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From the issue dated February 10, 2006 |
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Short SubjectsDOING THE WILD THINGWe look to the animal kingdom this Valentine's Day for lessons on love. 'S' IS FOR SPLASH: A man who helped swipe the giant "S" off a tower at the University of Wisconsin-Stout 36 years ago has admitted to the deed. GREEN GENES: Niall of the Nine Hostages, a fifth-century Irish warlord, could have as many as three million descendants walking the planet, a team of geneticists has calculated. CULTURE WATCH: A 35-year-old student scrutinizes the television show Campus Ladies, a comedy about two middle-aged housewives who return to college in search of the wild times they missed. The FacultyFROM DREAM JOB TO NIGHTMAREAt first the assistant professor shrugged off rumors that he was having sex with a student. Eventually, he says, they were what got him fired. NOT SO FUNNYThe firing of a teaching assistant whose Web site lampooned the president of Columbia College Chicago has the institution facing serious questions about free speech. TRIAL AND ERRORSteve Weinberg, an investigative reporter and journalism professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia, long ignored pleas to examine alleged wrongful convictions. But he's changed his thinking, and his curriculum. THE WALLS HAVE EARSToday's conservative assaults on academic freedom aren't as bad as McCarthyism. They're worse, writes Ellen Schrecker, a professor of history at Yeshiva University. THE PROFESSOR AS INSTANT MESSENGERDetermined not to be left behind, a faculty member decides to become IM buddies with her students. ISN'T IT ROMANTIC?Eager scholars could spend years reading up on how hard it is to have a romance in academe without ever finding out if it's true. PEER REVIEW: The president of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas departs to work for its foundation. ... Two legal scholars leave Harvard University to set up a doctoral program in law and economics at Vanderbilt University. ... The new assistant to the chancellor of East Carolina University quits because her husband was not hired along with her. NYU CARRIES OUT ULTIMATUM: A handful of the graduate teaching assistants who are on strike at New York University have been denied teaching assignments and stipends for the next two semesters. 'ACADEMIC ACCOMMODATION PERIOD': In an effort to retain top female talent, Stanford University will grant up to six weeks of paid time off to graduate students who give birth. Research & BooksBITTERNESS AND SCHOLARSHIPTwo American historians have brought Balkan scholars together with their counterparts in the West to write an account of Yugoslavia's bloody breakup that they can all live with. FORGOTTEN HISTORYContrary to the accepted wisdom, African-American studies began in a multiracial movement for social reform. But its origins have left a fraught legacy, writes Noliwe M. Rooks, associate director of the program in African American studies at Princeton University. HOT COMMODITYHow did popular economics go from oxymoron to publishing niche? Tim Harford, a former Oxford University tutor, explores the question. VERBATIM: A scholar at the Virginia Military Institute discusses how President Lincoln's behavior during the Civil War can inform contemporary debates about presidential powers during wartime. HOT TYPE: The four-year-old magazine Legal Affairs, which was started by scholars and writers affiliated with Yale Law School, has gone through its start-up capital and suspended its print edition. NOTA BENE: A Yale University historian assesses the effect of repeated epidemics of malaria on Italian history. GREEN GENES: Niall of the Nine Hostages, a fifth-century Irish warlord, could have as many as three million descendants walking the planet, a team of geneticists has calculated. STATE OF THE UNION: President Bush called for spending billions of dollars over the next decade on basic science research and on mathematics and science education. NURTURING SCIENTIFIC INDEPENDENCE: The National Institutes of Health has announced a grant to help postdoctoral researchers become faculty members with their own research projects. Government & Politics'DOMINANCE' VS. 'HUMANITY'Debate over a proposed Navy research laboratory at the University of Hawaii-Manoa has exposed differences among faculty members about the purpose of a university. BAD CONNECTIONSFCC guidelines would make it easier for law-enforcement agencies to monitor campus Web communications. But the rules are murky, the legality dubious, the police benefits marginal, and the potential network costs outrageous, writes Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. STATE OF THE UNION: President Bush called for spending billions of dollars over the next decade on basic science research and on mathematics and science education. AN END TO EARMARKS? Members of Congress consider changes meant to limit the practice of appropriating money for favored constituents, including colleges. UPSET VOTE: Republicans have chosen Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, a top policy maker on higher-education issues, as majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives. CAPITOL HILL FAREWELLS: Two senior education advisers in the U.S. Senate are leaving for other jobs. PARTY-LINE VOTE: The U.S. House of Representatives has given final approval to a bill cutting about $12-billion from the government-backed student-loan programs to help slow the growth of federal spending. STUDENT GROUP SUES: Students for a Sensible Drug Policy has sued the Education Department to waive a fee for a Freedom of Information Act request. NURTURING SCIENTIFIC INDEPENDENCE: The National Institutes of Health has announced a grant to help postdoctoral researchers become faculty members with their own research projects. START AT THE TOP: An outside review panel said Auburn University must deal with governance problems if it wants to attract good candidates for its open presidential position. IN BRIEF: a roundup of higher-education news in the states EXTENDING THE PATRIOT ACT: The House of Representatives voted to renew the law until March 10, leaving members of Congress facing another month of clashes over proposed changes. Money & Management'WE'RE NOT STEPCHILDREN'As government support lags, community colleges find that they must work harder to cultivate another source of support: private donors. THE GREATEST CHALLENGEAfter 38 years of nurturing Xavier University of Louisiana, its president looks toward rebuilding the institution -- and the city he calls home. QUO VADIS?No question is more likely to trip up would-be administrators than the one about why they want the job. PLAYING TO THE CROWD: Texas A&M; University has sought a court order to prevent the Seattle Seahawks from using the "12th man" concept in its marketing. HOUSING ON THE WAY: DePaul University has sold the former campus of Barat College to a real-estate developer. THE BIG BUCKS: Researchers at the University of Maryland at College Park find that companies pay more to graduates of prominent business schools, regardless of their perceived quality. PRIVATE-EQUITY FUNDS: Eduventures Inc., which tracks trends across the education industry, has itself attracted two major new investors. 