For decades introductory science courses have relied largely on lectures and tests that reward memorization of facts and formulas, an approach that has driven away many talented students. While new teaching models have shown success in engaging and retaining undergraduates, they have yet to be widely adopted in academe. For one thing, the tenure…

The higher education reform movement is struggling against the existing faculty reward system and academic culture to support active improvement of college instruction. (MSE)

Since Syracuse University (New York) started a campaign to reward teaching, it has entered several related projects, including a national survey on how teaching and research are valued by campus groups, a six-university self-examination of reward systems, and a project asking learned societies to consider a broader view of scholarship. (MSE)

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has called for an expanded definition of faculty scholarship to include four components: discovery of new knowledge, integration of knowledge, application of knowledge, and teaching. Such a view would lead to an improved faculty reward system, morale, and instruction. (MSE)

America's financial aid system provides too much taxpayer support to banks making college loans, demands too little of students assuming them, and burdens families with too much debt. The system fails to reward rigorous college-preparatory work in high school and penalizes students who hold jobs while in college. Lenders make extraordinary…

The head of Arizona State University's film-production program, F. Miguel Valenti, doesn't believe in showing movie clips in his classes, arguing that every scene should be viewed in its full context. So to make a point about why he thinks "Friday the 13th" has destroyed the horror genre, he recently showed the whole bloody mess of a…

College officials worry that too many of their peers use merit aid to "buy" students whose test scores will burnish their institutions' rankings in "U.S. News & World Report." In fact, the debate about financial aid on today's campuses has led to the near vilification of merit aid. The lament is that money is often diverted…

Before last year, public colleges in Tennessee had a very good reason to fill classroom seats through the first couple of weeks of the term. Each institution's share of the state appropriations for higher education was largely based on enrollment at that point in the semester. Now, however, those colleges stand to lose state money if students do…

Any university that is seriously committed to equity must value faculty contributions to diversity made through teaching, research, and service. If diversity is truly part of the core academic mission, it should be included in the criteria used to evaluate and reward faculty achievement. Toward this end, the faculty of the University of…

Pasupati Mukerjee, a pharmacy professor, is crusading for quality, not quantity, in academic scholarship. He points to the lasting impact of work of brilliant scientists with questionable credentials, and proposes more emphasis on a scholar's long-term record of citation by other scholars as a faculty evaluation criterion. (MSE)

For nearly four years, governors and state legislators have focused on little else in higher education but cutting budgets to deal with historic gaps in revenue. Now, with higher-education support at a 25-year low, lawmakers are considering some policy changes that have been off-limits in the past, such as consolidating campuses and eliminating…

When California approved its budget last month, the community-college system managed to escape the sharp budget cuts that befell most other agencies. But the state's fiscal troubles have nonetheless created a cash crisis for two-year colleges. As part of its plan to close a $41-billion budget deficit, California will delay providing $540-million…

The digital revolution has substantially improved scholarly work, but it has also brought challenges to those who are charged with overseeing their institutions' tenure, promotion, and rewards processes. While several electronic forms compete for legitimacy, the two most prominent are journals published exclusively online and Web sites devoted to…

Some faculty members at Texas A&M University will each be $10,000 richer next month, and they will have their students to thank. This article reports that the university system is awarding bonuses ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 to faculty members who received the highest grades on end-of-semester student evaluations. The competition is being…