National Graduate School News

Chronicle: New Graduate-Student Enrollment Dips for First Time in 7 Years

2011-09-23T16:40:00.002-04:00

By Audrey Williams June

The number of new students enrolled in the nation's graduate schools in the fall of 2010 fell for the first time in seven years, even though applications for graduate programs that began that year had increased, says a new report by the Council of Graduate Schools.

Between the fall of 2009 and the fall of 2010, enrollment of new students fell by 1.1 percent, according to the report, "Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2000 to 2010," which was released today. In comparison, the enrollment of new graduate students a year earlier, in the fall of 2009, had increased by 5.5 percent from the year before. Applications to American graduate schools for the fall of 2010 were up by 8.4 percent from the previous year, the report says.

Read the full article:
http://chronicle.com/article/New-Graduate-Student/129111/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

Chronicle: The Debt Ceiling Deal and Graduate Student Loans

2011-08-15T10:45:00.000-04:00

Pell grants have been preserved, but has this overshadowed the changes going on today in funding for graduate students? The Chronicle clarifies for you:

http://ow.ly/63ppj

U.S. Expands List of Fields in Which Foreign Students May Extend Stay After Graduation

2011-05-13T14:17:00.000-04:00

May 13, 2011

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has published an expanded list of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields that qualify foreign students for an extended stay in the United States after graduation. The program, known as Optional Practical Training, allows graduates on student visas to work after they receive their degrees. Most graduates are allowed to stay on for an additional 12 months, but students in specific STEM fields can stay for 17 months beyond that. In a press release, the White House said the expansion was made to deal with shortages of certain high-tech scientists and technology experts.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/u-s-expands-list-of-fields-in-which-foreign-students-may-extend-stay-after-graduation/33021

Chronicle: With State Support Shaky, Research Universities Get Advice on How to Endure

2011-05-11T11:42:00.000-04:00

May 8, 2011
By Paul Basken

Washington

For the nation's beleaguered research universities, the annual policy conference of the world's premier science association would seem like just the place to get some much-needed advice. And for two days late last week, the American Association for the Advancement of Science gave them plenty of it.

The research universities were told to compete more. They were told to cooperate more. They were told to innovate more. They were told to change their culture.

[ The article goes on to talk about defending university-based research, cuts in state funding causing turmoil and a fundamental change in viewpoint on whether higher education is a public or private good, with most states leaning more towards seeing universities as a private enterprise. Worth the read. ]

The article:
http://chronicle.com/article/With-State-Support-Shaky/127445/

Chronicle: Defenders of the Humanities Look for New Ways to Explain Their Value

2011-03-31T11:09:00.000-04:00

March 29, 2011
By Jennifer Ruark

Washington

A crowd of nearly 200 people gathered here on Monday to listen to a series of academic luminaries speak passionately about the importance of the humanities.

Though billed as a "Symposium on the Future of the Humanities," the talks were less about new directions than about the value of traditional humanities in an era of gutted budgets, and against the insistence, even by many in academe, on measurable "outcomes" in higher education.

Read the rest:
http://chronicle.com/article/Defenders-of-the-Humanities/126930/

Chronicle: Dawn of the Grad: Rules for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse and Your First Year at Grad School

2011-03-09T16:03:00.000-05:00

Zombie Love

March 9, 2011
By Katy Meyers

I have been a first year grad student for the last three years. I’m not saying that this makes me an expert, but I have learned what it takes to survive (and excel) during your first year of graduate school.

Surprisingly, throughout these past few years, zombie apocalypse films have served as both a comfort and inspiration for my own survival. It turns out that the rise of the undead serves as a great metaphor for graduate school. The way the characters battle against seemingly insurmountable odds, with their ragtag team and unending optimism… it’s been inspirational. Drawing from my favorite zombie films, Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead, here are the rules for surviving your first year of grad school or your first undead encounter.

Read the rules:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/dawn-of-the-grad-rules-for-surviving-the-zombie-apocalypse-and-your-first-year-at-grad-school/31694?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

NY Times: More Foreign-Born Scholars Lead U.S. Universities

2011-03-09T14:28:00.000-05:00

...

While many presidents first arrived in the United States as unproven graduate students, Michael A. McRobbie, president of Indiana University, was recruited 14 years ago from Australia National University to be Indiana’s vice president of information technology, as well as a professor of computer science. He became provost in 2006 and president the following year.

Dr. McRobbie found the Midwestern university to be remarkably diverse, with several thousand international students representing some 100 countries. There are now about 50 students from Australia alone.

He also encountered a warm welcome, feeling every bit a Hoosier. Last fall, on his 60th birthday, Dr. McRobbie took the oath of allegiance as an American citizen, along with his three grown children. “I have been here a long time and have become well accepted in this state,” he said. “They treat me like a local with a funny accent.”

...

Read the article at the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/education/10presidents.html?_r=1

How Skype Is Changing the Interview Process

2011-03-08T09:54:00.001-05:00

Careers Illustration -- Skype Interviews

March 2, 2011
By Stephen Winzenburg

For years, search committees conducted preliminary job interviews for academic positions by telephone, making it easy for a candidate to sit at home in shorts while answering serious questions.

But times have changed, and Skype is now the preferred method many institutions use to conduct long-distance interviews. Some job listings are even warning candidates that they may have to make an initial appearance before the committee via Webcam.

Read the entire article:
http://chronicle.com/article/How-Skype-is-Changing-the/126529/

Chronicle: What Can Faculty Members Do to Help?

2011-03-08T09:47:00.000-05:00

February 15, 2011
By Julie Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong

Jenny: This year, at the annual convention of the Modern Language Association, in Los Angeles, I helped lead a workshop on "Careers for Humanists." Before we started, we asked people to fill out a brief survey on what they hoped to learn. As you might guess, most participants were A.B.D's or Ph.D.'s looking to learn more about their career options.

But to our surprise and delight, several of the participants were faculty members interested in understanding nonacademic career paths in order to better guide their own graduate students.

At the convention, I had time to catch up with a few friends, many of whom are now tenure-track faculty members with graduate students of their own. And in those conversations, too, I found academics wondering what to tell their students about their career options.

Read the rest of the conversation:
http://chronicle.com/article/What-Can-Faculty-Members-Do-to/126350/

Chronicle: We Need to Reward Those Who Nurture a Diversity of Ideas in Science

2011-03-07T16:50:00.000-05:00

By Alan I. Leshner
March 6, 2011

Universities in the United States have long rewarded members of their science faculties based almost entirely on their records of entrepreneurial success, research results, publications, and the committees on which they serve. But that kind of system is no longer adequate.

In his State of the Union address in January, President Obama said that we must "out-innovate, out-educate, and outbuild the rest of the world" to respond to global competitive challenges in this current "Sputnik moment." That will only happen if professors engage more women and ethnically diverse science students, and if universities reward those professors who successfully do so. The publish-or-perish journey to tenure needs to be recalibrated if we really want faculty members to pursue and nurture the diversity of innovative scientific ideas from all students, particularly among underrepresented groups. Traditional evaluation factors alone won't get the job done; adding students' ratings won't help much, either.

Read the rest of the article:
http://chronicle.com/article/We-Need-to-Reward-Those-Who/126591/

Chronicle: What I Tell My Graduate Students

2011-03-07T16:40:00.000-05:00

By Lennard J. Davis
March 6, 2011

In my mind, there is no doubt that an important part of my job is to make sure my graduate students get their own jobs. What that means is talking the turkey of job placement as soon as they walk in my door and tell me they want to do a Ph.D.

First I inform them of the current job situation, whatever that is at the time. I don't sugarcoat the dismal nature, say, of today's academic market. But I also say that I have had very good success in placing my graduate students. Then I make it clear that the first thing they need to do is start thinking about the minimum requirements for going on the job market.

Read the rest of the article..
http://chronicle.com/article/What-I-Tell-My-Graduate/126615/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

Writing a Recommendation Letter

2011-03-07T16:39:00.000-05:00

Guidelines for writing a letter of recommendation for a student.

http://newbieprof.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/writing-a-recommendation-letter/

Chronicle: Higher Education Means Lower Blood Pressure

2011-02-28T13:51:00.000-05:00

February 27, 2011
By Josh Fischman

To avoid a heart attack, it's a good idea to lose weight and quit smoking. Perhaps the best cardiac health insurance, however, is going to graduate school.

That is the finding of a new study that followed nearly 4,000 people for three decades. Compared to individuals who had a high-school diploma or less, those whose education went beyond a college degree had blood pressure that was lower by several points, even after risk factors like smoking were taken into account. "Blood pressure is a classic predictor of heart disease," and education appears to have an impact on it, said Eric B. Loucks, an assistant professor of community health at Brown University, the lead investigator. He and two colleagues published their results in the journal BMC Public Health on Sunday.

Read the entire article:

http://chronicle.com/article/Higher-Education-Means-Lower/126535/

Utah: Bill to end higher-ed tenure dies in committee

2011-02-25T11:42:00.000-05:00

The Salt Lake Tribune
Feb 23, 2011

A measure to weaken the tenure system in higher education died Wednesday in the House Education Committee, where it encountered a bipartisan wall of resistance.

HB485 would have barred public colleges and universities from offering the promise of lifetime employment to incoming faculty, putting an end to an "archaic" system that has outlived its usefulness, according to sponsor Rep. Christopher Herrod, R-Provo.

Read this article..

