As the events of Virginia Tech tragedy recede in time, leaders of other colleges and universities are sure to look at Virginia Tech president Charles W. Steger's performance and question the readiness of presidents to act like corporate executives, take visible control of a campus in crisis, manage the onslaught of cameras and microphones, and…

In this article, the author hopes that educators can begin a long-overdue public discussion about how they encourage and defend their students' civil liberties--while doing a lot more to enhance their safety. To start, they need to confront the problem that nearly all their students, like their children, believe that "ratting out" a friend or…

The National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education is seeking help from Congress, and has asked two key members of Congress to hold hearings to determine if the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights has shirked its responsibility to enforce higher-education desegregation agreements. In particular, leaders are worried that…

Buried in a spending measure passed by the U.S. House of Representatives is a provision that could thwart Republican efforts to scuttle legislation designed to bolster the federal direct-loan program. The provision, which appears on the final page of the House's spending blueprint for the 2008 fiscal year, simply instructs the House education…

This article describes a new syllabus offered at University of Toledo that focuses on guns and gun policy. The course provides students with learning opportunities on how to arm themselves with propaganda from both sides of the debate over how to apply the Second Amendment, the act that establishes "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."…

Michael L. Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, was writing a paper about social networking and other interactive tools, which are collectively referred to as Web 2.0, when he decided to make use of the technology to spread his message. So he put together a short video with examples of Web 2.0…

Roy Richard Grinker started his training in psychiatry before he hit puberty, listening to his grandfather discuss the field. Later, Grinker rejected the idea of studying science, eventually settling into his current job as a professor of anthropology at George Washington University. But the academic wanderings over the years have brought him…

Geneva College, a Christian institution in Pennsylvania, will be allowed to post job advertisements on a state-sponsored Web site even though the college requires employees to be Christians, according to the terms of a settlement reached in federal court. The college had sued the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and the U.S.…

The U.S. Department of Education, overriding opposition from colleges and accreditors, is pushing ahead with a plan to remake American higher education by requiring that colleges show results if they want to remain eligible for more than $90-billion in federal student aid. At the end of a three-day session last month, representatives of colleges…

Many college and university trustees say money matters are the biggest challenge their boards face. This article discusses the results of "The Chronicle's" survey of the fiscal condition of public and private colleges. According to the survey, board members of four-year institutions are grappling with how to pay for new buildings and how to repair…

In 2006, in the wake of a spending scandal involving a former president, American University's Board of Trustees made several broad changes in its procedures to, among other things, become more active in overseeing the president. Observers of university governance expected trustees at other institutions to follow suit. But despite the attention…

Last week the leaders of four American universities in the Middle East visited Washington and New York to present a simple message: Don't forget about us. "The American public is seeing nothing but bad-news stories coming out of the Middle East," said David D. Arnold, president of the American University in Cairo, who met with editors of The…

A growing number of students are pursuing M.B.A.s in order to develop the skills they'll need to help their families' businesses prosper. Business schools are responding with a flurry of new courses that focus on the unique challenges of homegrown businesses: the patriarch who insists that the approach he inherited from his father works better…

Adult students are not well documented, are frequently left out of discussions of higher-education policy, and are not fully understood by the colleges they attend, says a report ("Returning to Learning: Adults' Success in College is Key to America's Future") released this week by the Lumina Foundation for Education. As a result, those students…

On paper, Mariella Castillo's family makes her likelier than other students to drop out of college. Her mother left school after the fifth grade, and her father has only a middle-school education. Her parents speak little English, and Castillo, who was born in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, spoke her first words in Spanish. Numerous studies…