From the issue dated May 10, 2002
THE FACULTY
CURRICULAR EXPERIMENT
The University of Pennsylvania tests a new way of teaching on some of its freshmen, while keeping others in a control group.
REWARDING PERFORMANCE
Public schools are experimenting with paying teachers on the basis of how well their students do. Most education researchers support the idea, if not how it's carried out.
FACE TO FACE OR SCREEN TO SCREEN?
The most popular professors on many campuses are comfortable using classroom-based technology, but few are choosing to teach via distance education.
TALES OUT OF SCHOOL
In films, writing teachers are rage-filled, creatively and sexually twisted, and usually inept. In life, some of us also think a great deal about words, writes Melora Wolff, who teaches creative writing as an adjunct professor of English at Hartwick College.
-
- $250,000 VERDICT: A jury decided in favor of a former music student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor who said she had suffered repeated sexual harassment by a professor.
-
- PEER REVIEW: Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas and Robert M. Gates, a former head of the CIA, are considered top contenders for the presidency of Texas A&M; University at College Station. ... Beleaguered Bennett College has hired as president Johnnetta B. Cole, a former president of Spelman College. ... The president of Northwest Technical College (Minn.) stepped down after a no-confidence vote by the faculty.
-
- MOVING ON: The University System of Georgia and Fort Valley State University agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a former faculty adviser to a student newspaper, who alleged racial, religious, and sex discrimination in his dismissal.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
REWARDING PERFORMANCE
Public schools are experimenting with paying teachers on the basis of how well their students do. Most education researchers support the idea, if not how it's carried out.
YESHUA OF NATZERET
Willis Barnstone's translation of the New Testament aims to restore its Hebrew context.
-
- VERBATIM: Peggy Reeves Sanday, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses her study of a matriarchal society in Indonesia.
-
- HOT TYPE: Two books examine the scriptural justifications for slavery found in the Old and New Testaments.
-
- WHO KNEW? A historian discovers the eponymous first Hoosier. ... Internet users aren't seeking pornography as much as they did four years ago.
-
- NOTA BENE: Joseph A. Amato, author of Rethinking Home: A Case for Writing Local History, uses a fine-tuned sense of place to make a far-reaching argument.
-
- DISPUTE OVER A LAW: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers will stop requiring journal authors to sign a promise not to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
-
- NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
CONTROVERSIAL REGULATIONS
After a student-aid panel failed to reach consensus on new rules for paying recruiters, the U.S. Education Department prepared to move ahead with its own version of the policy.
CONSISTENCY WANTED
A report urges states to be more disciplined in their spending on higher education so that the cost of public colleges can be kept down.
REWARDING PERFORMANCE
Public schools are experimenting with paying teachers on the basis of how well their students do. Most education researchers support the idea, if not how it's carried out.
ARSENALS OF DEMOCRACY
University scientists can help combat terrorism, but they must not be hobbled by national-security regulations that undermine the research enterprise, writes Eugene B. Skolnikoff, a professor of political science emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
-
- FAST-TRACK FLAP: The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators incorrectly warned that Congress was accelerating work on a key piece of student-aid legislation.
-
- BACK TO THE FUTURE: Two Illinois colleges each hired the same influential former congressman as their chief Washington lobbyist.
-
- CHAPEL HILL PAC: The University of North Carolina's flagship campus created a political-action committee to lobby state lawmakers.
-
- PROPOSED OVERHAUL: The House of Representatives passed a bill that would replace the Department of Education's research office with a more autonomous agency.
-
- ABOUT-FACE: After much criticism, the White House dropped a plan to keep borrowers from consolidating student loans at low, fixed rates.
-
- CRACKDOWN ON DEFAULTERS: The Bush administration proposed seizing more of the wages of people who don't pay back student loans.
-
- FRIENDLY HEARING: Elias A. Zerhouni appeared headed for Senate confirmation as director of the National Institutes of Health.
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
INVESTING ON THE EDGE
When the Enron Corporation collapsed, Harvard made money while the University of California lost $145-million.
-
- MONEY FROM HOME: Muhlenberg College goes after donations from the parents of students in several ways, and with considerable success.
-
- PEER REVIEW: Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas and Robert M. Gates, a former head of the CIA, are considered top contenders for the presidency of Texas A&M; University at College Station. ... Beleaguered Bennett College has hired as president Johnnetta B. Cole, a former president of Spelman College. ... The president of Northwest Technical College (Minn.) stepped down after a no-confidence vote by the faculty.
-
- PRIME NUMBERS: An information company called ePodunk has released its rankings of the top college towns.
-
- THE CHRONICLE INDEX OF FOR-PROFIT HIGHER EDUCATION
(Requires Flash 5, available free at the Macromedia Web site.)
-
- FOUNDATION GRANTS; GIFTS AND BEQUESTS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
FACE TO FACE OR SCREEN TO SCREEN?
The most popular professors on many campuses are comfortable using classroom-based technology, but few are choosing to teach via distance education.
-
- GLOBAL VILLAGE SQUARE: Researchers at the University of Toronto are working to link popular public spaces in 16 cities using Internet videoconferencing.
