... [Bill Clinton,] who's doing the rounds of six campuses this summer ... puts it this way:

"I always urge them to have dreams that are both timely and timeless, to try to live their dreams knowing that life's real regrets are more rooted in not trying than in not succeeding, and to find joy in the effort."

Dream the impossible dream - where have I heard that schmaltz before?

Addressing the most venerable of African-American campuses, Howard University, on May 12, Oprah Winfrey, "commencement oratrix", told her ecstatically cheering, begowned audience: "I stand here as a symbol of what is possible when you believe in the dream of your own life."

With that sublimely meaningless platitude Dr Winfrey, who has honorary degrees like Imelda Marcos had shoes, received another PhD in humanities. She may also have received a hefty fee. Or not. Universities are chary about revealing how much they pay their speakers: it rather takes the bloom off the platitude...

Rice University has re-launched its university press as an all-digital operation. Using the open-source e-publishing platform Connexions, Rice University Press is returning from a decade-long hiatus to explore models of peer-reviewed scholarship for the 21st century. The technology offers authors a way to use multimedia — audio files, live hyperlinks or moving images — to craft dynamic scholarly arguments, and to publish on-demand original works in fields of study that are increasingly constrained by print publishing.

Rice's digital press operates just as a traditional press, up to a point. Manuscripts will be solicited, reviewed, edited and resubmitted for final approval by an editorial board of prominent scholars. But rather than waiting for months for a printer to make a bound book, Rice University Press's digital files will instead be run through Connexions for automatic formatting, indexing and population with high-resolution images, audio and video and Web links.

Users of Rice University Press titles are able to view the content online for free or, thanks to Connexions' partnership with on-demand printer QOOP, order printed books in every style from softbound black-and-white on inexpensive paper to leather-bound, full-color hardbacks on high-gloss paper.

Authors published by Rice University Press retain the copyrights for their works, in accordance with Connexions' licensing agreement with Creative Commons. Additionally, because Connexions is open-source, authors will be able to update or amend their work, easily creating a revised edition of their book.

BLOOMSDAY GROWS INTO
WEEK-LONG CELEBRATION

James Joyce's day-long journey through the streets of Dublin has bloomed into a week-long series of cultural events.

Celebrations marking Bloomsday on June 16 will run for a week at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin's North Great George's Street.

A number of films will be shown in tribute to his 732-page masterpiece, Ulysses, alongside the historic breakfast, talks by Joyce scholars and guided walking tours of the capital.

Irish film-maker Ian Graham's 'Joyce: The Journey Home' and 'James Joyce: The Trials of Ulysses' will be screened.

During the week of events from June 10-17, a special outdoor screening will also take place of John Huston's 'The Dead'. A new musical 'Himself and Nora', headed for London's West End, and Broadway will be shown at the James Joyce Centre on Bloomsday evening. [Er, this isn't new. It has appeared here, to bad reviews.]

University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been an attractive target for elite schools like Harvard and Stanford looking to steal faculty. But Arizona State? Pittsburgh? Florida State?

...left the philosophy department at Rutgers for the University of Miami so that he can surf. “I like water sports. Miami is a year-round water-sports place.” The top-ranked philosopher is leaving a top-ranked philosophy department (his departure “could leave Rutgers’ high ranking vulnerable,“ worries the Rutgers student newspaper) for lowly UM, which is “definitely not as good as Rutgers is,” McGinn acknowledges. “But I have to weigh how much that matters to my daily life.”

Dozens of UW-Madison professors left in the past two years, and Chancellor John Wiley said a growing number of them are going to schools that traditionally could not compete with his campus. More than 115 professors reported receiving outside offers last year, the most in 20 years and more than double the number from five years ago.

The trend has alarmed Wisconsin administrators who say some departments are in a crisis after losing prominent teachers and researchers. At stake, they say, are the quality of the state’s flagship university, which has traditionally ranked among the nation’s top public schools, and coveted research dollars.

Faculty members say the departures accelerated as professors’ salaries hit rock bottom among their peers and morale sagged amid budget cuts. [Well, of course, this is a huge part of it. Note that some of the professors about to be mentioned have been radically undervalued by the university.]

To address the problem, lawmakers are expected to soon consider Gov. Jim Doyle’s plan to create a $10 million fund to retain faculty at Madison and other campuses in the UW System. UW-Madison, whose rivals increasingly see it as an easy target, is lobbying hard for the plan.

“In years past, schools like Pitt or Rutgers, even some of the other major state universities like Ohio State, Michigan State, Iowa and Indiana would not have been able to hire away from Wisconsin,” Wiley said. “And they are doing that now.”

Particularly hard hit, Wiley said, have been departments such as political science, English and history.

Joe Soss, a political science professor leaving for the University of Minnesota, said the departures should be a wake-up call to taxpayers to decide whether they want to maintain UW-Madison’s status as a world-class university.

“In my case, the decision to respond to an invitation is something that arose after a number of years of frustration with the resources at the university,” said Soss, who said Minnesota will increase his $90,000 salary by 50 percent. “I think that you’ve seen a real upswing in the number of people who are responding to invitations because of what’s going on.”

Clark Miller, a professor of public affairs, left last year after Arizona State offered to increase his $64,000 salary to $92,500 and promised more research support. Some colleagues reacted with surprise when they learned of his departure.

“I think that is also part of the danger that UW-Madison faces at the moment: I think it’s become a little bit complacent,” Miller said. “It’s become a little, ’We’re very good and we’ll always be very good and we don’t have to do anything to make sure we stay at the top.“’ [This is a very real problem at many universities - a kind of complacency about their stature that can morph into self-delusion. Reputation, even at the Ivies, is a delicate thing; but there are strong provincial tendencies at all universities that make them insist they're just terrific, the best in the world...]

Wiley said the university, which maintained its U.S. News & World Report ranking as seventh best public university last year, is doing its best to retain the brightest in the face of decreasing salaries.

A UW-Madison full professor earns an average of $103,000 per year, the lowest in its 12-member peer group and well below the $117,000 average at those schools, according to the American Association of University Professors.

University officials say a retention fund in the last state budget helped keep more than 100 key faculty members, including Laura Kiessling, a chemistry professor recently elected into the National Academy of Sciences.

Kiessling said she was recruited by two schools but the university’s pay and research package will keep her here for now. Nonetheless, she said she’s troubled by “the lack of support for the university.”

University statistics show about two-thirds of those who received outside offers have been retained in the past three years but more than 100 have left in total, often taking with them expertise and research funding.

