Chronicle of Higher Education

07/22/2024

Featured Job: Two Tenure-Track Assistant Professor Positions in Marketing at Rutgers University in New Jersey

The Department of Marketing at Rutgers Business School—Newark and New Brunswick invites applications for two tenure-track assistant professor positions to start in September 2025.

🔎 Check out the full job posting here: https://chroni.cl/3WqeRXZ

07/22/2024

In Advice: If you're attempting to apply for jobs outside of academe, try "informational interviewing," says one former academic. Talk to people who are in interesting positions and who understand that academe is not disconnected from the so-called real world.

Two Ph.D.s who left academe and now run their own businesses offer advice on professional transitions.

07/21/2024

Opinion: Our current age of anti-vaxxers and climate denialists cannot be entirely untangled from the legacy of Charles Fort.

The vexed legacy of Charles Fort.

07/21/2024

Especially in rural areas, colleges should look widely for employer partners. Relationships start at the grocery store, at the restaurant, at your child’s soccer game,” as one community college dean recently highlighted.

To be more effective, colleges need to consult widely — and sometimes take some risks.

07/20/2024

In Advice: By changing the way you shape reading assignments, you can re-engage students in the value of reading and reinvigorate your teaching. From using AI to giving students choices, here are four ways to inspire motivation to read.

Four ways to hit the reset button and inspire students to read course texts.

07/19/2024

One of the most crucial writing styles to master for success in administration is the "hiring profile" for a job opening.

So, how does one write a faculty job ad?

In his article, David. D Perlmutter emphasizes the importance of using templates when creating job descriptions, similar to how many other administrative documents begin with a familiar template.

"Some of the language is universal for all hiring on the campus (such as a paragraph describing the institution, its basic metrics, and its mission), and some of it is local (such as details about the hiring department)," says Perlmutter. With the right template, you're officially done with step 1 of creating your hiring profile.

Read more tips on writing a faculty job description in the featured article: https://chroni.cl/4bTuBqW

07/19/2024

Northwestern University took legal action against four individuals, including faculty members and a librarian, for their involvement in a pro-Palestinian protest on campus. The charges of obstructing law enforcement highlight growing tensions over free-speech and protest rights in academic spaces. As universities navigate the complexities of activism and legal boundaries, the debate intensifies.

The charges represent the latest action taken by colleges and law-enforcement officials in response to a wave of on-campus activism, fueling concerns about speech and protest rights.

07/19/2024

Several colleges started task forces in the 2023-2024 academic year to measure campus attitudes on antisemitism and anti-Arab bias and make recommendations for improving the campus climate. A handful have released their reports.

Among the less-contentious suggestions put forth are accommodations for Jewish and Muslim students around religious observance, and commitments to Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim studies.

The committees have made recommendations, but they haven’t resolved disagreements around protests or definitions of discrimination.

07/19/2024

Opinion: These piratical institutions prey on students like me.

Predatory schools tricked students like me into assuming huge debt for worthless credits.

07/19/2024

A wave of anti-DEI legislation has changed how some states recruit and retain minority students. But how can you keep up with where and what laws are being implemented?

We’ve got an alert for that.

Our updates will save you time in your effort to stay informed about attacks on DEI, telling you what to know, when you need to know it. Sign up to get alerted when a new bill is introduced.

Get notified each time we update our DEI Legislation and Impact Trackers with the latest bills and campus changes related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

07/18/2024

As English-language programs try to recover from pandemic enrollment drops, student-visa denials disrupt their international recruitment.

The latest on research security and how an endowment tax could discourage overseas recruitment.

07/18/2024

A loophole in the Second Morrill Act of 1890 has cost land-grant HBCUs billions of dollars in federal funding, the Education Department says. Judges have — so far — disagreed. Now lawyers and advocates have to adjust their strategies in their attempts to get reparations. https://chroni.cl/4f5r37R

07/18/2024

Taylor Swift is everywhere — in magazines, on the radio, at football games, and even in college classrooms. But what has caused academics to start encouraging their students to study the pop star? “Students are willing to spend the time listening to her albums over and over and over again,” says one professor.

And a worthy research subject, too.

07/18/2024

Before you move into your new office, there are a few things you need to remember when logistically preparing. Firstly, prepare for the digital side of moving by familiarizing yourself with transactional processes and software systems.

If you anticipate receiving many documents and communications, you should also prepare to manage your data space. "Nowadays, it’s likely that your university is using cloud storage systems such as Dropbox or OneDrive but even so, you may need to request more space," says Perlmutter.

