News & Links Index by Date

February 28, 2010
By Carolyn Foster Segal
At last we have the answer to the question that comes up at every one of my college's faculty meetings: Where have the liberal arts gone? China! It seems that China, concerned about creativity and critical thinking, will be handling them from now on—and in small classes, too, at least according to The Chronicle's own "Less Politics, More Poetry." Of course, the liberal arts in America aren't really dead (yet); they are alive and recognized in business schools, reports Lane Wallace in "Multicultural Critical Theory. At B-School?" in The New York Times. It's only at small liberal-arts colleges where they seem to be disappearing.

Interest in business programs is growing at women's colleges, and a second one recently won AACSB accreditation. More are expected to follow

February 24, 2010
By Alison Damast
When Deborah Merrill-Sands became dean of Simmons College's School of Management in 2004, she quickly got to work on the school's effort to become accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Obtaining accreditation was a crucial step for the women's college, which competes with several other accredited business schools in the crowded Boston education market. She wanted to counteract any perception that the school didn't offer as rigorous a curriculum as its coed neighbors. "I was concerned that some people may perceive it as a soft MBA or an MBA-lite and imbue it with certain gender stereotypes," she says. "By having the accreditation, that question is off the table."

February 16, 2010
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Almost four decades after the federal education law called Title IX opened the door for girls to participate in high school and college athletics, a crucial question has remained unanswered: Do sports make a long-term difference in a woman’s life?

February 12, 2010
Excerpted from SONIC BOOM: Globalization at Mach Speed Copyright 2009 by Gregg Easterbrook, Published by Random House

Home prices keep falling, but productivity is rising fast. GDP grew 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter, yet unemployment remains stubbornly high. Inflation is nonexistent, while the consumer confidence index just rose to 55.9 from 53.6—whatever that means. Can't make sense of these economic indicators? Don't worry, because nobody else can, either.

Here is what you really need to know: a Sonic Boom is coming. It will be caused by globalization. And while globalization may be driving you crazy, it's just getting started. Thirty years ago, Shenzhen, China, did not exist; today, it has nearly 9 million residents, roughly the same as New York City. In a single generation, it has grown from a village of tar-paper shacks into an important urban center. It has become the world's fourth-busiest port, busier than Los Angeles and Long Beach combined. Never before has a great city been built so fast, nor a productive economy established from so little.

by Patricia A. McGuire
Trusteeship Magazine, January/February 2010

Yvonne is a typical college student in 2010. She’s working on a paper due in her american Fiction course. She has to finish some reading for her gender communication course, and has a nagging worry about passing statistics. She turns away from her computer to help her son, a second-grader, with his spelling homework, and then is distracted by her pre-school daughter’s insistence that she give equal time to her crayon drawing. Yvonne also remembers that she promised her boss that she’d be at work early the next day to help prepare an important contract presentation. Yvonne, a single parent, knows that her collegiate studies are a good example for her children, but she feels stressed about balancing all of the many demands on her time and energy—being a good mother, successful student, and productive worker.