New COACHE report on best institutions for tenure track faculty

Harvard's Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education has published the results of their most recent job-satisfaction survey of tenure-track faculty in four-year institutions. They state, "two inescapable conclusions: first, that positive climates and cultures are the sine qua non of pre-tenure faculty retention and success; and second, that climates and cultures—and institutional quality—are defined and defended by tenured faculty in their roles as colleagues, collaborators, mentors and chairs."


This Inside Higher Ed article (Nov. 15, 2010) provides an overview with one summary table. The criteria include clarity of tenure expxectations, climate/culture/collegiality, and "nature of the work" in several areas (research, teaching, etc.). The COACHE site has links to the report and all tables (about half way down on the left under "latest news")

New study on bullying in high schools

According to the press release, "... a new study by the Josephson Institute of Ethics (the largest ever undertaken of the attitudes and conduct of high school students), [shows that] half of all high school students (50 percent) admit they bullied someone in the past year, and nearly half (47 percent) say they were bullied, teased, or taunted in a way that seriously upset them in the past year. The study reports the responses from 43,321 high school students. The margin of error is less than 1%." The Internet is cited as a factor in increasing the frequency and severity of bullying. 

Education doctoral programs and others not assessed by NRC

This article in the Chronicle today discusses the exclusions from the National Research Council's recent survey of doctoral programs. Here are a couple of excerpts:

Excluded fields appear to have granted more than a quarter of all research doctorates from 2001 to 2005 to U.S. citizens and permanent residents—27 percent, according to our calculations, based on data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, conducted for the National Science Foundation and other government agencies. But African-American, American Indian, and Mexican-American people, as well as women, are disproportionately likelier to have received Ph.D.'s in fields that are not included in the NRC's assessment, relative to white men and Asian-American people. For example, 54 percent of African-American women, 49 percent of American Indian women, 43 percent of Mexican-American women, 42 percent of African-American men, and 34 percent of women in general were awarded doctorates in fields not currently assessed by the NRC.

What accounts, then, for this seemingly odd pattern of doctorates awarded to people in various demographic groups by fields included and excluded in the current NRC assessment? The exempted fields—including education, business, social work, psychological counseling, library science, home economics, and subfields of the health and agricultural sciences—share a professional and applied orientation as opposed to a basic research one. Many also emphasize public scholarship, a tradition that favors the interweaving of intellectual pursuit with social improvement.

Mostly good new about the teacher shortage

The Woodrow Wilson Foundation issued the results of their recent survey on college educated adults interested in changing careers to become teachers. According to an article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education, "42 percent said they would consider entering the field. Those in engineering, science and information technology are “somewhat more likely” to consider teaching, and those who have a postgraduate degree, have attended selective colleges, and report having higher-than-average grades are also disproportionately represented in the potential teacher pool."

These talented people are motivated by desires to contribute to society and find personally rewarding careers as well as balancing work and family life. What they need is more money and training opportunities that mesh better with their learning styles and life styles. A link to recommendations for capitalizing on this pool of talent is available at the report summary "Teaching as a Second Career."