New to the curriculum at many colleges this fall will be instruction for students in survival skills. The training material will not be like Clemson University's "College Survival Skills" Web site, which features useful advice on note taking, studying for exams, and dealing with professors. Rather, a new security DVD, Shots Fired on Campus:…

Studying the effects of remedial education is a little like studying the effects of heart surgery. Simply comparing the fates of those who underwent it with those who did not yields terribly misleading results. After all, one group generally starts out in much worse shape. Three new studies of the effects of remedial programs seek to overcome this…

If an honorary degree lacks values to begin with, does withdrawing it deliver a rebuke to the recipient? Is whatever honor that comes with the distinction embedded in the fancy paper, or is it wholly in the eye of the degree holder? Are honorary degrees really such silly things that individuals should mock their bestowal or withdrawal? The case of…

In this article, the authors discuss how the historians' job market is perennially rocky. The history profession had its "golden age" in the 1950s and early 1960s when a generation born in the demographic trench of the Depression entered the market just as the first of the baby boomers began to swell college enrollments. But that moment was…

The cost of gasoline has made the art of juggling two or more teaching jobs at different institutions all the more difficult for many adjunct faculty members, as continuing price hikes at the nation's gasoline stations cut into salaries that often do not cover living expenses to begin with. These new pressures are particularly evident in…

Book publishers are stepping up efforts to stop college students from downloading illegal copies of textbooks online. One Web site, Textbook Torrents, promises more than 5,000 textbooks for download in PDF format, complete with the original books' layouts and full-color illustrations. Users must simply set up a free account and download a free…

Welcome to the Centennial Conference: 11 small, private liberal-arts colleges in the mid-Atlantic region that belong to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III, where there are no sports scholarships to lure top-notch players. Instead, the contest to recruit the best athletes--a high-stakes game that has long defined only the…

The Education Department is controlled by advisers who have insufficient regard for the liberal arts and instead are intent on judging colleges largely by their ability to provide economically measurable talent for industry, a recently departed top official told "The Chronicle." Diane Auer Jones, who resigned in May as assistant secretary for…

In September 1965, not long after news broke about a Pentagon-sponsored program to study social conflict in South America, the Social Science Research Council played host to a meeting on overseas research. Feelings were raw. Opposition to the Vietnam War was mounting, and many scholars worried that the Pentagon's studies of conflict and…

This article reports that some graduate programs are switching from comprehensive qualifying exams to portfolios compiled by doctoral candidates. Five years ago the graduate program at the University of Kansas' history department was like many others--filled with small cohorts of anxious, fearful procrastinators. Doctoral students were taking an…

As he begins retirement this month after 40 years of federal service, the Education Department's departing inspector general, John P. Higgins Jr., sees one area that stands out for its susceptibility to costly waste and abuse. That area, Higgins said in an interview as he finished packing up his office, is student lending. Unless Congress greatly…

Not long ago Japanese campuses were Spartan affairs with few frills American students take for granted. But times have changed. College enrollments are plummeting as Japan's supply of youngsters dries up and universities prepare for a profound shakeout that could see more than a quarter of all campuses closing in the next few years. Now, Japanese…

The Supreme Court's landmark ruling overturning Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban could have implications for colleges that prohibit firearms on their campuses. Last month the court declared for the first time that the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep a gun, not just the right of states to maintain armed…

A decade ago, the Supreme Court was almost ready to confer First Amendment protection on the "Internet" believing that it was sufficiently benign. Little did everyone anticipate how different that rosy view might seem today. Several troubling developments have occurred within the past months. Megan Meier, a 13-year-old in Missouri, was apparently…

In 1961, Richard Hofstadter and Wilson Smith edited "American Higher Education: A Documentary History," a two-volume classic and an essential part of the tool kit of educators and historians. The author was invited by Smith to collaborate on the recently published "American Higher Education Transformed, 1940-2005: Documenting the National…