Social Media Lure Academics Frustrated by Journals

2011-02-25T11:38:00.000-05:00

February 20, 2011
By Jennifer Howard

Social media have become serious academic tools for many scholars, who use them for collaborative writing, conferencing, sharing images, and other research-related activities. So says a study just posted online called "Social Media and Research Workflow." Among its findings: Social scientists are now more likely to use social-media tools in their research than are their counterparts in the biological sciences. And researchers prefer popular applications like Twitter to those made for academic users.

Read the rest of the article..

Chronicle: Spending Freely on Research, Canada Reverses Brain Drain

2011-02-24T12:22:00.001-05:00

Photo by Susan Tusa.

Frederick Roth left Harvard Medical School for the U. of Toronto as one of 19 winners of $10-million Canada Excellence Research Chairs.

A national strategy, including billions of dollars in grants, draws top talent from around the globe

February 20, 2011
By Jennifer Lewington

Toronto

In the mid-1990s, higher-education officials in Canada warned of the consequences of government cuts in research funds and an exodus of academic talent.

Today, amid intensifying global competition for the best and brightest, Canada is on a roll, importing research stars and nurturing young Canadian and foreign scholars and postdoctoral students. The talk now is of brain gain, not brain drain.

What changed? Federal and provincial governments have pumped in unprecedented amounts of cash for people and equipment to spur innovation and build a critical mass of expertise.

Read the rest of the article..

Chronicle: Going Paperless at Conferences

2011-02-22T15:56:00.000-05:00

February 22, 2011
By Mark Sample

At the recent MLA conference in Los Angeles I tried something I had long considered doing at a conference.

I went paperless.

Absolutely, totally paperless. No bulky program, no pen and notepad, no hardcopy of my presentations. Just one little piece of tech was all I carried around with me—in this case, an iPad. I was so delighted with my paperless conference-going that I wanted to share my experience here, as well as solicit tips from our readers.

Read the entire article..

Chronicle: Changing the Way We Socialize Doctoral Students

2011-01-12T12:37:00.000-05:00

...
It amounts to this: Graduate school is professional school, but most Ph.D programs badly neglect graduate students' professional development. We spend years of their training ignoring that development, and then, only at the last moment when students are about to hit the job market, do we attend to their immediate professional needs. By neglecting their career goals, we allow their desires to coalesce from their immediate surroundings—the research university—and to harden over time.
...

http://chronicle.com/article/Changing-the-Way-We-Socialize/125892/

Chronicle:Paradise Lost: the Academy Becomes a Commodity

2010-12-15T12:35:00.000-05:00

By Carlos J. Alonso
December 12, 2010

What is the place of graduate studies in higher education's current culture of accountability? At some level, at least, the question itself is moot, since there is no argumentative ground from which we could claim that anything is outside our current "culture of accountability." Culture, education, and the university have become commodities and purveyors of commodities; they must answer to the logic of accountability—and there is no space outside that logic. There is no particular location inhabited by graduate education, because commodification now extends its reach into every aspect of our social reality. There was a time when the social understanding of the university and of the work performed therein was defined precisely in opposition to the logic of accountability and instrumentality, but that situation no longer obtains.

Read the entire article:
http://chronicle.com/article/Paradise-Lost-the-Academy-as/125669/

CIC Universities Among World’s Top 160

2010-12-09T14:43:00.000-05:00

Story highlights:

* All CIC members were ranked in the top 160 of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
* A Wall Street Journal article showed that graduates from some CIC universities among the most coveted by recruiters.
* CIC university communities fared well in the annual College Destinations Index (CDI) released in September.

Read the article:

http://info.cic.net/eNews/Article.aspx?List=e2b955aa-f9d6-4598-bb25-be534d3192b8&ID=45

Chronicle: How to Fail in Grant Writing

2010-12-08T14:59:00.000-05:00

December 5, 2010
By Elizabeth Jakob, Adam Porter, Jeffrey Podos, Barry Braun, Norman Johnson, and Stephen Vessey

Looking for the fast path to grant rejection?

We provide a list here of proven techniques. We gathered these in the course of serving on grant panels or as program officers, and, in some cases, through firsthand experimentation. We are biologists, but many of our suggestions will be useful to grant writers in all disciplines.

Read their suggestions:
http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Fail-in-Grant-Writing/125620/

IHT: Doctorate Degrees in U.S. Increase to Record Level

2010-12-06T12:18:00.000-05:00

By THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
Published: December 5, 2010

Originally posted:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/education/06iht-educBriefs06.html?ref=education

Research doctorate degrees were awarded to 49,562 students by American academic institutions in the 2008-9 academic year, the highest number ever reported, according to the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates.

The figure represents a 1.6 percent increase over the 2007-8 year.
The growth was due largely to increases in the number of degrees awarded in the fields of science and engineering. In 2009, 67.5 percent of all doctorates went to science and engineering students (a total of 33,470), a 1.9 percent rise over 2008. This increase, in turn, resulted from an upswing in the number of women earning science and engineering degrees. Of the total science and engineering doctoral recipients, 622 were women — representing a 4.8 percent increase over 2008 levels — while the number of men earning science and engineering doctorates declined very slightly.

However, a decline was observed in the number of doctorates earned by foreign students. In 2009, doctorates awarded to students holding temporary visas declined 3.3 percent in science and engineering, and 4.6 percent across other disciplines.

The National Science Foundation, an independent government organization founded in 1950 to promote science, has conducted its Survey of Earned Doctorates since the 1950s.

— REBECCA APPEL

Dean Wimbush Interviewed for the Chronicle of Higher Education

2010-12-02T14:20:00.000-05:00

The University Graduate School Dean James C. Wimbush was interviewed for an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday while attending the annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C. Read his thoughts on learning outcomes in graduate education below.

Measurement of ‘Learning Outcomes’ Comes to Graduate School

December 1, 2010, 3:34 pm

By David Glenn

Graduate-level programs were once relatively immune from pressure to define and measure “learning outcomes” for their students. But for good or ill, the student-learning-assessment movement has begun to migrate from the undergraduate world into master’s and doctoral programs. (At some institutions, there is even talk of defining a set of “foundational outcomes” for all graduate students—that is, a set of learning goals that would be analogous to general-education goals for undergraduates.)

On Wednesday morning, as the annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools got under way in Washington, three graduate deans led a workshop on assessing graduate students’ learning and using such assessments to improve programs.

Formal assessment for improvement, they said, is more useful and less painful than many faculty members believe. (And in any case, accreditors are insisting on it.)

The three deans sat down for an interview after the workshop.

Q. In doctoral programs with intense mentor-apprentice relationships, the idea of establishing rubrics and other lists of learning outcomes might seem off-key. If I’m a senior professor of comparative literature and I’ve supervised 30 dissertations during my career, I probably know in my bones what successful learning in my program looks like. Why should I be asked to write out point-by-point lists of the skills and learning outcomes that my students should possess?

Charles Caramello, associate provost for academic affairs and dean of the graduate school at the University of Maryland: If you write out lists of learning outcomes, you’re making the invisible visible. That’s really my answer. We’ve all internalized these standards. They’re largely invisible to us. Assessment brings them out into visibility, and therefore gives them a history.

William R. Wiener, vice provost for research and dean of the graduate school at Marquette University, who is currently dean in residence at the Council of Graduate Schools: There’s no way to aggregate and to learn unless you’ve got some common instruments. By having common instruments, we can see patterns that we couldn’t see before.

James C. Wimbush, dean of the University Graduate School at Indiana University: Part of the story has to do with the external enviroment. Because of the decrease in funding for state institutions, because of political pressures from state legislators, we are forced to be much more accountable. Our boards of trustees now are looking for more accountability. They don’t necessarily say, “We want to make sure that you’re doing assessments of graduate programs.” But they’re questioning, Do we have too many graduate programs? We have to do a better job of being accountable for how we use our resources from the state and elsewhere. Assessment is one of the ways of doing that.

To read more:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/measuring/student-learning-outcomes-come-to-grad-school/27552

Inside HigherEd: Ph.D. Pipeline Expands Slightly

2010-12-02T10:50:00.000-05:00

November 29, 2010

WASHINGTON -- The number of research doctorates awarded by American universities grew slightly in 2009, with virtually all of the increase accounted for by an upturn in Ph.D.s and other degrees granted to women, according to newly reported data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates. The study also documents the first drop in five years in the number of doctorates awarded to non-U.S. citizens.

The report, which was released last week by the National Science Foundation, provides the first look at data from the latest cohort of the annual survey sponsored by the science foundation and five other federal agencies and conducted by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. The survey provides data on who the doctorate recipients are, the fields they are in, and -- increasingly important in this economic climate -- how they are faring in the job market.

Read the article:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/29/doctorates

Chronicle: Where the Grads Go: One University, 4 Departments, 29 Ph.D.'s

2010-12-02T10:45:00.002-05:00

The job placements of graduates from doctoral programs are rarely made public. Four departments at Ohio State University conferred Ph.D.’s on 29 people in 2010, and the university helped The Chronicle track down what kind of jobs they got and where.

See the map:
http://chronicle.com/article/Map-Where-the-Grads-Go/125537/

Chronicle: Master's in English: Will Mow Lawns

2010-12-02T10:35:00.000-05:00

November 28, 2010
By Robin Wilson

Most programs don't say where graduates get jobs, and future Ph.D.'s don't demand the data

When a group of prospective graduate students visited the physics department at the University of Washington during a recruiting weekend last spring, they asked lots of questions about their lives as doctoral students. But none of them seemed very interested, the department's chairman says, in how recent Ph.D.'s fared after graduate school—on the job market.

