The last time Virginia Commonwealth University had to prepare for an accreditation review, the school's officials found themselves overwhelmed with data. The university's accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, was asking for more information than ever before about how much students were learning: grades, test scores, written…

The dominance that for-profit colleges enjoy in online education may erode as nonprofit institutions press forward in the marketplace and take advantage of their traditional assets, according to a new report by Eduventures. The education-consulting firm, which is based in Boston, found that typical advantages held by traditional institutions, such…

Princeton University has expanded a package of family-friendly benefits for graduate students that is designed to encourage more women to pursue careers in higher education. Joan S. Girgus, special assistant on diversity to the dean of the faculty, states that the university tried to think more comprehensively about what was needed. In an effort…

When the doors of the International Buddhist College opened in the southern rural province of Songkhla in Thailand after nearly a decade of hard work and planning, the founders praised the achievement as the culmination of devotion, faith, and, of course, good karma. With its rare combination of secular academics and monastic life, the college is…

Teachers may resist the notion of teaching as a performance but his or her voice, gestures, and movement in the classroom can help or harm student attentiveness. Strong skills in voice and movement can help illuminate a teacher's questions and ideas for students, drawing attention to what matters, holding their attention through a long class, and…

This article discusses how federal and state governments can improve student access to private and public higher education institutions. Florida helps to achieve that with a common course-numbering system across community and four-year colleges, which permits students to easily transfer credits. Both the Senate and the House of Delegates in…

As the benefits of an international education become more widely recognized, a growing number of young Americans are enrolling in institutions in the British Isles. According to Britain's Higher Education Statistics Agency, in the 2005-2006 academic year, 14,755 Americans were enrolled in degree programs at British institutions, compared with…

In this article, the author draws on his observations of secondary school student teachers to emphasize the importance of a lesson plan in being able to explain exactly why students need to learn a particular lesson, even in higher education. While college students are less likely to ask this question, the author believes that the best teachers,…

For more than 2,500 years, Confucian thought held sway in China, advocating a state guided by highly ethical scholar-bureaucrats and a society ruled by morality and a strong emphasis on hierarchical relationships. But by the end of the 19th century, the Chinese state, powerless to fight off foreign encroachment and growing public dissatisfaction,…

America's financial aid system provides too much taxpayer support to banks making college loans, demands too little of students assuming them, and burdens families with too much debt. The system fails to reward rigorous college-preparatory work in high school and penalizes students who hold jobs while in college. Lenders make extraordinary…

A few years ago, universities were dumping their online spinoffs like rotten fish. Now the virtual campus is re-emerging. But the new speculators are public universities, and instead of creating commercial, online branches like their predecessors, they are embracing a not-for-profit model. According to A. Frank Mayadas, president of the Sloan…

This article shares the experiences of two colleges, Paul D. Camp Community College (Franklin, Virginia) and Durham Technical Community College (Durham, North Carolina), in achieving their dreams. Administrators at Paul D. Camp Community College decided that it was necessary to improve the skills of their adjunct faculty. In 2006, they began…

Gary Pavela, director of student judicial programs at the University Maryland at College Park, is an expert on how colleges can assist troubled students. In a forthcoming installment of his weekly newsletter on campus law and policy, the "Synfax Weekly Report," Mr. Pavela discusses Monday's shootings at Virginia Tech. Among other observations, he…

Occasionally, the search committee for a tenure-track position will decide on a candidate who is A.B.D., all but dissertation, and decide to hire him or her with the understanding that the Ph.D. will be completed by a given deadline. In the the form of an anecdote, the author discusses the potential pitfalls--for both the university, the…

One of the hottest topics in high-school reform is the movement to align high schools' graduation requirements with the requirements for college entrance, and to make sure that any graduate who enters college is ready for success. Advocates seem to believe that the answers to public-school reform and economic competitiveness can be found by…