Quick Takes

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is today announcing the 2009 MacArthur Fellows (commonly called "genius grants," although the foundation doesn't use the term) and academics are among those winning the $500,000, no-strings award for "exceptional creativity, as demonstrated through a track record of significant achievement, and manifest promise for important future advances." The academic winners are:

• Maneesh Agrawala, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California at Berkeley.
• Timothy Barrett, research scientist and adjunct professor at the Center for the Book at the University of Iowa.
• Esther Duflo, Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Deborah Eisenberg, short story writer and professor of creative writing at the University of Virginia.
• Lin He, assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley.
• Peter Huybers, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University.
• L. Mahadevan, De Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics at Harvard University.
• Heather McHugh, Milliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Washington.
• Richard Prum, William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University.
• John A. Rogers, Lee J. Flory-Founder Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Elyn Saks, Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California.
• Beth Shapiro, assistant professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University.
• Daniel Sigman, Dusenbury Professor of Geological and Geophysical Sciences at Princeton University.
• Mary Tinetti, Gladys Phillips Crofoot Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University.
• Theodore Zoli, visiting lecturer in civil engineering at Princeton University and an adjunct professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia University.

A Brandeis University committee has recommended that the university keep the Rose Museum of Art open to the public, but the panel didn't take a position on whether its prized modern art collection should be maintained or sold, The Boston Globe reported. Brandeis infuriated arts scholars nationwide with a plan -- now on hold -- to shut the museum and sell the collection, which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The university said that it needed the funds for other academic purposes. The committee's report will be released officially today; it calls for better integration of the art museum with the university's academic departments.

With the economic downturn threatening the viability of some university presses, any "review" of a publishing house is likely to crank up the jitters. Perhaps with that in mind, Northwestern University went out of its way to announce Monday that the university has "reaffirmed its commitment to publishing and disseminating scholarly writing," and that it will conduct a national search to hire a new full-time director of the Northwestern University Press. But while the review solidified Northwestern's commitment to a sustained role in scholarly publishing, it also reinforced that changes are coming to its press, as to the publishing industry overall. Beginning next year, the university announced, the press will make its primary journal, TriQuarterly, available only electronically. “This move will align publishing efforts more closely with the university’s academic enterprise while at the same time expanding electronic dissemination and public access to the wonderful literature and essays that are published in TriQuarterly,” said Sarah Pritchard, the Charles Deering McCormick University Librarian. “Scholarly publishing is increasingly moving to open access, allowing greater distribution of academic work. This reflects that trend and allows the journal editors to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities offered through online publishing.”

Jill Landesberg-Boyle has agreed to go on leave, ending her controversial term as president of Florida Keys Community College, The Miami Herald reported. While Landesberg-Boyle was praised by some at the college for academic improvements, many employees charged her with creating a destructive work environment. Until her contract ends on June 15, she will keep her salary and benefits package of $157,000 a year.

Spanish officials have barred a team from Ariel College, an Israeli college located in occupied land on the West Bank, from participating in an international competition among university student teams to build a solar-powered house, Israel News reported. Ariel's team had reached the finalist round, but a statement from the contest organizers said it could not continue. "The decision was made by the Spanish government based on the fact that the university is located in occupied territory in the West Bank. The Spanish government is committed to uphold the international agreement under the framework of the European Union and the United Nations regarding this geographical area," said the statement. Ariel responded by saying: "We scornfully reject the one-sided announcement we received from the Spanish Housing Ministry. The anti-academic decision harms 10,000 students in the university center, including 500 Arab students who study at the institution, in particular the Jewish and Arab students studying together in the school of architecture."

An American college administrator who happened to pick up a daily newspaper in Britain on Monday could have been forgiven for doing a double take to see whether he or she was back home. The British press was filled with news likely to resonate with anyone who has been following policy discussions about higher education in the U.S. in recent months. First, a group of business leaders published a report Monday arguing that, because of the economic downturn, the British government should temporarily abandon its goal of trying to enroll at least 50 percent of the country's 18-30-year-olds in higher education -- a goal much like the one President Obama has set for the U.S. The report, by the higher education task force of the Conferation of British Industry, also recommends that the government end its subsidy on student loans while students are in school, which is similar to a proposal made last year by a panel of student aid experts convened by the College Board. On Sunday, meanwhile, the Times of London reported that some British universities are planning to cut the number of British citizens they admit and replace them with students from other countries who pay higher tuitions -- not unlike a strategy that many state institutions in the United States typically undertake when short on funds.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York is honoring four college presidents with "academic leadership" grants of $500,000 each to support academic initiatives at their institutions. The winners are: Leon Botstein of Bard College, Scott Cowen of Tulane University, Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania, and William E. Kirwan of the University System of Maryland.