From the issue dated April 5, 2002
THE FACULTY
CONSIDERING SEX
Two universities have new guidelines for an age-old problem: sexual relationships between instructors and students.
FUELING DISCUSSION
Literature about oil teaches American students about the lives of distant peoples, global issues, and their own values, writes Rob Nixon, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
-
- PEER REVIEW: The renowned poet Rita Dove rejects a job offer from Stanley Fish at the University of Illinois at Chicago. ... An official ousted last year by the University of San Francisco has created a rival college just down the street.
-
- SYLLABUS: In "On the Frontier Between Fiction and Non-Fiction," a new seminar in creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, visiting authors do much of the teaching by sharing their own experience.
-
- STATUS OF WOMEN: Female professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology often feel like second-class faculty members, a study finds.
-
- WAVING THE RED FLAG: The University of Colorado defends its decision not to release a 50-year-old report on Communists at its Boulder campus.
-
- SHAKESPEARE TO SOAPS: A drama professor at Carnegie Mellon University has become the producer of a daytime television melodrama.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
CHANGING FOCUS
K. Anthony Appiah's scholarship, about the relationship between race and identity, takes a new direction as he leaves Harvard for Princeton.
THE ORIGINS OF CULTURE
A discovery in South Africa suggests that prehistoric humans started behaving like modern people much earlier than was believed.
SHELF-AWARENESS
At a used-book store, where does fiction become literature? asks Robert McHenry, a former editor in chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
COUNT HIM OUT
Political science's obsession with narrow, pseudo-precise mathematical research is making the field irrelevant and intellectually dishonest, writes Rogers M. Smith, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.
-
- VERBATIM: Richard Rorty talks about the late Hans-Georg Gadamer, the German philosopher who developed a hermeneutic approach to modern thought.
-
- HOT TYPE: The firing of an editor of Physics Today leads to international protests. ... Yale University publishes a livestock encyclopedia.
-
- NOTA BENE: In Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage, Joel Berkowitz says the Bard "translated and improved!" was all in a day's hype for Yiddish-theater promoters, who knew what their audiences wanted.
-
- BARFOSAURUS: Two British scientists have discovered the world's oldest vomit, in a 160-million-year-old fossil.
-
- NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
SEEKING REDEMPTION
A 1998 law has denied federal financial aid to so many students convicted of past drug offenses that even its author wants to change it.
THE NOMINEE FOR NIH
Elias A. Zerhouni, President Bush's choice to lead the National Institutes of Health, is an accomplished administrator but has not publicized his views about the ethics of stem-cell research.
ONE UMBRELLA
An Alabama legislative panel called for centralizing the state's higher-education system.
-
- SUBSTITUTE FOR THE SAT: A University of California faculty committee suggested dropping the test in favor of a three-hour exam in core subjects.
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
LEADING MAN
Steven B. Sample, president of the University of Southern California, has taken the institution to a new level. It's all in his best-selling book.
ON TRIAL
Maurice C. Taylor, dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Morgan State University, shares the lessons he learned as a defendant in a suit over accusations of sexual harassment.
SEARCHING QUESTIONS
Headhunting for college presidents often produces the blandest, not the best, writes Clara M. Lovett, president emerita of Northern Arizona University.
-
- FEED THE KITTY: Financing for research that led to the cloning of a cat at Texas A&M University was provided by the founder of the University of Phoenix, who hopes that his own pet dog can be cloned.
-
- FIGMENT OF AUTHORITY: The president of Central Connecticut State University was reprimanded by the system's Board of Trustees for impersonating a police officer when he pulled over a driver near the campus in January.
-
- PLEASANT SURPRISE: Giving to higher education was up 4.3 percent in 2000-1, a study finds, despite the lagging economy.
-
- PEER REVIEW: The renowned poet Rita Dove rejects a job offer from Stanley Fish at the University of Illinois at Chicago. ... An official ousted last year by the University of San Francisco has created a rival college just down the street.
-
- FOUNDATION GRANTS; GIFTS AND BEQUESTS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BLACK COLLEGES AND DISTANCE EDUCATION
Strapped for resources, predominantly African-American institutions offer few online courses, but some officials are more concerned about the quality of face-to-face instruction.
