Koren Zailckas was 14 when she had her first drink of alcohol. She had her stomach pumped two years later after chugging more vodka, rum, and Kahlua than her 105-pound body could handle. Then came college–binge drinking, a sexual assault. Now 24 and sober for more than a year, Zailckas chronicles her love affair...
A Windy War of Words
University of Colorado Prof. Ward Churchill doesn’t mince words, and it’s gotten him into a peck of trouble–and thrust him into a national debate about free speech and academic freedom. In 2001, Churchill wrote an essay suggesting that 9/11 victims deserved their fate, calling some workers in the World Trade Center “little Eichmanns” (a...
How much money is enough?
A court ruling could bring a windfall to New York City schools
Hot on the trail of academic fraud
When the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office sued a self-described online university last month for allegedly selling fake diplomas–including an M.B.A. it conferred upon an investigator’s house cat–Allen Ezell wasn’t a bit surprised. For 25 years, Ezell, founder and chief of the FBI’s diploma mill task force, pursued fraudsters who sell fake academic credentials using...
I do not like atrocities
Few parents who read (and reread) the Dr. Seuss classics to their kids probably recognize the political leitmotifs in these joyful rhyming books. Did you know, for example, that Yertle the Turtle was based on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and that the original drawings of the tyrannical reptile featured a Hitler...
Remote access
Rural schools around the nation are expanding students' options with E-classes
The sports fallacy
Sure, colleges that win national championships sell plenty of T-shirts and bumper stickers and gain seemingly nonstop exposure on SportsCenter. But contrary to popular perception, big-time university athletic programs on average do little or nothing to attract better-qualified students or net larger alumni donations, a new study contends.
Yes, your grades mean a lot
Doing well in class can mean doing well in the financial aid stakes
Urban Oblivion
Michael Malice sat huddled in the top of the abandoned bell tower, watching his breath swirl around him in a frigid mist. He rubbed his hands together and flexed his fingers, hoping the friction would maintain enough circulation so he could climb down the 20-foot rusty iron ladder that was bolted to the inside...