"I don't think I ever encountered a question about that," says Blayne Heckel, the chairman. "These students want to know things like, Will they have an office in the building? They are more interested in things that will affect their day-to-day lives than in what kinds of jobs our graduates get."

Read the entire article:
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Quality-Measure-That/125544/

Chronicle: Student-Learning Outcomes Comes to Grad School

2010-12-02T10:32:00.001-05:00

December 1, 2010
By David Glenn

Graduate-level programs were once relatively immune from pressure to define and measure “learning outcomes” for their students. But for good or ill, the student-learning-assessment movement has begun to migrate from the undergraduate world into master’s and doctoral programs. (At some institutions, there is even talk of defining a set of “foundational outcomes” for all graduate students—that is, a set of learning goals that would be analogous to general-education goals for undergraduates.)

On Wednesday morning, as the annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools got under way in Washington, three graduate deans led a workshop on assessing graduate students’ learning and using such assessments to improve programs.

Formal assessment for improvement, they said, is more useful and less painful than many faculty members believe. (And in any case, accreditors are insisting on it.)

The three deans sat down for an interview after the workshop.

To read the interview:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/measuring/student-learning-outcomes-come-to-grad-school/27552

Guardian: Spending cuts will force 'swaths of universities' to close

2010-10-20T09:26:00.000-04:00

Planned cuts in funding pose a risk to British universities and threaten the country's future prosperity, warn vice-chancellors

Jeevan Vasagar, education editor
The Guardian, Tuesday 19 October 2010

Planned cuts in funding pose a risk to the world-class standing of English universities and threaten the country's future prosperity, the head of the group which represents vice-chancellors warns today.

Universities face the deepest cuts of any publicly funded activity, ushering in the most radical changes to higher education in five decades, which could see the closure of "swaths of institutions", says Steve Smith, president of Universities UK and vice-chancellor of Exeter university.

Read the rest of the article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/19/spending-cuts-swaths-universities-close

NY Times: Traffic Picks Up in World’s Education Race

2010-10-18T12:20:00.001-04:00

Registration day at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Thanks to huge government investment in its elite institutions, China now receives more foreign students than it sends away. Photo from The New York Times.

By D.D. GUTTENPLAN
Published: October 3, 2010

LONDON — To the insistent strains of a romantic guitar rising on the soundtrack, a young Asian couple exchange passionate kisses in a hot tub. The camera pulls back, revealing a decidedly disapproving older man and woman scowling amid the bubbles, followed by the punch line to this viral Internet video sensation aimed at students considering overseas study: “Get further away from your parents. Study in New Zealand.”

Welcome to the great education race, a scramble for students, professors, prestige and prosperity that is changing the face of university education around the world.

For decades the United States attracted more than a quarter of all foreign students in college or graduate education. Recently that has begun to change.

...

Read the rest of the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/business/global/04iht-educLede04.html?ref=graduate_schools_and_students

Chronicle: Research Universities, Wary of Politics, Open New Campaign for Federal Money

2010-09-24T15:42:00.001-04:00

By Paul Basken
September 22, 2010

Leaders of the nation's research universities embarked on a yearlong campaign for greater federal financial support on Wednesday with a recognition that their effort could easily fall victim to the hostile political environment in Washington.

One day after several university presidents visited the White House to hear Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. extol their institutions' scientific accomplishments, a group of them gathered in the more austere setting of a downtown conference room to plot a strategy for ensuring their future health.

The setting was the inaugural meeting of the Committee on Research Universities, a panel of 22 university and corporate leaders formed by the National Research Council to make recommendations for preserving the long-term quality of university research in the United States.

Read the full article:
http://chronicle.com/article/Research-Universities-Wary-of/124574

Chronicle: Evaluating Graduate Education

2010-09-24T15:40:00.000-04:00

Officials From 17 Countries Agree to Principles on Evaluating Graduate Education

Higher-education officials from 17 countries agreed on a set of principles Wednesday to evaluate the quality of master's and doctoral degrees. The standards were discussed at a meeting in Australia sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Group of Eight, an association of Australia's top universities. Participants, which included deans of graduate schools and others, said that quality evaluation must "go beyond the assessment of research quality" and consider others factors, like admissions, student recruitment, and what ultimately students learn from their courses. Institutions from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, the United States, and
Vietnam signed the agreement.

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Officials-From-17-Countries/26983

Washington Post: U.S. Universities Top World Ranking

2010-09-24T15:38:00.000-04:00

In a new worldwide ranking of universities, U.S. institutions claim all of the top five spots and seven of the top ten. Harvard University is ranked number one, followed by Caltech, MIT, Stanford, and Princeton. U.S. universities also comprise more than half of the top 50 and 72 of the top 200.

. . .

Read the full article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/specialsales/exec_education/us_universities_top.html

Washington Post: More women than men in U.S. earned doctorates last year for first time

2010-09-15T12:45:00.000-04:00

For the first time, more women than men in the United States received doctoral degrees last year, the culmination of decades of change in the status of women at colleges nationwide.

The number of women at every level of academia has been rising for decades. Women now hold a nearly 3-to-2 majority in undergraduate and graduate education. Doctoral study was the last holdout - the only remaining area of higher education that still had an enduring male majority.

Read the entire article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/14/AR2010091400004.html

NYTimes: Essay: The End of Tenure?

2010-09-07T12:05:00.000-04:00

By CHRISTOPHER SHEA
Published: September 3, 2010

In tough economic times, it’s easy to gin up anger against elites. The bashing of bankers is already so robust that the economist William Easterly has compared it, with perhaps a touch of hyperbole, to genocidal racism. But in recent months, a more unlikely privileged group has found itself in the cross hairs: tenured professors.

At a time when nearly one in 10 American workers is unemployed, here’s a crew (the complaint goes) who are guaranteed jobs for life, teach only a few hours a week, routinely get entire years off, dump grading duties onto graduate students and produce “research” on subjects like “Rednecks, Queers and Country Music” or “The Whatness of Books.” Or maybe they stop doing research altogether (who’s going to stop them?), dropping their workweek to a manageable dozen hours or so, all while making $100,000 or more a year. Ready to grab that pitchfork yet?

Read the entire article

Chronicle: From Graduate Student to Faculty Member

2010-09-01T15:28:00.000-04:00

By Julie Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong

Jenny: If you're making the transition from the role of graduate student to that of either postdoctoral fellow or faculty member, expect to have a challenging year. You may find yourself at an institution unlike any other where you've studied or worked. You may be asked to teach courses in fields far outside the boundaries of what you're comfortable teaching. You may become overwhelmed by the idea of balancing research and teaching. In addition, you will probably be surprised by how often departmental history that predates your arrival (and may even go back decades) can surface, sometimes complicating your service duties.

Julie: No matter how well prepared you are, no matter how much you've taught before, starting a new faculty position will be eye-opening. To get a sense of what most surprises new faculty members, we spoke with four of them.

Read entire piece

Inside HigherEd: Burning Out, and Fading Away

2010-06-10T15:57:00.001-04:00

June 10, 2010

WASHINGTON -- College faculty aren’t any more burned out than the rest of the U.S. workforce on average, but the struggles of the untenured on the tenure track are the most pronounced, according to a survey presented at an American Association of University Professors conference here Wednesday.

In an analysis of professional burnout among professors, a Texas Woman’s University Ph.D. candidate found tenure track professors had more significant symptoms of workplace frustration than their tenured and non-tenure track faculty counterparts.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/10/aaup

House Passes $84 Billion Science Bill

2010-06-10T15:55:00.000-04:00

The House has passed an $84 billion bill for scientific and technological innovation, the largest of its kind to be considered this year.

The Associated Press reports:

The bill approves funds over five years for basic and applied research programs at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy Office of Science, National Institute of Standards and Technology labs, and others. It passed 262-150.

The NSF would have access to more than $40 billion over the five-year period for research and education programs, although the actual money allotted is determined in annual spending bills. The bill still needs Senate approval.

The bill passed on its third round through the House. Its price tag was previously contested by Republicans.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/01/house-science-bill_n_595751.html

NYTimes: Graduate Students Ask N.Y.U. to Recognize Union

2010-05-17T10:28:00.000-04:00

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: April 27, 2010

Graduate students who assist professors with teaching and research may not seem like typical workers, but more than 1,000 such assistants petitioned New York University on Monday to recognize a union that would represent their interests.

The school’s officials signaled they would not recognize such a union, which would be the only union of teaching assistants in the nation at a private university.

But with Monday’s move, N.Y.U.’s 1,600 graduate assistants are seeking to persuade the National Labor Relations Board, now dominated by President Obama’s appointees, to reverse a 2004 decision that found that graduate teaching assistants at private universities are essentially students, not workers, and thus do not have a right to unionize and bargain for a contract.

Read the entire article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/nyregion/28grad.html

NYTimes: Can You Prove It?

2010-05-17T10:26:00.000-04:00

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
By JOSHUA A. DIJKSMAN
Published: April 22, 2010

As a graduate student in experimental physics, I am used to repairing machines myself. So was my colleague in the lab where I was working for a few months. As usual in this trade, the day came when a key piece of equipment broke down. We assumed we could manage.

