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THE FACULTY
BACKLASH AGAINST STUDENT EVALUATIONS
New studies suggest that professors are dumbing down course
material and inflating grades to get good reviews from their
students and thereby help their chances at tenure: A12
OVERHAULING LEGAL EDUCATION
The need for curricular change dominated discussions at the
annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools: A14
- A SPACECRAFT launched last week to explore the moon carried
with it the ashes of the noted planetary geologist Eugene M.
Shoemaker, who died last year, never realizing his lifelong
dream of traveling to the moon: A12
- A PROFESSOR at Texas Christian University requires students
in his English-composition class to exchange weekly letters
with him: A12
- PEER REVIEW: A48
- Hank Brown, a former U.S. Senator from Colorado with
strong conservative credentials, has received a mixed
greeting as the new president of the University of
Northern Colorado.
- Professors are the subjects of or have starring roles in
several new documentaries about their work.
- Moving on.
RESEARCH & PUBLISHING
ENVIRONMENTAL DETECTIVES
Jerry J. Bromenshenk, a University of Montana scientist, is
using honeybees to track the spread of pollutants. The bees,
acting as a "sentinel species," help gauge whether a chemical
will find its way into living organisms: A16
HANNAH ARENDT'S THEORIES
A recent conference in Jerusalem on the late political
philosopher attracted both supporters and detractors of her
work -- a sign of a resurgence of interest in her theories: A17
'WHITE MAN'S MEDICINE'
A new book by Robert A. Trennert, Jr., a historian at Arizona
State University, explores why and how the United States
provided health care to the Navajo Indians: A10
A GERMAN UNIVERSITY'S NAZI PAST
Georg Muller, the rector of the Technical University of
Clausthal, has written a frank and critical history of his
institution during the Nazi era, showing its complicity with
Hitler's regime: B2
- RESEARCHERS at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed
computer models that predict catastrophe if asteroids of a
certain size strike the earth: A18
- SCIENTISTS HAVE DETECTED the background glow of infrared
radiation produced by dust warmed by all the stars that have
ever existed: A18
- BIOLOGISTS HAVE IDENTIFIED an odor receptor in the noses of
laboratory rats that is used to identify a particular smell,
providing a clue to how human beings sense scents: A18
- A TEAM OF SCIENTISTS has isolated two genes that, when
defective, cause epileptic convulsions in newborns: A18
- A MUTATION in a single gene appears to predispose people to
mental illnesses severe enough to require hospitalization,
according to researchers: A18
- THE WHITE HOUSE has criticized a Chicago scientist's plan to
clone human beings, saying that the action would be
"irresponsible": A32
- HOT TYPE: A21
- The Modern Language Association has awarded its prize for
the best book written by a member to Joseph Roach's
Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance -- yet
the book has yet to break even for its publisher,
Columbia University Press.
- In the December issue of American Anthropologist,
several scholars examine how to best undertake the
ethnographic study of Europe, which was once thought to
be a "pariah" in the field.
- 91 NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS, briefly described: A20-23
- Nota Bene: Shakespeare, the Movie: Popularizing the Plays
on Film, TV, and Video, edited Lynda E. Boose, a
professor of English and women's studies at Dartmouth
College, and Richard Burt, an associate professor of
English at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
The book is published by Routledge.
- THE J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT Foreign Scholarship Board and the
U.S. Information Agency have announced the names of nearly
700 people who have received Fulbright awards to lecture or
conduct research in the United States this year. Their names
appear in this issue of The Chronicle: A49-56
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY SKEPTICS
Some educational experts are questioning whether schools and
colleges are putting too much emphasis -- and spending too
much money -- on teaching with computers: A25
TOWN-AND-GOWN HISTORIES
Oberlin, Ohio, and the college that shares its name have
jointly produced a World-Wide Web site on the history of their
community: A26
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS (U.S.)
B.A.'S AT COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Arizona is considering a landmark plan that would allow
community colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees. It is
drawing strong opposition from universities: A30
DEBATE OVER THE HIGHER EDUCATION ACT
Institutions that enroll many Hispanic students want more
federal aid, but historically black colleges worry that such
recognition of those institutions in the key law could
undermine the assistance the black colleges receive: A31
FORMULAS FOR INTEREST RATES
The White House is finally taking seriously complaints by
banks that an impending change in rules governing interest-rate
calculations could lead to the collapse of the
guaranteed-student-loan program: A34
MONEY & MANAGEMENT
DOUBLE TROUBLE
More colleges are having to contend with the upheaval that
ensues when their presidents leave in the midst of an
institutional restructuring: A41
MERGER IN D.C.
