As president of the University of Miami, Donna E. Shalala answers to dozens of trustees, many of whom are captains of industry. But two of those board members also answer to her. Ms. Shalala's uncommon role reversal is a product of her lucrative service on the boards of two different companies headed by members of Miami's Board of Trustees. In…

The assistant professor was shocked. For six years on the tenure track, all the assessments of his work had been positive--or at least not negative. His annual evaluations rated him consistently good or better on teaching, service, and research. The sparse written comments from his chair were in the vein of "you are doing what you need to do." The…

In this article, the author discusses why he is not preparing his students to compete in the global marketplace. For all the talk of "globalization" as the very engine of their generation's future prospects, his students seemed far more concerned about disappearing jobs at home, rising global temperatures, and a general anxiety about what it all…

Original research in biology, which is thought to spark student interest and bolster majors, makes its way to the associate-degree level. Through a grant from the National Science Foundation, students of biology in community colleges will have the chance to do research on open-ended, real-world questions with no predetermined answers--and…

Matt Ivester became notorious on campuses across the country in 2007 for publishing gossip--not about celebrities but about students--on Juicy-Campus, the Web site he created. The site was blocked by some colleges, banned by several student governments, and threatened with legal action by several students who claimed that defaming comments on the…

In this article, the authors talk about research relationships in higher education. Research partnerships are generally inexpensive and highly productive (their synergies produce much more work than the sum of the parts). The two partners are generally honest about their collaborations and their roles within them; rigorous in their…

In the 1920s, jazz was widely condemned as "the devil's music," and "Ladies' Home Journal" warned its readers that young people were being morally corrupted as they danced along to "the abominable jazz orchestra with its voodoo-born minors and its direct appeal to the sensory center." But within a few decades, jazz was fully absorbed into the…

It's the night before one of Javier Jimenez's big job interviews at the Modern Language Association (MLA) meeting. The 35-year-old graduate student, who is scheduled to earn his Ph.D. in comparative literature this spring from the University of California at Berkeley, is trying to ward off anxiety and abdominal pains. The mystique of the MLA, the…

Walter Fortson never expected to finish college, especially as inmate 819161D at the Mountainview Youth Correctional Facility, in Hunterdon County, N.J. A few years ago, he chose to be a crack dealer to support his family and his reckless spending habits. He thought he was too smart to get caught, until one day in 2008 when he made a bad move. He…

As more women choose careers in the sciences, the stakes are higher than ever before. Having women in key decision-making positions in the scientific and technological work force is critical to the future of society. Successful senior female scientists serve as a prime source of leadership for top academic administrative positions. A more diverse…

College students are a generally healthy lot. But as they grow heavier each year, reflecting the national rise in obesity rates, campus officials are trying to promote healthier habits--and, they hope, mitigate the impact of a sobering trend. More than one-third of college students have a body-mass index, the main measurement for obesity, that…

In the long-running debate over how many administrators are too many, two economic researchers believe they have identified an ideal ratio. For colleges to operate most effectively, they say, each institution should employ three tenured or tenure-track faculty for every one full-time administrator. What the ratio is now is difficult to say, though…

When professors in positions that offer no chance of earning tenure begin to stack the faculty, campus dynamics start to change. Growing numbers of adjuncts make themselves more visible. They push for roles in governance, better pay and working conditions, and recognition for work well done. And they do so at institutions where tenured faculty,…

For an untenured faculty member, perception is everything. For outsiders, such as women of color, the task of negotiating and performing identity can prove rather burdensome because of the need to counter negative stereotypes based on race, gender, and class. For many junior faculty members, a recurring conflict is the longstanding tension between…

James R. Flynn is an accidental IQ specialist. In the early 1980s, the American-born political scientist thought he might spend a few pages in a planned book on "how to defend humane ideals" grappling with the argument that the gap in IQ scores between blacks and whites was genetically rooted. It was not his first foray into that subject, but this…