By Jake New. The speed and forcefulness with which David Boren, president of the University of Oklahoma, moved to punish members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon after they were caught singing a racist song this month earned the praise of many on campus and across the country, including President Obama. The following week, Boren drew similar praise for announcing that he would soon hire a vice president to oversee diversity and inclusion efforts on campus. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. An incident last week, in which a passenger on a flight from Nicaragua to the United States was recorded apparently delivering a rant and smoking in the air, quickly spread on social media. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. American universities applied for far more international patents than those of other countries in 2014, according to a report released Friday by the World International Patent Organization. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. The Obama administration briefly considered but ultimately decided against expanding a new student privacy bill beyond K-12 education, according to sources with knowledge of the drafting process. The resulting draft is a “missed opportunity” for the White House to address privacy in higher education, legal scholars say. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Should a doctor of philosophy be considered a .doctor?
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, has yet to make web addresses ending in .doctor available, but the debate about who should be able to register for them has already begun. ICANN recently decided that .doctor should only be available to licensed medical practitioners, meaning the millions of Ph.D. holders in the U.S. whose degrees are not in medicine won’t be eligible. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Asking students to blog for an audience of their classmates instead of writing an essay for a professor can bring out different qualities in their writing, according to a study published in next month’s volume of Teaching Sociology. But don’t expect instructors to do away with essays just yet. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Most medical researchers have a mantra about relationships with industry, financial and otherwise: disclose, disclose, disclose. It’s a position with which most professors (and journal editors) in other fields -- even those without life-and-death implications -- agree. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. The University of Delaware is refusing to fulfill a congressman's request that it release information about who is funding a prominent climate change skeptic’s research. The university is the first of seven institutions facing similar requests to publicly deny them, citing concerns about academic freedom. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Books, articles and talks about adjuncts typically include a long list of what these instructors lack: decent wages, upward mobility, office space, assurances of academic freedom and inclusion in departmental activities, among other material and social goods. Read more...