The closure of Barat College's operations in 2004 is similar to the accounts of other small, tuition-driven institutions such as Ambassador University, Bradford College, Marymount College, and Trinity College of Vermont. All institutions were small and in tight financial positions, and all ended up closing their doors. They also shared another…

Critics of affirmative action announced last week efforts to get bans on racial and ethnic preferences on the ballots in four states--Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, and Oklahoma--as part of a plan to thrust the issue into the national spotlight in the November 2008 elections. Ward Connerly, the prominent anti-affirmative-action activist who played a…

In this column, the author reflects on the writing instructor's role as a cultural gatekeeper, whose comments and grades are an implicit judgment of whether or not a student has got "it," and on the relative importance of talent and perseverance in a writer's career. Drawing on the story of Ishmael Beah, she concludes that while instructors may…

Fourteen years ago, Bruce A. Jackson was doing his postdoctoral work at the Boston University School of Medicine and working nights teaching at nearby Roxbury Community College. But his exhausting shuttle between two colleges was about to come to an end. Mr. Jackson, a biochemist, had recently received word from the National Science Foundation…

When Mary Cullinan became president of Southern Oregon University in September, the 5,000-student public university in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains was in dire financial shape. A $4-million shortfall had forced university officials to dip deep into its financial reserves, draining them to perilously low levels. The path back to…

When the Birmingham-Southern College football team plays Mississippi College this fall, it will be the first time since 1939 that athletes at the Alabama institution have suited up against an opponent on the gridiron. But the football season will also serve as a high-profile signal that Birmingham-Southern athletics events are no longer what they…

Marilee Jones has resigned as a dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after admitting that she had misrepresented her academic degrees when first applying to work at the university in 1979. As one of the nation's most prominent admissions officers--and a leader in the movement to make the application process less…

Research-oriented doctoral programs in education vary widely in quality, and a significant number of them should close up shop, according to a report released last week by the Education Schools Project. The new document, "Educating Researchers," is the third in a series of reports on schools of education from Arthur Levine, who served as president…

Marilee Jones's career had been a remarkable success. She joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) admissions office in 1979, landing a job in Cambridge at a time when boys ruled the sandbox of the admissions profession. Her job was to help MIT recruit more women, who then made up less than one-fifth of the institute's students. She…

Planning is a critical step to take before launching a capital campaign, if marketing materials are to cater to all potential donors and reinforce the institution's brand--which defines what the institution is and what it does, and is shaped by what people think of it. Here, the author discusses the importance of maintaining and conveying a…

In this article, the authors share two stories about copyright violation and fraud: first, the story of a book whose author did not bother to secure permission to use many of the images it contained; and second, a candidate for a faculty position who was found to have created a fraudulent CV. Taken together, the authors say, these stories raise…

After a difficult year for colleges and universities in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, the enrollment outlook for this fall is a lot brighter. Tulane University reported last week that 1,375 high-school seniors had committed to attending, a 56-percent jump over last year's 882 new freshmen. Xavier University of Louisiana reported that it…

In the past two months, nearly 100 colleges have started exploring a financial concept that seems almost too good to be true: collecting hundreds of millions of dollars for long-term capital needs by taking out life-insurance policies on wealthy alumni. The idea started with Oklahoma State University, which said this spring that it had secured…

Officials of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research say there was good news and bad in their new study of the religious beliefs and attitudes of college faculty members. The good: Higher education is religiously diverse and generally tolerant. The bad: What the San Francisco-based institute's president, Gary A. Tobin, calls the…

The old childhood ditty "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" has proved wiser than the avalanche of commentary provoked by the recent insults by Don Imus and the killings at Virginia Tech. Our society forbids public name-calling but allows sticks and stones. Anyone can acquire a gun, but everyone must be careful…