Read the entire story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23iht-eddijksman.html

NYTimes: Alternate Path for Teachers Gains Ground

2010-05-17T10:24:00.001-04:00

By LISA W. FODERARO
Published: April 18, 2010

Not long ago education schools had a virtual monopoly on the teaching profession. They dictated how and when people became teachers by offering coursework, arranging apprenticeships and granting master’s degrees.

But now those schools are feeling under siege. Officials in Washington, D.C., and New York State, where some of the best-known education schools are located, have stepped up criticisms that the schools are still too focused on theory and not enough on the craft of effective teaching.

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/education/19regents.html

Mama Ph.D. Blog

2010-05-17T10:20:00.000-04:00

Balancing work and family isn't easy for anyone, but it's a particular challenge for women in academic careers. Read first hand accounts and search the recently posted for a variety of related topics on this blog from Inside Higher Ed.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/mama_phd

Inside Higher Ed: Who Really Failed?

2010-04-15T14:41:00.001-04:00

April 15, 2010

Dominique G. Homberger won't apologize for setting high expectations for her students.

The biology professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge gives brief quizzes at the beginning of every class, to assure attendance and to make sure students are doing the reading. On her tests, she doesn't use a curve, as she believes that students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course. For multiple choice questions, she gives 10 possible answers, not the expected 4, as she doesn't want students to get very far with guessing.

Students in introductory biology don't need to worry about meeting her standards anymore. LSU removed her from teaching, mid-semester, and raised the grades of students in the class. In so doing, the university's administration has set off a debate about grade inflation, due process and a professor's right to set standards in her own course.

Read the entire article:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/15/lsu

NYTimes: Study Finds a 1.2 Percent Increase in Faculty Pay, the Smallest in 50 Years

2010-04-12T12:11:00.000-04:00

Academic pay has been squeezed by the recession, according to the annual salary survey by the American Association of University Professors.
Over all, salaries for this academic year are 1.2 percent higher than last year, the smallest increase recorded in the survey’s 50 years — and well below the 2.7 percent inflation rate from December 2008 to December 2009.

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/education/12faculty.html?ref=education

(By TAMAR LEWIN: NY Times: 4/11/2010)

NY Times: More Foreign Students Applying to Graduate Schools

2010-04-12T12:07:00.000-04:00

International applications to graduate programs in the United States increased by 7 percent this year, according to a report to be released Tuesday by the Council of Graduate Schools. Applications from abroad decreased sharply in 2003, 2004 and 2005. China, India and South Korea accounted for the majority of applications, and applications from China, India, the Middle East and Turkey grew by double-digit figures over last year. Applications to private institutions were up by 12 percent and applications to public institutions rose by 5 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/education/06brfs-MOREFOREIGNS_BRF.html

(By REBECCA RUIZ: NY Times: 4/5/2010 )

NYTimes: Obama Signs Overhaul of Student Loan Program

2010-03-31T10:49:00.001-04:00

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — President Obama signed legislation on Tuesday to expand college access for millions of young Americans by revamping the federal student loan program in what he called “one of the most significant investments in higher education since the G.I. Bill.”

Read the entire article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/us/politics/31obama.html?ref=education

(NYTimes: 3/30/2010)

Washington Post: House approves huge changes to student loan program

2010-03-22T14:45:00.000-04:00

Legislation hailed by supporters as the most significant change to college student lending in a generation passed the House on Sunday night.

The student aid initiative, which House Democrats attached to their final amendments to the health-care bill, would overhaul the student loan industry, eliminating a $60 billion program that supports private student loans with federal subsidies and replacing it with government lending to students. The House amendments will now go to the Senate.
...
Most of those savings, $36 billion, would go to Pell grants, funding an era of steady and predictable increases in the massive but underfunded federal aid program for needy students. Smaller portions would go toward reducing the deficit and to various Democratic priorities, including community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, and caps on loan payments.

The bill's greatest impact would fall on the more than 6 million students who rely on Pell grants to finance their education. Pell, launched in 1973, once covered more than two-thirds of total costs at a public university. It now covers about one-third.
...

Read the entire article.

(By Daniel de Vise: Washington Post: 3/22/2010)

GLOBAL: North America's postgraduate appeal wanes

2010-03-10T14:08:00.000-05:00

07 March 2010
Issue: 114

Europe is winning the battle to be the most popular region for postgraduate study, writes Michael Prest for The Independent. According to preliminary 2009 statistics compiled by QS, the private provider of higher education information services, North America has continued to slide in the esteem of prospective postgraduates. There has also been a noticeable increase in proportions studying international relations, communications and law, mainly at the expense of finance, accounting, management and economics subjects.

The analysis is based on information from the QS World Grad School Tour. The company takes universities wanting to attract postgraduates to student fairs it organises in about 60 cities around the world each year. The information is provided by prospective students who must register on the company's website and complete a questionnaire to attend a fair. QS has consistent data for the past four years, obtained from 40,000 to 60,000 students annually.

"We've noticed that Europe is becoming more popular," says David McClelland, senior operations manager at the QS World Grad School Tour. In general, 33.5% of postgraduate applicants preferred North America (the US and Canada), and 57% Europe in 2009, against 39% and 50% respectively in 2007. The trend is clear across most regions.

Full report on The Independent site

GLOBAL: Higher education budgets and the recession

2010-03-10T14:06:00.002-05:00

John Aubrey Douglass
07 March 2010
Issue: 114

In the midst of the global recession, how have national governments around the world viewed the role of higher education in their evolving strategies for economic recovery? Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns. Which nations have proactively protected funding for universities and colleges to help maintain access, to help retrain workers and to mitigate unemployment rates? And which nations have simply made large funding cuts for higher education in light of the severe downturn in tax revenues?

This essay, part of Research and Occasional Papers series published by the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California - Berkeley, provides a moment-in-time review of the fate of higher education among a number of OECD nations and other countries, with a particular focus on the United States and on California - the largest state in terms of population and in the size of its economy.

Preliminary indicators show that most nations are not resorting to uncoordinated and reactionary cutting of funding and reductions in access, such as we see in the US. Their political leaders see higher education as a key to both short-term economic recovery and long-term competitiveness.
...
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20100305110419654

US: Innovative website helps with study abroad

2010-03-10T14:05:00.000-05:00

Leah Germain
07 March 2010
Issue: 114

An internet-based service informing students how best to live and study abroad has released a '10 Step Guide' of advice, which universities could offer their foreign scholars. The founders of Boston-based Abroad101.com were inspired by the study abroad experience of childhood friends who realised the benefits of travelling and learning abroad while completing their university degree.

Adam Miller and Mike Stone developed the online service in 2007 as a database of information providing students, parents and universities with an all-inclusive port to evaluate, recommend and search for information on the various study abroad programmes offered by universities worldwide.

Their 10-point guide - now being promoted by their online blog - has practical steps that would-be overseas students can take. These are broken into logical sections such as the need to check their motivation for overseas studies; list requirements and restrictions; research courses based on their preferences; deal with immigration issues; secure funding; and so on.
...
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20100305110929772

CHINA-US: PhD students stay on

2010-03-10T14:03:00.002-05:00

Sarah King Head
07 March 2010
Issue: 114

More than nine in every 10 students from China who gained a doctorate in the United States in 2002 were still in the country in 2007, the highest percentage from any foreign nation. This compares with 62% of all foreign-born PhD recipients for that year, says a new report...

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20100305112257670

US: Increase access and affordability: task force

2010-03-10T14:02:00.000-05:00

07 March 2010
Issue: 114

American Vice President Joe Biden released the annual report of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class last month. The report said that among the most effective means of helping American families secure economic stability was increasing access and affordability to higher education.

The taskforce committee spent the past year researching ways to improve the living conditions of working and middle-class families.
...

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20100305112315748

RANKINGS 2: North America leaves Europe and Asia behind

2010-03-10T14:00:00.000-05:00

Rebecca Warden
07 March 2010
Issue: 114

North American academics are far more willing to share information and publish it online than their European equivalents. This is one of the factors contributing to the continuing dominance of North American universities in the latest edition of the Web Ranking of World Universities published by the Spanish National Research Council's Cybermetrics Lab.
...
American universities tend to do well in most of the higher education league tables but in the case of the web ranking they make an especially good showing, accounting for all but one of the world's top 34 higher education institutions.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20100305112451661

Wikipedia: Postgraduate Education

2010-03-10T13:57:00.000-05:00

Including information about being a graduate student in Argentina, Australia, Canada, UK and the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_student

Cost Of Medical School Rises In Recession

2010-03-10T13:46:00.000-05:00

March 9, 2010

A New Jersey family is struggling to pay for their daughter's medical school education. They know that the average doctor graduates with about $150,000 of student loans, and wonder how they're ever going to pay it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124501284

NPR: Students Return To Ala. University After Shooting

2010-02-22T23:19:00.000-05:00

February 22, 2010
by The Associated Press

Full story and photos:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123665070

There was no easing back into classes at the University of Alabama in Huntsville on Monday: Many students and teachers had to return to the building where three professors were gunned down more than a week ago.

Classes resumed on the campus where authorities and witnesses say Amy Bishop, a biology professor bitter over being denied tenure, opened fire in a small conference room, killing three colleagues and wounding three others.

Band members from nearby Oakwood University greeted the UAH students as they returned to campus, playing music and offering hugs.

Meagan Warner, a student walking into the Shelby Center for Science and Technology, said she appreciated the support.

