Marketing, Reputation, and Image Update

Police checks on professors-to-be-- can Big Brother be far behind? Indiana University and Purdue University have joined the growing ranks of colleges and universities utilizing background checks before extending job offers. Few opponents to this practice have been publicly vocal, and it appears to be a wave of the future in hiring on campuses. Do we open ourselves up to liability, and how do we handle a public feud when an offer is not extended because of a shadowy background?

• IndyStar.com

CalTech's engineering class all women, making Harvard president Larry Summers's remarks all the more ludicrous: Women are increasingly filling the hard sciences in numbers never before seen. How well are institutions doing in preparing them for a male-dominated work force, and what more needs to be done?

• LATimes.com

First it was food courts and Jacuzzis: now green campuses are sprouting like weeds: As the quest to be good corporate citizens and to lure prospective students grows more competitive, the latest twists are campuses that are environmentally friendly. And some go overboard, replete with composting toilets. Is the trend healthy, or the latest fad to go the way of the Atkins diet?

• Washington Post

Campus Crises in the News

London terrorist attack sends schools scampering: Should colleges and universities rethink international programs in light of the tragedy in London? Few are poised to pull back as of this writing, but should a second attack occur, how will these institutions respond?

• Inside Higher Ed

New Jersey's state medical school overbills Medicaid: Double-billing is uncovered in a probe that shows similar problems may have gone on for a decade.

• New York Times

Computer gaffe exposes records at the University of Southern California: A web programming error in the online system for accepting applications from prospective students left names, birth dates, addresses, and social security numbers publicly accessible.

• The Register.com

Florida State professors protest: More than two dozen faculty, miffed over low salaries and two percent raises, hand-delivered a letter during a protest outside FSU President T.K. Wetherell's office.

• Tallahassee.com

Florida State in athletics hot water -- again: Benched quarterback's bizarre behavior lands him in the hospital.

• ESPN.com

Air Force Academy travails persist: The light at the end of the Colorado Springs tunnel is a train, with religious intolerance and other maladies still festering.

• Washington Post

Baylor fallout continues: Basketball problems in Waco land the Baptist-based school in long-term hot water.

• Washington Post

Quincy College in the hot seat: City, state, and federal officials are focusing intently on Quincy College following findings by investigators that its surgical technology program was allowing students to graduate without clinical experience. Now, funding and administrative problems have surfaced.

• Boston.com