The Sweet Briar faculty, with some citing the bylaw change, voted Monday night to oppose closure and to request more meetings with the board, The Roanoke Times reported. A college spokeswoman said that more discussions with the faculty would take place. Read more...

President Obama gave an interview to ESPN as part of the unveiling of his picks for the N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament. In the interview he called for the N.C.A.A. to change the rules of the game by shortening the shot clock to 30 seconds from the current 35, as well as to move back the three-point line, which would allow perimeter players to drive inside more easily. Read more...

A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit by a Holocaust survivor against the University of Oklahoma over a painting in the university's gallery that was once stolen by the Nazis from its owner, The Associated Press reported. Read more...

By David H. Monk. I have some vivid memories of advising graduate students in my early days as a university faculty member. I had just completed my Ph.D. program and had arrived at a new institution. One day I was a graduate student finishing up my dissertation; the next I was advising graduate students. I received no formal guidance about how to make the transition. Read more...

By Karla P. Zepeda. My first on-campus interview felt much like a chapter from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It was a bit improper here, a bit of a tangle there and with much indecorous happenings everywhere. One could presumably blame it on the havoc caused by the winter storm that interrupted my flight. It was not fun at all being stranded halfway there. But I was safely grounded -- rather, the plane was -- and staying at the Westin Detroit wasn’t much of a chore at all. Read more...

By Eszter Hargittai. Inspired by all of the discussion and controversy over the new PARCC standardized tests for students and as a researcher of people's technology uses, I recently took part of the computerized PARCC fourth-grade math practice test. Even after going through the tutorial explaining the interface, I found myself occasionally as preoccupied with the system as I was with figuring out the math problems. Read more...

By Firmin DeBrabander. Against vociferous opposition from the state's own university system, a Florida Senate panel last month approved a bill allowing students, faculty and staff with appropriate permits to carry guns on public college campuses. This brings to 10 the number of states that are poised to consider so-called campus carry legislation this year. Nine currently allow it in some form or another. Read more...

By Stephen T. Ziliak. You’ve probably heard about the distracted seaman in California who was secretly caught on camera. Sitting on a boat floating near Redondo Beach, the seaman was staring blankly at his cell phone when he failed to see or hear a giant humpback whale rising up dramatically from the sea just a few feet away from his boat. Read more...

By Matthew T. Hora and Ross J. Benbow and Amanda K. Oleson. While touring a factory in northern Wisconsin that makes millions of aluminum cans on a daily basis, we asked the plant manager whether he thought regional colleges and universities were meeting his company’s needs. He looked surprised by the question and answered, “You can’t teach [in a classroom] the way we make cans here.” If he had employees with basic skill sets in the field, he said, his company could train new hires to use their machinery and learn their procedures. Read more...

By Jack Grove for Times Higher Education. University staff must be free to criticize senior management and expose wrongdoing without fear of dismissal or disciplinary action, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. Read more...