By Sarah Martin for The Australian. The head of Australia's opposition party signaled how his party plans to approach higher education in next year's elections -- and university officials there are alarmed. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. In trying to shore up its policy on professor-student romantic relationships, did Virginia Commonwealth University create and then advertise a loophole? That’s what some faculty members think. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Interdisciplinary is both an idea and a buzzword in higher education. Many professors find that their research and teaching interests take them far afield. But it's hard to find consensus on what the term really means. And some fear a loss of disciplinary knowledge that leads to interdisciplinary work. A new book, Undisciplining Knowledge: Interdisciplinarity in the Twentieth Century (Johns Hopkins University Press), considers what interdisciplinarity really means, and both its positive and negative impacts. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. While Bernie Sanders has been attracting considerable support on campuses, few college presidents have been speaking out on behalf of his plan to make public higher education free. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Forget the 2016 presidential race, Putin's control of Russia or computer modeling of elections. The suddenly hot issue at this weekend's annual meeting of the American Political Science Association is what is being called a "baby ban." Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, under orders by the head of the University of Tennessee System, on Friday removed from its website a guide to pronouns that many transgender people prefer. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Many academics these days say that much of the most exciting scholarship is interdisciplinary. But some fear that doctoral students feel obliged to stay within disciplinary lines.
A new study finds that increasing numbers of Ph.D. students are pursuing interdisciplinary projects for their dissertations. Read more...