Academe Today

Leadership

Max Nikias Is Standing Firm as Scandals Mount at USC. But This Is What the End of a Presidency Looks Like.

With his judgment again called into question, this time over the University of Southern California’s handling of misconduct complaints against a gynecologist, Max Nikias faces the sort of mobilized opposition that can sink a college leader.

Administration

Pitfalls That Can Doom a Presidency

Missteps of all kinds can derail a presidency, including inadequate response to protesters, conflicts over shared governance, and incautious remarks.

Students

3 Takeaways From a Book-Length Federal Report on ‘The Condition of Education’

While the annual deep dive into education data — from pre-K to post-college — breaks little new ground, it offers a good reminder of how higher ed differs from popular perceptions of it.

Work-Force Education

Here’s How Western Governors U. Aims to Enroll a Million Students

The online university has set up a new component, WGU Advancement, for work-force development, and will raise money for scholarships from outside sources.

Special Reports

Does Your College Have a Cavern? 7 Learning Spaces Beyond the Classroom

The Chronicle collected images from institutions across the country that use the landscape, loosely defined, to foster learning.

Idea Lab: Academic Overhauls

Revamping a curriculum or academic program is never easy. To help college leaders make such big changes a success, we’ve pulled together a collection of articles and essays with lessons and tips. Buy it in the new Chronicle Store.

Advice

5 Big-Picture Mistakes New Ph.D.s Make on the Job Market

All sorts of magical thinking can distort the realities of the tenure-track job hunt.

Lingua Franca

There Is No ‘There’re’ There

Anne Curzan reflects on why some contractions are not in dictionaries, and on the inconsistency in our judgments of which ones are OK to write, even in informal prose.