h March 13, 2009 • $3.75
ttp:// chronicle.com Volume LV, Number 27
13Reasons
Colleges Are
in This Mess
How greed, incompetence, and neglect led to bad decisions
THE ECONOM Y
bottom, but the finger-pointing over
what went wrong is well under way.
may not have hit rock
In some ways, higher education has been a
victim of the recession—but not a defenseless
victim. Smart moves clearly helped some colleges and universities avoid the worst of the
downturn. But mistakes have left many others
in the lurch.
The downward spiral has brought layoffs,
budget cuts, and anxiety to many campuses.
With the cuts have come protests and recriminations.
Scores of college presidents have written
open letters that describe dire finances and
make the case for an era of belt-tightening.
But missing in many of those messages are
explanations of how colleges landed in their
predicaments, and who is to blame.
The Chronicle came up with 13 common mistakes that have put many colleges
in the fix they’re in. There’s plenty of responsibility to go around, in the industry
and beyond. And the choices that people
made are likely to haunt higher education
for years: A14
AP IMAGES
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BUCKNELL U.
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For Some, Hard Times Make Hiring Easier
BY ROBIN WILSON
THE NUMBER
ing faculty hiring seems to
grow each week. Yet some
of colleges freez-
institutions are going against the
grain of the poor economy and appointing new professors. This decision has given those campuses
an edge, yielding top-quality candidates who might not have been
within reach in a more-competitive
job market.
In the nation’s few flush states,
public universities are capitalizing
on relative financial health by luring professors away from budget-strapped areas. And some private
SUSIE FITzHUGH FOr THE CHrONICLE
David F. Smith, chairman of the history department at the U. of Puget
Sound, was impressed by the many “terrific” applicants for a job there.
liberal-arts colleges that did not rely
heavily on investment income still
have the resources to hire.
They are getting double and even
triple the usual number of applications. And instead of finding one or
maybe two top candidates for each
job, some colleges have found as
many as six prospects they would
be pleased to hire.
“This is an opportunity to find
the very best people,” says Michael
J. Chajes, dean of the University of
Delaware’s College of Engineering—which had more than 500 applications each for two of its eight
faculty job openings. “Typically, we
might be competing with 10 other
top schools for these people, but
this year we might be competing
with only three. If you are one of
the last ones hiring, you have your
pick of whoever you want.”
In short, this is a year of stark
contrasts: The tight economy has
made times bleak for most of higher education and turned this market
into one of the worst in decades for
academic job seekers. But for institutions that have managed to be out
Continued on Page A8
Success and Failure
in the Persian Gulf
The collapse of George Mason
U.’s campus in Ras al Khaymah
holds lessons for colleges: A26
At a Christian College,
a Chapel for All Faiths
Ecumenical Chapman U. needed
a place where everyone could
worship: A22
Private Colleges’
Public Distress
Many worry that, as their states’
fiscal situations decline, they will
fall victim to budget cuts: A20
Tufts Learns How Far
a Big Gift Can Go
BY KATHRYN MASTERSON
MEDFORD, MASS.
WHEN THE
gave $100-million to
Tufts University in 2005,
founder of eBay
it came with an unusual stipulation:
The money was to be invested in
the burgeoning field of microfinance and used to provide small-business loans and other financial
services to poor people around
the world. The university would
make money if the investments
were profitable. It was an intriguing premise.
More than three years later, the
donation, given by Pierre Omidyar
and his wife, Pam, both Tufts graduates, is fully invested and paying
dividends for students and professors here. Last year Tufts received
$6.6-million from the fund, which
it used to support faculty research,
start a loan-repayment program for
graduates in public service, and
provide student aid. In 2008 alone,
Continued on Page A16
JAY PrEMACK FOr THE CHrONICLE
Courtney E. Boen is one of about 300 Tufts alumni to receive money
from a fund that helps public-service workers pay back their loans.
Home Court Is Where the Heart Is
BY ERIC HOOVER
THE ROAD
the University of Denver
men’s basketball team knows
can be unkind, as
all too well.
The Pioneers finished 11-3 at
home this season, winning seven of
nine against their Sun Belt Conference foes. In opponents' gyms, however, they went just 2-12. And the
first of those victories, in late February, snapped a 43-game road losing
streak dating to 2006.
Joe Scott, Denver’s head coach,
tells his young team that toughness
wins road games. “Home teams are
always more aggressive,” he says.
“There’s always some element that
keeps them fighting.”
It’s the well-known law of home-court advantage, the edge that
sports teams seem to gain when
they play in their own arenas. Exactly why it happens, though, is a
long-enduring mystery.
Fans who paint their faces, taunt
their opponents, and scream their
throats raw may think the answer is
simple. More-refined observers—
sociologists, psychologists, and statisticians—have proposed all kinds
of scientific explanations. Several decades of research suggest that
home-court advantage is real, but
complex.
A team’s home-and-away record
in a given year is not the whole story, says Byron J. Gajewski, an associate professor of biostatistics at
the University of Kansas Schools of
Medicine and Nursing.
In a recent published study, he
challenged the conventional wisdom that playing at home gives col-
Continued on Page A24
This week’s news briefing: Page A3 l The Chronicle Review: Section B l 257 job opportunities: Page A40
