From the issue dated October 26, 2001
THE FACULTY
TEACHING AFTER THE TERROR
Faculty members are adding new courses and changing existing ones to respond to student demands for information and for meaning.
- NEW TRAINING: Professional schools are adding material to their programs in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
WHAT GOES AROUND ...
Feeling critics' brickbats for blaming September 11 on U.S. policies, the professoriate is reaping what it sowed in corrupting campus speech codes, writes Stanley Kurtz, a fellow at the Hudson Institute.
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- PEER REVIEW: A Johns Hopkins University dean restores directorship to a professor whose handling of a terrorism forum was criticized. ... The University of California at Riverside lures a prominent French chemist.
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- SALARY SURVEY: Male life scientists earn almost a third more than their female counterparts, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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- SYLLABUS: In "Seeing History," at St. Lawrence University, the classroom is the outdoors, and the subject matter is a fusion of cultural and natural history.
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- SAFETY THREAT: The University of South Florida has placed a professor on paid leave after a television interviewer linked him to terrorist groups.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
THE THREAT OF AGROTERRORISM
Causing a disease in crops or livestock would be easy, and the consequences could be disastrous, say many agricultural, veterinary, and defense experts.
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
A scholar scrutinizes the myth and reality of Alaska as frontier, through the lens of environmental and cultural studies.
SCHOLARSHIP AT ANY PRICE
On a trip to Niger, Thomas A. Kelley, a clinical associate professor in the law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tries not to let a taxi strike, student protests, a shredded tire, goat dung, and rounds of beer get in the way of his research agenda. Kala suru.
FEELING YOUR PAIN
Empathy, widely thought to be a uniquely human trait, is shared by other primates, dogs, and even rats, writes Frans B.M. de Waal, a professor of psychology and the director of the Living Links Center at Emory University.
V.S. NAIPAUL
When the new literature Nobelist delivers arguments about civilization, his dogma deadens his prose. When he lets his memorable characters have their say, he's a uniquely gifted writer, writes Homi Bhabha, a professor of English and African-American studies at Harvard University.
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- VERBATIM: In Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul, Ariel Glucklich, a theologian at Georgetown University, takes the measure of pain and finds it meaningful.
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- NOTA BENE: In Twice Upon a Time: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale, Elizabeth Wanning Harries says that our conventional conceptions of such stories are mistaken.
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- HOT TYPE: A scholar of Middle Eastern studies says academics should have foreseen September's terrorist attacks, but for years they have underestimated the growing role of Islam in the region's culture and politics.
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- NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
SHUTTING OUT FOREIGNERS?
Many college officials are concerned about new legislation that would make it more difficult and expensive for foreign students to obtain visas.
- STRIKING A BALANCE: New antiterrorism legislation sufficiently safeguards students' privacy rights, college officials say.
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- IN THE MAIL: Officials at a Sallie Mae, which handles student loans, received unusual proof of the death of a borrower.
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- PARTIAL REPRIEVE: Gov. Gray Davis of California agreed to restore a third of the $98-million he hoped to cut from the state's community-college budget.
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- BIOMEDICAL ETHICS: An association proposed new standards for evaluating research involving human subjects.
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- KEY POSITION: President Bush will nominate Sally Stroup, a former Congressional aide, to be assistant secretary for postsecondary education.
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- MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: A huge aid program in California continues to hit snags, and many students risk becoming ineligible.
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- PREFERENCES IN NEW ENGLAND: A new report lends support to the use of affirmative action in college admissions, says the foundation that commissioned the work.
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- PUT TO THE TEST: The Justice Department seeks dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a Princeton computer scientist who wants the Digital Millennium Copyright Act declared unconstitutional.
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- CHANGING AID RULES: The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to curtail regulations that many critics say inhibit distance education.
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
BANKABLE IDEA
In deals meant to win friends as well as fees, some colleges are joining with outside companies to offer online banking services.
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- BEING A GOOD NEIGHBOR? While Yale University profits from its biotechnology research, the city of New Haven, Conn., continues to wither, a report charges.
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- JUST WEAR IT: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill signed a major apparel deal with Nike, which accepted unprecedented requirements for its labor practices.
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- FOUNDATION GRANTS; GIFTS AND BEQUESTS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
NEW FRONT IN THE SWEATSHOP WARS
Some prominent institutions have prompted debate by subcontracting the labor-intensive work of putting documents online to vendors in developing countries.
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- EMBRACING OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE: Students and faculty and staff members at Hampshire College are making some very deliberate decisions about the programs that run the college's Web sites: They have to be nonproprietary programs with codes that the students or staff members can read, rewrite, and customize.
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- SHUTTING DOWN: Mascot Network, a company that provides student-portal services to dozens of colleges, is going out of business.
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- REVENUE SOURCE: The FCC has decided to let public TV stations, including those of colleges, sell ads on any supplemental services they offer through the new digital-television spectrum.
