What Would Durkheim Do?

Webster U. has long maintained a separate but equal system for faculty who prefer frequent sabbaticals to absolute job security.

Two administrators at Connecticut College describe how they and their faculty colleagues changed the way professors are recruited and hired

A recent book on Depression-era culture is both lively and all too timely. Scott McLemee interviews its author.

College leaders in the U.S. urged to enhance unity of North American higher ed on same day European academics issue study on how unified their institutions have become.

Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, says he hasn't given up on the University of California at Irvine. His appearance at Irvine last month set off a wide debate about civility and protest when his talk was repeatedly interrupted by protesters. Now Oren has published an open letter in the university's student newspaper offering to come back to Irvine. "I came to UCI for the opportunity to exchange ideas — a reasonable intention that was hijacked by a minority of students. The disruptive measures exhibited by these students only underscore the importance for dialogue, especially on the frontline of higher learning," Oren wrote. "I would willingly return to your campus and meet with those individuals whose views may not agree with mine as long as we respect the decorum of dialogue and free speech. Middle East issues are not devoid of emotion or nuance. Only with respect and sensitivity from all sides can we attain the conditions necessary to tackle one of the great issues of our time and realize the vision of peace."

Jackson State University's president, Ronald Mason Jr., has received considerable public criticism for his idea of merging the state's three public, historically black universities into one. But a review by The Jackson Clarion-Ledger of e-mail to and from Mason about the idea shows that some in the state who have not spoken in favor of the plan were either supportive in private or at least open to considering the ideas. The e-mail messages also include some tough criticism and some of Mason's frustrations about the difficulty of talking about these issues. "If I can't have private conversations with members of the Black Caucus about the future of HBCUs without them trying to get me fired, then who am I supposed to talk to?" he said in one e-mail.

Making selections for those bracket pools takes time away from everything else, including scholarship, according to a new study by a Duke University professor. Charles Clotfelter, Z. Smith Reynolds Professor of Public Policy at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy, analyzed data on journal article viewing at 78 research libraries. He found that a drop in usage in the week after the pairings are announced for the National Collegiate Athletic Association men's basketball tournament. Further, he found additional drops at colleges and universities that won "toss-up" games, in the days following those games. “This drop in research activity in these libraries is quantitative evidence of the NCAA tournament’s power to influence patterns of work,” Clotfelter said.

Distance ed students seek to replicate social and professional benefits of traditional college experience by forming Web-based extracurricular organizations.

An angry custodial worker at Ohio State University who had received a poor performance review shot two other employees, killing one of them, before killing himself Tuesday, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The university is offering counseling and Gordon Gee, the president, issued a statement offering condolences to the family of the employee who was killed.

Frustrated by the quality of submissions, a journal editor slams a subset of his readers (and the universities that produced them).

• Wendi Born, assistant professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Baker University, in Kansas, has been promoted to associate professor of psychology there.
• David Coppola, assistant vice president for administration at Sacred Heart University, in Connecticut, has been promoted to vice president for strategic planning and administration there.
• Jean-Luc Marion, professor of the philosophy of religions and theology at the University of Chicago, in Ilinois, has been named the Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Professor in the Divinity School there.
• Annie Pagura, manager of technology operations at Harford Community College, in Maryland, has been selected as vice president for information technology there.
• Jim Paquette, associate athletics director for development at Boston College, in Massachusetts, has been named assistant vice president and director of athletics at Loyola University Maryland.
• Mary C. Pinard, associate professor of English at Babson College, in Massachusetts, has been promoted to professor of English there.
• Mark Sweezy, a member of the faculty in the department of chemistry and physics at the University of New England, in Maine, has been named assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy at Saint Joseph College, in Connecticut.

Students at many of Virginia's public colleges and universities began planning Monday to fight the declartion of Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II last week that that the institutions lack the authority to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation, while Gov. Robert McDonnell signaled that he might take a different tack, The Washington Post reported. Groups opposing the attorney general's letter cropped up across Facebook, business leaders expressed qualms that the stance would hurt the state's ability to attract students and workers, and the governor said in an interview that he'd consider signing state legislation extending legal protections on the basis of sexual orientation if the legislature were to pass one.

A group of major corporations in Britain says that the government's push to expand access to higher education has devalued university degrees there, The Guardian reported. The British government has set a goal of having 50 percent of all citizens under 30 attain a college degree, and that effort "driven down standards and devalued the currency of a degree and damaged the quality of the university experience," says a report from the Association of Graduate Recruiters, which represents 800 companies.

With demand for online assessment and e-tutoring tools growing, good textbooks alone are no longer enough to win over professors.

State leaders in California and elsewhere are balancing their budgets by capping enrollments and raising tuition. They should increase enrollments and hold the line on fees instead, writes Arthur Hauptman.

Federal authorities have charged a California man with a massive visa fraud scheme in which he is alleged to have attended 10 different colleges in Southern California, sitting in class, writing papers and taking exams -- all while pretending to be other people who needed to pass the courses to keep their student visas, the Los Angeles Times reported. Daniel Higgins is alleged to have helped about 120 students, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. He pleaded not guilty on Monday and declined to comment on the case.