"I have four classes in this building today, and it helps me feel at ease and that it's safe to be back on campus again," she said.

School administrators said the corner of the building where the slayings occurred remained off limits.

In Massachusetts, meanwhile, a former district attorney who is now a congressman said Monday it was a shame Bishop did not receive a mental evaluation after fatally shooting her younger brother in the family's kitchen in Braintree, Mass., in 1986. The killing was declared an accident and Bishop never faced charges.

Details about that case have emerged in the wake of the Alabama slayings. U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, a former prosecutor who oversaw the district where it happened, said state police working for his office weren't told that after Bishop shot her brother, she allegedly threatened two auto shop workers with the gun, demanding a car, or that she aimed the gun at police.

Had he known that, Delahunt said, his office would likely have sought weapons charges against Bishop and would "undoubtedly" have asked a judge to order her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

He would not speculate on whether that evaluation could have prevented the shootings in Alabama but said, "I think that opportunity was missed, and that to me is a profound tragedy in this case."

He said nothing contradicts the determination that the shooting was an accident.

The Harvard-educated Bishop, 45, remains jailed in Huntsville, charged with capital murder and attempted murder in the Feb. 12 shooting.

Police have not offered a motive, but colleagues say she had complained for months about being denied the job protections of tenure. Her attorney said she needs mental evaluations and is laying the groundwork for an insanity defense.

A few miles from the jail, students were just trying to get back to normal. Jonna Greer was excited to be going back to class. She and other students had huddled in a locked dormitory room to watch live television coverage of developments following the afternoon shooting.

"I feel the campus has been pulled together, and I've seen more blue on campus than I've ever seen before," said Greer, referring to the school color.

Killed in the shootings were Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences; and two professors, Adriel Johnson and Maria Ragland Davis. Two of the wounded remained hospitalized Monday, professor Joseph Leahy in critical condition and staffer Stephanie Monticciolo in serious condition.

President David B. Williams greeted students and faculty members as classes resumed.

"Clearly, our number one priority for today and for the rest of this semester is for our students to return to the classroom and ensure they remain current in their studies, including those who are graduating in May," he said in a statement.

Retired teachers and faculty members from the University of Alabama and the Hudson-Alpha Institute of Biotechnology helped to fill in for teachers lost in the shooting.

Counselors were in every biology classroom as well as other classes in the Shelby Center and every classroom building on campus.

Dan Sherman, a business professor, said he and colleagues decided during a staff meeting last week to begin the first day of class by offering students a chance to share their feelings about the shootings rather than diving right into academic lectures.

A few campus police were on hand, but officials decided against a big show of force.

———

Associated Press Writer Denise Lavoie in Boston contributed to this report.

Chronicle: Purdue Refocuses NSF Program to Send More Students to China

2010-02-16T13:24:00.000-05:00

During a trip to China last fall, President Obama made a bold pledge: to send 100,000 American students to China over the next four years.

Few details have been offered about how the United States, which currently sends about 13,000 students a year to China, would meet the ambitious objective. But one institution is positioning itself to help meet that goal. Purdue University has refashioned an existing grant from the National Science Foundation so that it will send engineering students to China this summer to conduct research.

(By Karin Fischer: Chronicle: 2/15/2010)

Read the Full Article.

Chronicle: Time Crunch for Female Scientists: They Do More Housework Than Men

2010-02-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

When the biologist Carol W. Greider received a call from Stockholm last fall telling her she had won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, she wasn't working in her lab at the Johns Hopkins University. The professor of molecular biology and genetics was at home, folding laundry.

Ms. Greider does many of the household chores, but she isn't alone. A number of her female colleagues also do more around the house than their male partners.

(By Jill Laster: Chronicle: 1/19/2010)

Read the Full Article.

Chronicle: College Presidents' Salaries

2010-02-16T13:08:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, The Chronicle reported that the salaries of public-university leaders continued to rise in 2007-8, with the median pay for chief executives in the survey reaching $436,111. (The highest-paid president, E. Gordon Gee at Ohio State University, made more than $1.5-million, the only president in the survey to top the million-dollar figure).

Although salaries of private-college presidents are considerably higher—and the rate of increase in the public sector has slowed, with some presidents even posting a decline in compensation—the latest figures have sparked outrage in these tough economic times when many campuses face extreme budgetary crises.

Are university presidents’ salaries too high? Or are they compensated appropriately? What constitutes a fair salary? The Chronicle asked a group of scholars and experts what they thought.

(Chronicle: 2/3/2010)

Read the full article.

NYTimes Book Review: The Way We Learn

2010-02-13T23:30:00.000-05:00

Louis Menand

In the four rigorously reasonable essays in “The Marketplace of Ideas,” Louis Menand takes up four questions about American higher education: “Why is it so hard to institute a general education curriculum? Why did the humanities disciplines undergo a crisis of legitimation? Why has ‘interdisciplinarity’ become a magic word? And why do professors all tend to have the same politics?”

Menand, a professor of English at Harvard and a staff writer for The New Yorker, offers answers notable in part for what they don’t contain: namely, the complaint that it’s all been downhill since 1970 because of feminism, multiculturalism, postmodernism, deconstruction and queer theory. Yes, humanities enrollments have declined since 1970, as have enrollments in the social and natural sciences. But as Menand points out, that’s partly because departments of business administration and computer science have drawn students away from all fields in the liberal arts and sciences and partly because the decades following World War II were anomalous in the history of American higher education — a “Golden Age” of tremendous expansion, when the number of undergraduates increased fivefold and the number of graduate students ninefold. To assess the American university by starting from 1970 is to take the high-water mark as if it were the mean.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/books/review/Berube-t.html

(By MICHAEL BÉRUBÉ: NY Times, 1/29/2010)

CGS: Graduate Education in the News

2010-02-08T14:16:00.000-05:00

Maintaining scientific integrity
In today’s issue of Science, National Academy of Sciences president Ralph Cicerone urges researchers to ensure that their work is transparent: “it is essential that the scientific community work urgently to make standards for analyzing, reporting, providing access to, and stewardship of research data operational…failure to make research data and related information accessible not only impedes science, it also breeds conflicts…Fortunately, an up-to-date guide to responsible conduct in research is now available.”
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5966/624 (sub. req.)

Quebec to offer international graduates citizenship “fast-track”
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week that Quebec’s premier announced that the province will begin to offer a “fast track” to Canadian citizenship to international students who graduate from its universities beginning later this month.
chronicle.com/article/Quebec-Offers-Fast-Tracked/63864 (sub. req.)

Expected cuts to science in the UK
The British science community is bracing for expected deep funding cuts amid a growing national debt, Nature reported last week. UK spending on research has grown steadily for the last ten years.
www.nature.com/news/2010/100127/full/463410a.html (sub. req.)

CGS: FLAS fellowships solicitation

2010-02-08T14:13:00.002-05:00

ED’s Office of Postsecondary Education is seeking applications for the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships Program for FY 10. The program provides allocations of fellowships to institutions of higher education to support undergraduate and graduate students training in modern foreign languages or related area studies. A competitive priority will be given to institutions that grant at least 25% of the fellowships to students studying one or more of 78 less commonly taught languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, Turkish and Vietnamese. An invitational priority will be given to applications that propose collaboration with professional schools to draw fellows seeking advanced language skills combined with study in fields such as business, public health, public policy and others. The stipend for graduate FLAS fellows for academic year 2010-2011 will be $15,000 with an additional $2,500 available for summer. The institutional payment for a graduate student will be $18,000 per academic year with an additional $5,000 for summer. Approximately $35.4 million will be available for FLAS fellowships in FY 10; an estimated 126 awards will be granted for 950 academic year fellowships and 900 summer fellowships.

More information is available at edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/2010-2185.htm

CGS: Public input on “grand challenges” sought

2010-02-08T14:12:00.000-05:00

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) asks for public input to help determine what the “grand challenges” in science and engineering of our time might be and how they could be addressed. The “Request for Information” (RFI) seeks input from the public regarding whether the grand challenges proposed by President Obama in his innovation strategy are the right ones; they include challenges related to health research, renewable energy, education, and computing. The RFI is also seeking additional challenges to consider, partners who may be interested in collaborating to solve one or more challenges, and “models for creating an “architecture of participation” that allows many individuals and organizations to contribute” to solving these grand challenges. Submissions are due April 15 via email to challenge@ostp.gov.

More information is available in PDF format at: whitehouse.gov/grandchallenge-final.pdf.

CGS: EPA, USDA and DHS FY11 Budget Updates

2010-02-08T14:10:00.000-05:00

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Under the President’s budget request, EPA’s Research Fellowships program would receive $17.3 million, over 50% more than FY 10’s enacted level of $11.1 million. Within that amount, there is a $6 million increase specifically for Science to Achieve Results (STAR) graduate fellowships, bringing funding up to $14 million. This level will allow EPA to fund 120 continuing fellows and bring in an additional 240 new fellows in “top priority” areas such as climate and clean air issues, green infrastructure, and $2 million allocated specifically towards nanotechnology fellowships.

More information is available in PDF format at: epa.gov/ocfo/budget/2011/2011bib.pdf

Department of Agriculture (USDA)
USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, formerly the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, would receive $3.859 million for graduate fellowships, the same as in FY 10.

