Describes how more regional public institutions are opening honors colleges to raise their profiles and attract better students. (EV)

The authors compared the longevity of all baseball players alive at the time of their induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame with age-matched controls who were likewise alive at the time of the Hall of Famer's induction, and also matched them for career length, player position, and body-mass index, to assess if fame in sports is associated with…

By happenstance rather than design, what began as a single study intended to refute the validity of student ratings of instruction turned into a 30-year quest into the nature of college teaching. Although I found that student ratings can be affected by seemingly extraneous variables such as instructor reputation, I quickly realized that the…

This essay sketches out the reasons for Clement Greenberg's influence and the relationship between his reception as a critic and the emergence of art criticism as a "discipline," a phenomenon that corresponds, as Amy Newman observes, with the early history of "Artforum". But it is much more than mere "correspondence." This essay also suggests,…

Library transformation requires a cohesive vision and execution. Beyond excellent management, organization, technical deployment and collection development, success of the public library as a sense of place requires additional dimensions. This includes attention to the details of environment, presentation, ambiance, graphics, customer service and…

This study investigates the relationship between classmates seeking out a student for advice (advice prestige) and that student's academic performance. Students' conversations could inhibit or encourage their academic performance depending on the conversation's topic. Specifically, it is hypothesized that as more classmates report asking a student…

The annual US News and World Report (USNWR) Guide to America's Best Colleges is much anticipated by both high-ability high school seniors and college and university administrators. In this paper, we use a decade of Colgate University "Admitted Student Questionnaire" surveys to estimate the influence of changes in a school's USNWR rank on…

The soul expressed in a college's traditions is the constant amidst radically changing equipment, techniques, styles, and individuals. The essential college or university is the sum of all the people who have made it--its traditions built on good times, pranks, friendships, serious concerns, devotion to something beyond one's self. (MLW)

Investigates the relation between preschoolers' peer behavior and status during a school year by exploring whether early behaviors predict changes in peer status and vice versa. Results support the hypothesis that children's behaviors contribute to their social status among peers. (RJC)

Explores how for-profit colleges want to be defined as higher education institutions, for both the prestige and the money. The institutions are pushing Congress to change a key definition that prevents them from receiving certain kinds of federal aid. (EV)

A convicted criminal, eluding police, has conned dozens of college faculty out of over $200,000 over two years by pretending to be a prominent scholar, calling on colleagues to provide financial assistance to a friend, and offering academic services or personal favors in return. Targeted professors have been in the fields of history, sociology,…

Develops an inter-temporal optimization model linking academic achievement reputation, and the pool of student quality available to an institution. Describes empirical study of student-quality dynamics and its relation to the model. Finds that SAT levels of attracted students follow a convergent process as predicted, with graduation rates,…

Presents an empirical study of the Fortune 500 companies suggesting that "reputation management" is gaining ground as a driving philosophy behind corporate public relations. Finds some interesting correlations between reputation and specific categories of spending. Concludes that if reputation management is the new face of corporate…

We used data from 1,733 college students to explore whether adolescents' avenues to prestige differ in public and private high schools. Students attending seven large universities during the 1997-98 academic year provided information on the ways in which adolescents in their high schools had gained prestige with peers. The analyses revealed no…

In June 2005, shortly before Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC, became president of the University of Notre Dame, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a pastoral statement, "Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium." This document, building upon the rich experience of two…