American higher education is caught in an unparalleled environment in which traditional political partisanship is affecting issues such as academic freedom, student access, and international competition. The country's million or so faculty members constitute a huge national resource, and if they worked together they could become a powerful voice…

State spending for higher education in the US grew at the fastest rate during the 2005-2006 fiscal year, allowing most colleges in the nation to regain their financial balance after a series of tight budgets for five years. A new analysis by the Center for the Study of Education Policy, at Illinois State University reported that the total…

The Computing Research Association revealed that the percentage of American women in computer science and related fields remains low and stagnant, while other fields, like mathematics, science, and chemistry are seeing growing enrollment of women. Some researchers suggest computer-science programs are stacked women and the way they learn, but…

Math anxiety is an affliction that causes several intelligent students to believe, mistakenly, that they lack the ability to master the subject. Professors are starting to question their teaching tactics in hopes of tackling math anxiety, with some educators looking at ways to make their classes more interactive, while others are considering…

Foreign colleges and universities are pouring into China in large numbers, but many find that the road to success in China is paved with failed partnerships, unrealistic expectations, and bad planning. The Chinese government is also becoming more cautious after falling prey to some questionable foreign reports, and is reviewing new applications…

Many college board members blunder when they either lionize or trivialize their presidents, or work as soloists rather than as ensemble players. To avoid pitfalls of governance, trustees must assume responsibility for their collective performance and subject themselves to periodic self-evaluation.

A gay law professor believes that gay people will be fully equal only when society stops conditioning their inclusion on assimilation to straight norms. Against advice of counsel, the professor discusses his right, and that of others, to express authentic selfhood.

When the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education delivered its final report to the secretary of education in September, accreditors and many higher-education leaders breathed a small sigh of relief. The document did not endorse an early recommendation that the current accreditation system be completely dismantled. Now, though, just a…

Candidates preparing for an interview at a two-year college in the US must keep in mind that their chances of getting the job depend more on their ability to speak the language of community colleges than on any other single factor. One of the main reasons why otherwise-viable candidates do poorly in an interview is that they do not understand…

This article reports the results of a survey conducted by "The Chronicle" that examined college presidents' compensation. The survey found a 53-percent increase in presidents' compensation. While the salaries do not have an eye-popping quotient as those of corporate CEOs'--whose median compensation was just over $6 million among the 350 largest US…

In this article, the author presents Roger W. Bowen who was a president of the State University of New York at New Paltz, in 1996 and now a general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, that he gave almost no thought to the annual salary of $108,000. Here, his experience as an underpaid president, is familiar to governing…

In an interview, Gerald L. Baliles, a former Democratic governor of Virginia, talked about how the job of college president has changed over the years. Baliles said that a president must be many things to many people: leader of the academic community, chief executive of the business enterprise, the spokesperson, the fundraiser, the advocate for…

The boundaries of academic freedom may be greatly constrained by the US Supreme Court in 2006 in the "Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Metabolite Laboratories Inc." case, which threatens the essence of campus life, namely, the freedom to think and publish. The case highlights the fact that by considering publishing and thinking about…

A group of researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston are set to do a long-term study of families that would permit to select the sex of their babies through genetic testing before implanting the embryo in the mother. Technologies such as in vitro fertilization involved in selecting a baby's sex has societal and psychological…

College professors often speak of power relations within the university setting in adversarial terms, as a matter of "us", meaning the faculty, versus "them", which usually means all administrators. However, depicting campus administrators as participants in some organized conspiracy against faculty members is unproductive and obscures the fact…