More information is available in PDF format at: whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2011/agr.pdf

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Funding for DHS’s University Programs account would decrease $9 million from the $49 million appropriated in FY 10, leaving $40 million. According to budget documents, this will cut $600,000 from the scholarships and fellowships offered within the University Program and mean elimination of one or more Centers of Excellence (COEs) at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).

More information is available in PDF format at: dhs.gov/budget_bib_fy2011.pdf

(CGS: 2/5/2010)

CGS: DOD, DOE and NASA FY11 Budget Updates

2010-02-08T14:08:00.000-05:00

Department of Energy (DoE)
The Administration’s budget proposal includes an increase of nearly $2 billion over FY 10 for DoE. The Office of Science would see an increase of nearly $218 million or 4.4%, to $5.1 billion. Also within the Office of Science, the budget calls for the following:

High energy physics: $829 million, an increase of $18.5 million, or about 2%;
Nuclear physics: $562 million, an increase of about $27 million, or 5%;
Basic energy sciences: approximately $1.83 billion, an increase of nearly $200 million, or 12%;
Workforce development for teachers and scientists: $35.6 million, an increase of $14.9 million, or 72%.

The proposed Regaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge (RE-ENERGYSE) program that President Obama announced last year but which Congress did not fund and expressed concerns about, would receive $55 million through DoE. $50 million would be allocated to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, of which $35 million would be designated for the “higher education subprogram. An additional $5 million would be used by the Office of Nuclear Energy to support “competitively-selected merit-based one-year undergraduate scholarships and three-year graduate degree fellowships to M.S. and Ph.D. students enrolled in nuclear, science, engineering, and related fields at U.S. universities.”

DoE budget documents are available at: energy.gov/about/budget.htm

Department of Defense (DoD)
DoD’s National Defense Education Program (NDEP), which offers among other things, scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students in STEM fields who commit to work for DoD after receiving their degree, would receive a 38% increase from $79 million in FY 10 to nearly $110 million in FY 11. According to the budget justification, in 2009, “260 new undergraduate and graduate students were supported. Approximately 75 Science, Mathematics And Research for Transformation (SMART) participants who earned a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree transitioned into employment in a DoD laboratory or component.”

More information is available at: comptroller.defense.gov/Budget2011.html

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
NASA would see an increase to $19 billion if the President’s budget request is followed, putting it on track to increase by $6 billion over five years. NASA’s Science Directorate would see a 12% increase to $5 billion but its Education account would see a decrease from $183 million to $146 million. That level is sustained in the budget through 2015.

According to budget documents “NASA will continue to support projects that seek to: (1) strengthen the Nation's future STEM workforce through a portfolio of initiatives for students at all levels, especially underserved and underrepresented communities; (2) attract and retain students in STEM disciplines and encourage their pursuit of higher education in disciplines critical to NASA's scientific and technical needs; and (3) engage Americans in NASA's mission by building strategic partnerships and linkages.”

More information is available at: nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html

(CGS: 2/5/2010)

CGS: FY11 ECA, NEH and NEA Budget Updates

2010-02-08T14:06:00.000-05:00

Department of State
The budget for the State Department’s Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) Academic Programs account would receive a small decrease in FY 11, according to the Administration’s budget request. With a funding level of $357 million, it is about $2 million less than the amount appropriated in FY 10. Within that account, the Fulbright Program would see a slight decrease from $253 million to $252 million. Regional graduate fellowships would remain flat at $22.6 million.

More information is available at: state.gov/s/d/rm/c6112.htm

National Endowments for the Humanities (NEH) and Arts (NEA)
Both NEH and NEA would receive $161 million under the President’s budget request in FY 11. NEH would set aside $16 million for research, about $800,000 less than that appropriated in FY 10, and $14.8 million for education programs, a similar decrease. In FY 11, NEH also intends to partner with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) “to sustain and extend AAAS's developmental work on the Humanities Indicators project.”

Budget details for NEH are available at: neh.gov/news/archive/20100201.html

CGS: NIH and NSF Budget Updates

2010-02-08T14:04:00.000-05:00

National Science Foundation (NSF)
The Administration’s proposed budget would increase NSF spending by 8% overall. The agency’s budget request lists Graduate Research Fellowships (GRF) as one of “four key Administration priority programs;” the President has committed to tripling the number of fellows by 2013. The GRF program would increase by 16% over FY10. However, two other graduate education programs would see declines: IGERT would be cut by 10.7% and GK-12 would be cut by 2.7%. NSF would contribute $19 million to the joint RE-ENERGYSE program with DOE.

NSF budget documents are available at: nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2011/index.jsp

National Institutes of Health (NIH)
NIH would see an increase of $1 billion from $31 billion to $32 billion, or 3% over the enacted FY 10 appropriations level. The $10 billion in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or stimulus bill) is not included in the budget baseline. Funding for the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) program would increase by over $41 million from $783 million to $824 million, or about 5%. In FY 10, the NRSA program will fund 17,164 full-time training positions (FTTP); 3,086 individual awards and 14,078 institutional awards, which is 92 fewer than last year. Student stipends are increased 6% which accounts for the reduction in FTTP numbers over last year despite the funding increase.

Budget details for NIH are available at: officeofbudget.od.nih.gov

(CGS: 2/5/2010)

CGS: Department of Education Budget Update

2010-02-08T14:02:00.000-05:00

The proposed ED budget would restructure and consolidate a number of programs but would leave intact most higher education programs. It does, though, presume the passage of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which would eliminate the bank-based guaranteed student loan program and restructure Perkins Loans. Of specific interest to the graduate education community:

Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) and the Javits Fellowship programs would both be flat funded: GAANN at $31 million and $9.7 million for Javits. The Department estimates it will fund 218 Javits and 702 GAANN fellowships, but there will not be a competition for new GAANN awards in 2011.
The McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, part of TRIO, would also be flat-funded, at $47.6 million.
The Strengthening Historically Black Graduate Institutions program would see a 5% increase, to $64.5 million.
Masters degree programs for HBCUs and Predominantly Black Institutions would receive the $11.5 million mandated by the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA).
The Promoting Postbaccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans program would receive both the HEOA-mandated $11.5 million and an appropriated $10.5 million, as it did in FY10.
The overall budget for the Fund for Improvement in Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) would decline due to the elimination of funding for earmarks, which totaled $101.5 million in 2010. FIPSE’s Comprehensive program would shrink by 25%, to $20.7million, but the Department proposes a new $25 million undergraduate STEM program and a 20% increase, to $12.4 million, for international consortia.
International Education and Foreign Language programs, which include Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships and Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad, would be flat-funded.

ED’s full budget request is available at: www2.ed.gov/about/budget11/index.html

(CGS: 2/5/2010)

Sloan Consortium: Growth in online learning

2010-01-29T15:47:00.002-05:00

A survey released this week by the Sloan Consortium reports that over a quarter of postsecondary students took at least one class online in fall 2008, an increase of 17% over 2007. Only 14% were graduate-level courses. The survey also found that over two-thirds of institutions believe that their faculty do not accept the value of online learning, but that over 80% offer some type of training or mentoring for faculty teaching online.

www.sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/pdf/learningondemand.pdf

CGS: Opportunity: Seeking proposals

2010-01-29T15:45:00.000-05:00

NSF is seeking applications for the Cyberinfrastructure Training, Education, Advancement, and Mentoring for Our 21st Century Workforce (CI-TEAM) Program. CI-TEAM projects feature collaboration between students, faculty, and nonacademic stakeholders; suggested project ideas include developing faculty expertise to use cyberinfrastructure effectively, designing new learning programs for students to integrate cyber-related tools into the learning process, and sharing best practices in building and maintaining cyberinfrastructure and training the field’s workforce. Three types of CI-TEAM awards will be made: Demonstration (exploratory in nature), Implementation (larger in scope), and Diffusion (broad, national outreach). CI-TEAM proposals are expected to emphasize the involvement of traditionally underrepresented groups. NSF will support 6 or 7 Demonstration Projects at up to $250,000 total each, and 3 to 6 Implementation or Diffusion Projects at up to $1,000,000 each. Proposals are due by April 27.

More information is available at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10532

CGS: Stay rates for S&E doctorates

2010-01-29T15:44:00.000-05:00

A new report produced for NSF by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education studied the “stay rate” of foreign-born recipients of U.S. doctorates in science and engineering (S&E). It concludes that “stay rates have not increased much in recent years but they have never been higher.” Ten years after graduating, 60% were still working in the U.S., a new high. The one-year stay rate for 2006 S&E graduates was 73%, mirroring NSF’s own Survey of Earned Doctorates from that year, which reported the same ratio for all new doctoral recipients intended to remain in the U.S. (The proportion has increased slightly since then, to 74% in 2008.) The analysis found that stay rates differ by several factors, including discipline, country of origin, and programs’ national ranking.

The report is available in PDF format at: http://orise.orau.gov/sep/pubs.htm

CGS: Congressional Update: Export Reform

2010-01-29T15:42:00.000-05:00

Officials from the Departments of Defense, Commerce, and State met with House and Senate leaders on Wednesday, where they discussed plans to reform the current U.S. export system for technology, according to CongressDaily. Participants included Brent Scowcroft, who co-chaired the National Research Council committee that produced “Beyond Fortress America: National Security Controls on Science and Technology in a Globalized World” a year ago. That report called for restructuring U.S. national security controls relating to science and technology, and potentially easing “deemed export” restrictions (relating to when data or technology is shared with a foreign national–for example a graduate student—and therefore deemed exported)

Chronicle: Colleges Look for New Ways to Help Women in Science

2010-01-27T15:05:00.000-05:00

Eve Riskin (second from right), who directs the U. of Washington's efforts to support female scientists and engineers, with colleagues from the university's Center for Institutional Change
(Photo credit: Daniel Sheehan for The Chronicle)

After federal grants end, programs for female professors get creative

When Linsey C. Marr was pregnant, she worried that temporarily scaling back her workload once her baby arrived could be perceived badly.

