Quality concerns are foremost in assessing the worthiness of interdisciplinary efforts, but issues of funding, organization, student interest, and job market need to concern those who propose or review such programs. Proposed is a series of questions that may assist reviewers of proposals for new interdisciplinary degree programs. (MLW)

Data on faculty salaries by rank (professor, associate professor, assistant professor, new assistant professor, and instructor) and sector are presented for 52 disciplines. Respondents were 281 public and 470 private institutions. (MSE)

Describes a research paper assignment which asks students to choose a significant contribution in any discipline, to detail what that contribution has been, to discover any controversy surrounding the contribution, and to assess the status of the contribution today. (MM)

Some funding is necessary to run a writing-across-the-curriculum program, but it is possible to redesign a program and keep it running when outside funding ends. (MSE)

Distinctions between different forms of academic knowledge are outlined and the differential needs for organizational development and management training across fields are examined. Implications for policy concerning more sophisticated training programs for department-level academic leadership are discussed. (MSE)

A survey of Norwegian university faculty (n=1,815) shows significant differences between disciplines in time spent on teaching and preparation and in distribution of time between different types of teaching and teaching levels. It is proposed that some but not all of the differences may be due to characteristics of the disciplines. (Author/MSE)

Existing literature and a survey of 106 undergraduate accounting students in the United Kingdom were analyzed for perceptions of the accounting profession and the academic discipline of accounting. Results suggest that among accounting and nonaccounting students alike, there exist coexisting perceptions of accounting as having high status and low…

A participant in a conference on interdisciplinary general education at the college level highlights some of the issues addressed there: institutional limitations and opportunities; interdisciplinarity versus the power of deep disciplinary inquiry; cross-disciplinary linkages versus interdisciplinary inquiry; and the role of student development…

Discusses the information economy and the economics of education for information professions. Topics include the diversity of academic disciplines for information professional education, supply and demand in professional areas, costs of education, lifelong learning, and expenditures for schools with American Library Association accredited Master's…

Presents boundary spanning communication roles and strategies that emerge to support knowledge exploration during the design process based on field studies of four multidisciplinary design situations in the United States and Europe. Boundaries discussed include organizational, task, discipline, and personal; and implications for education and for…

Predicts that in the future, speech communication, journalism, and information science will be incorporated into a single unit. Reports on a survey administered to American colleges to see if the prediction is coming true. Concludes with three impressions, most importantly, that this trend is happening and that a need exists to examine the…

Increasingly, colleges and universities are offering specialized academic programs in human sexuality. A sampling of graduate students in human sexuality at New York University, one of only a few such graduate programs, illustrates varied backgrounds and objectives. The trend is a healthy response to the personal and social challenges of the…

A study investigated the attitudes of 111 college deans toward marketing in higher education, especially as they relate to the deans' academic fields (pure vs. applied). Results indicated no significant differences between the groups' perceptions and that, in general, deans support marketing but not that marketing improves educational quality.…

Discusses some of the issues and problems involved in using electronic full-text journals in the University of Texas at Austin libraries. Issues addressed include different standards; subjects represented and the time period covered; hardware considerations; software; printing; skills and training needed for library staff and for users; and costs.…

Discusses social studies' evolution as a discipline from its 1890s origins through the twentieth century. Examines the objectives of historians, sociologists, and "super patriots" (proponents of the Americanism movement) in advancing citizenship training. Concludes that the failure to achieve some of the original goals of social studies…