In the last two years alone, the departures cost the university up to $36 million in federal and private research funding, UW-Madison lobbyist Don Nelson said.

The departures of eight faculty members in political science will require a major rebuilding of the department, chair Graham Wilson [who's also leaving] said.

Wilson said he is leaving because his wife, Virginia Sapiro, received a promotion at Boston University but the department’s other losses were troubling.

“The word is out that salaries are lagging behind comparable institutions and that makes you very vulnerable,” he said.

Those departing include Jon Pevehouse, an award-winning teacher in international relations who said the University of Chicago will nearly triple his $75,000 salary when he starts there this summer. [That's what I mean about a radically undervalued faculty member.]

Pevehouse, 34, said he was frustrated by low salary increases in his seven years at the university and being told the way to receive a larger raise was to receive better offers elsewhere. [Indeed, UD has always found this bit -- endemic to most American universities -- rather baffling. You don't reward your best faculty because they're your best faculty. You don't even figure out who your best faculty are until they attract offers from other schools. You make clear to faculty that intrinsic worth doesn't matter; if they want serious promotion, they have to be found worthy by other schools. Well, the peeved Pevehouse demonstrates the problem with lacking your own institutional standards of merit. You create a culture of outside-offer-mongering, which will almost certainly result in many faculty going ahead and taking the outside offers, if they're such a terrific thing as all that...]


“By the time you look around, your momentum is towards leaving,” Pevehouse said.

Seven faculty members left the top-ranked department of educational psychology for positions at other universities since 2002, typically receiving a salary bump of 50 percent, department chair Ronald Serlin said.

The department retained seven others who were recruited but lagging salaries mean the department remains “at great risk of being raided,” he said.

Wiley said one of the biggest blows was in 2005 when Florida State University lured away David Larbalestier, director of the Applied Superconductivity Center. Larbalestier, who generated $15 million in research grants in the previous five years, took with him 30 staff members.

“This is another university that never used to be successful in hiring from us,” Wiley said.

'It was open season on Vanderbilt on Sept. 9, 2003, when chancellor Gordon Gee eliminated the athletic department and put all sports under Student Life and University Affairs along with intramurals, fraternities, sororities and the student health center.


... Fast forward four years and nine months, and Vanderbilt is basking in the afterglow of several championships. The baseball team clinched its first SEC title since 1980 and followed that by winning the SEC Tournament on Sunday.

The Commodores (51-11) are No. 1 in the nation. They are the first Vanderbilt men's team to ever be No. 1, but they are the third Vanderbilt team to reach No. 1 since Gee's radical move. The women's golf team was No. 1 in 2004, and the women's bowling team won the national title last month in just the third year of the sport.

Vanderbilt does not have an athletic director or an athletic department, but that has not seemed to hurt the school's sports. The men's basketball team reached the Sweet 16 this past season. The women's team won the SEC tournament and reached the NCAA tournament. Seven teams have been nationally ranked this spring alone --baseball, both basketball teams, bowling, women's golf, women's lacrosse and women's tennis.

... [It's estimated that] Vanderbilt has saved about $1.5 million a year because of the morphing of the athletic department into Student Life and University Affairs. Four fundraising positions just for athletics were scrapped. Most athletic department employees remained, but they took on other duties. The director of facilities, for example, oversees the football stadium as well as the intramural gym.


... "It's about making athletics more a part of the university, and not serving as a farm team for the NFL," [said one campus observer].

"We proved you don't need an athletic department that is isolated and segregated and separated from the rest of the university and acting as its own entity in some arms race for facilities," he said. "We performed surgery on that model. We removed the athletic director and the athletic department. We treat athletics the way we treat physics. What we did was get rid of a lot of mid-level bureaucracy. Our dollars go to student-athletes and coaches, not to a lot of assistant athletic directors and other bureaucratic nonsense." ...'

Frank Ostanik resigned as men's basketball coach at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, citing off-court incidents involving his players as one of the reasons.

"After a meeting at which a number of ongoing issues were discussed, Coach Ostanik decided to resign from university employment," athletic director Forrest Karr said Monday in a statement released by the Division II school. "We respect his decision to put to rest the issues that have surrounded the men's basketball program." [Not at all clear why they think this will put them at rest.]

Ostanik has been associated with the Nanooks for 16 years as a player, assistant coach and head coach.

He had a 55-32 record in three years as head coach, the highest winning percentage in school history. He led the Nanooks to the NCAA Division II West Regional final in his first year and just missed the playoffs the past two seasons.

However, six of his players were dismissed from the team last season. Two were arrested, two violated team rules and two were declared academically ineligible...

JUST TAKE THE COURSE


Much eye-rolling probably took place from the earliest announcement that the University of California would require that an online ethics course be completed by all employees on all campuses. As elementary as it may be, basic reminders of right and wrong can refresh one's ethical synapses. [From rolled eyes to stale synapses is a little awkward, but okay.... Isn't it more likely, though, that very elementary forms of moral didacticism, whose black-and-whiteness insults one's intelligence, will shut down your synapses?]

Although most UC system employees had little problem taking this course -- which doesn't appear to be the case with the state-mandated sexual harassment training that many employees have been blowing off for a year and a half [If I were writing about sex training, I'd avoid most forms of the word "blow"] -- Berkeley employees, professors in particular, have rebelled against these ethics lessons.

This is how they've acquired the reputation as being pompous. [And... we're off! Time to replace arguments about the exam with populist poopoo.... Oh, and he means to write a reputation for pomposity. ]

The old "no time to take it" excuse is bogus because apparently the course can take as little as 15 minutes and seldom longer than 30. [No one's made this excuse. And yes, the exam is so pitifully primitive that fifteen minutes does it, voila, moral clarity... ] It is true that the program has not been completely geared to university settings, therefore every situation is not one every person is likely to face. [Time to introduce this writer to the semi-colon.] Surely people as smart as these can cull applicable information regardless of the perfection of the example. [I haven't a clue what this sentence means, though the writer's class resentment comes through clearly.]

Certain standards and morals are expected of everyone, regardless of position. The multiple-choice quiz is designed for every employee to relate to on some level; [proper use of semi-colon here] its lessons attempt to be widely relevant. And as UC President Robert Dynes says in the introduction, a common course gives a common frame of reference on ethics and expectations.

For most people the ethical answers are obvious in each situation. For some, however, the examples may provide reminders that keep them from falling on the wrong side of the thin line between right and wrong. [This writer actually believes that taking a fifteen-minute multiple choice test can make people more ethical.]

