Menfolks

A Chronicle investigation of 618 private colleges found that one-fourth of them have financial ties with trustees' companies. Below are some examples of common business connections, based on disclosures that colleges made on their 2008 federal tax forms.

* NOTE: Percentage of higher-education money from stimulus: FY09-10...

When Harry van der Linden, chair of the philosophy and religion department at Butler University, in Indianapolis, was browsing a registry of endowed funds last fall, he made a curious find: a chair in New Testament studies that had not been filled in over half a century. Immediately, James F. McGrath, an associate professor of religion who blogs about biblical studies, came to mind.

Mr. McGrath, 37, was installed...

At first, James A. Nienow was skeptical of the idea. Why should instructors give students academic credit for something they had done outside a classroom?

Mr. Nienow, a biology professor at Valdosta State University, in Georgia, teaches an introductory course that freshmen call "biology boot camp." Known as a tough grader, he likes to peer through microscopes and work with data.

In other words, Mr. Nienow felt out of place when he attended his first meeting on experiential...

A classroom at St. Olaf College has a role in the latest film by Joel and Ethan Coen.

The small Minnesota college had just what the filmmakers needed for A Serious Man: a 1960s-style lecture hall where their main character, a physics professor, could teach. St. Olaf's Science Center 282 fit the bill and, to boot, the building was empty because of renovations. The classroom also had stadium-style seats and a wall-spanning chalkboard, against which the professor gets his head...

When the University of Mississippi abandoned its on-field mascot, in 2003, administrators probably expected students to push for a replacement like the tigers or alligators of rival teams. They certainly did not expect a campaign for Admiral Ackbar, the alien commander of the rebel alliance in Star Wars.

But that is just what some students are proposing as the new symbol of the Ole Miss Rebels.

Administrators did away with the previous mascot, Colonel Reb, an...

Forget baking cookies. Forget writing a glowing teacher evaluation. Angelica Chavez wanted to do a little something extra to celebrate her favorite public-administration professor, Michael Clarke.

So when the former student at California State University at San Bernardino gained her U.S. citizenship, in 2001, she became Angelica Chavez Clarke.

No, they're not married, Ms. Clarke is quick to point out. She didn't get the professor's permission to adopt...

As the chancellor of Nevada's higher-education system faced yet another round of budget cuts last month, he said he had no reason to make misleading claims that "the sky is falling" on public colleges in his state. The truth, he said, is that it is.

"The reality is so ugly that what seems exaggeration merges with fact," the chancellor, Daniel Klaich, wrote in a public memorandum.

Weeks later state lawmakers approved a 6.9-percent midyear cut for higher education, a reduction...

The anthropologist David Turkon first visited Lesotho in 1987 to study economic and political change. However, as the AIDS pandemic reached the region, the Ithaca College associate professor decided to apply what he had learned about the country to study AIDS there. Now, as chair of the AIDS and Anthropology Research Group, an organization within the American Anthropological Association, Mr. Turkon pushes policy makers to rely more on anthropological research to combat AIDS...

Maybe you're a professor who wants to use a chunk of copyrighted material in your course this spring. Or perhaps you're a librarian or an academic publisher. If so, the much-followed Google Book Search settlement is not the only legal case you need to be watching. A federal case involving publishers and a state-university system, Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton et al., should produce a ruling soon, and its stakes are high.

First, a little history. In the spring of...

The growing global clout of China, India, and their Asian neighbors has American business and political leaders looking to the East.

But that orientation isn't reflected in study-abroad numbers. Just 11 percent of American college students who go overseas choose an Asian country. Europe remains the preferred destination, drawing more than half of all study-abroad students.

"In some ways, the media is doing a better job getting the American general public to pay attention to...

As the NCAA men's basketball tournament tips off this week, there's nearly as much buzz around what's happening off the court as the association considers renegotiating its longtime television partnership and expanding the field of teams.

The moves could be felt far beyond the 65 programs vying for the championship. If the tournament format expands, the association might be able to win more money for its television rights. And more teams from outside the traditional power conferences...

Dennis M. Kratz is a big booster of the University of Texas at Dallas's Emerging Media and Communication program here.

The arts-and-humanities dean might be surprised to find out that he is also one of the first targets of a tech craze running rampant among its students.

The fad is a free social-networking and mapping game for smartphones called Foursquare. One savvy prankster recently used it to leave some virtual graffiti on the spot of Mr. Kratz's office: Watch out for...

When a college cuts a contract with a company linked to one of its trustees, you won't typically...

Trustees are a university's ultimate decision makers. Whether approving a building project or directing endowment money, they profoundly affect everyone on the campus. In making those choices, trustees are supposed to be concerned only with what is best for the institution.

But what happens when a trustee also has a business relationship with the university?

A Chronicle investigation of 618 private colleges found that one in four have financial ties with...