Jan. 25, 2019

News

The Anxiety of ‘Doing Womanhood Correctly’ in Academe

By Emma Pettit

Grace Lavery talks about her body, free speech, and finding transcendence in a hot tub in Sedona, Ariz.

News

Selected New Books on Higher Education

Compiled by Ruth Hammond

Among the topics are professional development for midcareer faculty members and ways to inspire students to write better.

The Review

Yes, We Need Accountability. But We Also Need Institutional Diversity.

By Patricia McGuire

The decision to remove the accreditation of Bennett College, a women’s HBCU, highlights the need to accommodate varied missions.

"We had one market before: women who were interested in attending a women’s college," says Pamela Fox, president of Mary Baldwin U. "Now we have at least three: men, women interested in coeducation, and women who still want to come for dimensions of a traditional women’s college."

Innovation

Small Colleges Get Experimental in Bid to Survive

By Lawrence Biemiller

War rooms, donor outreach, and cutting majors are among the tactics they are using to make themselves sustainable.

Leocadia Zak, of Agnes Scott College; Lawrence Schall, of Oglethorpe U.; Meredith Woo, of Sweet Briar College

News

3 Small Colleges in the South Take 3 Very Different Approaches

By Lawrence Biemiller

Find out more about what small colleges are doing to make themselves sustainable.

A street sign is visible acknowledgment of the Maringouin area’s past as West Oak plantation, where slaves who were sold to save Georgetown U. in 1838 were sent to work.

BACKGROUNDER

A New Path to Atonement

By Marc Parry

Conflicts have mired the efforts of Georgetown University and the Jesuits to make amends for their involvement with slavery. Now a more lasting reconciliation may be in sight.

The Review

On Enjoying Grad School

By Briallen Hopper

A love that dare not speak its name.

Two unidentified women from one of the Seven Sisters colleges waved off Yale’s football team in 1968. The university admitted its first female undergraduates in the fall of 1969, as did Princeton. Other elite colleges followed suit over the next few years.

The Review

‘Keep the Damned Women Out’

By Nancy Weiss Malkiel

Fifty years of coeducation at American colleges.

News

What I’m Reading: ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’

By Hollis Robbins

A book intended for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs became an arts and humanities dean’s new bible.

News

Hiring and Promotion Hazards in Academe

By Peter Monaghan

Even the most virtuous faculty members and administrators involved in employment decisions may have biases that could lead to lawsuits.

John Engler testifies about amateur athletics on Capitol Hill last July. At the same time, however, his relationship with survivors of Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse only grew more corrosive. But the trustees seemed paralyzed by the notion that changing interim leaders was somehow worse than all the damage he was doing.

News

At Michigan State, a Disruptive Presidency That Few Could Muster the Will to End

By Jack Stripling

Trustees seemed paralyzed by the notion that changing interim leaders was somehow worse than all the damage John Engler was doing.

News

Transitions: First Female President to Lead Elizabethtown College, Grinnell College Selects Chief Academic Officer

Compiled by Julia Piper

Cecilia M. McCormick will become chief executive at Elizabethtown in July. Grinnell’s next provost comes from DePauw University.

The Review

Why History Matters

By Louis P. Masur

We need to make a persuasive case.

Phyllis Worthy Dawkins (left), president of Bennett College, attends a community meeting with students and residents of Greensboro, N.C.

News

For Alumnae, the Fight to Keep Bennett College Open Is a Fight for Black Women in Academe

By Zipporah Osei

The college, which has appealed a recent decision to revoke its accreditation, is one of only two historically black women’s colleges in the country.

Incarcerated students participate in a lecture held at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup, Md., in 2015.

News

Ending Ban on Pell Grants for Prisoners Is Said to Yield ‘Cascade’ of Benefits

By Emma Pettit

Right now just 9 percent of prisoners get some form of postsecondary education, a new report says. Increasing that number would reduce recidivism, expand the labor pool, and give them better-paying jobs.

Carol Folt, chancellor of the U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said she was “disappointed” that the university system’s Board of Governors had voted to accept her resignation months before she planned to step down.

Where Folt Came From

UNC’s Chancellor Was Criticized as a Consensus Builder. How She Departed May Have Changed Everything.

By Sarah Brown

Folt’s decision to remove Silent Sam’s pedestal as she announced her resignation in January won plaudits from some on campus, but she may have worsened the challenges her successor will face.

Students gather at Hampshire College’s Jerome Liebling Center. The college’s announcement that it’s seeking a partner to stabilize its finances isn’t a dire warning of its possible demise, but it does risk scaring off current and prospective faculty members and students.

News

In Massachusetts, the Market for Small, Liberal-Arts Colleges Is in Decline

By Eric Kelderman

Hampshire College’s announcement that it’s seeking a partner to stabilize its finances isn’t a dire warning of its possible demise, but it does risk scaring off current and prospective faculty members and students.

News

Public Colleges Might Escape a Tax on Million-Dollar Employees. Here’s Who They Are.

By Dan Bauman

Because of imprecise language in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Duke will pay more tax than the University of Alabama on their expensive coaches’ salaries.

Protesters in Boston attend a rally against the continuing partial government shutdown.

News

If History Is Any Guide, End of Federal Shutdown Won’t Bring Quick Relief for College Researchers

By Lindsay Ellis

The NSF and the NIH had huge backlogs of grant applications when the then-historic 1996 shutdown concluded.

The Review

Being Poor in America’s Most Prestigious M.F.A. Program

By Katie Prout

From the workshop to the food bank.

News

Stay Awake for These 5 Issues During Negotiated Rulemaking

By Eric Kelderman

Though the process can be less than exciting, the U.S. Department of Education’s latest effort to rewrite regulations could have lasting effects for colleges.