Many UC faculty members act as if this is all so trivial, so beneath them. [Fucking Marie Antoinettes.] Yet the reminders are obviously necessary. Last year UC officials violated university policies in awarding hidden compensation and special perks, involving millions of dollars, to some top executives, sometimes without telling the regents and certainly not considering the increased tuition students were paying. Maybe all Berkeley faculty were above this fray. [Yeah, they were. So the administrators, and not the faculty, should take the test.]

Regardless, it most assuredly isn't going to hurt these deep-thinkers [Hit me again baby.] to take 15 to 30 minutes. They've wasted more time complaining and pouting than it would have taken to complete the thing. [They're not complaining. You are. They're ignoring, laughing, shredding.] They should pick their fights carefully. This is not a good one to pick.

Churchill's attorney, David Lane, told FOX News Channel Monday that it was time for his client's case to move out of the "kangaroo court," and into a real court with a real jury.

Churchill said he and others plan to file academic charges with the university alleging that the faculty committee committed research misconduct. He said he also plans to publish as many as three books defending his research.

'Florida A&M will pay $4.3 million to four computer consulting companies working without a contract or payment since Jan. 1, chief operating officer Larry Robinson said Friday.

"A preliminary assessment indicates that the funds are indeed available,'' Robinson said in a statement released by the university. "We have decided that we will not utilize any funds that will adversely impact our ability to provide courses necessary for the summer and subsequent terms."

Robinson and the school's trustees had no knowledge of the obligation until a trustees meeting Thursday when chief financial officer, Grace Ali, apologized to the board and said the debt would be paid out of the current budget, but not without some difficulty.

"Everybody is going to share this pain,'' Ali said.

Robinson is running the school until former Provost James Ammons returns to his alma mater as president in July. Robinson replaced the interim president, Castell Bryant, who is on leave until her resignation takes effect May 31.

Bryant resigned earlier this month because of the ongoing turmoil that has engulfed the university, mostly the persistent financial problems that have haunted the school in recent years.'

In the past week , Florida A&M University's interim president announced she was stepping down early and the provost said she was leaving, too. In the past two months, five of 13 FAMU trustees have either quit or been replaced.

At most universities, this would be earth-shattering.

At FAMU, it's business as usual.

Since former President Frederick Humphries said goodbye at the end of 2001, Florida's only historically black public university has had a revolving door in top positions, including deans, trustees, executive directors and vice presidents.

Counting interims, there have been five athletic directors in five years, four deans at the business school, four vice presidents for student affairs and four vice presidents for research. Just since 2005, four different directors have run the financial aid office.

"I hardly know who's working in some of these offices,'' said Bill Tucker, a retired physics professor and former faculty union president. "I call up there and all kinds of strange names show up.''

Instability has allowed factional feuding to escalate, and worsened or prolonged FAMU's fiscal problems. It has also drawn the attention of state auditors, who pointed to turnover problems repeatedly in their most recent review.

Turnover isn't unique to FAMU, but "it's been a little more devastating for FAMU because they've had a void in leadership for five years,'' said state Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, a FAMU graduate whose district includes FAMU.

At Florida State University, by contrast, the same provost has been in place 12 years, the same vice president for finance for 16.

Some FAMU supporters say more than institutional knowledge has been lost.

Excessive turnover "took us (away) from looking at a cohesive, shared, holistic vision for the future,'' said Corey Alston, a former trustee and former corporate turnaround specialist for the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co. "It took us away from the big picture and it might have even brought into question, 'What is the big picture?' ''

Humphries ran the school for 16 years with a core group of longtime administrators. He was replaced by interim president Henry Lewis III, who was replaced by president Fred Gainous, who was fired and replaced by Bryant, who announced last week in the face of withering criticism from many FAMU supporters she would resign ahead of schedule. Trustees appointed a former provost to be the head guy (they decided he would not be called "interim president'') until president-designate James Ammons takes over in July.

New presidents want their own people in key positions, and those people want to hire their own staffs. But when turnover becomes the norm, hiring becomes difficult.

At some point, turnover also undercuts the university's academic mission. The FAMU law school has had two interim deans since June 2005, when Bryant canned the permanent dean over a scandal involving an employee who drew a $100,000 salary but did not work. Yet, because of a looming deadline, the law school has still been forced to slog through a complicated process to gain full accreditation, leaving some students and faculty uneasy.

"The fact that we haven't had a dean has really hindered our accreditation process,'' Robert Grimaldi, a law school student from Tampa, wrote in an e-mail. But Ammons, the incoming president, has promised a permanent dean by the fall, Grimaldi continued, "so that brings us some hope.''

Top administrators aren't the only ones being shuffled. State auditors have called attention to an "unusually large'' amount of overtime payments in some FAMU departments, including campus security and groundskeeping. In its response, the university acknowledged the latter had been short-staffed for several years "due to budget constraints, staff turnovers and a high level of absenteeism.''

"We are severely understaffed,'' said Theresa Mordica, a senior custodian. "It used to be we would have five or six custodians, including the supervisor, per building. Now we're lucky to get two or three.''

In 2001, the dean of the College of Education was accused of stealing more than $60,000 in state funds. FAMU has had at least three interim or permanent education deans since. And in 2005, the man who essentially worked as FAMU's associate controller - a top financial position - was indicted for allegedly creating fictitious loans at a federal credit union.

Turnover in fiscal staff has been especially critical. Since July 2002, FAMU has had five top financial officers. During one stretch, it went six months without one.

In March 2005, both the vice president for financial services and the controller resigned after FAMU submitted a fix-it plan to a key legislative committee.

Two years later, state auditors issued a report rife with concerns about what else? Turnover.

FAMU officials said in the report that staff shortages were to blame for improper controls for electronic fund transfers and incomplete reviews of commissions tied to auxiliary contracts. Auditors said staff shortages may be behind ballooning costs for consulting services, which grew from about $900,000 in the 2002-03 fiscal year to more than $10-million in 2005-06.

FAMU officials did not respond to written questions about turnover in fiscal staff.

But Grace Ali, FAMU's chief financial officer, readily acknowledged the problem to the state task force formed to right the university's fiscal affairs. At last month's meeting, she passed out a diagram showing turnover in top financial positions, including her own seat, which she has held for eight months.

Ali's comments suggested FAMU may have become mired in a vicious cycle: Given the negative publicity generated by its financial problems, hiring quality staff has become more difficult. So top administrators like Ali are being diverted from bigger tasks to get bogged down in things like reconciling bank accounts.

