Oct. 14, 2016

Its lightning speed and broad reach have college leaders scrambling to keep controversies from spinning dangerously out of control.

Any statement released by a university is parsed “almost at a Talmudic level,” one communications director laments.

Conversations about what a student truly needs and what a college can reasonably offer should be part of the admissions process.

To help students find their way in the new arts economy, we must teach them to market, produce, and present their own ideas.

Declines in tuition revenue and cutbacks in state budgets have led more colleges to question the sustainability of athletics spending. But will anyone really pull back?

At Baylor, the Title IX coordinator resigns (but wants to keep book and movie rights to her story). At Harvard, the endowment managers have a bad year (and the dining-services employees go on strike). And the rapper Drake visits Drake University — but so late at night that almost no one’s awake to see him.

There’s an illustrious form of enterprise that business schools largely ignore.

Your students think you’re a fossil. Don’t take it personally.

Paula A. Johnson, a medical doctor, has a long history of breaking barriers to leadership.

One-fourth of private colleges do business with companies run by members of their governing boards. Whose interests come first?

A book about 1930s Alabama reminds an English professor of the unalloyed racism that still exists today.

Descriptions of the latest titles, divided by category.

Top Chief Executives Chapman University, Daniele Struppa Southern Adventist University, David Smith West Kentucky Community and Technical College, Anton Reece Appointments Jodi Abbott, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, to assistant dean of academic affairs for patient safety and…

Awards and prizes October 14: Professional fields. The National Press Foundation is accepting nominations for its journalism awards. Visit the organization’s website for more details. Contact: http://nationalpress.org/awards October 31: Education. Nominations are being accepted for the 2017 Harold…

Some departments at Montana State University had just one female professor, or none at all. But in the last four years, half of all STEM hires have been women.

College should prepare students not only for a rich life but also for a meaningful death.

A report of racial slurs at the University of Missouri at Columbia has renewed tensions over race relations there. Some people are suggesting that white students, faculty, and staff have yet to do their part.

The seal features images of a frontiersman and a conquistador. For decades, critics have protested it as racist. Now, there’s hope it might finally be changed.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, the pediatrician Priscilla Chan, have invested $600 million in a new lab space for universities in the Bay Area. The Chronicle talks to one of its directors.

Western Carolina University faced a faculty rebellion over plans to use funds from the conservative Charles Koch Foundation to create a new research center on free enterprise. It found ways to render the gift agreement much easier for critics to swallow.

The Supreme Court’s action lets stand lower-court rulings that allow college athletes to be compensated up to their full cost of attendance.

Some observers dismiss a year of bad returns as of little consequence for the world’s richest university. Others see a cautionary tale over how elite institutions use and invest their endowments.

Instead of prompting violence or dividing the campus, an offensive stunt at East Tennessee State University led to a larger conversation about race relations.

Deborah E. Lipstadt, a historian at Emory University, talks about a new movie, Denial, based on her experience of being sued by a Holocaust denier and defeating him in court.

The controversy over “The Star-Spangled Banner” presents an opportunity for a conversation about peaceful dissent and free speech.

In response to racist incidents, colleges can suspend or expel. But some professionals advocate restorative justice as a more effective alternative.

Without accreditation, colleges are not eligible for federal student aid, and much more likely to have to close their doors.

Should they be barred permanently from teaching?

The group’s protests against racism at predominantly white colleges have led to a different set of conversations on historically black campuses, says Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Dillard University.