To the Editor:

This past weekend the Board of Trustees at Wilson College deliberated how to change the college’s charter to eliminate the women’s college, which was founded in 1869.

Following the January 13 decision to make the college co-ed, the trustees appointed several committees to study and facilitate the change. This past week those committees issued their reports, and the college has posted them on its Web site.

One need not look very far into these reports to discover why the college cannot attract and retain students.

The number one conclusion of the Pedagogy and Curriculum Committee is: “There is a lack of agreement among faculty (and perhaps the college as a whole) of what it means to have a women-centered focus.”

How can a 143-year old women’s college not know what it means to be women-centered?

The administration and trustees at Wilson College…

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To the Editor:

We read with interest “Low-Income Students Pay High Net Prices at Many Colleges, Study Finds” (The Chronicle, May 8) which describes “Undermining Pell: How Colleges Compete for Wealthy Students and Leave the Low-Income Behind,” the recently released study by Stephen Burd of the New America Foundation. We write to address the figures cited in the report for the percentage of Pell Grant recipients at Harvard College.

Mr. Burd’s study incorrectly indicated that only 11 percent of Harvard undergraduates received Pell Grants in 2011. In fact, the correct figure for Harvard College for that year was 16.9 percent, and for 2012 year, this percentage continued to increase to 17.2 percent. This represents an 81-percent increase in the number of Pell Grant recipients since 2004, when we launched a targeted initiative to encourage talented low-income students to apply to, and …

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To the Editor:

According to The Chronicle’s annual report on university presidents’ compensation, the top ten earned between $819,000 and $2.5-million  in 2012 (“4 Public-College Presidents Pass $1-Million Mark in Pay,”  May 12).

I guess this makes them feel very good about themselves. It puts them well into the ranks of  the Top One Percent, along with all the other Masters of the Universe. Way to go! Rake it in! Cover your bed in it and roll around, hugging yourself! High six-figure salaries continue to be the norm in American higher education, despite huge cuts in state funding. The median salary among public college presidents is well over the cutoff point for joining the Top One Percent. I wonder how they feel about the “little people” below.

Seriously: How can they be so clueless? Why do they think they need or deserve all that money when hundreds of thousands of young …

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To the Editor:

I am astounded that The Chronicle would feature on its cover a graphic headlined “The Million Dollar Club” that features four university presidents who earn astronomical salaries—one close to $3-million, one $2.5-million, and the other two close to $2-million (“4 Public-College Presidents Pass $1-Million Mark in Pay,” May 12). How can you show this on your cover when so many students graduate today with enormous debts and university personnel are often earning only minimum wages? This situation is extremely unjust. Education in the U.S. has become, like everything else, big business/big bucks. I guess that it’s the way you are going too. My esteem for your publication has dropped very low.

Jane Rather Thiebaud
Vancouver, Wash.

To the Editor:

I teach at Bard College and gave a talk, based on a published article, at last year’s conference on science and religion (“‘The Strangest Conference I Ever Attended,’” The Chronicle, May 15). I also participated in many other academic conferences. Leaving aside the issues of funding and motivation for this conference, I want to say that the overall theme of the conference was certainly interesting and legitimate. There were also some interesting presentations and discussions. The conference was devoted to the theme, which interests David Birnbaum, not to David Birnbaum himself (in fact, some participants expressed strong criticisms of his views). The conference, indeed, was poorly attended, which is not uncommon at Bard with numerous events going on at the same time. It was also the end of the semester—probably not the best time to attract broadly students and…

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To the Editor:

The waning chalk-and-talk days of teaching result in the loss of teaching moments. Teachers relish these moments that arise spontaneously during lectures. Professors’ increasing use of PowerPoint presentations reduces or eliminates opportunities for these precious moments.

Professors reading from books or newspapers during class time are not teaching. Professors extensively projecting PowerPoints on the screen that are also in the textbook during class time are not teaching. Students know how to read. They risk losing the interest of their students. Many students try to copy everything on the screen and seldom look up. Others are bored, daydreaming, or surreptitiously using their smartphones to text friends, visit social sites, and so forth.

Professors might consider using only PowerPoints not in the text. They may also consider limiting the use of PowerPoints…

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To the Editor:

The tragic situation at the Boston Marathon will cause various changes in society, for sure, and it brings to light another series of changes marked by the mass analysis of the crime scene through publicly available images and video.

Analysis of online material has always happened, of course. But with the advent of smart phones and other means of collecting information, and the means to disseminate that information, never before has the general populace had access to vast quantities of information, the tools to analyze it, the ability to collaborate with large numbers of other individuals, to do this quickly and efficiently, and to distribute results of these analyses rapidly and broadly.

Humans are great thinkers. Our brains determine patterns and look for changes, all of this done rapidly and (mostly) subconsciously, in an attempt to understand the world around …

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To the Editor:

Some time ago while at a meeting in New York, a professor mentioned that at his institution, they were cutting many foreign-language courses because students were finding them difficult. That led students to think that they might be struggling and not end up being successful. So the result implies that if the university wants to present an image of graduating successful students, it should drop those courses that students feel are daunting.

When my daughter went to visit Texas A&M University, the dean of her college came out to address the parents. She stated that “This is not Job Corps.” I was impressed with that statement as it implied that the university was there to educate students, not train them for a specific job. Jobs would come as a result of a good education, but the education was the first priority.

I believe we should teach more foreign languages …

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To the Editor:

For an entire academic year, two international students from Nigeria have been in hiding to avoid deportation in Canada. The reason for their deportation orders was the honest mistake of working at Walmart for two weeks without the correct work permit. This type of mistake is now being addressed by the Canadian government through changes to the International Student Program, yet these two students remain under deportation orders and Canada-wide arrest warrants.

Although the students, Victoria Ordu and Favour Amadi, had work permits for campus, they did not realize they were required to apply for a separate permit to work off campus at Walmart. Soon they were embroiled in a long and arduous journey with the Canadian Border Service Agency. These two women were both studying at the University of Regina on full scholarships from their own government and had no prior…

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To the Editor:

After mulling over Robert J. Sternberg’s “Self-Sabotage in the Academic Career” (The Chronicle, April 29), I feel inclined to respond. The article reads like a Cosmo piece: “15 Ways to Get (and Keep!) a Man!” Be confident, but not pushy; talk about yourself, but don’t be boring; be interested in what he has to say but don’t monopolize the conversation; be a tigress in the bedroom, but don’t be loose; learn about his likes and dislikes! But above all else, remember ladies, if you’re single, its all your fault.

In today’s dismal academic job market, Mr. Sternberg appears out of touch and irrelevant, at best, and condescending and indifferent at worst. He advises aspiring academics to strive for an elusive professional and personal life balance without acknowledging the difficult conditions under which so many are toiling, namely, high academic and personal debt, low…

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