That's "really not what I want to spend my time on, and it's not what the taxpayers are paying me to do,'' Ali said. "But if that's what it takes, because we have to have it, then we do whatever is necessary."

she and Gillespie dated from September 2004 to March 11, 2005 ... [she] has called the police on numerous occasions complaining of stalking dating back to 2005. The stalking, she said, began after she broke off their relationship. She said that Gillespie said he was getting a divorce at the time she dated him.

The complainant said she never asked that charges be filed against him in any of the previous incidents, but that she wanted the harassment to stop.

Police warned Gillespie to stop his behavior in 2005 after the woman made her original accusations. The police warned Gillespie again in March 2007 after she made more accusations.

No charges were filed, however.

The complainant said in the arrest report that she looked out the window of her place of work at about 5 p.m. Thursday and saw Gillespie driving through the parking lot, but that he did not stop or attempt to contact her.

The complainant then said she saw Gillespie's car parked behind a row of shrubs in the parking lot of her job Friday morning.

The woman decided to press charges after this latest incident, according to the arrest report.

Garrett [a policewoman] said she tried on two occasions Friday morning to reach Gillespie to get his version of this latest complaint, and he refused both opportunities, she said.

Garrett said that is when she decided to have him arrested.

'Grade changes on the transcripts of two Auburn University football signees from Mobile are under investigation by the Mobile County school system and the NCAA Clearinghouse ...

Superintendent Harold Dodge confirmed to the Press-Register on Thursday that several grades of one student graduating this week from B.C. Rain High and another from Williamson High were changed on the students' transcripts. Later versions of the transcripts had higher final grades than what the students originally earned, Dodge said.

"There seems to be some variance in the scores," Dodge said. "On a first blush, it looks like either the first transcripts were really wrong" or the grades were changed for some other reason.

That may have helped the students become academically eligible to play football at the Division I college level, officials said.

Both students whose grades are in question have received scholarships to play at Auburn, according to officials close to the situation.'...

A former Montana State University football player was the leader of a cocaine ring that brought pounds of the drug to Bozeman, according to an affidavit supporting drug trafficking charges against former Bobcat wide receiver Rick Gatewood and his brother.

The affidavit, which identifies the former player only by street names, also mentions last summer's shooting death of cocaine dealer Jason Wright.

And documents filed in Justice Court in Bozeman last week tie Randy Gatewood to a June 17, 2006, bar fight that involved two former MSU athletes who are charged with kidnapping and killing Wright six days later.

"I look at it, and I'm just heartbroken," MSU President Geoff Gamble said Wednesday. "We're a very good university and we have very good athletic programs, and to have so much negatively painted across both the athletic program and the university is just heartbreaking." [Before your heart bleeds for this sensitive man, keep in mind that this scandal is about a pattern of willful, criminally negligent recruiting on his watch. He should be fired.]

The arrests of former basketball player Branden Miller and former redshirt football player John Lebrum in Wright's slaying prompted MSU officials to seek an NCAA review of its recruiting practices. [Hey, our players kill people. Let's check with the NCAA on this...]

The February report -- written by officials from the NCAA, the Southeastern Conference and the Big Sky Conference -- suggested several improvements, particularly in recruiting, academic and social mentoring programs, and in the graduation rate of MSU football players. It said the football program should limit its reliance on transfers.

But by then, informants were talking with investigators, former assistant head football coach Joe O'Brien was finishing a four-year federal prison sentence on methamphetamine charges [Don't you think this factoid merits more than a teeny clause? The former assistant head coach just spent four years in prison for meth!], and the curtain was coming down on Mike Kramer's coaching career at MSU.

The Gatewoods were arrested in Missoula last week and face federal charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and distribution of cocaine. Prosecutors estimate they distributed 11 pounds of the drug between June 2005 and May 2007. The brothers remain jailed in Missoula pending a detention hearing.

Rick Gatewood's arrest was the fifth involving former MSU football players in less than a year, and that, along with academic issues that have cost the school football scholarships in past years, led school officials to fire Kramer last Friday.

"I think [athletics director] Peter Fields and I just reached a point where enough was enough," Gamble said. [Oh, I don't know. Could've waited for five or so more arrests...]

The affidavit filed in the Gatewood case, signed by FBI Special Agent Gregory Rice, uses information gathered from two Bozeman informants and pegs the leader of the drug ring as a former MSU football player who used the street names "D," or "DW or "Demetrius." "D" had six drug runners working for him, including the Gatewood brothers and two informants, court records said.

"D" is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator and is not named in court records. Investigators would not say if he has been arrested.

"I don't think we know the end point," Gamble said. "It's my understanding there's still ongoing investigation. We're waiting, like everyone else, to see where the end of this will be." [Yes, just standing to the side, watching and waiting like everyone else... Who knows how this happened at our university?...]

During the summer of 2006, "not long after the murder of Jason Wright (a known local cocaine dealer in Bozeman)," the affidavit said, "DW" told an informant that "there was a lot of 'heat' going on right now in Bozeman."

In late 2006, "DW" said he was going to California and that Rick Gatewood was taking over the cocaine ring, court records said.

On May 11, investigators said Rick Gatewood told them he had been involved in the cocaine ring since the summer of 2005, and that he gave "DW" some of his athletic scholarship money from MSU so he could buy cocaine from a supplier in Fairfield, Calif. [Is this what they mean by "academic issues"? Because this doesn't sound to UD like a very good use of scholarship money.]

Two days after the Gatewoods' arrest, information was filed in Justice Court in Gallatin County supporting two felony counts of assault with a weapon by accountability, two counts of assault and one count of filing a serial number off a gun in connection with a fight outside a Bozeman bar on June 17, 2006.

Court records, obtained by KBZK-TV in Bozeman, accuse Randy Gatewood of participating in a fight in which Miller was accused of pistol whipping one man and placing a gun he said was loaded against another man's stomach. Witnesses said Lebrum was also involved in the fight.

'A number of campus researchers received an e-mail yesterday announcing the beginning of an online course designed to educate them about conflicts of interest that can arise in research.

The course is the third in a series of new online programs aimed at streamlining university policy on ethical dilemmas. The programs were developed as part of a response to university and state audit findings after the executive compensation problems uncovered in 2005.

After rolling out an online training program on conflicts of interest for high-level management officials and an ethics briefing required of all university employees, the briefing on research conflicts of interest is aimed at making UC policy explicit and accessible to faculty, said Patrick Schlesinger, the director of research compliance in the UC Office of the President.

