This article talks about disciplinary fudging. The author points out that one fudges for complex and comprehensible reasons. However, she wonders at what point one becomes enough of an insider in a discipline to know how to gloss over the nuances of a complicated, inconvenient, or controversial topic.

Literary studies is in the doldrums. Wave after wave of revisionism has washed over literature departments in the last few decades, bringing a miscellany of new methods and critical tools, from cultural materialism to critical race theory, deconstruction to disability studies, the new historicism to the new formalism. Yet, even as people's ways of…

It is hard to imagine a world without books. Reading represents a mode of thinking and being that may be overshadowed in a contemporary world of web sites, movies, TV shows, CDs and video games. Ultimately, the author concludes that the percentage of serious readers has probably not changed significantly during the past century: what has changed…

The major victory of professors of literature in the last half-century--the Great March from the New Criticism through structuralism, deconstruction, Foucauldianism, and multiculturalism--has been the invention and codification of a professionalized study of literature. They have made themselves into a priestly caste: To understand literature,…

This article presents an interview with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. In this interview, she talks about her tenure and some key higher-education issues. She explains how some colleges do not recognize that they are on an unsustainable path. She also discusses how Americans must get out of the mind-set that college is a traditional…

Graduate students face an array of choices when evaluating compensation-and-benefits packages that make comparisons difficult. A "Chronicle" survey shows that the offers to teaching assistants and research assistants vary widely. Some institutions cover 100 percent of graduate students' tuition, while others waive only a portion. It is possible to…

There is no problem with colleges and universities trying to raise enrollment through encouraging student participation in athletics. However, the author questions the integrity of the recruiting and admissions process if institutions do not openly share their strategies with prospective students and parents. That includes being truthful regarding…

As community-college leaders around the country defend against across-the-board budget cuts, they need to mobilize key groups to make the case that their colleges offer the best hope of turning around the United States economy. The author discusses how his and his colleagues' research on community colleges indicate that the public does not…

This article describes the successful "reverse brain drain" scheme offered by the Chinese government for their scholars who study abroad. The program is a significant about-face from early Chinese policy on overseas study. Government programs and individual academic departments now offer competitive benefits and salaries to candidates interested…

User awareness is growing in importance when it comes to computer security. Not long ago, keeping college networks safe from cyberattackers mainly involved making sure computers around campus had the latest software patches. New computer worms or viruses would pop up, taking advantage of some digital hole in the Windows operating system or in…

President Bush is leaving the White House with a mixed record on higher education. His administration catapulted conversations about holding colleges more accountable for their performance into the national spotlight, and it pressed for some increases in federal spending on student aid and research. At the same time, Mr. Bush faced criticism from…

Despite all the alarm that recruiting in college sports has spun out of control, for many athletes the process was neither as intrusive, nor as lavish, as its critics have warned, according to a "Chronicle" survey of hundreds of current Division I athletes. But the accelerated pace of recruiting, and the demands it placed on athletes during their…

With the economic climate growing worse week by week, directors of scholarly organizations are preparing for the likelihood that 2009 will be a grim year for their finances. None report that they face immediate crises, but many say they fear that certain kinds of revenue--from conference attendance, foundation grants, and especially investment…

This article examines how the University of Kansas has changed in 20 years. Twenty years ago, annual operating expenses for the University of Kansas campus here were $204-million. Today the institution spends more than triple that, even though its enrollment, 26,000, is almost exactly the same. During the same period, tuition and fees for in-state…

The latest national report card on higher education, as in the past, handed out a lot of "incompletes." Like the student who keeps forgetting to turn in that lab report, the grades can't be computed without all the data. There's a lot policy makers don't know about their states' higher-education performance, and the gaps in information limit the…