The Second-Chance Club

For students in remedial English at one community college, life hinges on small moments, and breaking points come at every turn.

Colleges Hold Out Hope of Avoiding Worst of Cuts in Funds

The sequester will have severe consequences for some student-aid programs, university research, and college-prep efforts, but the details still aren't clear.

Sequestration Presents Uncertain Outlook for Students, Researchers, and Job-Seekers

While Congress failed to act in time to head off the federal spending cuts, higher-education and other groups still don't know exactly how they'll be affected.

When the NCAA Comes Calling, Gene Marsh Takes Colleges' Side

The retired law professor has reinvented himself as a go-to resource for colleges in trouble over sports.

Average Pay Increases for Tenure-Track Faculty Matched Inflation This Year

The 2.1-percent rise was slightly higher than last year's, while the gap between increases at public and private institutions narrowed.

U. of Maryland Weighs Big Changes for Faculty Off the Tenure Track

The College Park campus's University Senate will consider a report that calls for giving those instructors more pay, security, and clout.

The Academic Job Hunt's Big Price Tag

As jobs get harder to find, Ph.D.'s are spending big bucks for new services designed to help them, but seeing little return on their investments.

College Boards Use Personality Tests to Probe Minds of Would-Be Presidents

Is the candidate a grouse or a softy? Diplomat or daredevil? Extrovert or wallflower? Such questions may be difficult to answer through interviews and reference checks.

New Center Hopes to Clean Up Sloppy Science and Bogus Research

The Center for Open Science, which has attracted a wave of foundation grants, aims to "rejigger" the incentives that drive researchers.

China and Other Countries Crowd Into the Competition for Scholarly Research

International diversity in the world of research papers has grown significantly and will continue to do so, a study shows.

Tobin Project Coordinates 'Transformative Research' by Scholars and Policy Makers

The organization, building on a Nobel laureate's vision, convenes interdisciplinary thinkers to attack key societal problems.

At Penn State, Academics Drive Effort to Hire Child-Abuse Experts

Scholars of children's issues at the scandal-shaken university plan to hire a dozen faculty members who can do the type of research that has been lacking.

McGill U. and Texas Tech Choose New Leaders

McGill's choice is Suzanne Fortier, president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Read about that and other job-related news.

Wired Campus: With New Leader, Digital Public Library of America Prepares for Its Debut

Dan Cohen, currently at George Mason University, says he will make the digital library both a gatherer of information and a gateway to it.

Pop Goes the Law

Firms, schools, and disillusioned lawyers are paying for decades of greed and grandiosity.

In the Digital Era, Our Dictionaries Read Us

Redefined, these reference works quickly adapt to current usage and respond to readers' up-to-the-minute interests.

In the Shadow of Drones

Are we Xerxes to our enemies' Spartans? We rain down hellfire. They rain down contempt.

Evolution and Existentialism, an Intellectual Odd Couple

They have more in common than might first be apparent.

How the Church Grew Into a Worldly Power

In his latest work, Peter Brown continues his acclaimed cultural mind meld with the ancients.

My Obligation to Iraqi Academe

Nothing puts American academics' hardships in perspective like seeing Iraqi academics' hardships up close.

Textbook Tricks

Quantifying History

Fire Your Food Service and Grow Your Own

Colleges can and should play a significant part in reshaping American agriculture, in both what food they serve and what they teach about it.

Things I Didn't Learn in Graduate School

How to give court testimony, and other lessons a student-affairs administrator wishes he'd been taught.

The Zombie Marathon

We need a new metaphor for the long process from dissertation to tenure.

Top Students, Too, Aren't Always Ready for College

It's not only the low-income and first-generation kids who need our attention. It's all of them.

Who's Assessing the Assessors' Assessors?

Outcomes assessment is an epistemological quagmire.