From the issue dated June 27, 2003
THE FACULTY
BOOKS AND BUCKS
Professors and publishing-industry insiders agree that kickbacks and payoffs have tainted the textbook industry, while some colleges look the other way or seek a piece of the action.
TEACHING THE POLICE FORCE
Trying to end corruption, Mexico City's mayor brings law professors and cops together.
READY FOR THEIR CLOSE-UPS
Academic stars look for a broader audience at the multiplex. Melissa Valiska Gregory, an assistant professor of English at the University of Toledo, imagines the possibilities.
THE PERFECT MATCH
An academic couple -- he in physics and she in law -- sorts through offers to find two that mesh.
EXPLOITED, NOT UNQUALIFIED
People who disparage the qualifications of adjuncts are operating under a faulty assumption, writes Jill Carroll, an adjunct lecturer in Texas.
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- CLEARED: The American Association of University Professors removed four institutions from its censure list and added no new ones.
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- PASSING JUDGMENT: The AAUP condemned but did not censure the University of South Florida for firing a professor indicted on terrorism charges.
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- TEACHER CERTIFICATION: A congressman asked whether the head of a college group had interfered with the development of a test.
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- PEER REVIEW: Northwestern University has hired away a pioneering historian of black women from Michigan State University. ... The University of Iowa's top medical administrator is leaving to return to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
MARXIST, HISTORIAN, AUTHOR, THIEF
Philip S. Foner influenced a generation of young scholars. Some of them say he copied their work.
BOOKS AND BUCKS
Professors and publishing-industry insiders agree that kickbacks and payoffs have tainted the textbook industry, while some colleges look the other way or seek a piece of the action.
RETRORECOGNITION
When it comes to scientific theorizing, hindsight is 20-20. But then you probably already knew that, writes David P. Barash, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington at Seattle.
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- VERBATIM: A historian at Babson College explains why modern management theory's emphasis on moralism is fatally flawed.
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- WHO KNEW? Monogamy seems to make some mammals vulnerable to extinction. ... Children who help their fathers with housework grow up better adjusted than children who help their mothers. ... Brain scans shed light on the role of emotion in a famous logic game.
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- HOT TYPE: A political scientist's article attacking the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy was published in a quarterly put out by the U.S. Army.
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- NOTA BENE: A new work on the detailed notes of a 1912 psychoanalytic case sheds light on the emergence of Freudian practice in the United States.
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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
POLITICAL PRESCRIPTION
Medical schools hope to improve the Bush administration's low opinion of a 39-year-old federal program that provides money to train minority health professionals.
TECHNOLOGY GAP
New legislation in Congress could help minority institutions offer some of the computing technology that wealthier colleges enjoy, but it won't be enough to make them equal.
PRAISE OR DISAPPROVAL?
In these troubled times, we hold public-health policies in great esteem -- until they inconvenience or offend us, writes Jane S. Smith, a writer and adjunct professor of history and of preventive medicine at Northwestern University.
CONTROLLING THEMSELVES
Institutions of higher education and their states will have to find the right balance between flexibility and accountability, writes Lara K. Couturier, associate director of a higher-education research organization at Brown University.
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- JUDICIAL SPAT: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is caught up in a bitter internal dispute over its handling of a lawsuit challenging the admissions policy of the University of Michigan's law school.
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- LOBBYIST WATCH: Several foundations have hired a well-connected former congressman in an effort to kill legislation that would require them to give more to charity.
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- TEACHER CERTIFICATION: A congressman asked whether the head of a college group had interfered with the development of a test.
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- INCREASING BURDENS: A change in the way the federal government calculates financial need could cost students and their families billions.
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- THREATENED: AmeriCorps, the national-service program that helps volunteers pay for college, will have money for far fewer participants.
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- 'CURIOUS INCONSISTENCY': A Republican congressman who heads a key committee with jurisdiction over the Internet and intellectual property complained about college administrators' "indifference" to illegal file sharing.
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
GOING GLOBAL
For-profit education companies are taking their turf battle overseas by buying colleges and creating networks with local partners.
- SYLVAN STEPS IN: The University of the Americas, in Chile, is producing big profits after being bought, but it is also reaping scorn along the way amid questions about its quality.
- PARTNERSHIP PAYS OFF: The Apollo Group is building on local networks to create a chain of colleges in Brazil.
CONTROLLING THEMSELVES
Institutions of higher education and their states will have to find the right balance between flexibility and accountability, writes Lara K. Couturier, associate director of a higher-education research organization at Brown University.
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- MALL MAGNATE: Stanford University is seeking to lease out a successful shopping center that it has operated for 50 years.
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- DO NOT CALL: A new federal telemarketing rule does not cover college fund raisers, but they should be aware of it.
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- PRESIDENT QUITS: The head of Lewis & Clark College resigned after details of an unauthorized $10.5-million loan became public.
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- UNIFORM ARCHITECTURE: The U.S. Air Force Academy is committed to maintaining its Modernist campus as it was designed some 50 years ago, and detailed guidelines are essential.
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- CLEARED: The American Association of University Professors removed four institutions from its censure list and added no new ones.
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- LOBBYIST WATCH: Several foundations have hired a well-connected former congressman in an effort to kill legislation that would require them to give more to charity.
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- TAKEOVER BATTLE: PeopleSoft's academic customers are wondering what to do as hostilities escalate between the software company and a rival.
