50 Years of News and Commentary

Our educational institutions reflect the life styles and learning patterns of the times in which they were designed. One of the urgent reasons for finding new forms for American higher education is that the 19th century model still in use mirrors a society that no longer exists. Consider the social…

In the first of a three-part series, Larry Van Dyne reported on the troubles facing the City University of New York in the 1970s.

The power to change the frightful imbalance of the sexes in the faculties of our institutions of higher education rests, I believe, with the two groups least likely, at first blush, to offer hope for that change: men over and women under 40. Inspiring these two groups to action is certainly uphill…

Sporting a stage-villain’s mustache, white patent-leather shoes, and rings on nearly every finger, Rep. Daniel J. Flood, the 74-year-old chairman of one the most powerful subcommittees on Capitol Hill, swooped into a Congressional hearing room last March and began his oration to the crowd of…

Working in a high position at a place like Dartmouth College, you tend to forget about racism. You try to do your job. You earn the respect of the campus establishment and become a leader in the community. You include a number of whites among your close friends, skiing buddies, and tennis partners.…

“I had this fantasy the whole time I was at Notre Dame,” says a young alumnus named Kevin O’Reilly. “One night, I would climb the fire escape and talk to Father Ted.” Every student at the University of Notre Dame has heard the story. It is chapter 1, verse 1 of a collection of tales — a kind of…

In the last weeks before Paul’s death, he insisted to Terry Weisser that horses were running loose in the bathroom of their home. Terry remembers the hallucinatory horses with some fondness — they brought a touch of lightheartedness to his lover’s days and to his own. Bedridden and in diapers, Paul…

This month, scores of black-studies programs around the country are celebrating their 20th anniversary and, in many ways, their academic maturity. Who can forget the stormy origins of the field and the dire predictions of the skeptical that this fad would not survive the decade of the 70’s? But…

Cambridge, Massachusetts -- Camille Paglia seizes the podium at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater and ignites. Her topic this evening: What’s wrong with Harvard. That’s with a period, not a question mark. For the next two hours, the frenetic and fearless author, who teaches humanities at the…

She challenged ideas of gender and helped create queer theory; now she moves to defend free speech.

To honor its dead, Charleston Southern University puts together a slide show. But the colleagues and friends who gathered in Lightsey Chapel last October to remember Harold J. Overton, a linguist who died suddenly of cancer after teaching there for 27 years, had to squint to see the handful of…

“Don’t go to graduate school.”

Some professors have dubious doctorates, other professors sell them, and colleges often look the other way.

A former high-school counselor has set out to undo the commercialization of higher education. But first he must learn to sell himself.

Are boys born better at math? Experts try to divide the influences of nature and nurture.

Yes, there is such a thing as monogamy. I’m not talking about that.

The controversial historian remained outspoken even as ALS tightened its grip on him.

The man who writes your students’ papers tells his story.

A tale of erosion, seen through six people in the trenches.

On February 28, 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan spoke of “certain intellectual luxuries that perhaps we could do without.” Here’s why liberal education has never recovered.

How campus rules make students more vulnerable.

Public universities pumped more than $10.3 billion in mandatory student fees and other subsidies into their sports programs from 2010 to 2015, according to an examination by The Chronicle and The Huffington Post.

Defending the humanities in a skills-obsessed university.