The Education of Dasmine Cathey

He could barely read three years ago. How is this U. of Memphis student just three classes away from a degree?

Online Courses, Increasingly Popular, Can Offer Easy A's Via High-Tech Cheating

As such courses multiply, so are the number of students willing and able to game the system—unless they're thwarted.

Why Are Associate Professors Some of the Unhappiest People in Academe?

Professors in midcareer are dissatisfied with the amount of time they get to spend on research and many other aspects of their work, a survey found.

Too Many A's? Proposal Could Make Them Rarer at U. of Minnesota

To discourage grade inflation, a chemistry professor wants transcripts to include the percentage of students who received the same grade.

A Careful Guest in a Foreign Land

Outside of its "comfort zone," the branch campus seeks to find its footing in a country where freedom of expression is not what it is in the United States.

Scientists Look to Genetics of Behavior for Answers to Country's Partisan Divide

Scientists are exploring the connections between partisan positions and personality traits that are rooted in biology.

Wired Campus: Petition Urges White House to Require Public Access to Federally Financed Research

Building off recent momentum behind their cause, a group of public-access advocates has attracted almost 13,000 signatures on its petition in just a few days.

Wired Campus: MIT Establishes Research Center to Harness 'Big Data'

The university announced a research effort to tame sets of information that are so complex and fast-growing that they defy traditional methods of analysis.

Facing New Voter-ID Rules, Students Lobby to Maintain Access to Polls

The students are lobbying against proposed voter-ID legislation and trying, at least, to have states accept college-issued identification cards.

Fledgling Campus-Health Database Wants to Find Out What's Ailing Students

The College Health Surveillance Network is gathering data on illness trends from student-health records. So far, 20 major institutions have agreed to participate.

Bob Kerrey's Pay From the New School Irks Critics in a Time of Austerity

The recent disclosure that the former president earned $3-million from the institution last year may rekindle resentment against the controversial leader.

Indian-American Groups Urge Supreme Court to End Race-Conscious Admissions

Their stance, in a brief submitted to the court, reflects a marked departure from the position most other Asian-American groups have taken on the issue.

Attorneys General Urge Congress to Close Military 'Loophole' at For-Profit Colleges

The attorneys general of 21 states say current policy encourages for-profit colleges to use "high-pressure recruiting tactics" on military veterans.

As He Prepares to Retire, California State's Leader Stands Up for His Decisions

Charles B. Reed says he had to be "a warrior" to guide the 23-campus system through financially tough times.

For-Profit University Hires a Leader in Training Community-College Leaders

John E. Roueche will leave the University of Texas at Austin and develop a new doctoral program at National American University.

Mellon Foundation's Next President Hopes to Help Shape Higher Education

Earl Lewis, provost of Emory University, expects the foundation will encourage new thinking about diversity, accessibility, and financing higher education.

Education Sector Loses Policy Team to New America Foundation

The team, led by Education Sector's longtime policy director, Kevin Carey, will more than double the size of New America's higher-education group.

Transitions: Assistant Education Secretary Returns to California State System

Eduardo M. Ochoa will become interim president of the system's Monterey Bay campus in mid-July. Read that and other job-related news.

Richard Lyman, Stanford's President During 1970s Protest Era, Dies at 88

Mr. Lyman did not tolerate all-night sit-ins, but he adopted many of the goals of student protesters.

Historian of Boston; U. of Miami's Longtime Athletic Director; Chinese Botanist Who Worked at Harvard

Thomas H. O'Connor, who wrote many books about Boston and Boston College, has died at 89. His was among recent deaths in academe.

Slideshow: Protests in Nigeria; Memories in Greece

4 Professors Discuss Teaching Free Online Courses for Thousands of Students

The faculty members, each teaching a different subject on a different platform, share their thoughts on the experience so far.

Sharing a Passion for Poetry With Students Around the World

Margaret Soltan, an associate professor of English at George Washington University, teaches "Poetry: What It Is, and How to Understand It."