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- 5-DAY SUSPENSION: A union filed a grievance for a UCLA librarian suspended for sending an e-mail message criticizing U.S. foreign policy.
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- 'CONVENIENCE FACTOR': Starting in January, some producers of televised college courses plan to deliver some of their course videos over the Internet.
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- PUT TO THE TEST: The Justice Department seeks dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a Princeton computer scientist who wants the Digital Millennium Copyright Act declared unconstitutional.
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- CHANGING AID RULES: The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to curtail regulations that many critics say inhibit distance education.
STUDENTS
TESTING THE SAT
Social, legal, and demographic forces threaten to dethrone the most widely used college-entrance exam.
- THE OTHER TEST: The ACT is the subject of less attention and less controversy than the SAT. Why?
- 'GOING OPTIONAL': College officials differ on whether dropping the SAT as an admissions requirement makes them more competitive.
SAT OUT
Until there's a standardized college-admissions test that measures persistence, creativity, sensitivity, curiosity, and ethical seriousness, who needs tests? Not Bates College, writes William C. Hiss, the college's vice president for external and alumni affairs.
SAT REDUX
Lafayette College tried dropping the SAT requirement, too, in hopes of creating a stronger applicant pool. Instead, it created confusion, writes Barry W. McCarty, the college's dean of enrollment services.
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- CELL STUDIES: A prison inmate in Indiana earned two bachelor's degrees as part of a scheme to get his sentence reduced by four years.
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- ROYAL FLUSH: The selection process for homecoming kings and queens came under fire at Vanderbilt University over a lack of minority candidates.
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- MEMORIAL TO SEPTEMBER 11: Students at Indiana State University cultivated a field of "sodaflowers" to commemorate the victims of the terrorist attacks.
ATHLETICS
CAUSE FOR CONCERN:
A group of Northeastern liberal-arts colleges that commissioned a report on athletics and academic standards is troubled by the findings.
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- HOG WILD: A jewelry store in Fayetteville, Ark., has stocked up on $245 French crystal figurines of University of Arkansas Razorbacks, and they're selling well.
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- SPORT OF STINGS: University of Georgia students have gained official recognition for the new game of deathball, a full-contact variant of dodgeball.
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- BAN STANDS: A rape accusation kept a West Virginia University football player from returning to Notre Dame for a game.
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- JUST WEAR IT: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill signed a major apparel deal with Nike, which accepted unprecedented requirements for its labor practices.
INTERNATIONAL
QUALITY CONTROL IN BRITAIN
An agency set up to review university programs is sharply criticized for having offended many academic leaders with its approach and its conclusions.
SHUTTING OUT FOREIGNERS?
Many college officials are concerned about new legislation that would make it more difficult and expensive for foreign students to obtain visas.
WHILE HE WAITS
Jeff Redding, a Fulbright scholar in Pakistan, was stranded in New Delhi when the United States attacked Afghanistan.
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- WORLD BEAT: University medical personnel are convicted of medical malpractice in Japan. ... Students and lecturers in Ireland stage a walkout after a state-of-the-art building proves dangerous.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
SCHOLARSHIP AT ANY PRICE
On a trip to Niger, Thomas A. Kelley, a clinical associate professor in the law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tries not to let a taxi strike, student protests, a shredded tire, goat dung, and rounds of beer get in the way of his research agenda. Kala suru.
FEELING YOUR PAIN
Empathy, widely thought to be a uniquely human trait, is shared by other primates, dogs, and even rats, writes Frans B.M. de Waal, a professor of psychology and the director of the Living Links Center at Emory University.
SAT OUT
Until there's a standardized college-admissions test that measures persistence, creativity, sensitivity, curiosity, and ethical seriousness, who needs tests? Not Bates College, writes William C. Hiss, the college's vice president for external and alumni affairs.
SAT REDUX
Lafayette College tried dropping the SAT requirement, too, in hopes of creating a stronger applicant pool. Instead, it created confusion, writes Barry W. McCarty, the college's dean of enrollment services.
V.S. NAIPAUL
When the new literature Nobelist delivers arguments about civilization, his dogma deadens his prose. When he lets his memorable characters have their say, he's a uniquely gifted writer, writes Homi Bhabha, a professor of English and African-American studies at Harvard University.
CULTURAL AFTERSHOCKS: 4 Perspectives
UNPOETIC JUSTICE
When you're on the docket, the view is bleak.
WHAT GOES AROUND ...
Feeling critics' brickbats for blaming September 11 on U.S. policies, the professoriate is reaping what it sowed in corrupting campus speech codes, writes Stanley Kurtz, a fellow at the Hudson Institute.
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- MELANGE: Selections from recent books of interest to academe.
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- EX LIBRIS: Excerpt from The Forty-Nine Steps, written by Roberto Calasso and translated by John Shepley.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GAZETTE
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