Like the ethics training, campus officials said the new conflict of interest briefing will likely face some criticism as a program that was developed in response to high-level policy breaches but is aimed at lower-level employees or faculty members.

“It is a little bit annoying that the systemwide seems to muck up on their ethics and then we’re the ones that take the course,” said UC Berkeley chemistry professor Richard Mathies, who chairs the campus conflict of interest committee.

Mathies, who said he is generally in support of a faculty training program, pointed out that no one from the campus committee was consulted in the formation of the briefing.

... Mathies said there is currently no mandatory training for researchers at UC Berkeley. However, he said the universal training may pose problems.

“There’s no question that we need to take these things seriously,” he said. “I am concerned, however, that if you present a very naive Web-based course it tends to trivialize the issues and generates an environment of lack of respect.”

Schlesinger said there is currently no policy for those refusing to complete the online courses, but he added that the design is meant to make training easy for faculty.'

'Two "leadership seminars" on Caribbean cruises for the university president, just a year apart. Two plane tickets upgraded to first class for an extra $1,500. A $995 meal tab that covered $139 worth of alcohol and a 28 percent tip.

A state audit Thursday questioned dozens of expenditures by Chicago State University, saying in most cases there was little or no documentation to justify the spending.

University president Elnora Daniel attended the cruises and on at least one, the room rate was 3,000 for the nine-day affair when $1,499 rooms were available, according to the report by Auditor General William Holland.

Five family members attended one or both cruises at state expense, a perk allowed by Daniel's contract, which allows for $10,000 in travel for family members.

Thirteen charges to the university's credit card totaled $3,932 for "various theatrical events," including "The Lion King" and the Lyric Opera, but included no details or reasons for the spending, the audit found. Employees slept in hotel rooms whose rates exceeded the state limit; stayed past the end of conferences they attended; and were reimbursed for movies, gifts and alcohol.

Lawmakers who review the audit could decide to take action against the school.

Robyn Wheeler, spokeswoman for the 6,600-student school refused to answer specific questions about Daniel's travel, the audit, or the $10,000 in family travel perks, which Holland noted was not reported as income as required for tax purposes.

... State travel rules don't allow reimbursement for alcohol or entertainment, Holland said. They also require that the most economical mode of travel is used and that hotel rates not exceed the state limit unless there's special approval.

The $995 meal, charged to Daniel's university-issued credit card, covered 12 people and occurred when Daniel was not traveling. She's only supposed to be reimbursed when on the road.

A spokesman for Holland did not immediately know who took a $13,751 trip out of the country that was not preapproved by the school. [Er, checking, checking...]

In most cases, the audit found, there was insufficient documentation to justify the expenditures, such as a two-night pre-cruise reception on one of the Caribbean seminars.

Holland's report also noted prohibited expenditures including "movies, gifts, alcohol, and supplemental charges related to a seminar aboard a cruise," but said the total amount of spending for these items could not be determined.

During the audit period _ the year that ended June 30 _ Holland also found the university was charged $520 for hotel no-show or early departure penalties, charges related to extended hotel stays and a lengthy automobile rental with no explanation.

University officials said in the audit that longer hotel stays were required in some instances because flights or vehicles were unavailable. The officials also said they would sometimes try to avoid penalties for changing travel arrangements.

The first-class plane ticket upgrade was necessary because of the length of the trip and the need for travelers to "finalize preparations for the trip/mission," the school said, without elaborating.

Officials said they will train staffers in properly filing travel vouchers. [You need to train the president.]

Senate Higher Education Committee Chairman Edward Maloney praised Daniel for progressive ideas to improve the school.

"Educationally, they're definitely going in the right direction," the Chicago Democrat said. "These are some serious allegations which I'm sure, hopefully, they will be able to adequately answer."'

'It used to be that being 33 and in charge of 93 U.S. attorneys would mean you'd been top of your class at Harvard or Yale or clerked at the Supreme Court. Now, Christian schools are joining that mix. Regent has had 150 of its graduates working in the White House; the school estimates that one-sixth of its alumni are in government work. Call them the [Monica] Goodlings: scrubbed young ideologues, ready to serve their nation, the right's version of the Peace Corps generation.

The image of Goodling that emerged in [a recent congressional] hearing did not match the "hayseed" of [Bill] Maher's imagination. A colleague said that it was not unusual to find Goodling BlackBerrying at 2 a.m. or preparing briefs late into the night. Goodling described one bit of office politics as a clash between two "Type A" women in which she played the Eve Harrington character in "All About Eve" and won. "Televangelist" did not seem to be on her list of career goals.

Falwell and Robertson were outsiders and always behaved like it. Goodling's Christian contemporaries grew up with Bush as their president, speaking their language. Even after this administration is gone, they can work for one of the more than 150 members of Congress who call themselves evangelical or dozens of conservative think tanks and activist groups. Or they can run for office: Robert McDonnell, Virginia's attorney general, is a Regent alum. They are part of the Washington establishment now and, much to Bill Maher's chagrin, they will be around long after Bush is gone.

Recently, I spent a lot of time among the students at Patrick Henry College, a seven-year-old school founded in much the same spirit as Regent. The students there easily matched Goodling's description of herself as "anal retentive." They input their daily schedules into Palm Pilots in 15-minute increments -- read Bible, do crunches, take shower, study for Latin quiz. They intern at the White House. The atmosphere is much more Harvard than Bob Jones.'

'[T]he French system just produces dropouts. Forty-five percent of Sorbonne students do not complete their first year of university, and 55 percent do not finish their degrees. Without entrance standards, there is a "selection-by-failure" that squanders resources and professors' time on weak students who "have no real chance of success," [the system's president] said...

There's even a "phantom student" phenomenon where as many as 10 percent of students on the rolls never see the inside of a lecture hall, having enrolled only for free health benefits and student discounts on everything from train travel to movie tickets.

... The University of Shanghai publishes a world-ranking of universities, and in 2005, the top French University placed 46th, behind more than 30 American institutions...

My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can't buy her.

In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all...

A federal report released May 9 revealed that a former University professor had contractual and friendly relationships with a publishing company whose products he endorsed as effective child literacy boosters.

Reading First, the federal student literacy program enacted under President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, has been the subject of increasing scrutiny in recent months. Former University professor Edward Kame'enui worked for publisher Pearson/Scott Foresman while directing the University's Reading First Technical Assistance Center - one of three in the country. Kame'enui's extensive financial ties with the publisher may have improperly influenced his actions, according to the report.

