In this article, the authors discuss how to prepare high-quality engineers who are better equipped to serve in the changing global marketplace, and suggest educators in pursuing the holistic concept of the "unity of knowledge" that will yield a definition of engineering more fitting for the times ahead. The unity of knowledge is fundamentally…

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was the principal campus radical organization of the 1960s. When SDS first took form in 1960-62 under the leadership of Al Haber and Tom Hayden, it was a small organization of a few hundred members. By the time the author joined the Reed College chapter as a freshman in 1968, SDS had grown into a very large…

Riverside has long struggled to shake its reputation as a campus of last resort in the University of California system, taking in students who could not get accepted at more prestigious branches. But Riverside's position has also allowed it to draw large numbers of students from low-income backgrounds, who are likelier than their wealthier peers…

Some athletics officials worry that, on many campuses, male practice players are taking opportunities away from female athletes. In an effort to try keeping second-string players off the sidelines, the NCAA's Committee on Women's Athletics has recommended banning male practice players in all women's sports. The proposal has touched off a fierce…

There is a sad truth about college libraries: No matter how attractively designed and cleverly constructed, they cannot disguise a central fact--that the undergraduates in them are seldom there to read books they want to read. The author explains that when he walks through the library at Georgetown University or American University, his heart goes…

Scientific research has traditionally been left to professionals in Russia. Here, though, graduates and undergraduates work alongside established scientists from different fields, on modern equipment. Some even earn enough money to support themselves. The students have been given this chance under a joint program of the United States and Russia…

Fullerton, California--College students use technology constantly. They text-message friends, compile playlists for their iPods, and are whizzes at updating their MySpace profiles. But when it comes to one kind of work they are required to do in college--namely, academic research--they can be inept. Too often, college officials say, students rely…

In this article, the author discusses a computer program called Psiphon which bypasses government filters undetected. The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, a research center for digital media and politics, designed Psiphon for technology-savvy activists. Some technology-savvy activists use other open-source software, like Tor (which relies on…

Suppose somebody coming up for tenure had a book manuscript being considered by a publisher for over a year. And suppose the author ("Wally") put the book on his CV as "forthcoming." But suppose someone powerful in the department ("Professor Peevish") got very angry and said that was deceptive, and was prepared to take steps. This article answers…

This article describes a new dormitory complex at the University of Oregon. The Living-Learning Center, as it is known, is a pair of four-story brick buildings that bookend a large landscaped courtyard. The new buildings contain several elements designed to bring students and faculty members together--and it is these features that are the result…

This article presents how the fast expansion of information technology industry in eastern Slovakia is putting a strain on its labor supply. Suddenly, computer-science graduates have become one of the former Eastern Bloc's greatest assets, attracting multinational technology companies hungry for skilled programmers, technicians, and engineers.…

In this article, the author discusses how Wyoming converts its mineral wealth into educational prosperity and economic diversity. Historically, higher education has not always been emphasized in this state's frontier culture, partly because residents with only a high-school diploma can often snag well-paying jobs extracting methane gas from coal…

In this article, the author profiles Drew Gilpin Faust, a career academic who has risen to the top job at Harvard University and has been named president of Harvard after six years as leader of its small Radcliffe Institute. Ms. Faust, who is 59, grew up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, raised by a father who bred Thoroughbred horses and a…

Thomas Benton (a pseudonym of an associate professor of English at a Midwestern liberal-arts college) describes most college libraries of today as being clean and well-lighted, with metal shelving, veneered tabletops, and banks of computers. He fears that in 20 years, college students will regard books as a "quaint technology"--the way they now…

Recording lectures and making it available as MP3's might seem counterintuitive for a course that denies students the use of paper and pencil. The author speculated that online technology might help students get away from writing and allow them to think and learn in new (or perhaps older) ways. As with any other technological invention, it is…