When a person sends in his or her job-application materials, he or she is not just assembling separate documents to fulfill the requirements of an ad. Those documents are part of a larger rhetorical whole, and together they form an argument for the viability of his or her candidacy for a particular job. Documents should be crafted meticulously,…

Matthew Reilly's roundabout journey to college took a painful, decisive turn after a nighttime crash in Iraq. In 2008, six months into his first combat tour with the Army, Mr. Reilly and nine soldiers from his platoon were pursuing an insurgent when their armored fighting vehicle slammed into a roadblock. It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and fresh…

At Canadian universities, business schools are light-years ahead of the rest of the campus in raising their global profile. Intensive foreign-student-recruitment efforts, friendly Canadian immigration rules, mandatory study-abroad requirements, and, in some cases, the option to pursue programs in multiple languages have combined to pack a punch in…

The practical goal of graduate education is placement of graduates. But what does "placement" mean? Academics use the word without thinking much about it. "Placement" is a great keyword for the graduate-school enterprise. For one thing, its meaning certainly gives a purpose to graduate education. Furthermore, the word is a portal into the way of…

Scholarly groups have long served as hubs of academic life and the embodiments of their disciplines, but they face uncertain and divergent futures. Some disciplinary associations are struggling to remain relevant and financially viable as demographic and technological changes threaten their traditional sources of revenue. The core of their…

The author talks about a new generation of Ph.D.'s that is advancing the field with a multidisciplinary approach. Like their predecessors who worked to establish black studies as a respected academic discipline, today's Ph.D. students are also attracted to the social mission of the field. But younger black-studies scholars are willing to work with…

College campuses are hothouses of data, including course schedules, degree requirements, and grades. But much of the information remains spread out across software systems or locked on university servers. Start-up companies want to pry the information loose from campus servers in order to offer personalized services that could transform the…

There is a lot of contradictory advice out there about writing a dissertation. Some people say write every day until a certain word count is reached, or until a set amount of time has passed. Some people say they work best when they write everything all at once, usually looking down the barrel at a looming deadline. In this article, the author…

Besieged by poverty, American Indians have historically trailed other minority groups in attending and finishing college. Many lack the literacy skills to succeed in college courses or job-training programs--natural routes to employment. But as the country focuses on increasing college attainment and reducing unemployment, basic education for…

Eight years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and a few months after the withdrawal of the military forces from the country, Iraq's universities, devastated by years of dictatorship, sanctions, and war, are still struggling to recover. The security situation has improved since the deadly, dark days of 2006 and 2007, when the country teetered on the…

Limiting access to some methods of suicide, a strategy known as means restriction, is gaining support among mental-health researchers. Some suicides can be prevented, the logic goes, if it is more challenging for an impulsive individual to harm himself. But on most campuses, that strategy has not taken hold. Instead, counseling and education tend…

Harsh economic realities mean trouble for college leaders. But where administrators perceive an impending crisis, investors increasingly see opportunity. In recent years, venture capitalists have poured millions into education-technology start-ups, trying to cash in on a market they see as ripe for a digital makeover. And lately, those wagers have…

Can a quality education be provided by any college that relies heavily on adjunct instructors it subjects to lousy working conditions? Some higher-education experts and prominent advocates for adjunct faculty members would like to see accreditors and others who pass judgment on colleges ask questions like that more often. Those concerned about the…

In this article, the author, based on his own experience, contends that historical videos are engaging--more engaging than history text. As far as he can recall, almost no layperson (that is, a nonacademic) has ever contacted him about his published research. In contrast, "users" of YouTube comment on the historical videos daily. Thousands of…

On the surface, a gathering held for young research faculty last week at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory was a clear expression of determination by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to help them compete for grants. The agency fears that continued Congressional budget cuts, combined with the growing number of scientists who work later into…