By Cory Weinberg. In the center of Tobacco Road, students are trying to wash away traces of racism and white supremacy on their campuses. Students at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill want to rename an academic building that is currently named after a Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan leader. Ten miles away, at Duke University, students want to strip the name off a residence hall named for a state governor who was a vocal white supremacist. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. The Kentucky Supreme Court has issued two unanimous decisions that strengthen the rights of tenured professors at religious institutions.
In one decision the court found that the "ministerial exception" -- which protects churches and some religious groups from some types of employment lawsuits -- does not bar suits over contractual matters such as tenure agreements that can be resolved based on evidence having nothing to do religious doctrine. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Digital humanities scholars have recently found their work the topic of a number of snarky columns, and the arguments are now drawing support from some unexpected allies: digital humanities scholars themselves. Last month, the Slate columnist Rebecca Schuman warned readers not to "spend eight years getting a doctorate with the sole purpose of becoming digital humanist." Writing for Ozy, Sanjena Sathian argued that "English doesn’t need to be code’s sidekick." On Friday, Adam Kirsch dismissed the “breathless prophecies” about big data in education as mere hype, and blasted the language seen in digital humanities publications as inspired by “the spirit of salesmanship” seen at an Apple product unveiling. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Faculty members and staffers at Northwestern and Washington State Universities, after more than a year of surveys, pilots and presentations, wanted roughly the same services and quality from their new learning management systems. Yet last month, they decisively chose different software providers. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. “I hope that you’ve Googled me.”
That's what James Kilgore, adjunct instructor of global studies and urban planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told his program head when he applied for a teaching job there in 2011. Two years out of prison for his involvement with a 1975 bank robbery in which a woman was killed, Kilgore wasn’t legally obligated to disclose his criminal history. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Yes. Probably not. It depends. If you’re looking for a definitive answer to the question “Should I go to grad school?” a new book by that name might not be for you. And if you’re considering going to grad school to eventually get rich, the book definitely isn’t for you (it says as much in the introduction). But if you are considering or ever have considered (for yourself or an advisee) attending graduate school – especially in the humanities – as a kind of a calling, then Should I Go to Grad School? 41 Answers to an Impossible Question is worth a read. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Among evangelical Christian institutions, Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn., is relatively conservative. Its motto is “Christ above all,” and the college was named after William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor in the 1925 Scopes Trial of a public school teacher accused of teaching evolution. But a recent "clarification" to the college’s statement of faith asserting the historicity of Adam and Eve has struck some as too narrow, and reportedly prompted the departures of at least two faculty members. The clarification was also the catalyst for a faculty vote of no confidence in the college president, and students have organized various means of protest around the issue. Read more...

By Ry Rivard. A theology professor who is a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican is moving from one Roman Catholic university to another after an investigation found it likely that he sexually harassed a married couple where he now works. Read more...

By Ry Rivard. A private graduate college in Vermont stepped in to save a writing program axed by the University of Southern California. The Vermont College of Fine Arts offered to take over USC’s master's of professional writing program after the California private university announced it would end the program, citing a “business decision” amid an ongoing review of its Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Read more...

By Ry Rivard. A new survey of 30,000 college graduates gives higher education leaders a chance to make their case that college isn’t all about jobs and income. The evidence from the largest survey of its kind is, however, mixed about whether colleges are doing enough to help students’ well-being in life, according a new measurement designed by Gallup and Purdue University. Read more...