Earlier this month, Kame'enui resigned from his position as the Commissioner of Special Education Research at the Department of Education in Washington, D.C.

... Reading First recommends to schools textbooks and materials scientifically shown to improve literacy in grades K-3. The materials must meet a set of rigorous requirements to be promoted by Reading First. Although the program seems to work - students in the program who are proficient on fluency tests have risen about 15 percent, education department officials said - perceived mismanagement of Reading First led to a number of federal reports and a congressional hearing last month in Washington, D.C., where it was revealed that Reading First employees made at least $1 million recommending their own products.

The program first unwittingly stole the spotlight last fall when the federal Department of Education Inspector General's report stated University employees advised states to purchase products they developed themselves. Since then, an ongoing investigation has ensued.

E-mails and documents Kennedy obtained for the purpose of the report revealed Kame'enui entered into three contracts with Pearson/Scott Foresman, all of which resulted in direct royalties for Kame'enui because he was also developing programs for the publisher that were sold to Reading First schools. He also acted and lobbied on behalf of Scott Foresman while directing the Technical Assistance Center. [Busy man, Kame'enui.] Despite Kame'enui's claim to the contrary, the report revealed the primary source of Kame'enui's income since 2003 was not the publication of textbooks, but rather profits obtained through Reading First programs.

'The University Book Store has pulled a "Women of UW" calendar from its shelves, although the students who published the calendar are hoping to get it back into the store -- or at least recoup some of their production costs.

The students put together the calendar as part of a business course that required them to develop a company, create a product or service and sell it for profit. The calendar features 13 UW students posing in bikinis, shorts or skirts. There's also brief biographical information on each woman.

... Though the calendar was sold in the University Book Store earlier this month, it was taken off shelves last week, before the Seattle P-I published a story about it. The chief executive of the bookstore declined Tuesday to comment on the calendar's removal.

Zachary Meissner, a member of the student group, said the bookstore asked them to take back the unsold calendars -- about 250 in all. Although the students would like the bookstore to keep them on the shelves, they are willing to take the calendars back for a fee that would help cover the costs of producing them, Meissner said.

The students and the bookstore have a purchase contract, he said, and students would like it to be honored.

... UW Business School Dean James Jiambalvo said a few people from outside the business school have complained that the calendar objectified women. An associate dean will be meeting with the course instructor to discuss the group's project.

... The removal of the calendar from the bookstore has brought additional publicity to the group.

Members appeared on news radio KIRO-AM 710 on Monday night and on KISW-FM's morning radio show Tuesday...'

'"Every day there's a new revelation, so I don't think this is going to end any time soon," said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, a student aid information Web site.'

Once upon a time, sweatshirts and pennants sufficed as markers of school spirit. And while more than a few Fighting Irish fans would be happy to have their final resting place under the 50-yard line at Notre Dame Stadium, most university devotees have understood the difference between a college and a cemetery. But the line is beginning to blur.

As Alan Finder reported in The Times recently, several universities, including Notre Dame, the University of Virginia and Hendrix College, have been hard at work building memorial walls. The technical name is a columbarium, where the ashes of alumni and professors can spend eternity on the collegiate grounds where they once found happiness.

There is, of course, a price. University administrators can be single-minded in their pursuit of donations, and anything that deepens the bonds, strengthens the affinity, they consider to be fair game. And it is often said that alumni contemplating the end of their mortal existence are especially susceptible to sentimental appeals to remember their alma mater with some cash.

That’s how new dormitories and classroom buildings get their names, along with stadiums, parking lots and swimming pools. But there ought to be limits. If, as we suspect, the collegiate columbarium is just another fund-raising pitch, its crassness makes us shudder.

Many schools have monuments to their founders, to alumni who contributed to society or the nation, to students who fell in war. They remind us of contributions to be celebrated, of sacrifices to be remembered. Fund-raisers should focus on buildings, football, branded mugs and credit cards.

'There is, however, one reason for optimism here: the very irrationality of the existing system. The peculiar turn intercollegiate sports has taken over the past 40 years seems pretty clearly to be the product of historical accident and interest-group politics run amok, rather than the true preferences of the stakeholders in the enterprise or the deep-seated ideals of those with power. In such a case, change that seemed impossible ex ante can sometimes come quickly and relatively painlessly if only a critical mass of people are willing to demand it.'

'[Some have] suggested that athletic preferences might add slightly to the socioeconomic diversity of the student body. Self-studies subsequently undertaken by Amherst, Williams, and Middlebury, however, found otherwise. Athletes in all three schools were both wealthier and less ethnically diverse than the rest of the student body. That trend, if anything, is likely to be exacerbated in the future, as the increasing professionalization of college athletics forces a steady, and very costly, professionalization of athletics in high school and even earlier. These days, it is not uncommon for parents to spend as much as $30,000 a year on private trainers, equipment, travel with elite club teams, marketers, etc., to position their kids as athletic recruits. At that price, athletic preferences will become just one more edge in the admissions game for the already most-privileged kids.'

Entrenched as the most prominent athletic powerhouse among Washington area high schools, DeMatha finally plans to catch up with some of its peers when it comes to sports facilities. The Hyattsville Catholic school hopes to break ground next year on a $9 million convocation center that includes a gymnasium and is in discussions to have artificial turf practice and game fields installed at off-campus sites.

The improvements merely will keep DeMatha in step with many of the region's private schools, which are in the midst of a spending spree to build top-flight athletic facilities that would be the envy of many colleges. And the building boom is not limited to traditional athletic powers; it includes less well-known schools seeking to enhance their reputations.

After all, if Georgetown Prep in North Bethesda can spend $23 million for the Hanley Center for Athletic Excellence, why shouldn't Annapolis Area Christian School, which is fielding a football team for the first time this fall, build a 25,000-square-foot indoor practice facility?

Counting projects recently completed, those under construction and others planned for the next few years, area private schools are spending in excess of $150 million on new sports facilities. This does not include wish lists on long-range master plans for several schools.

"It is unbelievable, my goodness," said Al Hightower, co-athletic director at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac and a 23-year veteran of local scholastic sports. "And who says there is a downturn in the economy?"

Administrators cite several factors for the construction boom, among them heightened competition to attract students, the standard set by many colleges that in recent years have built expensive student recreation centers, and the lower maintenance costs associated with artificial turf fields, whose versatility and sturdiness reduce the number of canceled games and practices.

Officials cite another reason as well: What was sufficient 40 or 50 years ago no longer is considered adequate in a modern era of heightened expectations among parents, students and alumni.

