Sept. 29, 2017

The shipboard training provided at Cal State Maritime gives students "a bigger sense of how the world works," one alumnus says.

News

A New Liberal Art

By Scott Carlson

How systems thinking can prepare students for a complex world.

The Review

The Undocumented Alphabet

By Alberto Ledesma

A selection from Diary of a Reluctant Dreamer: Undocumented Vignettes From a Pre-American Life.

Raymond Rice had worked at the U. of Maine at Presque Isle for some 20 years and spent a year as interim president before he was offered the job permanently. Mr. Rice was the consensus choice of faculty, students, and the university’s governing board, but skipping an exhaustive, national search and selecting an inside candidate is far from the norm in higher education.

From the Archives

Rethinking the Presidential Search

By Eric Kelderman

Why some colleges skip hiring consultants and a national search to focus on internal candidates.

News

The Mismatch Between High Tech and Higher Ed

By Peter Monaghan

In Silicon Valley, where cutting-edge skills may matter more than particular degrees, colleges are struggling to adapt.

News

Selected New Books on Higher Education

Compiled by Nina C. Ayoub

Topics include affordable course materials and techniques for more dynamic lecturing.

The Review

The Power of Dialogue

By K. Elizabeth Coggins and Gregory Laski

A project that brings together students from a military academy and a liberal-arts college is a step toward building a strong democracy.

Peggy F. Bradford was named president of Shawnee Community College, in Illinois.

News

Appointments, Resignations, Deaths (9/29/2017)

Compiled by M.J. Prest

Peggy F. Bradford is the new president of Shawnee Community College, and Jamel Santa Cruze Wright, interim president of Eureka College, has been named permanently to the post.

News

What I’m Reading: ‘Shared Leadership in Higher Education’

By Sonia Cardenas

Meaningful collaboration is hard to achieve, a dean observes, but it can be an effective route to change.

News

Chemist Turned Politician Sees Thousands of Other Scientist-Lawmakers as the Solution

By Paul Basken

Grounded in facts and reason, scientists could solve the nation’s policy problems, says Shaughnessy Naughton. Her advocacy group 314 Action is trying to get them in the game.

News

Resources for Finding Your Next Leader

By Eric Kelderman

Improving how colleges find new presidents is a perennial concern. Here are the key points from some articles and reports on the topic.

News

Why One Christian College Forgoes a Search Firm

By Eric Kelderman

Bethel College in Indiana prefers to rely on standard best practices and spiritual guidance in finding its leaders.

Chronicle List

Recent Private Gifts to Higher Education (September 2017)

By Chronicle Staff

An $8-million gift to a community college to help construct a new building is among the recent gifts.

News

Weekly Book List, September 29, 2017

Compiled by Nina C. Ayoub

Descriptions of the latest titles, divided by category.

Nimmi Gowrinathan, a visiting research professor at the City College of New York, launched a program there this semester to "challenge the contemporary understanding of identity politics."

Faculty

How a College Aims to Breed Activists With Keen Eyes on Identity Politics

By Nell Gluckman

A new program at the City College of New York will teach activism with a nuanced approach to politics.

In a blog post last week, Rachel Fulton Brown, an associate professor of history at the U. of Chicago, blasted medieval-studies scholars who are worried about their field’s association with white supremacy.

Faculty

A Debate About White Supremacy and Medieval Studies Exposes Deep Rifts in the Field

By Nell Gluckman

Medievalists have been wrestling with their field’s connection to white supremacists. Now, one of their own has sharply challenged their fears, revealing a struggle to define the discipline’s future.

Ryan Shapiro, 41, an animal-rights activist turned Ph.D. candidate in the department of science, technology, and society at MIT, is a self-taught expert on the Freedom of Information Act.

The Review

The Grad Student Who Wants to Bring Down Trump

By David Schimke

Ryan Shapiro takes his crusade against government secrecy to the steps of the White House.

The Review

Russian Studies’ Alt-Right Problem

By Sarah Valentine

The field has not adequately rebuked the white supremacists appropriating its subject.

Timothy White, chancellor of California State U. (pictured here in 2014), thinks remediation is holding down the system’s dismal graduation rates. He has ordered the 23-campus system to eliminate all noncredit remedial classes by the fall of 2018. The shift casts new attention on questions about how colleges decide who’s ready for college-level work.

Backgrounder

Cal State’s Retreat From Remediation Stokes Debate on College Readiness

By Katherine Mangan

The shift at the huge public-university system casts new attention on questions about how colleges decide who’s ready for college-level work.

James Ryan, dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Education, will become UVa's president on October 1, 2018.

Leadership & Governance

U. of Virginia’s Next Chief Inherits a Wearied Institution

By Jack Stripling

James Ryan, dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and a former law professor at UVa, will lead an institution that has gone from crisis to crisis.

Commentary

Free Speech, Campus Safety, or Both

By Mark G. Yudof and Kenneth Waltzer

Can universities preserve both free speech on campus and the safety of speakers, audiences, and protesters? The answer involves myriad practical decisions, which campus leaders are making now.

Pokanokets and their supporters plan to camp on the university property, in Bristol, R.I., until the dispute is settled.

Administration

Faculty Letter at Brown U. Intensifies Standoff Over Tribe’s Claim to Land

By Chris Quintana

A Native American group argues that a plot of land owned by the university is theirs by ancestral right. Scholars of indigenous studies at Brown cast doubt on the claim.