Oxford Dictionaries, part of Oxford University Press, on Monday announced its annual Word of the Year. For 2015, it's not a word, but rather an emoji -- in this case the emoji called “Face With Tears of Joy”. Read more...

Northern Virginia Community College's zero-textbook-cost degree programs are going open source. The community college, with help from open-courseware provider Lumen Learning, on Monday made nine of its courses available under a Creative Commons license, meaning instructors at other institutions are free to reuse and repurpose the content. Read more...

The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday announced a $95.5 million settlement with the Education Management Corporation to resolve allegations that it defrauded the government. The Huffington Post reported on the settlement over the weekend. Read more...

The University of York, in Britain, has apologized for a press release announcing that it would celebrate "International Men's Day" this week. Many critics said that the university's support for the day suggested a lack of awareness of the many inequities facing women in academe. Read more...

Instructure saw its stock close at $18 on Friday, rising 12.5 percent as its first day as a publicly traded company drew to a close. The stock passed $18 by late morning before falling slightly and stabilizing above $17 for much of the afternoon. Read more...

Today on the Academic Minute: Russell Ciochon, professor of anthropology at the University of Iowa, explains that this isn't the first time humans have faced the crisis of rising sea levels. Learn more about the Academic Minute here. Read more...

By Michael Bugeja. Professionals from industry often seem out of place in higher education, especially in tenure-eligible positions at research-intensive institutions. And yet their expertise is increasingly in demand as universities focus on skills needed for job placement to offset the cost of degrees in fields such as advertising, agriculture, business, criminal justice, design, engineering, journalism, marketing, nursing, public relations, social work, technology and veterinary medicine, to name a few. Read more...

By Joseph Barber. I enjoy asking questions. It is easier for me to contribute to a project if I have as much information as possible before I start jumping in with random ideas. I like to know what the goals are, who the stakeholders are, whether the project has run into any challenges before, whether new ideas might be welcome and much more. Read more...

By Stephanie K. Eberle. Eric looked nervous when he walked into my office. His introduction form told me he was a Ph.D. student in his fourth year of graduate school and, as with many trainees, he wanted to know his “career options.” This presenting question may be exactly what it seems on the surface -- just mere curiosity about what is out there. Read more...

By Ramon B. Goings. A little less than a month ago, I successfully defended my dissertation, which explored the academic and social experiences of high-achieving black males attending a historically black college and university. Read more...