Mount Vernon College, an all-female institution, will be folded
into George Washington University by June 1999: A44
- THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS Commission has ruled that
non-profit colleges do not have to contribute some of their
revenue from providing telecommunications services to a fund
to subsidize those services for rural schools: A32
- STANFORD UNIVERSITY'S alumni association is inviting alumni
on an escorted trip into space -- for $98,000 each: A41
- A BOWDOIN COLLEGE TRUSTEE ended up donating to the college a
fund worth $35.66-million, which he had raised from
$3.5-million through wise investment decisions: A41
- THE PRESIDENT of Hostos Community College of the City
University of New York resigned after coming under fire by
CUNY trustees over academic standards: A10
- THE PRESIDENT of the Institute of American Indian Arts,
Beatrice Rivas Sanchez, resigned two months after students
demanded her ouster: A44
- OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY and Ohio University are fighting a
legal battle over which one has the right to use "Ohio" for
its athletics teams and memorabilia: A44
- FUND RAISERS FOR COLLEGES and other charitable causes are
hoping that a new U.S. postage stamp honoring philanthropy
will prompt gifts: A8
- WESTERN MARYLAND COLLEGE has received 17 sculptures from the
estate of Joe Brown, a professional boxer who became a
respected sculptor and professor: A8
- CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY at Fresno has received a
$1-million bequest to catalogue a collection of children's
literature: A10
- FOUNDATION GRANTS; gifts and bequests: A44
STUDENTS
SLEEPING THROUGH CLASS
An annual survey of freshmen has found that more of them were
bored by academics, although more also planned to pursue a
graduate degree: A37
- A statistical profile of this year's college freshmen
provides data on the students' characteristics, opinions,
and goals: A38-39
RATINGS GAME?
Two new studies are raising questions about how accurately
students' evaluations measure professors' teaching skills:
A12
- A UTAH COLLEGE is pitching itself as upholding the "Ivy
League Tradition in the Spirit of the West": A37
- A CONSERVATIVE NEWSPAPER at Amherst College has lost its
financing from the student government over "irresponsible
acts" by its staff: A37
- PROFESSORS AND EMPLOYERS said most high-school graduates
lack needed skills, but parents, schoolteachers, and
students disagreed, in a recent survey: A8
- A SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY alumnus has sued his alma mater
over a new grading policy it instituted while he was a
senior. He says the policy denied him highest honors: A8
- RICE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS recently helped elementary-school
children simulate a mission to Mars and pretend they were
scientists: A10
ATHLETICS
NO MORE LEGISLATIVE MARATHONS
The annual convention of the restructured National Collegiate
Athletic Association is expected to feature little of the
tension and uncertainty that characterized past meetings: A40
- THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA football team has forfeited
five of its six victories from the 1997 season because a
player was academically ineligible: A40
- PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY is seeking the prosecution of
a sports agent who rendered a star football player
ineligible by buying him gifts: A40
INTERNATIONAL
TOUGH TRANSITION IN GERMANY
Student protests have grown as the government has considered
what to do about inadequate financial support for higher
education and the pressing need to reform the system: A45
A GERMAN UNIVERSITY'S NAZI PAST
Georg Muller, the rector of the Technical University of
Clausthal, has written a frank and critical history of his
institution during the Nazi era, showing its complicity with
Hitler's regime: B2
MORE AID IN CANADA?
The government has promised that it will include more support
for college students in its 1998 budget: A47
OPINION & LETTERS
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL
With "spirituality" thriving among students, academics need to
consider how to cope with new and evolving religious practices,
writes Diane Winston, a visiting fellow at the Center for the
Study of American Religion at Princeton University: A60
ACTIVIST TRUSTEES: POWER GONE AWRY
Their actions could snap shut the open book of the modern
curriculum, writes Catharine R. Stimpson, dean of the Graduate
School of Arts and Science at New York University: B4
MISTRUST IN GOVERNMENT
It is time for both academics and politicians to stop taking
cheap shots at our civic institutions and to begin a serious
debate, writes Joseph S. Nye, Jr., dean of the John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University: B6
CAIRO DIARY
Government censorship led Mahmoud El Lozy, a professor of
theater at the American University in Cairo, and his students
to come up with a means of "peaceful resistance," the professor
writes: B8
A 16-MM CRISIS
Film teachers who use movies in the classroom increasingly find
that the video revolution is interfering with their curricular
needs, writes Robert Sklar, a professor of cinema at New York
University: B9
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
THE ARTS
CREATING VISUAL TENSION
Arno Rafael Minkkinen, a photographer and a professor of art at
the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, transforms the
ordinary into the surreal, using photographs of his own nude
body as a metaphor to express a wide range of ideas: B10
ART THAT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
The exhibition "Ancient Traditions/New Forms: Contemporary Art
from Korea" is on display at the University of Hartford: B100
- WESTERN MARYLAND COLLEGE has received 17 sculptures from the
estate of Joe Brown, a professional boxer who became a
respected sculptor and professor: A8
A HIGHER-EDUCATION GAZETTE: PAGES A48-59
"BULLETIN BOARD": 86 PAGES OF JOB OPENINGS
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1255 23rd Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20037. E-mail: editor@chronicle.com
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Chronicle of Higher Education Inc.
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