From the issue dated March 29, 2002
THE FACULTY
TOO TOUGH FOR TEMPLE
A mathematics professor says he was fired because he upheld academic standards; the college says he graded too hard.
SCREENED
Daniel Kowalsky, a high-school dropout waiting tables, was discovered by a film director. And, er, that's how he became an academic.
HERE TO STAY
Adjuncts aren't just an anomaly in a transitional period. They're key to colleges' functioning. Might as well face it and adjust accordingly, writes Michael Murphy, a visiting assistant professor of English at the State University of New York College at Oswego.
'CHRONOS' AND 'KAIROS'
A class held hostage is unified by seven hours of fear, and strength, writes Elizabeth A. Dreyer, a professor of religious studies at Fairfield University.
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- LET'S MAKE A DEAL: Washington State's lower house approved a bill giving faculty members at four-year public colleges the right to collectively bargain if they get rid of their faculty senates.
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- THREE-YEAR CONTRACT: The University of Michigan averted a strike by its teaching assistants' union, in a flurry of activity by TA groups nationwide.
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- PEER REVIEW: Law professors at George Mason University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will trade places. ... Harvard's undergraduate dean steps down two years early. ... A medievalist who was Columbia's first female professor is taking a spot at the Institute for Advanced Study. ... A former World Bank official will become dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the John Hopkins University.
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- SYLLABUS: At the University of California at Irvine, a popular Web site helps students in one English class learn the rhythm of poetry.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
THE UNCONVENTIONAL FREE TRADER
Despite being antiprotectionist, Jagdish N. Bhagwati believes in government regulation.
TALKING AND THINKING
Are our thoughts to some degree slaves of the particular language we speak? Questions like that are spurring vigorous debate in psycholinguistics.
GREEN WAR IN NEW ZEALAND
After vandalism destroys her research, a young scientist carries on with
experiments aimed at growing a healthier potato.
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- VERBATIM: An author of Women Who Kill Their Children: Understanding the Acts of Moms From Susan Smith to the "Prom Mom" explains why the phenomenon is more common than most people think.
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- WHO KNEW? Self-interest doesn't always trump fairness. ... Coffee thwarts tooth decay. ... You are how you decorate.
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- HOT TYPE: The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticizes a panel at the geographers' annual meeting for being too political. ... An Ohio State radiologist advertises his theories about the sun in The New York Times.
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- NOTA BENE: In Vertical Margins: Mountaineering and the Landscapes of Neoimperialism, mountain-climbing expeditions from the 1890s to the 1920s shed light on nations' bids for overseas power.
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- WHAT THEY'RE READING ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES: A list of best-selling books.
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- NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
THEIR PIECE OF THE PIE
Smaller states are seeking a larger share of grants from the National Institutes of Health. Some observers worry that the push will undermine merit-reviewed competitions.
MORE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Despite past concerns about conflicts of interest, states increasingly are pushing public universities to commercialize their research.
THE UNCONVENTIONAL FREE TRADER
Despite being antiprotectionist, Jagdish N. Bhagwati believes in government regulation.
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- LET'S MAKE A DEAL: Washington State's lower house approved a bill giving faculty members at four-year public colleges the right to collectively bargain if they get rid of their faculty senates.
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- NEW OVERSIGHT? New York's Republican governor wants to replace the state Board of Regents with a commissioner of education, but Democratic lawmakers say "not so fast."
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- CONFIRMATION: The Senate approved a former Congressional aide as the Education Department's top policy maker on higher education.
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- MOVING AHEAD: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a professor's sex-discrimination lawsuit against Lynchburg College could proceed.
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- REDUCING THE RISKS: The NIH announced it will award one-time grants to universities to help them protect human research subjects.
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- MORE ACCOUNTABILITY: The Bush administration proposed new criteria to measure the effectiveness of scientific research.
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
CRUMBLING SUPPORT
Private foundations are abandoning higher education, citing other priorities and a sense that colleges aren't needy.
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- BIG GIFT, SMALL COLLEGES: The Gates Foundation is donating $40-million to create 70 small high schools that will award both diplomas and associate degrees.
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- PUT ON PROBATION: Accreditors took the step because of unspecified concerns about financial planning and other matters at Kelsey-Jenney College, in San Diego.
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- $63-MILLION GIFT: An Iowa-based foundation's donation for biomedical research at the University of Iowa College of Medicine is the largest in the university's history.
