You know that professor in your department who cranks out 20 papers a year and whose c.v. is the size of a phone book? Have you ever wondered whether that kind of productivity actually builds an academic career? It depends on what kind of career you want to build, according to a new paper by two economists. Daniel S. Hamermesh of the University of Texas at Austin and Gerard A. Pfann of Maastricht University, in the Netherlands, examined the careers of 1,339 full professors who teach in 88 highly ranked economics departments in the United States. They found that -- all else equal -- publishing a high volume of papers does little to improve one's reputation among one's peers, or to improve one's odds of winning a major scholarly award. But it does appear to improve a scholar's odds of being hired by a new university, or of landing a higher salary. So if that's your game, by all means,...

The president of Oklahoma State University has halted a federally supported study of anthrax vaccines because baboons involved in the research would have been euthanized, The Oklahoman reported. The president, V. Burns Hargis, declined to comment to the newspaper, but a university spokesman said the project "was not in the best interest of the university." Veterinary scientists worried that the president might arbitrarily end other projects involving animal research. Michael Davis, a veterinarian who was a member of an institutional committee that approved the project, defended the research, saying anthrax terrorism was not hypothetical but a real threat that has killed people in the United States.

Europe's overwhelmingly public higher-education systems remain too constrained by government control, despite efforts in many countries to modernize and reform universities by increasing institutional autonomy, according to a report out today from the European University Association. Universities, the report says, are especially limited in terms of financial autonomy, which at a time of diminishing government spending on higher education poses a fundamental threat to the sustainability of European universities. For example, many countries prohibit or limit university tuition, which can be a "competitive disadvantage" in an increasingly international higher-education market.

A book on education reform released today says Ontario, with 19 universities and the largest number of students in of any province in Canada, should follow other provinces by creating undergraduate-only institutions. The book, Academic Transformation: The Forces Reshaping Higher Education in Ontario, was commissioned by the independent Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. It argues that the standard model of undergraduate education in Ontario is based on the belief that students should be taught only by faculty members engaged in original research, according to the council's news release. "It is simply not affordable to have undergraduates taught only by faculty who devote the same amount of time and effort to research as to teaching," said one of the authors, Michael Skolnik, a professor emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

An academic who holds both American and Iranian citizenship and was already serving a 15-year prison sentence for spying against the Iranian government now faces additional charges, according to The New York Times. Kian Tajbakhsh told his wife that he was taken last week before a Tehran court, where a judge read new charges that accused him of "spying for the George Soros foundation," a reference to the Open Society Institute, a pro-democracy group founded by Mr. Soros, a prominent financier and philanthropist. Mr. Tajbakhsh, an urban planner with a doctorate from Columbia University, was arrested in June after protests broke out over that month’s disputed presidential election, which the opposition says was fraudulent. He is in solitary confinement and suffering under “huge psychological and physical pressure,” according to the Times.

The Education Department's Office of Inspector General has released a report that evaluates the department's capacity for handling increased volume in the federal direct-loan program. The inspector general found that the department appeared to have access to sufficient resources to assist colleges in making a transition to direct lending from the federal bank-based loan program, which President Obama and Congressional Democrats propose to eliminate. The report says that the department will have to put in place effective systems for monitoring contractors, on which it is expected to rely heavily to ensure effective operations of the direct-loan program if participation in that system increases.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools cannot consistently ensure the quality of academic programs it reviews without clearly defining what constitutes a credit hour, according to a report issued on Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education's inspector general. The accrediting organization, which assesses colleges in 11 states, responded that the variety of experiential, online, and distance courses that institutions now offer makes it impossible to define a single, common standard for credit hours. "The traditionally accepted definitions of semester credit hours and quarter credit hours based almost exclusively on seat time can no longer be applied to half of the credits now being awarded by our higher-education institutions," the association wrote in answer to the report.

The number of researchers, on the rise worldwide, skyrocketed in developing countries, jumping by 56 percent from 2002 to 2005, according to a new report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Over all, the ranks of researchers in the world rose from 5.8 million to 7.1 million in the five-year span, while their numbers in developing countries grew from 1.8 million to 2.7 million. The findings, which include both academic and private-sector scientists, reflect efforts by many developing countries, particularly in Asia, to use innovation and education to spur economic growth.

Trustees and administrators of the South Orange County Community College District, in California, are facing a federal lawsuit filed by students, professors, and recent graduates that accuses them of frequently leading prayers at ceremonial events on two campuses in the district, in violation of the First Amendment and court rulings against school prayer, according to the Orange County Register. The suit alleges that one campus, Saddleback College, routinely opened events with prayers and showed a faculty-training video, called God Bless the U.S.A., that included religious imagery and compared American soldiers to Jesus Christ. A professor at Irvine Valley College, another campus in the district, is also a plaintiff. A lawyer for the district said that offering an opening prayer at a public event "goes back to the founding of the country."

Members of Towson University's marching band will celebrate Thanksgiving Day this year in a special way -- as the only college band scheduled to perform in Macy's parade in New York City. According to today's Baltimore Sun, the band will strut its stuff before an audience predicted to approach 50 million, rain or shine, on a day that will start with a 2 a.m. wake-up for a 4 a.m. rehearsal. The band, which was picked two years ago to perform, helped pay its way to the Big Apple ($757 a head) with help from parents, the university's development office, and the Towson Macy's. It's a moment in the limelight that, like the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff band's show in President Obama's inaugural parade, any band member would regard as "the coolest thing that could happen."