Reworking a Course Into an Online Format: 'Sort of Like Moving'

Peter Struck, an associate professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, teaches "Greek and Roman Mythology."

Building Different MOOC's for Different Pedagogical Needs

Curtis Bonk, a professor of education at Indiana University at Bloomington, teaches "Instructional Strategies and Technology Tools for Online Success."

Turning 'Muddled Recordings' Into a 'Seamless Video'

David Evans, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Virginia, teaches courses in search-engine design and in cryptography.

Where Did Your Graduate Students End Up? LinkedIn Knows

Administrators trying to track down thousands of graduates turned to social networks, mostly with success.

• Charts: Tracking the Careers of Graduates With Professional Science Master's Degrees

Stretching Their Science: Grant Givers Run Long-Distance Labs

Science is a hands-on activity, but for a few hundred professors, working at the National Science Foundation means running their labs from afar for a few years.

South Africa's Vocational Colleges Struggle to Do Their Job

Amid 50-percent youth unemployment, universities turn away throngs of applicants while the poorly regarded vocational colleges struggle to fill their classrooms.

Slide Show: A Fashion Show, a Jury Selection, and 20,000 Paperbacks

Glimpses of life in academe from around the world.

Can Music Save Your Life?

Or does it just allow you to feel like you're having a passionate life when you're not?

Paul Fussell: Memories of a Friend and Scholar

He brought visceral knowledge of the horrors of war to his pioneering scholarship.

Emancipated Into Illness

In the aftermath of the Civil War, freed slaves argued for the creation of a federal medical infrastructure.

Michael Walzer's Politics, in Theory and Practice

A journalist as well as a scholar, he has road-tested his classroom ideas in the real world for 50 years.

Inoculating Against Jargonitis

A clinical analysis, with some tools for self-diagnosis and treatment.

My Library, Myself

Covers scuffed, spines tested, our collected books reflect our personal evolutions.

Sticks, Stones—and Words, Too?

A legal scholar questions Americans' passionate defense of hate speech.

On Reading a Review of Ameritopia

The Rut We're In

Animal Scientists and Corporate Money

The European Atrocity You Never Heard About

Even as Nazi officers were being tried for crimes against humanity after World War II, the Allies were perpetrating new ones.

The Trouble With Carl Van Vechten

A fan explains why she is inspired by a white man who loved blackness.

The New Weird

A creative-writing professor and his students wrestle with the mundane freakishness of our era.

Behind Historic Preservation, a Surreal History

Respectful neoclassicism met dark, weird imaginings in the complicated mind of Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

Weekly Book List, June 11, 2012

Descriptions of the latest books, divided by category.

For Student Protesters, It's About More than Tuition

Recent protests reflect a rejection of the premise that institutions are capable of creating opportunities for individual citizens to flourish.

A Matter of Faith and Freedom

The president of The Catholic University of America explains what's at stake in the federal health-care mandates, and why he filed suit to block them.

A Technological Cloud Hangs Over Colleges

Computers and other innovations are flattening the classroom experience to two dimensions.

Information Technology: It's Not Like Water

"Whereas water and electricity differ little from place to place and one provider's electricity can be substituted for another's, the same is not true for information...

To Encourage Civic Engagement, Start in Elementary School

"The obsession with raising test scores in literacy and math squeezes instructional time for social studies, the subject that is home to democratic education."

The Real Education Crisis Is Just Over That Cliff

With an economy dependent on postsecondary education, we're on the wrong road.

Just Because We're Not Publishing Doesn't Mean We're Not Working

In accounting for their time, academics ought to acknowledge the kind of scholarship they really do.

The Benefits of Making It Harder to Learn

Why do unfamiliar fonts and other "desirable difficulties" produce better retention of course content?

Not Quite Bulletproof

No amount of books and published articles could protect me from myself.

Learning the Ropes as a Special Assistant

A longtime professor prepares to move into an administrative career.

Midcareer Mentoring, Part 3

How do you know how much service work to do as a tenured professor?