In October 2006, a New Hampshire police officer named Michael Briggs was shot to death in an alley. His accused killer, Michael Addison, has been charged with capital murder. It is the state's first death-penalty case in more than 30 years, and it is racially fraught: Addison is African-American, and Briggs was white. New Hampshire has a long list…

This article describes how Whitworth University has made personal essays about applicants' faith a key part of its hiring process. Faculty members are required by the university to explain in written personal statement what they believe and how it affects their academic work. Whitworth officials think this process provides them with a better…

Elite colleges have made headlines in recent years with financial-aid plans aimed at enrolling more low-income students. Despite those efforts, the proportion of financially needy undergraduates at the nation's wealthiest colleges and universities actually dropped between the 2004-2005 and 2006-2007 academic years, according to a "Chronicle"…

You cannot learn anything about a college these days without hearing about what that college is doing for the planet, whether it is buying local food or shrinking its carbon footprint. A number of organizations are eager to evaluate colleges on their efforts. Grist, Sierra, and Current magazines and the Sustainable Endowments Institute all have…

This article describes the "Physics and Theatre," a seminar developed by Rosa Alejandra Lukaszew. Lukaszew developed this seminar to merge students majoring in theatre and physics and let them find out what they have in common. Lukaszew's seminar aims to integrate these students' different viewpoints through discussions of the role of physics in…

Pale, once a just a village when Bosnia's war ended 13 years ago, is now a bustling town, the hub of "Serbian Sarajevo," and home to several divisions of the Bosnian Serbs' University of East Sarajevo, their homegrown alternative to the multiethnic University of Sarajevo. It was in Pale that Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serbs'…

With the dollar's continued swoon and grim news on the job front, American economic competitiveness has become a central theme in the presidential election. Stumping in Ohio and Pennsylvania, old-line industrial states hit hard by the flight of manufacturing jobs, Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have called for renegotiating the…

College faculty members have recently begun creating homemade videos to supplement their lectures, using free or low-cost software. These are the same technologies that make it easy for students to post spoof videos on YouTube, but the scholars are putting the tools to educational use. The professors say that students tune in to the short videos…

The high prices of textbooks, which are approaching $1,000 per year for an average student, have those students and their professors crying for mercy. Flat World Knowledge, a new digital-textbook publisher, has the answer to this problem. Starting next year, the publisher will offer online, peer-reviewed, interactive, user-editable textbooks, free…

In a warmly received address to Roman Catholic educators, including 200 college presidents, in April, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his "profound gratitude" for the educators' "selfless contributions," which "serve both your country and the church." Pope Benedict's talk also built an intellectual case for academic freedom that is based on a bedrock…

With the economy sputtering and Congress pressuring colleges to be more affordable, many institutions feel a heightened need to provide more financial aid--and they are turning to alumni and other private donors for help. While specifics vary from college to college, all types of institutions are feeling the pressure. Many smaller, private…

Administrators at West Virginia University violated procedures and displayed poor judgment in their "seriously flawed" response to an inquiry about a high-profile academic transcript, according to a report issued last week by an independent panel. The harshly worded report found that when the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" raised questions last October…

The Bush administration has called off internal deliberations over a bailout plan for student-loan companies after concluding it did not have the authority to act on its own. Instead, it endorsed a Congressional proposal that would allow the education secretary to purchase loans from private lenders. The decision leaves Congress facing a ticking…

At least 18 colleges are scrambling to inform tens of thousands of students that they are at risk of having their identities stolen after SunGard, a leading software vendor, reported that a laptop owned by one of its consultants was stolen. The extent of the problem is still unknown, though many of the campuses that have been identified are in…

Colleges already know how to close the gap between the graduation rates of black and white students, but too few have been willing to take the steps needed to do it, according to a report released last week by Education Sector, a Washington-based research group. The report, "Graduation Rate Watch: Making Minority Student Success a Priority," is…