-
- DISPUTE OVER A LAW: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers will stop requiring journal authors to sign a promise not to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
-
- HARD WORDS FOR FATHOM: A faculty committee at Columbia University recommended cutting back on its for-profit online-learning venture.
-
- 'COMMONWEALTH OF LEARNING': A plan for a virtual university is being considered by 54 nations that were formerly part of Britain's colonial empire.
-
- BOOKMARK: EthnoQuest, a CD-ROM developed by a professor at California State University at San Bernardino, lets students simulate on-site ethnographic research through interactive games.
-
- NAP TIME: Several colleges expect to realize significant energy-cost savings simply by enabling the power-saving "sleep" feature on their computer monitors.
-
- SPANNING THE PACIFIC: An international "cyberuniversity" is under discussion by a consortium of colleges in and beyond Asia.
STUDENTS
YEARNING FOR THE '90S
This year's business-school graduates are settling for second-choice jobs, if they find work at all.
PROTEST POLITICS
David Enders, a junior at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, writes that recent demonstrators in Washington, who were trying to speak truth to power, found too many truths and jaded powers.
-
- MOVING ON: The University System of Georgia and Fort Valley State University agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a former faculty adviser to a student newspaper, who alleged racial, religious, and sex discrimination in his dismissal.
-
- UNDER THE RAINBOW: St. Edward's University wanted to feature a model student in a brochure but not to list his membership in a campus gay group.
-
- MAINE COURSE: A Bowdoin College senior with culinary talent operates a swank restaurant on the campus.
ATHLETICS
RAISING THE BAR
The governing board of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I called for tougher academic standards for incoming athletes and new ways to punish teams whose players do poorly in the classroom.
-
- MASCOT WATCH: Several colleges are changing their team symbols or nicknames because they have been deemed offensive.
INTERNATIONAL
REVILED IN RUSSIA
Foreign students, especially those with dark skin, find themselves subjected to violent attacks.
TIANANMEN? IT'S SO '80S
These days, college students in China largely buy into their government's anti-American worldview. But they still want to study in the United States.
-
- WORLD BEAT: Religious violence between Muslims and Hindus in an Indian state has disrupted universities, including final examinations. ... The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has sued a computer importer and an advertising agency, alleging their unauthorized use of Albert Einstein's image.
-
- BRITISH SHORTAGE: The supply of top-quality researchers in the physical sciences, engineering, and mathematics falls far short of the demand, a report says.
-
- GANG SHOOTING IN BANGLADESH: Hundreds of students in Dhaka, the capital, clashed with the police following the death of a classmate who was caught in the crossfire at a dormitory.
-
- INDIA SENDS STUDENT HOME: A journalism undergraduate from Mozambique was forced to leave the country after the administration learned that she was infected with the virus that causes AIDS.
-
- 'COMMONWEALTH OF LEARNING': A plan for a virtual university is being considered by 54 nations that were formerly part of Britain's colonial empire.
-
- SPANNING THE PACIFIC: An international "cyberuniversity" is under discussion by a consortium of colleges in and beyond Asia.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
PROTEST POLITICS
David Enders, a junior at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, writes that recent demonstrators in Washington, who were trying to speak truth to power, found too many truths and jaded powers.
PROVIDE AND CONQUER
Just because colonialism was oppressive doesn't mean it didn't do a lot of good, writes Dinesh D'Souza, a fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.
ARSENALS OF DEMOCRACY
University scientists can help combat terrorism, but they must not be hobbled by national-security regulations that undermine the research enterprise, writes Eugene B. Skolnikoff, a professor of political science emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
SHE'S NOT COOL
Laurie Fendrich, an associate professor of fine arts at Hofstra University, describes her old-fashioned, idealistic pursuit of abstraction.
NOTEWORTHY?
An author's new consideration of the footnote is, um, an afterthought, writes Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle and literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
WELL READ
Why are all those critics of Oprah's books so choosy about choosing? Robert McHenry, a former editor in chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, explains.
EXPLORING OUR MYTHS
Stephen Sondheim is the last direct link to the golden age of musicals, writes Terry McCabe, a theater director and a member of the theater faculty at Columbia College Chicago.
TALES OUT OF SCHOOL
In films, writing teachers are rage-filled, creatively and sexually twisted, and usually inept. In life, some of us also think a great deal about words, writes Melora Wolff, who teaches creative writing as an adjunct professor of English at Hartwick College.
NEW ORLEANS ALCHEMY
A new book shows how a proper young Episcopalian named Tom became an iconic Southern playwright named Tennessee.
TESTY
The SAT is to aptitude as beef tips are to (a) imbroglio (b) carpaccio (c) Petrucchio (d) portfolio (e) none of the above. Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George, both professors at Amherst College, provide the answers.
-
- MELANGE: Selections from recent books of interest to academe.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GAZETTE
CAREER NETWORK JOB NOTICES
DETAILS OF AVAILABLE POSTS,
including teaching and research positions in higher education, administrative and executive jobs, and openings outside academe
|