"I think there are reasons that make sense for why we're seeing it," said Peter Roby, director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University. "You hope it's needed, that it's a timely addition and improvement as opposed to trying to keep up with the Joneses. Unfortunately, I think some of it is, 'Because prep school "X" has it, we need to do the same.' That certainly is what you see more of at the college level."


... Public school systems, in general, simply lack the money that private schools can accumulate through tuition dollars and alumni giving to undertake expensive capital improvements to their athletic facilities.

Private schools also view modernized sports facilities as a valuable tool to help them lure students.

"The competition for people is unbelievable and if you don't have stuff, forget it," Pallotti Athletic Director Steve Walker said. The Laurel school opened a $5 million gymnasium in 2004.

Foxcroft, an all-girls school in Middleburg, is building a state-of-the-art field house. National Cathedral, another all-girls school in Northwest D.C., has a 45-foot climbing tower in its $26 million Agnes Underwood Athletic Center that was built underground and opened in 2002, just ahead of the start of the building boom.

At Georgetown Prep and many other schools, officials determined that older athletic facilities no longer were keeping pace with demand. There are more teams (varsity, junior varsity, freshman) competing in more sports. More practice space is needed and a gym that seats only a few hundred spectators no longer is adequate.

"Frankly, we grew out of [the old field house] 25 to 30 years ago with the number of activities we had on campus," Georgetown Prep Athletic Director Dan Paro said. Talking about the Rev. William George, the school's president, Paro said: "Having not done anything in 40 years, one of his goals was to build something that will not be outdated in 10 or 15 years. His goal was trying to reach into the future; we have an opportunity to do this once."

Georgetown Prep moved its baseball field and reworked its nine-hole golf course to accommodate space for its new facility, which includes a gymnasium with space for 1,000 spectators, a 50,000-square-foot field house with an indoor track, a wrestling room with bleachers, a pool that can host races measured in yards or meters and a 6,000-square-foot weight room. There's also a snack bar that serves crab cakes and a big-screen television and leather sofas for students to relax.

As part of its upcoming project, St. John's plans to construct a baseball clubhouse, with a team locker room, coaches' offices, a press box and a VIP suite that can be used at football and baseball games. The cost: $1.5 million.

"In the private school market, everything seems to trickle down from the colleges after a few years," Brach said. "I think schools having dedicated space for their premier programs is going to be a growing trend."

Other schools are mimicking colleges with their recreation centers, such as Severn School's $12 million field house, which is scheduled to open Jan. 1. The $10 million Herndon Kilby Student-Athletic Center at Annapolis Area Christian, set to open in August, includes a 25,000-square-foot indoor practice area, similar to the ones many college athletic departments build for their teams....

Outsourcing, that common practice of big business, is flourishing in big-time college sports, including at the University of Minnesota.

The Gophers' new $288.5 million publicly funded campus football stadium is now up for commercial grabs. Advertising signs, corporate sponsorships and luxury suites are set to be sold at TCF Bank Stadium. But those lucrative sales appear likely to be conducted by Missouri-based Learfield Communications, not by university employees.

Such outsourcing is a trend sweeping the nation. College athletic departments, in search of revenue certainty, get sizable upfront payments from the likes of Learfield, who then sell, sell and sell some more in hopes of turning a profit.

"On the one hand, it's commercialism run amok," said B. David Ridpath, a Ohio University professor of sports administration who follows the business of college sports. "On the other hand, these athletic departments are in business to make more revenues in their never-ending college sports arms race. Companies like Learfield are helping in that process."

Learfield already controls the Gophers radio network and sells sponsorships, signs and suites at other Gophers arenas. Negotiations for a long-term deal that would cover TCF Bank Stadium are in progress. Learfield operates on 30 other Division I college campuses. Other firms that compete with Learfield for athletic department clients control the marketing and broadcast rights on dozens of other campuses.

Kentucky-based Host Communications, Learfield's top rival, has guaranteed a total of $240 million over the next decade for the marketing rights to three athletic programs: Arizona, Texas and Kentucky.

This marriage of commercial interests and college sports is creating cozy bedfellows. For instance, the U athletic department's lead representative in negotiations with Learfield for rights to TCF Bank Stadium is associate athletic director Tom Wistrcill.

Just 13 months ago, Wistrcill was a Learfield employee.

Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi says there's no conflict of interest.

"Tom is loyal to the University of Minnesota, is good at what he does and his experience at Learfield actually provides us with an understanding of the industry we would not otherwise have," Maturi said.

It happened at Oregon State, too, where the Learfield rep jumped to that university's athletic department.

"These companies have an immense amount of power," said Ridpath.

How it works

Learfield's relationship with the Gophers began in 2003 after Maturi arrived on campus to reorganize his department and balance its budget, which stands at $56 million annually.

Learfield has been on the college scene since 1975, when it first established a radio network for University of Missouri football. Since then, its services have expanded to, essentially, matchmaking corporate sponsors with athletic programs. Learfield develops regional radio networks and integrates on-air advertising with stadium signs, game program ads and, in some cases, selling suites, as in Williams Arena.

Learfield has similar deals with other Division I programs, including Wisconsin, Iowa and Penn State. Learfield recently signed with Wisconsin its biggest announced deal, a 12-year, $76 million arrangement. Since 1994, Learfield has taken on more Badgers business so that it now handles all of the sponsorship marketing, except suites at Camp Randall Stadium.

"This is a business that has to be self-supporting," said University of Wisconsin senior associate athletic director Vince Sweeney. "But we don't have the sales expertise or staff that Learfield does. It's what they do and not what we can do. That's a good reason why we outsource."

When Learfield took over marketing responsibilities for the Gophers, it upped the sales staff and now has six full-timers plus general manager Greg Gerlach, a former Minnesota Wild marketing exec.

The money works this way: Learfield gives an athletic department cash. In Minnesota's case, for this current year, it's $3.2 million for sponsorships, signs and arena suites and another $1.5 million for rights to control and sell ads on the radio networks.

After plunking down that $4.7 million, Learfield goes out into the marketplace and sells ads for the Gophers radio games, for coaches' radio shows, for daily reports on stations statewide, for signs and sponsorships in Mariucci and Williams arenas ... and keeps all it brings in, until total sales reach a threshold of about $7.5 million annually.

Then the U and Learfield split the surplus.

Since 2003, according to Wistrcill and Gerlach, Learfield hasn't reached the revenue-sharing threshold.

