Faculty Issues

A focus on improving students’ critical reading skills, while essential, is missing from many conversations about student success, Alice S. Horning writes.

Scott McLemee reviews Kay Harel’s Darwin’s Love of Life: A Singular Case of Biophilia.

A professor’s murder at the University of Arizona, apparently by a former student, raises urgent concerns about campus safety. He wasn’t the first professor killed at work, either.

Both tenure and unions are crucial for protecting the rights of faculty and other academic professionals in American higher education, Irene Mulvey and Randi Weingarten write.

Students who use collaborative annotation tools learn and build community, according to a new study. Many faculty members are enthusiastic proponents of the tools, even while acknowledging their limitations.

Stephanie Y. Evans helps her students learn firsthand how it’s “real bad news” to write research papers without seeking out a variety of sources.

In split vote, Brown’s faculty votes to limit promotion and tenure committee membership to just full professors. Some critics argue against such a move, citing potential for more bias and less accountability in tenure decisions.

The controversial firing of an organic chemistry professor at New York University speaks to broader issues about student success in “weed-out” courses, Jonathan Zimmerman writes.