Quick Takes

Newly released e-mail messages may mark a new low in the admissions scandal that just keeps growing at the University of Illinois. The Chicago Tribune reported that the e-mails show that the chancellor of the university's Urbana-Champaign campus, Richard Herman, pressured the law school to let in an applicant favored by the then-governor, Rod Blagojevich, in return for having the governor get jobs for five law graduates with less than stellar academic records. An e-mail from Herman to the then-dean of the law school, Heidi Hurd, who was apparently balking at admitting the applicant, said that the request came "straight from the G. My apologies. Larry has promised to work on jobs (5). What counts?" Hurd's response, which suggested why the university might need to take special steps to get these students jobs: "Only very high-paying jobs in law firms that are absolutely indifferent to whether the five have passed their law school classes or the Bar." The Tribune noted that law school rankings are based in part on job placement success, so a law school would have reason to worry if even poor academic performers couldn't get jobs. University officials declined to respond to the e-mails, telling the Tribune that their first response should be to a special state panel investigating admissions at the university.

The American Historical Association has written to Russia's president, Dmitri Medvedev, to protest his government's recent creation of the Commission to Counteract Attempts at Falsifying History to Damage the Interests of Russia. The government-appointed commission will be responding to "unfavorable" work about Russia, and the historians' letter objects to this role for a government agency. "The critical issue here is who decides what is favorable or unfavorable. We do not think such a judgment should be in the hands of government appointed officers, but rather should be left to free and open debate among historians," the letter says. "Any limitation on freedom of research or expression, however well intentioned, violates a fundamental principle of scholarship: that the research must be able to investigate any aspect of the past and to report without fear what the evidence reveals."

Most college leaders lack robust risk assessment strategies, even though they ought to be on guard about a range of issues as diverse as political scandals and endowment losses, according to a report released Thursday. Of about 600 surveyed colleges, both public and private, only 23 percent said their governing boards monitored risk through regular formal reports, according to the United Educators and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. At a time when colleges are being advised to consider political and reputational risks as part of their overall strategy, only about 42 percent said they did so routinely. “It was really quite disturbing to us,” Janice Abraham, chief operating officer of United Educators, said of the results.

An article in The Economist explores the problems facing German universities (lack of money compared to other countries, more students per faculty members than many countries) and current efforts to fix them. Germany's government is putting more money into the institutions, with the goal of paying for more spots. The government is also encouraging more differentiation among universities.