By Paul Fain. Only a small number of top-performing high school students from low-income backgrounds get admitted to elite colleges. This so-called undermatching problem has gained the attention of academic researchers, the White House and the news media in recent years. Read more...

By Kellie Woodhouse. Two neighbors on Massachusetts' North Shore -- Salem State University and the Montserrat College of Art -- spent more than half a year immersed in detailed and time-consuming merger negotiations, only to find in the end that a union that seemed beneficial at first would actually end up being a financial drain. Read more...

By Paul Jump for Times Higher Education. “A double helix? Bit speculative.”
“I regret to say that we cannot offer publication at this time. While your model is very appealing, referee three finds that it is somewhat speculative and premature for publication.”
No doubt most scientists have been on the receiving end of similar comments from journal editors, but surely Francis Crick and James Watson’s landmark 1953 papers on the structure of DNA would be immune to such quibbles?
Not so, according to Ronald Vale, professor and vice chair of the department of cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California at San Francisco, who argues that the University of Cambridge pair's research would have been knocked back by Nature if they submitted their work today.
In a paper recently posted on the bioRxiv preprint service, Vale said that in the past 30 years there has been an estimated fourfold increase in the amount of data required by major journals, largely because of the increased competition to publish in them. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. The world of learning analytics is full of metaphors. Educational-technology companies are “islands,” disconnected from one another. Data are locked away in “silos.” As an initiative to standardize the collection and reporting of learning analytics nears a public launch, can colleges and vendors learn to speak the same language. Read more...

By Jacqueline Thomsen. At Eastern Illinois University, tenured and tenure-track faculty are stepping up in the midst of a budget crunch to help those not on the tenure track keep their jobs. Read more...

By Jacqueline Thomsen. Asian Americans have been found to be some of the most successful individuals in education, with many earning top grades at some of the top schools in the nation before attending highly ranked colleges and pursuing higher degrees. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. "There aren't enough women."
"A quota system would be needed."
"Change will take a generation."
Those are some of the answers that have been given by organizers of scholarly meetings for having relatively few women on panels at annual meetings, and for having plenty of panels with no women at all. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Does American University have an age discrimination problem when it comes to tenure? That’s what two former assistant professors over 50 are alleging. One is already suing the university and another plans to file a suit soon, after an unsuccessful mediation session last week. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Within a gloomy academic job market, at least one small corner is booming: academic career coaching. Capitalizing on the lack of career advice most graduate students receive while in grad school, Karen Kelsky — probably the biggest name in academic career advising —has built a successful business on helping graduate students practically prepare for the hunt. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Representative Lamar Smith may be among the least popular members of Congress with social scientists. As chair of the House science committee, the Texas Republican has pushed legislation that would result in significantly lower funding levels for social science research supported by the National Science Foundation, and he has repeatedly questioned grants in social science disciplines. Read more...