New administrative offices for diversity are popping up at universities around the country, and one can usually count on them to cast minority-recruiting efforts in a favorable light. There is still, however, a role for the old-school rabble-rousers, as a new report from a faculty committee at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor makes clear.…

Engineering has long been recognized as a key to the U.S. economy. Yet for more than 20 years, colleges of engineering have been warned that they are failing to keep their curricula and teaching methods relevant, threatening the profession and, by extension, the nation's economic prosperity. After a close-up look at 40 American engineering…

This article focuses on a report by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada which states that four-year public colleges in the United States have significantly more resources for teaching and research than do their counterparts in Australia, Canada, and Britain. According to the report, "Trends in Higher Education: Volume 3:…

Research-oriented doctoral programs in education vary widely in quality, and a significant number of them should close up shop, according to a report released last week by the Education Schools Project. The new document, "Educating Researchers," is the third in a series of reports on schools of education from Arthur Levine, who served as president…

This article reports that, nearly one year after its release, the report on foreign language and higher education issued by an ad hoc committee of the Modern Language Association (MLA) is still provoking discussion about reforms in the teaching of foreign languages and the role of the association in any revamp. The debate continued at a panel held…

A surprise request for proposals from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a forthcoming report on university publishing in the digital age were among topics discussed at the annual meeting of the Association of American University Presses. The offer from the Mellon Foundation concerns support for collaborative, monograph-centered projects in…

This article reports on the findings of the state panel on the Virginia Tech massacre. A state panel that investigated last spring's massacre at Virginia Tech has issued a harshly worded report that says the university erred in the way it handled a mentally disabled student who became a killer and in how it dealt with the immediate aftermath of…

Educators, mental-health officials, and law-enforcement officers often do not share information about troubled students because they are confused by what they can disclose under complex and overlapping privacy laws, according to a report on the Virginia Tech shootings. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and two other Bush cabinet secretaries…

A federal committee has found that there is almost no evidence to judge whether the more than $3-billion the federal government spends annually to improve science and mathematics education is effective. The committee's report calls for greater assessment and coordination of such programs. The committee, known as the Academic Competitiveness…

The recent release of another critique of accreditation provides an opportunity to sort through some of the mass of ill-informed rhetoric in Washington regarding the nature and limitations of collegiate approval processes. The new report, "Why Accreditation Doesn't Work and What Policy Makers Can Do About It," comes from the American Council of…

At a conference sponsored by the Oklahoma governor and state legislature, educators and politicians met to define goals for the college system. Colleges were urged to: meet the needs of nontraditional, older students, increase involvement with the public schools, recruit minority faculty, and better educate those involved in governance. (MLW)