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- CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: Oracle Corporation announced that it will donate $10.1-million to the United Negro College Fund to help the consortium train faculty members and students in information technology.
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- UNRIVALED RIVALS: While two college argue over which was the first chartered in the United States, two others dispute the size of their campus emblems.
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- PEER REVIEW: Law professors at George Mason University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will trade places. ... Harvard's undergraduate dean steps down two years early. ... A medievalist who was Columbia's first female professor is taking a spot at the Institute for Advanced Study. ... A former World Bank official will become dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the John Hopkins University.
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- TWO GRAPHS DEPICT trends in faculty pay and the cost of living and pension money invested in the stock market.
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- FOUNDATION GRANTS; GIFTS AND BEQUESTS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
A $30-MILLION BET
Saint Joseph's University thinks high-tech classrooms are the best way to attract and teach students.
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- 'COMPANY SPECIFIC' DEGREES: Some colleges are creating online graduate-degree programs that meet specific needs of large corporations.
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- CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: Oracle Corporation announced that it will donate $10.1-million to the United Negro College Fund to help the consortium train faculty members and students in information technology.
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- TWO CONTINENTS: A Tufts University professor of political science is running "metacourses" with counterparts at two universities in Africa.
STUDENTS
FINDING THEIR VOICES
Are conservative newspapers at Catholic colleges reactionary, or are they expressing much-needed views?
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- A QUESTION OF RESPONSIBILITY: The American Medical Association calls an advertising partnership between a college group and Anheuser-Busch "misguided."
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- CONTRABAND YEARBOOK: Gallaudet University students are miffed that officials have confiscated all copies of The Watch Tower.
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- SPRING BREAKOUT: An epidemic of pinkeye has beset the Dartmouth College campus since last month.
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- WALK ON THE WILD SIDE: Here he comes, the new Miss Harvard.
ATHLETICS
GRAND EXPERIMENT
The idea behind the Patriot League was to emphasize academics and offer no sports scholarships. It didn't quite work.
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- PLAYING WITH NUMBERS: U.S. News & World Report's recent college-sports rankings are replete with anomalies, to the chagrin -- or delight -- of many athletics directors.
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- RACE TO THE HOOP: An intramural basketball team at the University of Northern Colorado calls itself the Fightin' Whites.
INTERNATIONAL
DIGGING UP GRAVES
Guatemalan anthropologists are exhuming the remains of the thousands killed during the 36-year civil war.
GREEN WAR IN NEW ZEALAND
After vandalism destroys her research, a young scientist carries on with
experiments aimed at growing a healthier potato.
-
- TWO CONTINENTS: A Tufts University professor of political science is running "metacourses" with counterparts at two universities in Africa.
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- WORLD BEAT: A militant separatist group in India shot and wounded seven people for allegedly helping students to cheat on their tests. ... A former president of South Korea will teach courses in Japan on political relations among Asian countries.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
SCREENED
Daniel Kowalsky, a high-school dropout waiting tables, was discovered by a film director. And, er, that's how he became an academic.
SOUTHERN CROSS
Christianity is shifting to the southern continents, with wide, and widely ignored, ramifications, writes Philip Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University at University Park.
ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES
Was the Nobel-winning social reformer Jane Addams a pragmatist, pragmatic, or both? Discuss, writes Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle.
WAR AND REMEMBRANCE
In a comparative seminar on the Vietnam War and the war on terrorism, students learn just how crucial, and just how hard, empathy can be, write James G. Blight, a professor of international relations at Brown University, and janet M. Lang, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Boston University.
HERE TO STAY
Adjuncts aren't just an anomaly in a transitional period. They're key to colleges' functioning. Might as well face it and adjust accordingly, writes Michael Murphy, a visiting assistant professor of English at the State University of New York College at Oswego.
MILLER LITE
A new production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible captures the play's noisy timeliness, but not its finespun timelessness, writes Julia M. Klein, a cultural reporter and critic.
'FASCINATING FASCISM'
Do Nazis and irony mix? An exhibit at New York's Jewish Museum leaves such questions unsettled -- and unsettling.
'CHRONOS' AND 'KAIROS'
A class held hostage is unified by seven hours of fear, and strength, writes Elizabeth A. Dreyer, a professor of religious studies at Fairfield University.
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- MELANGE: Selections from recent books of interest to academe.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GAZETTE
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