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- PEER REVIEW: Northwestern University has hired away a pioneering historian of black women from Michigan State University. ... The University of Iowa's top medical administrator is leaving to return to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY GAP
New legislation in Congress could help minority institutions offer some of the computing technology that wealthier colleges enjoy, but it won't be enough to make them equal.
- COLLABORATION IS KEY: A technology expert says administrators must share their expertise to keep computing systems at minority colleges up to speed.
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- 'CURIOUS INCONSISTENCY': A Republican congressman who heads a key committee with jurisdiction over the Internet and intellectual property complained about college administrators' "indifference" to illegal file sharing.
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- SHORTER LEASH: California's State Assembly passed a bill to increase scrutiny of the California State University System's technology purchases.
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- TAKEOVER BATTLE: PeopleSoft's academic customers are wondering what to do as hostilities escalate between the software company and a rival.
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- BOOKMARK: A Web site called the Museum of Unworkable Devices traces the history of perpetual-motion theory.
STUDENTS
GET IN, TUNE OUT
Educators on both sides of the admissions process devise ways to motivate high-school seniors after they've been accepted by colleges.
DISTINCTLY UNIFORM
Sheila McMillen, an English professor working for a year in admissions, seeks the intangibles among the interchangeables.
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- ZONED OUT: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education won its first victory in a series of lawsuits designed to challenge designated campus spaces for free speech.
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- GENDER GAP: Far more women than men earn college degrees, and the discrepancy is growing, a report says.
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- ARSON ARRESTS: Two students were charged with starting a dormitory fire at Seton Hall University in 2000 that killed 3 students and injured 53 others.
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- INCREASING BURDENS: A change in the way the federal government calculates financial need could cost students and their families billions.
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- THREATENED: AmeriCorps, the national-service program that helps volunteers pay for college, will have money for far fewer participants.
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- FISH FRY: Two fraternity brothers at the University of California at Santa Cruz admitted killing a beloved koi, and some students have speculated that the crime may be linked to a reality television show.
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- COMMUNITY-COLLEGE COWPOKES: A team from Vernon Community College took top honors in the men's and women's divisions of the College National Finals Rodeo.
ATHLETICS
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- MASCOT WATCH: Several colleges and universities are rethinking or defending their controversial symbols.
INTERNATIONAL
CHILE'S EXPANDING PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES
The rapid growth of the institutions has broadened higher education's reach while raising questions about quality.
GOING GLOBAL
For-profit education companies are taking their turf battle overseas by buying colleges and creating networks with local partners.
- SYLVAN STEPS IN: The University of the Americas, in Chile, is producing big profits after being bought, but it is also reaping scorn along the way amid questions about its quality.
- PARTNERSHIP PAYS OFF: The Apollo Group is building on local networks to create a chain of colleges in Brazil.
TEACHING THE POLICE FORCE
Trying to ease corruption, Mexico City's mayor brings law professors and cops together.
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- NEW ZEALAND PLANE CRASH: An accident claimed the lives of seven employees of a prominent biotechnology institute.
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- FOREIGN-STUDENT DECLINE? Dropping enrollment in intensive-English programs in the United States may herald decreases elsewhere.
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- WORLD BEAT: In South Africa, a government council is beginning to audit all institutions of higher education for quality. ... The Zimbabwean government has seized control of a private religious university.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
READY FOR THEIR CLOSE-UPS
Academic stars look for a broader audience at the multiplex. Melissa Valiska Gregory, an assistant professor of English at the University of Toledo, imagines the possibilities.
PRAISE OR DISAPPROVAL?
In these troubled times, we hold public-health policies in great esteem -- until they inconvenience or offend us, writes Jane S. Smith, a writer and adjunct professor of history and of preventive medicine at Northwestern University.
RETRORECOGNITION
When it comes to scientific theorizing, hindsight is 20-20. But then you probably already knew that, writes David P. Barash, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington at Seattle.
DISTINCTLY UNIFORM
Sheila McMillen, an English professor working for a year in admissions, seeks the intangibles among the interchangeables.
SCRIPT DOCTORS
In today's on-screen depictions of mental illness, both diagnosis and treatment are suspect, and ambiguity ascendant, writes Julia M. Klein, a cultural reporter and critic.
THE SAINT OF DAKAR
On canvases, murals, ads, and souvenirs, the saint Sheik Amadou Bamba gladdens the eyes, and hearts, of his Senegalese Sufi followers.
CONTROLLING THEMSELVES
Institutions of higher education and their states will have to find the right balance between flexibility and accountability, writes Lara K. Couturier, associate director of a higher-education research organization at Brown University.
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- MELANGE: Selections from recent books of interest to academe.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
CAREER NETWORK
THE PERFECT MATCH
An academic couple -- he in physics and she in law -- sorts through offers to find two that mesh.
WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?
A career counselor for graduate students answers that and other frequent questions about nonacademic careers.
EXPLOITED, NOT UNQUALIFIED
People who disparage the qualifications of adjuncts are operating under a faulty assumption, writes Jill Carroll, an adjunct lecturer in Texas.
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- ACADEMIC JOB FORUM: A discussion forum on the job search in higher education.
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- DETAILS OF AVAILABLE POSTS, including teaching and research positions in higher education, administrative and executive jobs, and openings outside academe
GAZETTE
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