2 MAJOR GIFTS: The Johns Hopkins University and Baylor College of Medicine have each received a pledge of $100-million. PEER REVIEW: The president of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas departs to work for its foundation. ... Two legal scholars leave Harvard University to set up a doctoral program in law and economics at Vanderbilt University. ... The new assistant to the chancellor of East Carolina University quits because her husband was not hired along with her. Information TechnologyNOT SO FUNNYThe firing of a teaching assistant whose Web site lampooned the president of Columbia College Chicago has the institution facing serious questions about free speech. EXTENDING THE PATRIOT ACT: The House of Representatives voted to renew the law until March 10, leaving members of Congress facing another month of clashes over proposed changes. $100 LAPTOPS: The United Nations has joined an effort led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build $100, hand-cranked computers and give them to schoolchildren around the world. AN ISSUE OF PRIVACY: A threat e-mailed to Brandeis University led to a standoff at a local public library when FBI agents tried to seize 30 computers there. BAD-NEWS WARES: An effort to stem the online tide of spam, spyware, and other "badware" is under way by researchers at Harvard and Oxford. StudentsEQUITY POOLSelective institutions seeking talented, hard-working, low-income students will find them at community colleges, writes Joshua Wyner, vice president of programs at the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. THINKING AHEADEarly college for some students under 18 may help lower liberal-arts attrition rates, writes Mary B. Marcy, provost and vice president of Simon's Rock College of Bard. VIVE LA DIFFERENCE: Trying to save the women's college at Tulane University, a group of students and alumnae has protested a plan to merge the college with its counterpart for men. PARTY-LINE VOTE: The U.S. House of Representatives has given final approval to a bill cutting about $12-billion from the government-backed student-loan programs to help slow the growth of federal spending. STUDENT GROUP SUES: Students for a Sensible Drug Policy has sued the Education Department to waive a fee for a Freedom of Information Act request. AthleticsGONE WITH THE WINDTulane University's athletics director fights for sports programs that were suspended after Hurricane Katrina and may not be restored. 'HUGE STRESS': College athletes cited the combined pressures of sports and classes at a conference sponsored by the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. InternationalFOREIGN FOOTWORKStudents in Colgate University's intensive India Study Group learn the nation's traditional dance, and more, in Chennai. 'LOOK EAST': Students at Zimbabwe's public universities will be required to begin studying Chinese language and history, the country's president has declared. UNLOCK THAT DOOR: The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged a provision of the USA Patriot Act that was used to deny a visa to at least one prominent foreign scholar. B-MINUS, NO WAITING: A popular professor at Canada's University of Prince Edward Island has been suspended after he offered students passing grades to drop his overcrowded course. VIOLENCE INTERRUPTS VOTING: A committee formed by the Indian government will try to bring order to the country's chaotic student-election process. POLITICS OF BOYCOTT: Anti-Israel bias in academe harms scholars and distorts research, said participants in a conference in Jerusalem. LAWSUIT AWARD: The Canadian Supreme Court ordered a Newfoundland university to pay a former student nearly $1-million for wrongly reporting that she is a possible child abuser. 'AM I HALLUCINATING?' A debate within the American Library Association over whether to condemn Cuba for jailing dissident librarians has heated up since a convention speaker accused the group of failing to defend free speech. $100 LAPTOPS: The United Nations has joined an effort led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build $100, hand-cranked computers and give them to schoolchildren around the world. Notes From AcademeTHE GREATEST CHALLENGEAfter 38 years of nurturing Xavier University of Louisiana, its president looks toward rebuilding the institution -- and the city he calls home. The Chronicle ReviewEQUITY POOLSelective institutions seeking talented, hard-working, low-income students will find them at community colleges, writes Joshua Wyner, vice president of programs at the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. TRIAL AND ERRORSteve Weinberg, an investigative reporter and journalism professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia, long ignored pleas to examine alleged wrongful convictions. But he's changed his thinking, and his curriculum. FORGOTTEN HISTORYContrary to the accepted wisdom, African-American studies began in a multiracial movement for social reform. But its origins have left a fraught legacy, writes Noliwe M. Rooks, associate director of the program in African American studies at Princeton University. BAD CONNECTIONSFCC guidelines would make it easier for law-enforcement agencies to monitor campus Web communications. But the rules are murky, the legality dubious, the police benefits marginal, and the potential network costs outrageous, writes Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. HOT COMMODITYHow did popular economics go from oxymoron to publishing niche? Tim Harford, a former Oxford University tutor, explores the question. THINKING AHEADEarly college for some students under 18 may help lower liberal-arts attrition rates, writes Mary B. Marcy, provost and vice president of Simon's Rock College of Bard. THE WALLS HAVE EARSToday's conservative assaults on academic freedom aren't as bad as McCarthyism. They're worse, writes Ellen Schrecker, a professor of history at Yeshiva University. THINK PINKAn exhibit looks at girlishness as a component of womanliness, not in contrast to it. MELANGEExcerpts from books of interest to academe Letters to the EditorChronicle CareersQUO VADIS?No question is more likely to trip up would-be administrators than the one about why they want the job. THE PROFESSOR AS INSTANT MESSENGERDetermined not to be left behind, a faculty member decides to become IM buddies with her students. ISN'T IT ROMANTIC?Eager scholars could spend years reading up on how hard it is to have a romance in academe without ever finding out if it's true. DETAILS OF AVAILABLE POSTS, including teaching and research positions in higher education, administrative and executive jobs, and openings outside academe Gazette |