Censored papers on bird flu, which could help terrorists, have critics wondering if academic scientists can police their own work. The near-publication has brought out general critics of the federal panel, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, and the voluntary self-policing approach that it embraces instead of regulation. Members…

Foreign students applying to graduate schools in the United States are increasingly favoring the doctoral institutions that were already popular among them, while losing some interest in other types of colleges, according to a survey released last week by the Council of Graduate Schools. Over all, foreign applications for graduate programs are up…

College governing boards are becoming more effective and engaged but continue to fall short in some areas, according to survey results released today by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. The association's survey of almost 700 public and private colleges, conducted last year and described as the first detailed…

Faculty pay has been battered by the deepening national recession, but one cannot tell that from the American Association of University Professors' new annual report on the economic status of the profession. The average salary of a full-time faculty member rose 3.4% in 2008-2009, it says, a rate well above inflation. That would be good news, but…

According to a new survey conducted by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, about 80% of the governing boards of public universities say they are dealing with state budget cuts this year. Trustees also said they are working extra hours to cope with the financial strains on their universities, and they have enacted or…

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…

What are the best ways to organize the mass quantities of data that researchers generate, and to share those data to engender new research? Scott Carlson, a senior reporter at "The Chronicle", asked Michael C. Witt, an assistant professor of library science and an interdisciplinary research librarian at Purdue University Libraries and its…

The University of Phoenix is often derided by traditional academics for caring more about its bottom line than about academic quality, and every year, the annual report issued by its parent company focuses more on profits than student performance. This article reports that the institution that has become the largest private university in North…

This article reports that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has penalized fewer teams than it expected this year over athletes' poor academic performance. For years, officials with the NCAA have predicted that strikingly high numbers of college sports teams could be at risk of losing scholarships this year because of their…

The pursuit of institutional prestige has done little to improve the reputations of most colleges, and it may be causing many of them to become less distinguishable from their competitors, new research shows. In one study presented at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Kyle V. Sweitzer, a data-resource…

More colleges are making sustainability programs a high priority, putting more resources into energy-conservation efforts, and setting goals to reduce carbon emissions, according to survey results released by the National Wildlife Federation. Given the popularity of all things green, that is not surprising. The surprising part of the federation's…

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:…

Starting salaries for newly minted professors are highest in Canada, but for the best prospects of raising earnings over an academic career, one should look to Saudi Arabian universities. These are some of the findings of a new study that looks at faculty pay across international borders, examining salary data in 15 countries, among them the…

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…