"I didn't want it to seem as if I was asking for a special favor from the department," says Ms. Marr, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, who gave birth to a boy, Jasper, in 2007.

But a new "modified duties" policy let Ms. Marr take a break from the classroom for the spring 2008 semester and still receive full pay. She became a teaching mentor to an engineering Ph.D. student, observing him in the classroom and giving written feedback. Ms. Marr's own class was taught by an instructor who was paid with money her department received from the institution.

"They put their money where their mouth was," Ms. Marr says.

The policy, but not the money, came out of a federal grant program designed to help institutions attract, retain, and promote more female scientists and engineers—a perennial problem. Since grant money doesn't last forever, Virginia Tech and other colleges have had to find cash—often their own—to sustain the momentum.

(By Audrey Williams June: Chronicle of Higher Education: 1/24/2010)

Read the full article

University World News: International student security

2010-01-25T09:46:00.000-05:00

International education as a national activity

An Australian higher education researcher gave a keynote address last week at the World Universities Forum in Switzerland, on the importance of ensuring the security of international students as global mobility grows, and added: “The global recession…has also led to cuts in international programmes. But perhaps less than might have been expected. In the past a sudden increase in cost pressures would have taken international activity right out, because international activity was marginal to nationally defined activity. Not now.”

(By Simon Marginson: University World News: 1/17/2010)

www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20100114185440897

NatureNews: 'Big science' spurs collaborative trend

2010-01-25T09:40:00.001-05:00

International research collaborations

Last week’s Nature takes a closer look at one of the trends presented in Science and Engineering Indicators 2010: the growth of collaborative research. The article notes that U.S. scientists do less international collaboration than their European and Asian peers but posits that this is due to the extent of intra-national partnerships.

Complicated projects mean that science is becoming ever more globalized — and Europe is leading the way.

It has never been a more fruitful time for collaborations with foreign scientists, and the European Union (EU) is leading the pack. Spurred by funding policies, half of EU research articles had international co-authors in 2007, more than twice the level of two decades ago, according to a major report released last week by the US National Science Foundation.

The EU level of international co-authorship is about twice that of the United States, Japan and India, but levels in these countries are rising — a sign of the continued allure of working across borders. "The phenomenon is across disciplines," says Loet Leydesdorff, a science-metrics expert at the University of Amsterdam. "You can find it everywhere."

(By Eric Hand: NatureNews: 1/20/2010)

Read the full article:
www.nature.com/news/2010/100120/full/463282a.html (sub. req.)

Inside Higher Ed: Blasting Academic Silos

2010-01-25T09:35:00.000-05:00

A Mid-Atlantic Educause conference session on “academic silos” last week discussed how the “strong college” structural model of universities can hinder interdisciplinary scholarship, Inside Higher Ed reported. American University vice provost Rosemary Wander is quoted. (1/18/2010)

www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/18/silos

Inside Higher Ed: Putting the Ph.D.'s to Work

2010-01-25T09:34:00.000-05:00

Ph.D. international service corps

In a column in Inside Higher Ed from January 21, 2010, George Washington University president emeritus Stephen Joel Trachtenberg proposed a national program for new humanities and social sciences Ph.D.s who can’t find work in their field. He proposes that volunteers, after training and achieving fluency in a foreign language, would be sent overseas to teach and work in civil programs in developing nations, working as cultural ambassadors, and could return to work in the federal government.

(By Stephen Joel Trachtenberg: Inside Higher Ed: 1/21/2010)

www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/01/21/trachtenberg

US Department of State Fall 2010 Student Internship Program

2010-01-25T09:23:00.000-05:00

The US Department of State is pleased inform you that we are now accepting applications for the Fall 2010 Student Internship Program.

Please click here (http://careers.state.gov/students/programs.html#SIP) for more information, and to view the vacancy on USAJobs and start the online application process. Please note that the deadline to submit completed applications is March 04, 2010.

Applicant must be a U.S. citizen and a student in good academic standing in order to be eligible. Please read the vacancy announcement for all eligibility requirements.

Congressional Budget Office

CBO internships offer candidates with preparation in economics, public policy/administration, health policy, mathematics, engineering, physics, or other disciplines related to our mission:

Short-term work experience on the federal budget process, and policymaking,
Ten-week summer internships with flexible start and end dates,
Opportunity to work alongside leaders in economic analysis,
Opportunity to participate in educational opportunities on Capitol Hill,
The dynamic environment of one of the world’s premier cities, and
Competitive compensation.

The application process is handled entirely through our Web site. Detailed information about the internship program and how to apply is on CBO’s Web site at www.cbo.gov/employment/intern.cfm. The Internship Program is geared toward graduate students but exceptional students currently in their junior or senior undergraduate year may apply.

CBO will also staff a Health Policy Intern position during the summer. Graduate students with a health focus should select the Health and Human Resources as their first division for consideration on the application. I have attached a publicity flyer for posting and distribution and a page featuring our 2009 CBO interns, which was published in Roll Call, one of the most widely read publications on Capitol Hill.

US National Central Bureau of Interpol

An Internship with the USNCB offers a unique and exciting experience that provides excellent insight into the world of criminal justice and law enforcement. A USNCB intern not only learns about INTERPOL and the world of international law enforcement, but also learns about the many different agencies and jurisdictions involved in law enforcement in the United States. By working with agents at USNCB, interns will:Gain knowledge of the criminal justice system and its domestic and international scope, impact, and mechanisms.

Gain exposure to a wide variety of federal, state, and local law enforcement entities and their inter-relationships.
Learn about the various types of law enforcement careers available and how to pursue them.
Understand the national and international impact of crime.
Learn about extradition and mutual assistance treaties, agreements, statutes, etc. that facilitate and/or affect international law enforcement cooperation.
Become aware about issues affecting international criminal investigations and humanitarian assistance.
Gain the ability to analyze and summarize complex criminal activities.
Acquire educationally-related work experience: Upon request, and to the extent possible, the USNCB will coordinate with educational institutions to ensure duties performed during internships merit college accreditation.

An intern would be assigned to one of the USNCB’s six divisions:Alien and Fugitive Investigative Division

Drug Investigative Division
Economic Crimes Investigative Division
INTERPOL Operations and Command Center
Terrorism and Violent Crimes Division
State and Local Police Liaison Division

Interns who serve in the six divisions assist with the processing of routine criminal record-check requests. This entails researching extracted data though applicable computer systems, logging and indexing data into a computerized information system, collating pertinent case material into working files, and preparing outgoing correspondence. Occasionally, internships are available in the Office of the Director and the Executive Office, and the translation unit of the INTERPOL Operations and Command Center. For the former, proficient writing skills are required. For the latter, proficiency in the translation of Spanish or French is required.

This is a full time, unpaid internship. The USNCB will not provide housing. Although full time positions are preferred, part time positions will be considered on an individual basis, determined by the needs of the organization and case by case consideration of the student.

The USNCB is currently seeking to fill several Internship positions. Qualified applicants will be:

Seeking a degree or career in Criminal Justice, Political Science, or a language-related degree (Spanish or French preferred).
Internships in the Office of the Director and Executive Office are suitable for those who are seeking degrees in Public Administration, Finance, Business Management, Computer Science, Information Systems or Information Management, and other related fields.
Knowledgeable about a variety of computers and office machines.
Proficient with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Microsoft SharePoint.
Have strong writing skills.

To apply for an internship, please submit a cover letter indicating the desired time period for your internship, your resume, and a short (one or two pages) writing sample to the following address:

U.S. Department of Justice
INTERPOL- USNCB
Attn: Intern Coordinator
Washington, DC 20530
Applications submitted via the internet will not be considered.

Submission Deadlines:

Fall Semester - Resumes must be received by the third Friday in June
Spring Semester - Resumes must be received by the third Friday in October
Summer Semester - Resumes must be received by the third Friday in March

Intern applicants must undergo drug testing and a police record check. Both must be successfully adjudicated before appointments are offered.

If you have questions regarding an internship with the USNCB please contact: Linde Pusateri, Intern Liaison, Phone: (202) 353-0018. We look forward to working with you.

Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC) – Summer Fellowship

PERC'S fellowships for graduate students and law students offer the ideal opportunity for those who are interested in researching issues related to natural resources and the environment.

Graduate fellows spend three months at PERC in Bozeman, Montana, researching and writing a paper under the supervision of a PERC senior fellow. While there, fellows are required to present two to three seminars to outline, report on, and summarize their research findings. A paper of publishable quality is the expected result.

Fellows receive a monthly stipend of $1,600 in addition to reimbursement for reasonable domestic round trip travel expenses to Montana.

At the end of each year, the author of the best paper produced by that year's group of fellows is awarded a $250 honorarium. In addition, $250 is awarded to the person who referred the fellow to PERC.