Read the three other tips here: https://chroni.cl/3SbkG9c

07/17/2024

The donor’s decision to make a statement about antisemitism by renaming the building as Bernstein Hall was a “personal journey” for him. The more Chronicle reporter Goldie Blumenstyk learned about that journey, and his family’s legacy, the more personal it became for her as well. https://chroni.cl/4d2xvul

By putting a Jewish name on Colgate University’s new interdisciplinary center, a benefactor honored his family’s heritage — and, unexpectedly, my own.

07/17/2024

In Advice: Advocates of student-centered teaching are hearing a growing weariness with classroom innovations that ignore faculty workload and burnout. Here’s how to recalibrate the debate over student-centered teaching.

How to better support instructors in the face of a faculty backlash against the demands of student-centered teaching.

07/17/2024

Can video games help engage students? This history professor developed a course around "Red Dead Redemption II," and students can't sign up for it fast enough. https://chroni.cl/4cPSdyc

07/17/2024

Opinion: When should we hear from historians about politics?

Plus: summer reading, from the Chronicle staff.

07/16/2024

Has anti-DEI legislation affected your campus? We've been tracking changes made at public colleges concerning DEI-related efforts. So far, we've tracked changes at 169 college campuses in 23 states.

Check out your state here:

We’ve documented actions taken on dozens of campuses to alter or eliminate jobs, offices, hiring practices, and programs amid mounting political pressure to end identity-conscious recruitment and retention of minority staff and students.

07/16/2024

For campus protesters facing both campus disciplinary charges and legal charges, fears of self-incrimination loom large this summer.

Campuses are stressed as student-conduct hearings drag into the summer.

07/16/2024

The president of Dickinson State University on Monday abruptly announced his resignation after his cost-cutting and workload policies sparked backlash, particularly the resignation of the entire full-time nursing faculty. https://chroni.cl/4f4PZfG

07/16/2024

Opinion: Students and faculty have begun to agree that large swaths of literature and art are too poisonous to approach. How can you persuade people about the essential importance of art if you make yourself complicit in their fear of it? https://chroni.cl/3LqSqLW

07/15/2024

Instructors have been asked to do a great deal to support students. But for the most part, they haven’t gotten much support from their institutions. Has your college acknowledged the extra work that professors did during and after remote instruction?

Michael Chen loved teaching. Then it all became too much.

07/15/2024

Are you curious about the hiring practices for couples at leading research universities?

A research team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that over one-third of academic researchers are in relationships with other scholars, and hiring partner couples can positively impact diversity and inclusion efforts.

They also uncovered that out of 146 R1 institutions, almost two-thirds publicly state they provide faculty positions for partner hires. However, just over half of the 129 universities with available information specified that they could be tenure-track roles.

Learn more in the featured article here: https://chroni.cl/3zEKWm6

07/15/2024

Florida A&M University’s president resigned Friday after weeks of scrutiny over a botched $237-million donation announced at spring commencement.

Larry Robinson’s announcement comes in the wake of scrutiny over a gift that seemed too good to be true.

07/15/2024

Opinion: What's keeping conservatives away? https://chroni.cl/3W0FtgV

07/15/2024

"But they don't own anything." That's what Robert Allen, a key figure in reshaping New College of Florida's ideological landscape, has to say to faculty members with concerns about his appointment to FAU's presidential-search committee.

Florida Atlantic University’s new executive-search committee includes Robert Allen Jr., a Republican lawyer who planted the seeds for the conservative takeover of New College of Florida.

07/14/2024

Daniel Lim stumbled into social-media fame after he posted a video of a college student’s application and admissions results. Ever since, he’s read thousands of applications to highly selective colleges and fielded hundreds of messages filled with anxiety about admissions. It sent him on a quest to see if there was truly an answer to the question: What are my chances? But what he found threatened to shake the very premise he sold to his followers — and himself.

Daniel Lim was sure there had to be a reason why some kids get into highly selective colleges and others don’t. His quest to find an answer consumed him.

07/13/2024

The Republican platform calls for revoking the visas of foreign students and others who “support terrorism and jihadism” as part of pro-Palestinian protests, while a new bill proposes to deport those found guilty of participating in violent acts or rioting. Read more in this week's Latitudes newsletter:

Also, concerns about visa delays in India and new legislation to deport foreign student protesters.

07/12/2024

The algorithms often used by colleges to predict students’ likelihood of graduating can produce less accurate results for Black and Hispanic students compared to their peers, a new study says.

A new study suggests the student-success models widely used by colleges can wrongly predict that Black and Hispanic students will fail when they actually succeed.