The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Live Discussions

Previous discussions

Thursday, August 21, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern time

Brown Bag
Dealing With Religion in the Classroom

Religious questions can come up in many classes, not just those in the religion department, and the resulting terrain can be difficult for an ill-prepared professor to navigate. Students can object to course assignments on religious or political grounds, and classroom discussions can veer off into realms fraught with pitfalls not mentioned on the syllabus. So what's a faculty member to do? An expert in higher-education law, Barbara A. Lee, will answer questions and share strategies for navigating difficult conversations and controversial topics while teaching, without landing yourself — or your institution — in a lawsuit.

Thursday, July 24, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern time

Brown Bag
A Return to the World of Diploma Mills

Four years ago, The Chronicle published a lengthy report on the booming business of diploma mills. The report described how some sophisticated purveyors of spurious degrees were making millions of dollars a year, how intertwined the schemes often were with legitimate higher education, how frequently those operations used fake accreditors and other trappings of legitimacy to mask their frauds, and how many professors had made use of bogus diplomas to advance their careers. Four years later, how much has changed? Is it easier to tell a diploma mill from a real university? What about international institutions? Or online ones? What should be the role of state and federal governments in policing nonaccredited institutions? What does a diploma even mean anymore?

About live discussions

The Brown Bag

Join Chronicle editors every Thursday at noon, U.S. Eastern time, for the Brown Bag, a new online discussion. Each week we will be joined by an expert from the world of college finance, technology, management, or other fields for a free and freewheeling discussion. Suggest a topic or guest.


Colloquy

Go beyond the headlines as we discuss topics making news with the experts in Colloquy.

Discussion Transcripts


Ask the Editor of The Chronicle Review

The opinion pages of The Chronicle, both in print and online, have changed in recent months. In the main news section, we've created the Commentary section for opinion pieces about higher-education policy. The Chronicle Review, meanwhile, has gone through a redesign and an expansion of its book coverage... (6/12/2008)

Free iPhones and a Switch to Google Mail: a Campus Tries Mobile Learning and Outsourcing

Mobile learning and outsourcing e-mail operations are two of the hottest topics in campus IT today. Kevin Roberts knows a lot about both of them. He has moved his institution, Abilene Christian University, from a home-grown e-mail system to Google Apps for Education, and overseen experiments in group learning using various Google applications. ... (4/24/2008)

Marketing Your College in the Age of Advertising

Good college marketing requires more than a sleek new logo. For an increasing number of institutions, branding campaigns and market research have become key elements in a college's arsenal of strategies for reaching prospective students, faculty members, and donors. ... (4/10/2008)

College Tuition, Student Aid, and the Tax Season

Tax season brings all sorts of financial headaches, especially for families facing the formidable cost of a college education. Figuring out how to save for higher education can be especially daunting because of the varying tax penalties that can result from different savings options. What are the most common mistakes families make when applying for financial aid? ... (3/27/2008)

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