices change their messy ways.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
THE LIVES OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
Scholars debate the importance of biographies in understanding thinkers' ideas.
ENDLESS REBIRTH
A new theory posits that the universe had no beginning -- and will not end.
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- VERBATIM: James Waller, a professor of psychology at Whitworth College, discusses how ordinary people commit acts of genocide.
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- HOT TYPE: A private girls' academy in Baltimore cleared the way for the publication of a school history that it had initially suppressed. ... Bell Labs is investigating whether a physicist falsified data in papers that appeared in two prestigious scientific journals.
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- NOTA BENE: Sober Men and True explores life below deck in the Royal Navy in the first half of the 20th century.
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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
UNEASY TRUCE
Project Jason, an elite panel of academics that has advised the Defense Department on research for 43 years, negotiated its way past a canceled contract.
TOO LITTLE MONEY, TOO MANY RULES
Arguing that it's a matter of efficiency and academic quality, the University of Colorado System is seeking more autonomy from state regulation.
DEFENDING TITLE IX
Defying rumors, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by wrestling coaches and advocates of other men's sports.
ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
The organization and outlook of many state legislatures impede them from meeting 21st-century challenges, writes Earl Mackey, president of a higher-education and public-policy consulting firm in Venice, Fla.
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- MAKING ROOM: Robert B. Reich, a Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts, has proposed fining public universities that don't house all of their undergraduates on campus.
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- OOPS: A typo in the Federal Register made it appear that the Immigration and Naturalization Service would not require colleges to update a foreign-student database.
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- STAR WAR: Lobbyists are fighting President Bush in an effort to save a fellowship program aimed at environmental science.
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- BIOTERRORISM BILL: Congress approved legislation that would give universities more responsibility for guarding biological agents used in research.
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- NUCLEAR SECURITY: A new report suggests that colleges that operate reactors for research should bolster safeguards against uranium theft.
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- MEETING THE SHORTFALL: The U.S. House of Representatives approved emergency-spending legislation that would add $1-billion to the Pell Grant Program.
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- REFERENDUM MOVES FORWARD: Florida's Supreme Court cleared the way for a vote on the creation of a state-university system with its own governing board.
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- VICTORY OR DEFEAT? The librarian of Congress has rejected proposed fees that radio broadcasters would pay for playing music online.
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
BETTER BUILDINGS, BIGGER DONATIONS?
Many colleges are constructing new business-school facilities to lure students and financial support.
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- THE COLLAR OF MONEY: The University of Dayton received a pledge of $17.5-million -- its largest gift ever -- from the Marianists, an order of Roman Catholic priests and brothers who have taken vows of poverty.
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- NEW CHAPTER: After less than a year of running an off-campus bookstore, Beloit College has arranged for Barnes & Noble to take over.
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- BIG REIMBURSEMENT: William Jewell College has returned grants totaling more than $2.1-million to two foundations.
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- RECORD PAYOUT: Former and current administrators at California State University-Monterey Bay settled a racial-discrimination lawsuit against the institution.
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- CONTESTED ESTATE: A donor's $1.1-million bequest to Texas A&M University instead went to the donor's heirs.
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- BRAIN TRUST: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has received a $50-million gift to study the causes of schizophrenia, memory loss, and Alzheimer's disease.
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- PEER REVIEW: The University of Michigan names its first female president. ... The Pima County Community College District is going back to the drawing board after two of its four chancellor finalists dropped out of the running.
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- FOUNDATION GRANTS; GIFTS AND BEQUESTS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
COMPUTER ETHICS
Colleges are creating offices to handle crimes, near crimes, human errors, dramas, and assorted foibles on increasingly Internet-connected campuses.
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- HI MOM! The Universities of Pennsylvania and New Mexico used a Web site and wireless technology to allow graduating students to display personalized messages on video screens at commencement.
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- VICTORY OR DEFEAT? The librarian of Congress has rejected proposed fees that radio broadcasters would pay for playing music online.
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- FEW TAKERS: A new distance-education master's-degree program started by the University of Michigan for Chinese students drew only two.
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- DEFYING A DOWNWARD TREND: Colleges have continued to buy new information systems, but some higher-education analysts say they doubt that such spending will continue.
STUDENTS
LEAP OF DETERMINATION
Professional dancers looking ahead to other careers can earn a B.A. in a St. Mary's College of California program tailored to their demanding schedules.
DEAD DAYS
Just how much studying is done between the end of classes and the start of final exams at the University of Texas at Austin?
FOR GOOD MEASURE
The most effective preparation for the SAT is a childhood spent reading. Isn't that a value worth preserving? Paul Marx, a professor of English emeritus at the University of New Haven, says yes.
MORTALITY 101
Colleges say they prepare students for life. They should also educate them about death, write Edward R. Ratner and John Y. Song, bioethicists and assistant professors of medicine at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
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- RAISING THE BAR: The faculty voted for tougher grading standards at Harvard University.
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- COLOR BLIND? Harvard University's yearbook is drawing fire for omitting, apparently unintentionally, all black and Latino student organizations.
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- CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH A B.A.: The Hollywood titan Steven Spielberg finally got his undergraduate degree, 35 years after dropping out.
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- TAKING THE OFFENSIVE: Some University of New Hampshire feminists drew criticism for hanging a banner that used a racial epithet.
ATHLETICS
DEFENDING TITLE IX
Defying rumors, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by wrestling coaches and advocates of other men's sports.
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- LEANER, NOT MEANER: The football coach at the University of Maryland at College Park is trying to drop 100 of his 350 pounds to raise money for a stadium renovation.
INTERNATIONAL
A CHILL IN MYANMAR
In the country formerly known as Burma, higher education struggles to emerge from 14 years of repression.
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- WORLD BEAT: Liberia's Cuttington University College, its campus overtaken by a rebel army, has resumed classes in Monrovia, the capital. ... The American University of Beirut has lured a prominent scholar of Islamic history back from the University of Cambridge.
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- FEW TAKERS: A new distance-education master's-degree program started by the University of Michigan for Chinese students drew only two.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
MOTHER LOAD
The only thing more difficult for academic women than having babies in graduate school is having them later, writes Kathryn Lynch, a professor of English at Wellesley College.
POWERFUL VISIONS
Robin D.G. Kelley, a professor of history and Africana studies at New York University, looks back on his years of studying the black radical imagination and asks: In these rough times, how do we go beyond cynicism to produce dreams of freedom?
FOR GOOD MEASURE
The most effective preparation for the SAT is a childhood spent reading. Isn't that a value worth preserving? Paul Marx, a professor of English emeritus at the University of New Haven, says yes.
MORTALITY 101
Colleges say they prepare students for life. They should also educate them about death, write Edward R. Ratner and John Y. Song, bioethicists and assistant professors of medicine at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
VIEWFINDER
Richard Steven Street, a photographer and historian, found that each of his fields was crucial to his practice of the other, as he focused his lens on farmworkers.
CULTURE CRUNCH
Arts journalism is under siege. What are arts journalists doing about it? Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle, has some ideas.
GRAPHIC HISTORY
Recently discovered prints from the 1930s show how two artists grappled with the Scottsboro case.
ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
The organization and outlook of many state legislatures impede them from meeting 21st-century challenges, writes Earl Mackey, president of a higher-education and public-policy consulting firm in Venice, Fla.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GAZETTE
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