-
- '3.5 BILLION TRIES': University of Oxford researchers who used distributed-computing software to identify anthrax treatments have reported their findings.
-
- PAKISTANI PRIORITY: The country's president, Pervez Musharraf, said that in an overhaul of the higher-education system, information technology and engineering would be at the top of the list.
-
- FOR-PROFIT MERGER: Sylvan Learning Systems will acquire National Technological University, a provider of degrees via distance education.
-
- NO MORE STATE SUBSIDIES: Community-college officials in Colorado are upset by new guidelines for packaged televised courses.
-
- INTERNET2 CONNECTIONS: Academic researchers, politicians, and telecommunications executives plan to make Chicago a major international center for laser-light data networks.
-
- MONTANA CONFIDENTIAL: The University of Montana will require more training for people who operate its Web servers, following an incident in which private medical records were accidentally made available online to the public.
STUDENTS
CHALK WALK
University policies on pavement art tread a fine line between aesthetics and free speech.
-
- ELBOW-BENDING NEWS: A report says 44 percent of college students are categorized as binge drinkers, a figure that has remained virtually unchanged for eight years.
-
- RANDOM INTERVIEW: A Kenyon College student reflects on life, love, and the liberal arts.
-
- PRIVACY IN A CAN: A University of South Dakota medical student mistakenly disposed of 125 patients' confidential records at a store.
-
- JETTISONING THE PAST: Bob Jones University, which until two years ago banned interracial dating, now embraces minority students with two scholarship funds.
-
- VEGGIE-FRIENDLY: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals chooses 10 colleges with cuisines suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
ATHLETICS
SEARCHING FOR A LEADER
Who will be the next president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association? The field is wide open.
-
- FAIR PLAY? Recent decisions by colleges to drop low-profile sports programs could portend a future in which Division I universities field only eight teams each.
INTERNATIONAL
FLOUNDERING UNIVERSITIES?
At a meeting in Morocco, speakers from across the Arab world criticized their institutions of higher education as being too dogmatic.
EN GARDE!
Theater students at Mount Royal College, in Calgary, Alberta, learn the art of swordplay from an expert.
-
- PAKISTANI PRIORITY: The country's president, Pervez Musharraf, said that in an overhaul of the higher-education system, information technology and engineering would be at the top of the list.
-
- WORLD BEAT: The University of Dhaka, in Bangladesh, has threatened to arrest men and women who kiss or otherwise display physical affection on the campus. ... Birzeit University, in the West Bank, was closed for five days because of an Israeli military blockade.
-
- TEA AND PERQUISITES: Two Oxford professors resigned last month after a newspaper reported that they had offered to exchange a college admission for a philanthropic donation.
-
- LE MEILLEUR! Quebec rose to the top spot in a Canadian research group's annual ranking of provincial governments' commitment to higher education.
-
- BETTER RECOGNITION: Canadian colleges are considering a national plan that would make it easier for students to transfer academic credits from one institution to another, from province to province, and from outside Canada.
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
SHELF-AWARENESS
At a used-book store, where does fiction become literature, asks Robert McHenry, a former editor in chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
FUELING DISCUSSION
Literature about oil teaches American students about the lives of distant peoples, global issues, and their own values, writes Rob Nixon, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
COUNT HIM OUT
Political science's obsession with narrow, pseudo-precise mathematical research is making the field irrelevant and intellectually dishonest, writes Rogers M. Smith, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.
ON TRIAL
Maurice C. Taylor, dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Morgan State University, shares the lessons he learned as a defendant in a suit over accusations of sexual harassment.
PICTURE THIS
An activity combining art, literature, and technology serves students well. So why is academe so down on cartooning? asks James Sturm, author of the comic The Golem's Mighty Swing.
SWEET AND LOWDOWN
Sweet Smell of Success is a little doughy as a stage musical. But the film original remains a chewy cookie full of arsenic, writes Krin Gabbard, a professor of comparative literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
DOUBLE EXPOSURE
A photographer revisits Berenice Abbott's ever-changing New York.
SEARCHING QUESTIONS
Headhunting for college presidents often produces the blandest, not the best, writes Clara M. Lovett, president emerita of Northern Arizona University.
-
- 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
|
