Nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina swept them off their campuses in and around New Orleans, thousands of college administrators, faculty members, and students began a new semester in January 2006. Students came back with a new spirit of determination to adapt to the new realities of New Orleans, and to campuses that are forever changed,…

Describes how, after a quarter-century, James MacGregor Burns, a fellow at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, is still working to refine leadership studies in a way that could change the face of the field. (EV)

Recruiting programs aimed at the spouses of potential faculty members are becoming more common at universities and colleges. Among the reasons most frequently cited for this phenomenon are: there are more dual-career couples; more women are attending graduate school, raising the likelihood of academic marriages; and competition for faculty. (MLW)

The American Association of University Professors has recommended that administrators not tamper with the tenure system in an effort to keep people from working indefinitely after the mandatory retirement age is removed in 1994. (MLW)

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching report, "The Academic Life," finds that too often teaching is undervalued on college campuses. Teachers and teaching need to be elevated in the hierarchy of the academic profession. (MLW)

Four institutions' faculty tenure alternatives include a five-year probationary period leading to five-year renewable terms (Olivet College), a cap on tenured faculty (Union College), a contract system (Azusa Pacific University), and a return to traditional tenure from a term system (University of Texas of the Permian Basin). (MSE)

Colleges are both concerned about the effects of lifting the mandatory faculty retirement lid and interested in retaining the services of valued faculty. As a result, many are offering retiring teachers perquisites such as office and laboratory space, secretarial services, and opportunities to teach and advise part-time. (MSE)

Faculty teaching in prison educational programs often find the students to be genuinely interested, creative thinkers, and colleges sometimes help in the prisoners' transition between prison and the outside world after release. (MSE)

Discusses how business schools, expanding their course offerings to meet student demands, are engaged in a bidding war to employ the few new Ph.D.s in the field. (EV)

Increased university efforts to help faculty members transfer the results of their research from the laboratory to the marketplace are posing ethical dilemmas for both institutions and scholars. Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing is cited, as are biotechnology developments, and secrecy and competitiveness issues. (LB)

Many college administrators feel that they need to start planning for the possibility that some faculty members may decide to work longer when the retirement age is lifted. They are concerned that a study by the National Academy of Sciences has stalled. (MLW)

Harvard University has found that insuring its retiring faculty for long-term health care was too expensive, blocking implementation of its planned benefits program and potentially affecting the planning of many colleges. (MSE)

Reports that prominent medical professors are being solicited away from medical schools by large honoraria or high remuneration offered by commercial companies that provide continuing education services to physicians on the Internet. Suggests that medical schools consider potential partnerships with dot-com companies to develop continuing…

Sexual harassment incidents on college campuses, sometimes accompanied by litigation, raise complex questions about the institution's responsibilities, including counseling for victim and accused, employment status of accused faculty, aggressiveness of investigations, staff training policies, complaint procedures, and institutional liability. (MSE)

Legal experts doubt that special contract clauses will be able to protect institutions in negligence cases. (MSE)