From the issue dated October 12, 2001
THE FACULTY
LIFE MADE EASY
Valencia Community College, in the vanguard of the "learning centered" movement, says it teaches students how to set goals and make plans.
THE ACCIDENTAL SCHOLAR
With no academic home, and with a love of science, William E. Dunstan III nonetheless found a niche in ancient history and wrote two well-received textbooks.
CRUEL TO BE KIND
When we give false hope to conscientious students who have real learning limitations, we teach them only frustration, writes Peggy Duffy, an adjunct instructor in English at Northern Virginia Community College.
HEARTS OF THE CITY
Near ground zero in Manhattan, Karla Jay, a professor of English at Pace University, offers her students perspective, and they give her courage.
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- PEER REVIEW: Despite past denials of an interest in leaving, Lee C. Bollinger, president of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, will take over at Columbia University. ... The Yale School of Drama finally has a new dean.
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- SYLLABUS: In "Mathematics and the Art of M.C. Escher," at Saint Louis University, students work backward to understand the mathematical processes behind the artist's mesmerizing patterns, and then create their own designs.
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- DISMISSALS CRITICIZED: The American Association of University Professors questioned the need for faculty layoffs at the University of Dubuque.
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- TO THE TABLE: Dropping a legal challenge, Temple University agreed to bargain with a union formed by its teaching assistants.
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- BEAUTY CONTEST: A classics professor at the University of Mississippi has his students compile lists of the prettiest and ugliest words in English.
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- BOOB TUBE: A Smith College professor provides the lowdown on a new television show set on a Smith-like campus.
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- SPURNED AND SUING: A British psychiatrist has filed a lawsuit against the University of Toronto for rescinding an offer to lead a mental-health program there.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
THE ACCIDENTAL SCHOLAR
With no academic home, and with a love of science, William E. Dunstan III nonetheless found a niche in ancient history and wrote two well-received textbooks.
CELLS' SANITATION WORKERS
Proteasomes, molecular machines long ignored by science, have become the focus of research because of their sometimes pernicious roles in cancer, stroke, and HIV.
LIFE SAVERS
A veterinarian and animal behaviorist at Auburn University teaches keen-nosed dogs -- with and without pedigrees -- to help humans.
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- VERBATIM: A music professor at McMaster University, in Ontario, argues that Led Zeppelin makes serious music. The rock band's lyrics, she acknowledges, are another matter.
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- DISPUTE OVER 'ARMING AMERICA': Emory University has asked a historian to respond to criticisms of his book on gun ownership.
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- HOT TYPE: Two books examine aspects of schooling -- one, the stressed-out experience of students in high school; the other, how home schooling appeals to such disparate groups as Protestant Christians and counterculture liberals.
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- NOTA BENE: In Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan, E. Taylor Atkins riffs loose and free on jazz in Japan from the 1920s.
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- NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
STALLED LEGISLATION
Despite a series of fatal fires on campuses a few years ago, state and federal proposals to require sprinklers or other safety features on campuses have gone nowhere.
DRAWING THE LINE
Two universities in the nation's capital, involved in separate battles over zoning, say the city's decisions violate human rights.
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- APPARENT CHOICE: A former Congressional aide has emerged as the leading candidate to be assistant secretary for postsecondary education.
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- LOBBYIST WATCH: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has engaged in damage control ever since an erroneous report that one of the September 11 hijackers had trained there.
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- LET'S MAKE A DEAL: Lenders and advocates for borrowers seek a compromise on a pending change in the student-loan interest rate.
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- SURPRISE SPENDING: A House of Representatives panel endorsed a bigger-than-expected increase in the maximum Pell Grant.
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- HERE TO STAY? At a meeting on Congressional earmarks for higher education, fans and foes of the practice agreed that it is entrenched.
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- GIVING IT UP: Terrorism investigators are asking colleges for private information about their students, and the institutions are providing it.
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- EASING THE PAIN: The U.S. Education Department announced that student-loan borrowers who are called for military service would get a break on their repayment obligations.
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- DEMOCRATS LIKE RESEARCH TOO: Some science lobbyists are criticizing a new science-focused political-action committee for supporting only Republican candidates.
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- MOVING ON: The head of the National Cancer Institute announced that he would resign to direct a scientific foundation established by the chairman of AOL Time Warner.
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- CHANGE AT THE TOP: The U.S. Senate confirmed Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor of philanthropic studies and public policy at Indiana University, as the head of the Corporation for National Service, which oversees AmeriCorps.
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- DUPLICATE DATA: Researchers are worried that new federal science standards could require costly double-checking of peer-reviewed studies.
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- WAVING GOODBYE: The U.S. Supreme Court again declined to hear a challenge to the University of Mississippi's ban on stick-mounted Confederate battle flags at home football games.
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- COLOR THEM ANGRY: A television station owned by the University of Missouri at Columbia has come under fire from state lawmakers for barring its newscasters from wearing red-white-and-blue ribbons.
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
EMPIRE BUILDER
Modesto A. Maidique, president of Florida International University, uses his business savvy and his connections in an effort to push it higher among the ranks of research institutions.
DRAWING THE LINE
Two universities in the nation's capital, involved in separate battles over zoning, say the city's decisions violate human rights.