Please see the following website for more information:
http://www.perc.org/enviroprog/students/grad/basics.php

Salon: I live in a van down by Duke University

2010-01-19T13:15:00.000-05:00

How do I afford grad school without going into debt? A '94 Econoline, bulk food and creative civil disobedience. Photo by Ken Ilgunas.

By Ken Ilgunas

I was lying on the floor of my van where the middle pilot chairs used to be, trying to hide from view. This is it, I thought. They know. I'm going to get kicked out of Duke.

Moments before, I had been cooking a pot of spaghetti stew on top of a plastic, three-drawer storage container, which held all my food and my few meager possessions. I figured the campus security guard had parked next to me because he spotted the blue flame from my propane stove through the van's tinted windows and shades...

Read the entire story.

(Salon: 1/19/2010)

NatureNews: Shorter NIH grant form launches

2010-01-15T16:01:00.000-05:00

Reduced paperwork gets a mixed response.

For many, a new year means a fresh round of paperwork, but in the United States this year many biomedical researchers have something of a reprieve. The length of applications for most grants at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — including mainstay 'R01' grants — has been slashed by more than half, from 25 pages to 12.

(By Meredith Wadman: NatureNews: 1/6/2010)

Read the full article.

FT: Tories plan to tighten foreign student visas

2010-01-15T15:59:00.000-05:00

Foreign students seeking to enter the UK from countries such as Pakistan, India, China and Nigeria would be singled out for extra scrutiny by border officials under new immigration policies outlined by the Tories.

Responding to evidence of widespread abuse of the student visa system, Chris Grayling, shadow home secretary, said an incoming Conservative government would also ask many overseas students to pay cash deposits worth thousands of pounds, to be returned only when they left the country.

(By James Boxell, Home Affairs Correspondent: Financial Times: 1/6/2010)

Read the full article.

NYTimes: Fighting Trend, China Is Luring Scientists Home

2010-01-15T15:56:00.001-05:00

Shi Yigong resigned from the faculty of Princeton University and became the dean of life sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

BEIJING — Scientists in the United States were not overly surprised in 2008 when the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland awarded a $10 million research grant to a Princeton University molecular biologist, Shi Yigong.

Dr. Shi’s cell studies had already opened a new line of research into cancer treatment. At Princeton, his laboratory occupied an entire floor and had a $2 million annual budget.
The surprise — shock, actually — came a few months later, when Dr. Shi, a naturalized American citizen and 18-year resident of the United States, announced that he was leaving for good to pursue science in China. He declined the grant, resigned from Princeton’s faculty and became the dean of life sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing. (By SHARON LaFRANIERE: NYTimes: 1/6/2010)

Read the full article.

Xinhua: Record-high number of Chinese flock to post-graduate exam

2010-01-15T15:53:00.001-05:00

Candidates of the 2010 national entrance exam for postgraduate studies wait to enter the exam room in Qingdao University in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, Jan. 9, 2010. Approximately 1.4 million apply for the 2010 national entrance exam for postgraduate studies, up 13 percent compared to the last year.(Xinhua/Li Ziheng)

BEIJING, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's three-day national post-graduate examination started Saturday, attracting 1.4 million registered applicants in total, a record high number since 2001 and a 13 percent increase over 2009.

The candidates would compete for 465,000 seats, which means around one in every three examinees would succeed. (Xinhua: 1/9/2010)

Read the full article.

NYTimes: Recession Spurs Interest in Graduate, Law Schools

2010-01-15T15:47:00.000-05:00

It took longer than some experts expected, but the recession and the resulting shortage of good jobs have spurred a jump in applications to law schools and a growing interest in graduate programs.

The number of people taking the Law School Admissions Test, for example, rose 20 percent in October, compared with October 2008, reaching an all-time high of 60,746. And the number of Americans who took the Graduate Record Examination in 2009 rose 13 percent, to a record 670,000, compared with the year before, according to the Educational Testing Service, which administers the test. The increase is a sharp reversal from 2008, when the number fell 2 percent even though the recession was already under way.

(By REBECCA R. RUIZ: NYTimes: 1/9/2010)

Read full article.

Inside Higher Ed: Ph.D. Supply and Demand

2010-01-15T15:39:00.001-05:00

SAN DIEGO -- As history graduate students arrived in the large table-filled ballroom here Friday to try to learn how to find a job, the room was seriously overheated. These would-be professors didn't need any more sweat or discomfort.

The temperature was adjusted, but the challenges facing those on the job market were an undercurrent here throughout the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. Attendance was down, in no small part because history job openings are way down, so far fewer departments are doing interviews at the meeting. While the graduate students here talked strategy and hoped to pick up leads on positions or how to make themselves more marketable, many professors were talking about whether doctoral programs should change -- both in light of the tight job market and out of larger concerns about graduate education. (Inside Higher Ed: 1/11/2010)

Read the full article.

Chronicle: Life With Tenure: Not What You Think

2010-01-12T16:46:00.000-05:00

What happens to university professors after they get tenure? Here are two popular images:

Image No. 1: They spend little time in their classrooms, laboratories, and offices. They are less accountable—and less connected—to their students, colleagues, fields of study, and professions than they were before tenure. They relax, maybe too much.

Image No. 2: Although they are free and unfettered to do research, write, and think as intellectuals, few professors live up to that enviable possibility. Many tire out, burn out, or opt out. They are detached from the scholarly work for which they were tenured. As such, their contributions to their students and society decline.

Those images reflect at least one valid assumption: To be a teacher and scholar, one must have something to teach and study—a set of ideas worthy of students' attention, a subject to understand deeply. I do not dispute that. But I do dispute the message that both images communicate: that what professors teach and study dissipates as they gain tenure. (By Anna Neumann: Chronicle of Higher Education: 1/10/2010)

Chronicle subscribers: read full article online

Graduate students without subscriptions: you should be able to find a copy of the Chronicle in your department or at the library.

CGS: President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) Update

2010-01-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) met yesterday; the council makes policy recommendations on areas where understanding of science, technology and innovation is key to strengthening our economy. The council’s current focus is an effort to restore U.S. leadership in science, discovery and innovation. At the meeting, several Administration officials, including Dr. Kristina Johnson, Under Secretary of Energy, discussed their work. Dr. Johnson highlighted her department’s efforts to attract top talent to STEM fields, noting that 40-60% of the energy workforce will retire over the next six years. The agency is working to develop plans and strategies focused on education including graduate fellowships, post-doctoral fellowships and a Master’s initiative in Energy Management to ensure the future workforce can meet demands. Some members of PCAST commented that funding to universities should be increased in order to better align universities’ research to the country’s needs and strengthen career pathways for students.

Gary Locke, Secretary of Commerce, also addressed the meeting. His remarks focused on saving and creating jobs. He expressed concern for the U.S. “innovation system” and called for allocating more federal dollars to research and development, and developing improved policies and strategies for getting new ideas and innovations out to the market place. He also advocated that the U.S. develop a national energy policy.

More information about PCAST is available at: ostp.gov/cs/pcast

(Council of Graduate Schools: CGS Mailer: 1/11/2010)

NYTimes: Schwarzenegger Seeks Shift From Prisons to Schools

2010-01-08T16:02:00.000-05:00

SACRAMENTO — With his state strapped and his legacy looming, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed on Wednesday to greatly reduce the amount of money California spends on its prisons and to funnel that sum to the state’s higher education system instead. (1/7/2010)

Read Full Article

NYTimes: A New Look for Graduate Entrance Test

2010-01-05T23:46:00.002-05:00

After two false starts, the Graduate Record Exam, the graduate school entrance test, will be revamped and slightly lengthened in 2011 and graded on a new scale of 130 to 170.

The Educational Testing Service, which administers the G.R.E., described its plans Friday at the annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools in San Francisco, calling the changes “the largest revisions” in the history of the test.

Read Full Article

From the ETS Web Site:
ETS Personal Potential Index

Chronicle: Needed: a National Strategy to Preserve Public Research Universities

2010-01-05T23:45:00.000-05:00

By Paul N. Courant, James J. Duderstadt, and Edie N. Goldenberg

Public research universities are the backbone of advanced education and research in the United States. They enroll the majority of college students regardless of socioeconomic circumstances, produce the greatest number of scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, and other learned professionals, and conduct most of the nation's academic research. They are committed to public engagement in every area where knowledge and expertise can make a difference: agricultural extension, economic development, clinical care, the list goes on. (January 3, 2010)

Read Full Article

Chronicle: Advice: Dodging the Anvil: Job Market in the Humanities

2010-01-05T23:40:00.000-05:00

From the Chronicle of Higher Education

By Thomas H. Benton

The job market in the humanities this year reminds me of those old Road Runner cartoons. Wile E. Coyote, a self-proclaimed "super genius," is devising some elaborate plan to catch his dinner, usually involving the creative use of Acme products, but instead of dining on Road Runner, he falls off a 1,000-foot cliff, suspended in midair just long enough to realize his fate. As he lies on the desert floor, flattened like a pancake, Coyote looks up and sees that a large anvil is about to fall on his head. The Road Runner makes his "beep beep" noise, and the cartoon ends. (January 4, 2010)

Read Full Article

Chronicle: Deans Advise Research Universities to Prepare for Postdoc Unions

2010-01-05T23:38:00.000-05:00

Research universities should prepare for the possibility that postdoctoral researchers will work to form unions by developing consistent policies on how postdocs are treated and establishing student support groups as alternatives to unions, a panel of deans said on Thursday at the annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools...

Read more