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Rank Inflation
Speaking before a group of new faculty members at a large state university, a dean reviewed the basics of higher-education terminology: "academic freedom," "tenure," and the various academic ra...
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Setting Up the Interview Day
As we've been conducting our campus interviews this year, I've begun to think more about how candidates' days on campus are arranged. Even at a small institution with comparatively accessible a...
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Full-Court Press
As a department chair opened an envelope with a faculty application inside, she was surprised to see several sticks of cinnamon chewing gum drop onto her desk. The application letter had a hand-writte...
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Hiring the President's Spouse
Idaho's State Board of Education is trying to reverse an antinepotism law that bars the state's public universities from hiring presidential spouses, the Associated Press reports. Board members...
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Starting Dates and Pay Gaps
Many institutions are starting to offer contracts to their new faculty members. It's an exciting time all around. For the hiring departments, it's fun to think about the energy and talents the new c...
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Faculty Relations With the Governing Board
The February meeting of our board of trustees starts this evening, and so this afternoon we held an orientation session for two incoming members of the board. As part of this orientation, I give a pr...
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Theme Music
One of my favorite scenes in that old series Ally McBeal was one where she selected a "theme song" for her life, a song that played in her head while she was walking around town. It was a fairly brill...
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Hiring and Firing Bytes
• Dartmouth College will cut 38 staff members this week, and a similar number in April, as part of an effort to trim its budget by $100-million, according to The Boston Globe and The Chronicle. ...
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Small Classes, Teaching Loads, and Sad Budget Realities
I've mentioned before and am happy to mention again that one of my favorite commentators on higher-education issues is Claire Potter of Wesleyan University, who blogs as Tenured Radical. One of...
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The Mommy Handicap
In a provocative column on The Chronicle's Web site today, Amy Kittelstrom, an assistant professor of history at Sonoma State University and a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion a...
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White-Elephant Gifts
One of the tasks administrators, including department chairs, often undertake is donor relations. I don't mean donors who bring checks but rather donors who bring "things." I have heard story after ...
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Collegiality, Tenure, and Tragedy
United States, and especially like every administrator with authority over hiring, tenure, and promotion, I have been reflecting over the past few days on the tragedy at the University of Alabama at H...
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Advising
One of the faculty duties I found perplexing when I started my career was that of student advising. My personal experience as an undergraduate student was less than pleasant, so I wanted to do a goo...
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Fresh Preps
Perhaps you have heard the apocryphal story about the aged professor who accidently drops his well-yellowed lecture notes and watches them disintegrate into dust. In the version I heard as a graduat...
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Textbook Orders
One of the more "minor" lines in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 was the requirement that institutions collect textbook information earlier and post it publicly, including ISBNs. The Amer...
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Tenure: Who's to Judge?
"How can the process be fair if people unqualified for tenure today participate in decisions about the tenure of others?," she asks.But hold on a minute. Few would dispute that tenure bar keeps being...
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Lane Community College's
Lane Community College, which has built a reputation as a leader in environmental initiatives, is going to have to scale back on some of its green ambitions because of costs. Plans for the coll...
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Mount St. Mary's U. and Constellation Energy Establish 100-Acre Solar Array
Mount St. Mary’s University has struck a deal with Constellation Energy that will allow the electricity supplier to set up a 17.1-megawatt solar array on 100 of the university's 1,400 acres. The pan...
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A 2-Year College's Performing-Arts Center Intends to Be a Landmark
Silver Spring, Md. — For a fairly small building, the new Performing Arts Center on Montgomery College's Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus here makes a big impression. Not only is it an architectural...
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A Call to Save an Unusual Fairgrounds Building at U. of Nebraska at Lincoln
The University of Nebraska at Lincoln is giving people an opportunity to propose uses for its Industrial Arts Building, a 97-year-old structure on the old state fairgrounds that preservationist fearBa...
