The author reports on the reigning economic calculus that helps to drive constant expansion and poor utilization of space on many campuses. The author states that colleges could charge for utilities, which might encourage departments to save energy. Most American colleges do not charge for space--in part because doing so would raise the hackles of…

Big-time college sports programs derive 60 percent to 80 percent of their revenue from commercial sources, suggesting that intercollegiate athletics--at least at the elite levels--may have "crossed the line" from an educational to a commercial endeavor. That finding comes from a report, "Tax Preferences for Collegiate Sports," released last week…

Like many liberal-arts institutions, Middlebury College, where the author teaches, has a problem: Too many students want to be economics majors. Economics enrollments keep growing, and adding more faculty members to the department seems to only increase the demand. Professors at other liberal-arts colleges confirm that the phenomenon is widespread…

When the University of Southern California announced that it would shutter its tiny German department, the outcry was out of proportion to the handful of faculty members and students directly affected by the move. In addition to students who advertised their dismay on Facebook and faculty members who complained that their efforts to bolster the…

Female faculty members and graduate students at Rutgers University in New Brunswick's political-science department feel unfairly compensated and shut out of leadership positions by their male counterparts, says an internal university report obtained by "The Chronicle." In at least one case, a woman has been afraid to complain about…

Even by the standards of higher education, presidential search committees are odd concoctions, combining the dynamics of the governing board, the faculty, the administration and staff, and the students in an environment that is, at best, unusual and, at worst, adversarial. Ultimately, however, that committee's work is vital to the future of the…

The neuroscience revolution has brought a set of difficult, at times uncomfortable, changes in university-based research psychology. The technologies that allow scholars to probe the structures and functions of the human brain are also causing profound alterations in the structures and functions of psychology departments: curricula, hiring…

Last spring, the author distributed a survey to majors and minors in Hispanic studies at Connecticut College and at other schools to informally gather student attitudes toward the nature of Hispanic-studies courses as it pertained to their interests and goals. Although results were somewhat predictable, an unexpected finding was that of 148…

The move of the University of Southern California to eliminate its German department in order to shift resources to Asian languages has sparked a debate about the relative importance of learning European languages. College administrators seem to assume that global shifts in economic power call for changes in the distribution of their budget for…

Describes how many community colleges are putting administrators rather than professors at the head of academic departments. (EV)

Discusses how economics professors at the University of Cincinnati have spent years fighting among themselves over teaching versus research, with the result being decimation and disarray in the department. (EV)

Recently, the Modern Language Association (MLA) called for a major reorganization of undergraduate academic programs and even the structure of foreign-language departments. Typically, the initial two years of language instruction are taught by non-tenure-track instructors with little or no voice in the department. Faculty members mainly teach the…

Molefi Kete Asante, chairman of the Temple University (Pennsylvania) African American studies department, the first doctoral program in the discipline in the country, is stepping down amidst controversy over his leadership. An avowed Afrocentrist, his administration is viewed by some as creating rancor and instability among faculty, and has led…

Describes how Ohio State University "taxes" all of its departments in order to award cash that provides a chosen few departments the means to reach top-ranked status. The university uses a well-publicized competition among departments, with professors choosing the winners. (EV)

A project at the University of California at Berkeley is aimed at creating computerized catalogs of special collections throughout the institution, from departments to museums, to improve access for both scholars and laypeople. The project combines imaging and text records. Eventually, 80 or more collections may be included. (MSE)