Volume 57, Issue 11: November 5, 2010

Some Faculty Athletics Reps Fumble Their Oversight Role

Professors chosen to oversee the academic side of college sports sometimes let players and coaches sidestep the rules.

Charm and the Presidency

For college presidents, personal charm is a double-edged sword that must be wielded deftly.

Christian Colleges Make Hispanic Education Part of Their Mission

A Hispanic Christian group is creating partnerships with conservative religious institutions to increase enrollment.

A Game Eases the Pain of Cramming for Chemistry

A professor at Stetson University finds chemistry’s synchronicity with mah-jongg.

As Your New Chairman, I Quit

A newly elected faculty chairman resigns his post, saying he didn’t even want to be on the ballot.

Selected New Books on Higher Education

A roundup of titles of interest.

Notre Dame Enlists an Irish-Literature Expert From the Emerald Isle

Declan Kiberd will be on the South Bend campus each fall, sharing Ireland’s cultural strengths and learning how American students interpret some classic Irish novels.

Frequent Flier: One Faculty Athletic Rep’s Busy Schedule

Complaints and Compromises Lead to an Abrupt Departure

A professor at the U. of Wisconsin at Milwaukee says she was pushed, and in turn pushed colleagues, to change althletes’ grades.

Former U. of Alabama Faculty Rep Describes His Role in Purported Coverup

A former faculty rep who was cleared of unethical conduct charges talks about his experience.

Publishers Fight ‘Link Rot’ in Electronic Texts With Special Durable Citations

Citations have a way of disappearing on the Internet, but publishers are trying new ways to make them stick.

Could an Old Factory Be Your College’s Next Building?

More than a few institutions find that reusing existing structures can save millions of dollars and maximize sustainability.

For-Profit Colleges Hope for Republican Gains in Midterm Elections

This week’s election could have an effect on proprietary colleges more immediate than any federal higher-education policy debate.

The Curious Case of ‘Catnip’ and the Common Application

Fast-track applications let students apply to Common Application colleges, but then how does a college get a transcript?

A New Indonesian University Will Train Students to Solve National Problems

Beginning with an education school, the effort, started by a private foundation, will focus on students from poor areas.

Tomorrow’s College

The classroom of the future features face-to-face, online, and hybrid learning. And the future is here.

At the U. of Phoenix, Instructors Learn Online to Teach Online

All faculty candidates take a four-week certification course that introduces them to the distance-learning experience.

Learning the Art of Virtual Instruction

Traditional colleges offer training, along with incentives, for professors wary of teaching online.

Such a Deal? Maybe Not.

E-learning has made higher education more convenient for millions of students. But online students may pay more than face-to-face ones.

Mapping an Online Future at Penn State

The university reaches out to a global base of potential students with its online program for the study of maps.

Teaching About Weapons of Mass Destruction ... and Accounting

The online university, whose programs are tailored to the needs of the military, lets students study air warefare alongside accounting and sociology.

At the Academy of Art, Even Sculpture Is Taught Online

The field creates special challenges for instructors in the distance-learning program at the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

A Christian University Reaches Out to Spanish Speakers Online

Liberty University en Espanol will provide bilingual degree programs aimed at Hispanic church leaders and recent immigrants.

Technologies for Teaching Online: Strategies and Pitfalls

Whatever the means, an instructor must still deliver relevant material, enable students to achieve goals, and assess their work.

Technology for Online and Hybrid Learning

Hardware and software to get the job done

Robot Teachers Are the Latest E-Learning Tool

Researchers in South Korea are building an army of robots to teach English to schoolchildren.

Online vs. Traditional Learning: Time to End the Family Feud

We owe it to our students to steer our conversations about online education away from tired arguments.

4 Myths About For-Profit Online Learning

Unfair scrutiny of for-profit colleges is driven in part by widely held beliefs that just aren’t true.

YouTube U. Beats YouSnooze Through

Most students, sitting in those large halls, are lost or bored, or both. Now, with on-demand course content, there’s a better way.

Abbie Hoffman’s Right-On Vision

Thanks to the Internet, education can be free, almost the way the old yippie said it should be.

Forum: Has Online Learning’s Quality Kept Up With Its Growth?

Six thinkers respond and go beyond the issue of quality in these fast-growing programs.

Instructors’ Vantage Point: Teaching Online vs. Face-to-Face

Three classroom veterans compare traditional and online pedagogy.

Strategy Matters More Than Budget in Student Recruiting

The president of University of Maryland University College offers tips on making the most of your marketing dollar.

Editor’s Note

About The Chronicle’s first special issue devoted to online learning.

To Protect Academic Freedom, Look Beyond the First Amendment

Faculty academic freedom has always been more firmly rooted in professional norms than in legal decisions.

Leveraging Admissions Tests to Increase Financial Savvy

It would be a practical, constructive, and efficient way to embed some financial literacy in the curriculum.

The College as a Philanthropy. Yes, a Philanthropy.

What one president tells his students each year: We are not a business. And you are not a commodity. Now we can talk.

Plagiarism Accusation Creates a New Climate of Fear

“There is not a single example in the mega-scan that demonstrates that I intentionally presented the ideas of others as my own.”

Fischer’s ‘Misdemeanor of Literary Style’

“It’s not always easy to avoid the phraseology of the original author, and at times it may look more like a careless quote than a paraphrase.”

Windows in Office Doors? There’s Another Side

“The universities in question seem not to have fully considered the other side of their legal and ethical jeopardy in this matter.”

Advising the Struggling Dissertation Student

We haven’t paid sufficient attention to the jarring transition from graduate course work to thesis writing.