But Learfield has boosted Gophers sponsorship and broadcast revenues from about $3.6 million in 2003 to about $5.8 million this past year.

The real gold mine could be TCF Bank Stadium.

A feasibility study conducted by the university during planning for the stadium projected annual suite, luxury seating and in-stadium sign revenues at $3.7 million.

Learfield's Gerlach said that he hopes to nail down a deal this summer to get rights to market the stadium's inventory. From Gerlach's point of view, having the ability to sell all components of Gophers sports -- from women's basketball to suites at TCF Bank Stadium -- would provide blanket brand identity for a sponsor.

"We want that, and the school wants that," he said.

Cautionary note

But university central administrators are being more cautious.

University Chief Financial Officer Richard Pfutzenreuter said before he signs off on any Learfield-TCF Stadium deal he wants to be assured "we're getting full market value."

One issue is the negotiating role of Wistrcill, who was hired by Maturi.

"I haven't seen any conflict myself," said Pfutzenreuter. "I think Wistrcill knows exactly who he's working for. It's the University of Minnesota."

Said Wistrcill: "There could be the appearance of [a conflict] ... Others could say, 'Hey, here's a former Learfield employee negotiating a deal with Learfield. What's going on?' That's why other people [in the central administration] are involved. ... I'm going to do what's best for the university."

But Pfutzenreuter said that, if a tentative deal is struck with Learfield to market the new stadium, "I'm likely to say I want an independent assessment."

Suites could be the stumbling block. In Madison, for instance, Learfield will pay the Wisconsin athletic department about $4.9 million this year, or $100,000 more than Minnesota.

But Wisconsin doesn't allow Learfield to sell or capture the lucrative Camp Randall suites, which generate revenues of about $3.8 million per year.

Wisconsin's Sweeney said selling luxury seating to boosters and corporations is a development and fundraising task.

"Our core business is sitting down with donors or potential donors," he said. "That's not something we want to outsource."

At dozens of colleges this month, graduates will get diplomas, hug their parents, toss their caps in the air. But it's not just students who are starting anew this commencement season: Many of the schools are, too.

There has been lots of turnover in leadership at Washington universities recently, shaking up schools that have had the same presidents for many years. [It's true there's been quite a bit of turnover, but I'm not sure this means much of a shake-up in most of these places.]

That means new leaders for the city's largest private employer (George Washington University), one of the country's most elite historically black universities (Howard), and the only liberal arts college for deaf people (Gallaudet) -- leaders who will make decisions that affect not only students and research, but neighborhoods, jobs, hospitals, real estate and the intellectual life of the place.

And "they may be a precursor for a major shift in higher education," said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

Some longtime presidents remain in the area -- at George Mason University, the University of Maryland Baltimore County and elsewhere. [Note that the article says nothing about the stable and successful presidency of the most important Maryland campus: College Park.] But after years of stability, with many local presidents long outlasting the eight-year national average, the higher education terrain is shifting -- at some schools, dramatically.

Last month, William J. Frawley, the new president of the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, was fired soon after he was charged with driving while intoxicated on two consecutive days. [The Frawley case is the only one that fits the Post's scenario, though even that one doesn't fit it very well. Frawley was not long- but short-serving. And he presided over a school that can't have been much of a pressure-cooker. Small, set in its ways, genteel... I suspect the problem with Mary Washington for someone like Frawley, who'd just been at GW for a few years, was the opposite: It was probably pretty dull.]

At Gallaudet University, protests set off by the choice of a new president paralyzed the school and brought international attention during the fall, ending with the board yanking the appointment. [This says nothing about the capacity of the chosen president to stand up to pressure. Indeed, far as I can tell, she stood up to it extremely well.]

And when Benjamin Ladner was forced out of American University a year and a half ago in a spending scandal that reverberated nationally, it made some trustees more aggressive about oversight. [Again, the Ladner thing had nothing to do with a pressure-cooker presidency. He seems to have loped happily along through his years at AU. The Ladner thing was about his outrageous money-grubbing.]

"The climate in boardrooms has changed, and not for the better," said Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity University in Washington, who soon will find herself, with 18 years in the job, the longest-serving leader in the 15-member Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area. "There's a fine line between asking tough questions, probing, holding leaders accountable -- and making it so unpleasant to hold the executive office that people just can't do it anymore." [See how confused the article is? The prior paragraph has talked about Ladner. McGuire was one of Ladner's loudest and most eloquent attackers. Thus, at least in terms of the just-discussed case, McGuire had no trouble at all with a university making it so unpleasant for a president to continue to serve that he leaves. That's exactly what AU rightly did.]

Some presidents have told her, "I don't need this." [Who in the DC area has said this? If it was Ladner, the complete sentence, presumably, would be, "I don't need this possibility of jail time, and the university is clearly on its way toward discovering things about my pillaging that might send me there..."]

Frank Wu, a trustee at Gallaudet, said, "The increasing complexity of colleges and universities, heavy regulation, intense public scrutiny, demands for fundraising, relentless pursuit of rankings -- each has dramatically increased the pressure, and together they've transformed the college presidency." [Wu makes it sound way pressured, to be sure. But take away words like intense and relentless, which just lard things up, and the reality is that this describes what university presidents have long done. When you add to his list an extensive administrative staff and, for more and more presidents, personal compensation worth millions, most of them seem to be holding up quite well.... And I don't want to lay it on too thick here, but presidents of Wu's university, Gallaudet, have come and gone for decades while presiding over a scandalous graduation rate, and there's been, far as I can tell, virtually no pressure on them about this.]

Warren said he could sum it up in a single word, all caps: MORE. More of everything is expected from presidents. [And immensely more by way of salary and compensation and perks is given to them. No doubt there's a connection between a real trend -- the insane growth in university presidential compensation -- and the language of crisis to which the Post is contributing.]

There's other pressure, too: Colleges are among the last true democracies, Wu said; people lower in rank can band together to force the chief out. [This can sometimes happen, but it hardly makes colleges -- notorious for the secrecy, for instance, of their decision-making -- true democracies. As in national presidencies, constant instability at the top is more likely to be a result of lack of democracy.]

Can and do, as faculty and students in Washington showed recently. The board makes the decision on hiring and firing presidents. But the campus community sure can ratchet up things.

There are new presidents at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and Montgomery College, and new ones coming this summer to George Washington University and Prince George's Community College. Howard University's president has announced he's stepping down next year.

Some said the local turnover is a sign of a growing national trend. A study by the American Council on Education found that half of college presidents are older than 60. "When you have half of your entire workfor