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- EXCHANGE PROGRAM: The presidents of the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville will teach classes at each other's institutions next year.
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- SIGN ME UP: A graduate of the Yale Divinity School hopes to petition his way into a seat on the university's governing board.
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- SWOOSH FULFILLMENT: Philip H. Knight, chairman of Nike, said he would end a boycott and once more give money to his alma mater, the University of Oregon.
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- THE ART OF TIMING: Colorado Free University's new course catalog, released just before the September 11 terrorist attacks, featured a sword-wielding martial artist on its cover.
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- CALLED TO SERVE: After the terrorist attacks, the president of St. Catharine College was summoned to active duty in the Coast Guard.
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- PEER REVIEW: Despite past denials of an interest in leaving, Lee C. Bollinger, president of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, will take over at Columbia University. ... The Yale School of Drama finally has a new dean.
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- TRIPLING UP: Three colleges in Chicago will jointly build and run an 18-story dormitory that they could not otherwise afford to construct on their own.
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- FOUNDATION GRANTS; GIFTS AND BEQUESTS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
MEDIA DARLING
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's well-known Media Lab, developer of robotic Lego and wearable computers, is setting out to expand and to help developing nations.
GENUINE ARTICLE
Advocates of freely accessible online scientific journals mean well, but they may ultimately undermine scholarly communication, writes John H. Ewing, executive director of the American Mathematical Society.
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- 'JUST KEEP TALKING': Worried about air travel, more than 500 campus officials met in a videoconference rather than convene in Texas.
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- 10 GIGABITS PER SECOND: Internet2 officials announced that Abilene, the project's high-speed backbone, will be improved to enable it to carry more data and support more users.
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- LOGGING IN WITH: S. Altaf Hussain, vice chancellor of Allama Iqbal Open University, in Islamabad, Pakistan, which offers distance education on the British model.
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- WORD PRESERVATION: A new database is designed to combat the death of some languages by serving as a repository of unpublished information about them.
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- IMPROMPTU IMPROVISATION: A creative-writing professor at Florida State University will use a Webcam to let viewers watch as he writes a short story.
STUDENTS
DISPUTE ON THE AIR
A battle over the student-run radio station at Rice University reflects the struggles over artistic vision and responsibility faced by many campus broadcasters.
STALLED LEGISLATION
Despite a series of fatal fires on campuses a few years ago, state and federal proposals to require sprinklers or other safety features on campuses have gone nowhere.
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- TRIPLING UP: Three colleges in Chicago will jointly build and run an 18-story dormitory that they could not otherwise afford to construct on their own.
INTERNATIONAL
PROTECTING THE GREAT WALL
Chinese scholars are fighting an uphill battle to preserve their nation's cultural and natural treasures in the face of pollution as well as encroaching development.
MEDIA DARLING
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's well-known Media Lab, developer of robotic Lego and wearable computers, is setting out to expand and to help developing nations.
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- WORLD BEAT: Old Dominion University has begun a master's program in "global engineering" with eight European universities. ... The emir of Qatar donated $1-million to the burn unit of Cornell University's medical school, where some victims of the World Trade Center attack are being treated.
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- EXPANSION ABROAD: The National University of Singapore is planning five new foreign campuses by 2005.
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- BLUEPRINT FOR VIOLENCE? B'nai B'rith Canada wants an investigation into a student handbook at Montreal's Concordia University.
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- SPURNED AND SUING: A British psychiatrist has filed a lawsuit against the University of Toronto for rescinding an offer to lead a mental-health program there.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
CRUEL TO BE KIND
When we give false hope to conscientious students who have real learning limitations, we teach them only frustration, writes Peggy Duffy, an adjunct instructor in English at Northern Virginia Community College.
MEN'S CLUB
In the 1950s, Carolyn G. Heilbrun admired Clifton Fadiman, Lionel Trilling, and Jacques Barzun but knew she'd never be one of the boys. However, the boys inspired her all the same. The author, now a professor in the humanities emerita at Columbia University, explains.
WHY INNOCENCE MATTERS
We take for granted the notion of innocence. Instead, we should marshal it as a primary weapon against terrorism, writes Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle and literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
MORE THAN BAD TIMING
In Fugitive Days, the only thing worse than what Bill Ayers takes responsibility for is what he doesn't, writes Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.
GENUINE ARTICLE
Advocates of freely accessible online scientific journals mean well, but they may ultimately undermine scholarly communication, writes John H. Ewing, executive director of the American Mathematical Society.
SOUNDS OF SILENTS
Old guard meets avant-garde in today's craze for live musical accompaniment of silent films, writes Thomas Doherty, an associate professor of film studies at Brandeis University.
ENCRYPTED ENCAUSTICS
In the painter Wendy Franklund Miller's transfigured, layered lines, a search for sense yields to the senses.
HEARTS OF THE CITY
Near ground zero in Manhattan, Karla Jay, a professor of English at Pace University, offers her students perspective, and they give her courage.
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- MELANGE: selections from recent books of interest to academe.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GAZETTE
CAREER NETWORK JOB NOTICES
DETAILS OF AVAILABLE POSTS,
including teaching and research positions in higher education, administrative and executive jobs, and openings outside academe
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