University news from the West

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IHEs Spend Lots Of Money On The Wrong Things
If colleges were spending most of their money on initiatives that improve the quality of education for students, you might regard price hikes running at two to four times the rate of inflation as a necessary evil. But spending on palatial dorms, state-of-the-art fitness centers and a panoply of gourmet dining options? Maybe not. Colleges could help ease the pressure by adopting cost-containment practices that are standard in private business. But most schools are nonprofits. And without the pressure to produce earnings, they have little incentive to slash expenses or improve productivity. Says Ron Ehrenberg, an economics professor at Cornell University and author of "Tuition Rising": "For nonprofits the goal is to raise all the money you can, then spend it."

Campuses Going Green But Less So In The Curriculum steven bell
The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) on Aug. 21 released its own ratings of American colleges and universities — based not on selectivity, but on greenness. The results are a bit surprising. For all the attention that environmental causes have garnered over the past several years, the NWF found that sustainability-related education offered on campuses stayed steady between 2001 and 2008 — and might even have declined. While U.S. schools have done well in greening their campuses — rare is the day that passes without a college announcing a new green building or program for energy efficiency — colleges are lacking when it comes to sustainable education.


India Plans New Accreditation Body for Colleges of Business and Engineering
India plans to create a separate accreditation body for engineering and business colleges in response to complaints that the current situation, in which the same panel serves as regulator and accreditor, is open to corruption and fails to ensure academic quality, the higher-education secretary told an industry lobbying group last week, according to the business newspaper Mint.

Federal Spending on Academic Research Continued Downward Trend in 2007
Washington — Total spending on academic scientific research grew slightly in 2007 even as the the subtotal financed by the federal government fell, after inflation was factored in, according to a new report. Colleges and other providers made up the difference from their own pockets — but they weren’t happy about it. The federal government is the largest source of funds for academic research, and the 2007 fiscal year represented the second straight year of decline after inflation, according to the report, which was issued by the National Science Foundation. The federal total was $30.44-billion, a net drop of 1.6 percent compared with 2006. Such a two-year decline had never before occurred since the NSF began tracking those figures, in 1972.


Cleaning up the act By Tariq Tahir
Academic fraud in Britain is endemic, but universities continue to argue the case for self-regulation. America and Denmark have tougher regimes in place, so should we follow their lead?

Oiling the learning machine By John Gill
The huge expansion of higher education in the Gulf offers major opportunities for UK academe. But there are also challenges


Next Steps for E-Texts With slew of new announcements and partnerships, some publishers, colleges and even bookstores seem poised to offer e-textbooks as a serious alternative for students. more

'Collision Course' for Graduate Education At political science meeting, experts on Ph.D. education consider how to give grad students more breadth and better teaching skills -- while also getting them to finish dissertations on time.


The real Shanghai Jiao Tong winners
How many Americans does it take to produce a university? No, it's not an academic joke, it's a population-based analysis of the recently published 2008 Academic Ranking of World Universities by China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The study shows that while the US might have the most top 500 universities in the world, it is not the most efficient producer of such universities on a population basis. That title goes to Sweden and the analysis also demonstrates that Scandinavia in general is a veritable powerhouse of academic excellence given its population base

DENMARK: Academics sign up to protest
Danish academics are collecting signatures to convince Science Minister Helge Sander that opposition to the current education law is, in their words, "no sectarian craving from a dissatisfied minority...but has a broad basis of support among Danish students and researchers". .

US: New Stanford study of dual-career academic couples
Dual-career issues are growing in importance in higher education in America. More than 70% of faculty are in dual-career relationships, and more than a third are partnered with another academic, according to a study just published by Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research. The publication, Dual-Career Academic Couples: What universities need to know, is based on a survey of full-time tenured and tenure-track academics at 13 leading US universities, as well as interviews with administrators at 18 universities. The lead author is Londa Schiebinger, director of the Clayman Institute and Professor of the History of Science. The report is freely available.

INDIA: Poor pay discourages researchers
Increased job opportunities and fat pay packets for young graduates are turning out to be a bane for academic research in India.