Volume 58, Issue 11: November 4, 2011

News

The Cross-Country Recruitment Rush

More public universities are fanning out across the nation to recruit, and students are responding.
Psychologists Battle Over Army's Optimism Training

Critics say a $125-million effort by the Army to make soldiers more resilient should have undergone more testing to find out whether it's actually effective.
Loan Plan Scores Political Points but Offers Limited Relief

The steps President Obama is taking to make student debt more manageable may not be enough to sway the young voters who helped bring him to office.
Duke Faculty Question the University's Global Ambitions

As the university expands its international efforts, including building a campus in China, some professors are raising questions about the strategy.
Regional Public Universities Scale Back Ambitions

Stretched thin by a milewide mission and an equally broad pool of students, Cleveland State University is stuck in the mushy middle of higher education.
Provost Upholds U. of Denver's Handling of Professor Who Discussed Sex in Class

The provost rejected a faculty panel's conclusion that the university had erred in failing to consider the academic relevance of the professor's statements.
As Emphasis on Student Evaluations Grows, Professors Increasingly Seek Midcourse Feedback

Midterm feedback from students gives professors a chance to adjust their courses to improve learning and student satisfaction.
Population Researchers Look for Room in Academe

The world's population is growing at an alarming rate, but scientists who study it must often forge their own connections among traditional disciplines.
This Professor Can 'Spit a 16' and Then Find Its Square Root

A lecturer in math at Northeastern U. draws on his background as a rapper to forge connections with at-risk students.
Hot Type: 'Princeton Shorts' Tries to Lure Readers With Digital Excerpts From Full Books

The university press will sell bits of books on its backlist to see if readers have an appetite for e-morsels.
Wired Campus: What Wikipedia Deletes, and Why

The online encyclopedia is not just deleting some edits but removing them from the history forever. One research team looks into what’s being stricken from the record.
Rise in Sticker Price at Public Colleges Outpaces That at Private Colleges for 5th Year in a Row

Tuition hikes at California's public colleges had a big impact on the upward trend this year, says a College Board report.
A National Digital Public Library Begins to Take Shape

Foundations, tech experts, and librarians came together to offer support for the proposed library, which would make many collections accessible to the public online.
Uncertainties Dampen University Optimism Over Human-Subjects-Rule Revisions

University officials worry about the details that could appear in the next level of regulations, even as they welcome a lightening of their regulatory burden.
NCAA Grapples With Covering Cost of Attendance for Athletes

A proposal to give players up to $2,000 more a year has raised concerns at a time when many college students are coping with economic gloom.
NCAA to Consider Sweeping Changes in Athlete Aid and Eligibility Rules

The Division I board will hear proposals on increasing the amount of money athletes receive and extending scholarships over multiple years.
An Adjunct Professor Who Teaches a Course on the Nature of Stuttering

A banker turned speech pathologist is drawing on his personal experience to help other stutterers.
Anthropology Course Explores the Life Cycle of, Say, Your Pen

An professor teaches students about globalization by having them investigate everyday objects, from their origins to where they end up as waste.

The Chronicle Review

Sex, Gender, and the Science/Humanities Gap

Solving the puzzles of human sexuality will require an interdisciplinary approach involving both the sciences and the humanities.
A Better Rationale for Science Literacy

Knowledge of science no doubt has some practical and civic benefits. But its broader intellectual ones are what we should celebrate.
Are Elite Colleges Worth It?

The pleasures of rarity chafe against the democratic soul. And yet ...
Losing It in the Golden Groves

An aging professor senses that his whatchamacallit is shrinking. Brain! That's it. Brain.
Galileo's Art of Thinking

A new book argues for the importance of the mathematics of Renaissance arts in driving the emergence of modern science.
Sketchy Thinking

You know your students from their writing. But have you ever looked closely at them as they wrote?
The Wild Ride of 'Robopoetics'

"Anyone who believes that humans have exhausted all possible recombinations of ideas, words, and images needs to review basic mathematics."

Commentary

Now More Than Ever, a Need for Bold Ambition

We should have the freedom and courage to speak uncomfortable truths in the hope of creating a better world.
Colleges Must Find Innovative Ways to Finance Their Missions

All signs point to a new normal in which institutions of higher education will have to look further for the resources they need.
Citation Obsession? Get Over It!

When students are finally learning how to write seriously, why derail them with nitpicky rules?
Attack on H.J. Muller Is a 'Grave Disservice'

"While Mr. Calabrese's narrative is exciting, it is based on a combination of distortions, omissions, and facts that have been so divorced from their context that they end up...
Trio Evaluations Show Programs' Impact

"Pious accolades to the 'scholarly values of higher education' ignore the lack of fit between complex scholarly exercises, such as large-scale evaluations, and the political...
Going Once, Twice: Chapman Auctions Parking

"Working with faculty members in our Economic Science Institute, we created a falling-price auction for reserved permits and permits for our most central parking areas."
No Need to Overhaul America's Black Colleges

"The author's call for historical black colleges to partner with business and industry could mean that once again African-American education would be in the control of those...
Campus Police Officers Should Carry Guns

"Let's arm the cops before we worry about arming the students."