What do fallen university leaders and felines have in common? Apparently, they both land on their feet. One need look no further than James L. Oblinger, the ex-chancellor of North Carolina State who resigned over the Mary Easley hiring scandal, and Richard Herman, the ex-chancellor of the University of Illinois whose fall resulted from an admissions scandal. Both are finalists in the search for a new president of New Mexico State University, Lesboprof observes in her latest post.

She notes, however, that fallen female university chiefs may be less fortunate than their...

• Faculty layoffs at the University of Maine system are likely, Chancellor Richard Pattenaude said this week, the Kennebec Journal reports. Meanwhile the president of Dartmouth College, Jim Yong-Kim, says he's also considering faculty job cuts, WCAX.com reports.

• "Is your administration using 'the economy' as an excuse to extort more work for less pay from an already overburdened faculty?," Marc Bousquet asks on the Brainstorm blog. Howard Bunsis, Eastern Michigan University accounting professor and American Association of University Professors treasurer,...

In my previous post, I discussed the question of hiring for political diversity and, more specifically, the issue of hiring conservatives in the ostensibly liberal academy. I used the phrase "professionally reasonable measures" in describing how my institutions have tried to select candidates. One commenter suggested that that phrase requires a lot more unpacking, so here is at least a carry-on full.

In all three institutions where I have had actual power in the hiring process, here are the questions we have always asked (in rough priority and presupposing that the required degree is complete or near completion):

1. Is the candidate qualified by education and/or experience to do the job we are seeking to have done? In other words, we know basically what we need taught, what other duties we may...

In my last post, I referenced "Polymath Syndrome," the mindset that afflicts some faculty members who believe that they can teach pretty much any subject. I thought I would expand that term, though, to entire departments. 

Most institutions have a few departments that believe their research and interests are of a high level that they may teach courses in a wide variety of other disciplines besides merely their own. I heard one dean call them "kudzu" departments, because they constantly find ways to invade the curricula of other disciplines and in some cases strangle the teaching loads of those other departments. (Kudzu, for those who don't know, is a prolific vine in the American South that overtakes everything in its path, choking out all other plants). Such incursions can have lasting effects on...

"They don't make much money, they don't have health benefits, and they don't have job security. So why do adjuncts keep showing up to teach in college classrooms semester after semester, year after year?"

The Chronicle sought to answer that question through a survey of more than 600 adjuncts at 90 institutions, and also through interviews with adjuncts who teach in the Chicago area. You can read about the survey findings here.

The survey of adjuncts, The Chronicle's report says, "gave us a detailed look at their educations--most do not have doctorates--and their compensation--annual salaries of $20,000 or less are the norm. Students are likely to pay more than that at some of the area's...

One of my favorite higher-education blogs is Tenured Radical, by Claire Potter, a history professor at a top liberal-arts college in the Northeast. Her latest entry takes up the issue of intellectual diversity -- specifically, the hiring of conservatives -- in academic searches. She looks at that issue with a characteristic combination of thoughtfulness, analytical rigor, and lack of dogma that is perhaps at odds with the title of her blog.

As I've said before, I'm in English, and came of age academically during the "canon wars" and the debates over "political correctness." I am, by personal inclination, what you might call a pragmatic leftist (if my conservative friends and colleagues will grant that such a category...

• T. Alan Hurwitz, president of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, will become the next chief of Gallaudet University, starting in January 2010, The Ticker reports. He succeeds Robert Davila, who is leaving in December. See an article in The Washington Post for details.

• Ex-Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican, announced last week that he is stepping down as president of Des Moines University in order to explore the possibility of running for governor again, The Iowa Independent reports.

• Two ex-administrators at

One of my freshman-composition students plopped noisily in a seat next to my desk. "I failed my art appreciation paper. I don't understand this. How can I fail an art paper?" I scanned the essay and asked him what grade I might have assigned the paper.

He looked over it for a bit: "I guess you would have failed it too. I see several misspellings and some incomplete sentences. But it's an art paper, not an English paper! It's not the same thing."

I smiled at his naïve comment, even as I disabused him of its false premise. I see teaching writing as foundational for other subjects, as I employ my professional training to eradicate weaknesses in student work. I build this foundation carefully through well-thought-out assignments and one-on-one conferences. Even students who enter the university with strong skills have poor habits that I can...

Late last week Chet Culver, the governor of Iowa, announced an immediate, across-the-board 10-percent cut in the budgets of all state agencies that report to his office. As far as I can tell, this cut is retroactive to the beginning of the fiscal year last July, which makes it even worse, as this year's budgets are already probably 25-percent spent.

There's some comfort, perhaps, in the knowledge that historically, Iowa almost always lags behind most of the country in going into a recession, hitting the bottom, and in recovery as well. While we had tough times last year, they were nothing like those afflicting much of the rest of the nation. So this pattern may mean that other states are on the road to recovery, which would be good news.

However, the other bit of news—less openly discussed—is that the state government is preparing for another round...

I noted a recent Chronicle article that describes new pressures on specialized accreditors because of their budgetary impacts. It is a dilemma, because many, if not most, of these disciplinary alliances are at least somewhat objective markers of excellence. They apply the peer-review process, which is so crucial to academe, to academic programs themselves.

The wonderful thing about professional accreditors is that they provide disciplines with incredible leverage for budgets and personnel. Programs that enjoy specialized accreditation may, in fact, find themselves the target of jealousy and even some subterfuge from departments that do not have such an extra level of certification.

As a dean, I have often chuckled at the way that some of these other departments try to...