Many college classrooms these days may as well have lighted signs over their doors that read "On Air" or "Recording in Progress." A growing number of professors are recording their lectures and making them available as podcasts--regularly updated sets of audio files that students can download to their computers or MP3 players. Some campus…

This article presents a panel discussion at an interactive session at The Chronicle's Technology Forum which sought to explore how new generation of students change the image of campus culture. Richard T. Sweeney, university librarian at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (and the father of two Millennials as well as four other children),…

Colleges, once seen as beacons of egalitarian hope, are becoming bastions of wealth and privilege that perpetuate inequality. The chance of a low-income child obtaining a bachelor's degree has not budged in three decades: Just 6 percent of students from the lowest-income families earned a bachelor's degree by age 24 in 1970, and in 2002 still only…

This article discusses regeneration which is actually the dream of a scattering of biologists working in a relatively unheralded field called regenerative medicine. They hope to learn how other animals make whole their damaged parts, recreating complete working organs and appendages just as they did as embryos, but swiftly, and on a scale that…

There are two main settings for puzzle solving in higher education: graduate programs, with professors and both graduate and postdoctoral students; and predominantly undergraduate institutions, with professors and students. Research programs at large universities are well-oiled puzzle-solving machines. Graduate students there work long, hard hours…

This article discusses a youth travel program to honor the civil-rights leaders. The trip was composed mostly of Vanderbilt University students, who organized the Freedom Rides. The planned weekend trip was designed to challenge, to inspire, and to encourage a new generation of students to work for social and political change. Furthermore, this…

This article discusses a fight at Guilford College engaging athletes and students and the continued argument about what to call the incident. In their appeals for patience, officials have cited the college's Quaker traditions, including the "testimony of integrity," which is associated with honesty, fairness, and the search for truth. This…

This article talks about a new film entitled "An Unreasonable Man" that features the political activist Ralph Nader. The film rightly claims to be a documentary, but as the title hints, it's also a suspense movie. The film's first sequence briefly recounts Nader's much-maligned independent campaign for president in 2004. Although it shows him…

In this article, the author outlines his thoughts on what media education might look like in the future. He raises questions regarding media's role in the society, the blurring of the lines between consumption and creation of media, and the implications of fundemantal shifts in power within the culture. He stresses that the modern university…

This article reports a unique partnership between Kennesaw State University and the Georgia state government involving the participation of computer experts in the deployment or electronic voting machines. The effort has received attention in Washington as scientists and government officials search for ways to reform election procedures across the…

This article presents an excerpt of the responses of two experts, Gene I. Maeroff, a senior fellow at the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University's Teachers College and author of "A Classroom of One: How Online Learning Is Changing Our Schools and Colleges," and Robert Zemsky, chairman of the Learning Alliance for…

This article discusses how an economists' group brought forth policy adjustments on advertising issues. Since 1986 the association has banned advertisements in its newsletter, Job Openings for Economists, that discriminate "on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, sexual preference, or physical handicap." Facing…

This article discusses exclusive deals between colleges and student-loan providers and the U.S. Education Department's initial move to solve the conflict. The Higher Education Act, which governs most federal student-aid programs, prohibits colleges from requiring their students to borrow from a specific bank or student-loan company. The law does…

In the nearly 30 years since Edward Said published the hugely influential Orientalism, his indictment of racism and imperialism in Western scholarship on the Orient has had its share of plaudits and condemnations. Now Robert Irwin, the Middle East editor of The Times Literary Supplement, has reignited the controversy with his broadside against the…

In this article, the author narrates her story as a job-market widow. In each of the last eight years, she has seen how her husband, Matt, has gone on the market in search of a tenure-track position in English. She describes their eight-year stretch on the academic job market as a harsh tutor, but it has taught them things about themselves, their…