A consultant who was paid $12,500 by the University of Wisconsin system to prevent a repeat of the Robert Felner fiasco has released his recommendations, the Associated Press reports.

The university brought in Stephen R. Portch, former UW Colleges chancellor and chancellor emeritus of the University System of Georgia, to evaluate its hiring process after the embarrassing discovery last spring that Felner, who was set to become the chancellor of UW at Parkside in August, was under federal criminal investigation in Kentucky for allegedly misappropriating federal funds. When the scandal broke, Felner, who was then dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville, denied the allegations...

The Tennessee Board of Regents has approved a voluntary buyout plan for 115 positions at the University of Memphis that officials say will save the institution $1.5-million, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.

The plan, which the regents unanimously approved on Friday, is part of the university’s efforts to offset nearly $7-million in budget cuts. It calls for eliminating 40 faculty positions, 50 staff positions, and 25 administrator positions, the newspaper reported.

Memphis is the sole institution among the 44 governed by the regents to adopt such an approach. Bob Adams, the regents’ vice chancellor for business affairs, told the newspaper the other institutions were taking a “wait and see” approach before weighing similar actions....

New York University announced today that the president of Swarthmore College would head NYU’s new campus in Abu Dhabi.

Alfred H. Bloom, who has led Swarthmore since 1991, is to take over as vice chancellor before next August. In the interim, he will serve as a consultant on the project. The campus is scheduled to enroll its first students in 2010, although NYU’s president, John E. Sexton, has already started teaching a course at the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, a precursor to the branch campus in the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Bloom’s selection highlights NYU’s pledge to build a comprehensive and highly selective university in the region. “If one were...

Emerson College has snagged veteran newspaperman Ted Gup to head its journalism department starting next fall. A former investigative reporter for The Washington Post — and later for Time magazine — Gup worked with the legendary Bob Woodward and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1981. He comes to Emerson from Case Western Reserve University, where he is currently a journalism professor.

Despite Gup’s storied CV, at least one student seemed less than impressed with his selection, the Berkeley Beacon reported. James O’Leary, a broadcast journalism major at Emerson, told the student newspaper that he was “surprised” and somewhat “disappointed” that the college picked a...

James E. Rogers, the controversial chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education who has clashed with the board that appointed him and the state’s governor, says he plans to step down next year when his contract is up, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

“People may think I’m peculiar,” said Mr. Rogers, “but I never want them to think my motives were bad. My only interest has been to make the higher-education system in Nevada better.”

Mr. Rogers, a wealthy businessman who donates the salary he earns as chancellor back to the system, famously quit the job in a two-word...

In my last post, I mused on the use of RateMyProfessors.com in search-committee deliberations. We all know the problems associated with that site, but what about the value of university-sponsored student evaluations of teaching?

When I started on the academic market, my advisers told me to photocopy some of my student evaluations and include them in my CV packet. Now that I’m on the other side of the table, I know that those evaluations are of little use since they are hand-selected by the applicant. Who would include poor evaluations?

Still, there’s a part of me, perhaps the cockeyed optimistic part, that likes to see those evaluations, however flawed. Search-committee veterans: How much do self-submitted student evaluations influence your deliberations?

A few weeks ago, I attended my university’s welcome dinner for new faculty and staff members. Of the dozen or so newcomers in attendance, five of us (including me) were still trying to sell houses in our previous locations.

Not all of the hopeful sellers were senior administrators but had varied job titles, duties, and, of course, compensation.

The housing dilemma will clearly affect hiring at all levels, introducing new and complex distortions into the academic market this year. A report on that issue appeared in The Chronicle this past summer, and a thread in its On the Money forum focuses on whether people can consider applying for jobs in light of the difficulty or impossibility of selling their current homes.

The...

When it comes to building a top-notch faculty, racing to land prominent scholars is only half the battle for colleges. The other half: Fighting off the poachers intent on swiping the college’s existing talented midcareer professors.

At Cornell University, a $35-million gift to be announced by officials today will give the institution an edge in an increasingly competitive market for faculty members. It will be used for endowed professorships to be awarded universitywide. One of these positions has already been used to hold onto a prominent chemist who was being wooed by another Ivy League university.

“Some of our best people are being recruited by other universities,” said David Harris, interim provost at Cornell. “One of the most attractive things we can do in that situation is offer them an endowed professorship.”

The...

Ohio State University’s governing board plans to raise President Gordon Gee’s pay by creating a private endowment, according to a report in Business First, a weekly business journal based in Columbus, Ohio.

We are going to find ways we can ask the private sector to help maintain the highest qualities in leadership,” said Cloyd, who recently retired from heading the research program at Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co.

Gee’s contract was scheduled to come before the board on Friday, but was postponed to the November meeting while attorneys work out “creative but legal” ways for corporate and other donors to contribute to his compensation, Cloyd said. It would be structured as an endowment and also used to reward “academic...

The Harvard Crimson reports that Lisa L. Martin, the university’s first diversity dean, is questioning faculty dean Michael D. Smith’s commitment to hiring female and minority scholars. Martin just left Harvard for a job at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, but on her way out the door, she described the dean as indifferent to diversity issues, according to Harvard’s student newspaper:

While Martin was serving officially as an advisor on diversity to the dean of [the Faculty of Arts and Sciences], she said that Smith did not appear interested in her advice.

In contrast to Deans William C. Kirby and Jeremy R. Knowles, whom she described as “attentive” to her input, she said that Smith was less engaged.

“He was so new to the job, he had such...