June 9, 2017

Apprenticeships are no longer an alternative to the college path but a supplement that prepares students for careers while they earn a degree.

Ranjit Arab is senior acquisitions editor at the University of Iowa Press. Bruce Austin is director of RIT Press. Meredith Babb is director of the University Press of Florida. Greg Britton is editorial director of the Johns Hopkins University Press, and acquiring editor for books on higher…

Just how much work goes into every book and how many hands touch each project. —Justin Race • That the only cost of making a book, for example, is the cost of paper, printing, and binding. We peer review, we develop, we copy-edit, we proofread, we design, we typeset, we market, we sell, we submit…

There are about 125 university presses, and somewhere around 4,000 institutions of higher learning. For decades, universities that don’t have presses have relied on the few that do for the scholarly production of their faculty. University presses became the gatekeepers and validators not only of…

Sometimes. I recently had an editorial consultant tell me that manuscripts come to publishers in much worse shape than they used to because the university secretaries who used to edit and format the professors’ work have disappeared.—Leila Salisbury • I get frustrated when critics attack scholarly…

As Umberto Eco says, there are some things you can’t reinvent. Spoons, wheels, books. But university presses will change. I predict that the biggest change in the university-press world will not be the effects of some e-pocalypse or even the advent of open access; the biggest transformation will be…

This shift away from publishing monographs parallels a much more damaging decline in tenure and the increased reliance on contingent faculty labor. The problem for a young scholar isn’t getting published. It is getting a job that affords time to think and write. —Greg Britton • No, the number of…

A cultural history of privacy from Watergate to Facebook. —Derek Krissoff • A one-volume major history of diplomacy.—Peter J. Dougherty • A primary-source reader on the origins of misogyny.—Beatrice Rehl • It’s more the type of book I wish someone would publish. At a moment when our ability to have…

In the wake of yet another hazing death, a woman whose son died nine years ago in a similar ordeal reflects on what has and has not changed since she became an activist.

Tips for the academic leader — and those who aspire to be one — on how to cultivate donors, ask for money, and land the big gift.

As college finances grow tighter, it’s all hands on deck.

Deans can reap the benefits of working closely with their college’s development team.

People are convinced there’s a crisis in university-press publishing — that we’re dying off in significant numbers, that we’re unsustainable, that dramatic changes are inevitable. None of this is true. Print, books, and bookstores are all healthy. Library sales are on the decline, it’s true, but…

The lack of diversity among university press editors is a serious problem. Solving this problem will take a sustained effort to recruit and promote highly qualified people from diverse backgrounds. Fortunately for presses, given the scarcity of jobs in academe, these people are not actually hard to…

I don’t think we need another book defending the liberal arts. They are sermons to the converted. —Greg Britton • We have enough Big History to last several lifetimes. —Elizabeth Branch Dyson • I don’t know, but diminishing sales will tell us soon and then we’ll all move to overpublishing in a…

Contrary to the advice given in two recent reports, prospective executives should be skilled in strategic leadership, organizational design, and team building — not multitasking.

Descriptions of the latest titles, divided by category.

Two organizations honored history scholars, and the John Templeton Foundation named its 2017 Templeton Prize Laureate.

Twenty-five public and three private nonprofit universities employed more than 3,000 graduate assistants each in 2015.

New presidents were appointed to lead Barnard College and Bowie State University.

When the University of Southern Maine cut its classics department, it also eliminated Jeannine D. Uzzi’s job. Little did she know she’d end up helping to guide the institution out of dire budgetary straits.

The Obama administration told students in January that their federal education debts would be wiped away because their institutions had defrauded them. Now thousands of students are stuck in a holding pattern.

The University of Oregon will no longer require professors to notify authorities if students divulge that they’ve been raped. The new approach is notable for its detail and the debate that surrounded it.

The government is banned from collecting and reporting the earnings of graduates. But that’s exactly what would-be college students need to know, say supporters of the latest push to make it happen.

Colleges are hiring professional staff members to respond to broader forces that are changing higher education, experts say.

The controversy over Bruce Harreld’s hiring has quieted, but many faculty members remain dispirited by challenges facing the university.

The government has pledged to get a key Fafsa-filing resource back online by the time the next financial-aid season begins. But for many students, the current season hasn’t even started yet.

University of Missouri at Columbia officials were bracing for a decline, though not this significant, given the fallout from protests there in 2015. Now, they say, its public image needs a makeover.

The university, torn by conflict, built trust and crafted a workable campus-speech policy by relying on openness and the combined wisdom of faculty and administrators.

We should have debated a dual-track tenure system 15 years ago. It’s not too late.