Higher-education institutions in the US are increasingly hiring ombudsmen to resolve faculty members' complaints before they escalate into more serious problems. Faculty ombudsmen handle a range of complaints, from mundane disputes over office space to career-changing battles over termination.

Describes how ugly incidents involving a fraternity and sororities prompted two campuses to take a hard look at the powerful systems. (EV)

Bad relationships between a college board and its faculty can lead to erosion of the board's authority, faculty votes of no confidence, and general institutional instability. However, institutions like Randolph-Macon College are finding ways to improve the lack of understanding and sympathy between faculty members and trustees.

In this article, the author describes her experience with the damaging effects of the rigid division of the university environment in two mutually exclusive camps: faculty and staff. That separation is becoming increasingly untenable as the academic work force changes. With full-time, tenure-track faculty jobs becoming scarcer, a large contingent…

In response to student protest, some colleges have hired minority-affairs administrators to improve campus race relations, but many express concern about administrators' commitment to that goal. Some academics feel minority-affairs programs are counterproductive. (MSE)

A growing number of college students report that campus judicial systems are more concerned with political correctness than with fairness, or that the systems are unfair regardless of the discipline issue, and complain about the secrecy of proceedings. Shift from a paternalistic discipline policy to a legalistic one is seen. (MSE)

Colleges are less willing to cooperate with the American Association of University Professors in its investigations of institutional violations of faculty's rights, and some criticize the organization's dual role as professional association and union. (MSE)

A new Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching study, "College: The Undergraduate Experence in America," reports deep divisions, conflicting priorities, and competing interests on college campuses that diminish the social and intellectual quality of the undergraduate experience. (MSE)

Court decisions concerning Indiana University and the University of Rhode Island conflict on whether college fraternities are to be held responsible for individual assaults on their premises. The responding parties see both cases as showing that students who really want to get drunk can elude the best efforts to regulate them. (MSE)

The Southern Methodist University football program has been troubled by corruption and violation of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules for a number of years, and an angry faculty blames a board dominated by Dallas businessmen. Both the football program and the institution's reputation are threatened. (MSE)

Many college and university faculty clubs have been scaled back or have been populated by increasingly greater proportions of alumni and other members. Some observers see loss of community and a common meeting ground for scholars. Many younger faculty see the clubs as relics and prefer to use their time for career development. (MSE)

The proposed merger of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers would create the nation's largest union and allow a united front for college faculty, increasing pressure for collective bargaining in more states. Opponents fear the merger would dilute concerns about education, particularly higher education, and that…

Duke University's affirmative action plan for faculty, unveiled in the late 1980s, has had limited success. Critics blame this on a small pool of minority doctorates and in-house resistance. Success has been greatest in the history department. The school has been more successful in attracting African-American graduate students. (MSE)

In recent months, police on a number of college and university campuses have investigated hate crimes that made headlines, only to discover that the crimes had been made up. While some feel the hoaxes are by individual students during difficult times in their lives, others feel leftists may be faking the crimes to influence the campus movement…

Administrators who have been successful in recruiting minority faculty members suggest that institutions develop innovative, goal-oriented affirmative action plans, challenge entrenched campus attitudes, find new ways of seeking out qualified applicants, and prevent unwritten campus rules from hindering the process. (MSE)