Every discipline has its own specialized language, its membership rites, its secret handshake. In its most benign and neutral definition, jargon signifies "the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group." More often, however, the jingly word that Chaucer used to describe "the inarticulate utterance of birds" takes…

The author reports on the academic job market that is showing signs of turning around after a multiyear slump. Job-outlook data released by professional associations in recent months show an uptick in the number of jobs available in several fields, including history, the humanities and foreign languages, sociology, geography, and political…

Scholarly groups have long served as hubs of academic life and the embodiments of their disciplines, but they face uncertain and divergent futures. Some disciplinary associations are struggling to remain relevant and financially viable as demographic and technological changes threaten their traditional sources of revenue. The core of their…

When it's not staging any Final Four match-ups, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the powerful governing body critics love to hate. The association's 11-year, $6-billion contract with CBS to televise the tournament has become a lightning rod for critics who say the association is all about making money off athletes. Not so,…

At the annual gathering of the Modern Language Association (MLA), panel members seemed to talk past each other. Mark Bauerlein and David Horowitz each criticized the professoriate for not acknowledging real problems in the classroom or the ways identity politics can infringe on academic freedom. Norma V. Canti and Cary Nelson did not respond to…

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…

When it comes to hard data about what they do, policy makers and educators in the humanities have been mostly left out in the cold, forced to rely on isolated statistics that do not give an overview of the field. That changed this month, as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences unveiled the prototype of its long-awaited Humanities Indicators…

The author interviews Muriel A. Howard, president of the State University of New York College at Buffalo, who is set to become the first black leader of any of the "big six" higher-education associations in Washington. She was named last week as the new president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Ms. Howard,…

In a statement issued in July, "Rebuilding Campus Community: the Wrong Imperative," the National Association of Scholars calls for exactly the right thing--a renewal of liberal education, that broad and deep education beyond students' majors on campuses--but misses the point about what is needed to achieve it. Claiming that liberal education has…

This week newspapers in Beijing, radios in Brisbane, and television sets in Berlin will all carry stories springing from Room 112, a windowless cell buried within Boston's Hynes Convention Center. More than 600 reporters and producers from media outlets around the world will be buzzing around that news-briefing room and nearby meeting halls, lured…

Although several academic associations in the United States devote at least some part of their annual conferences to research on American Indians, many scholars of indigenous populations have long felt they lacked an intellectual home, a place where they could gather with large numbers of people who share their interests. A fledgling organization,…

The American Association of University Professors and its Canadian counterpart jointly issued a statement last week calling on colleges with campuses abroad to protect the rights of overseas workers and give faculty members more say in planning foreign programs. The statement, adopted by the AAUP's committee on academic freedom and tenure and the…

The first code of ethics by the American Anthropological Association, adopted in 1971, was forged during the Vietnam War, years after revelations that anthropologists had engaged in counterinsurgency research in Southeast Asia. Now, in response to issues raised by the war in Iraq, the author advocates that it is time for a new code. Members of the…

This article reports on the College Art Association's decision to settle with a scholar who felt defamed by an article in one of its scholarly journals which shines a spotlight on so-called "libel tourism." When the College Art Association decided recently to settle rather than fight a possible libel action in Britain over a book review…

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…