Host a Scholar

Scholars at Risk (SAR) is gravely concerned about the arrest and detention of Professor Abdul Jalil Al-Singace, a mechanical engineer at University of Bahrain in Isa Town. SAR asks for letters, faxes and emails urging authorities to explain publicly the reasons for Prof. Al-Singace’s detention, disclose the whereabouts of Prof. Al-Singace and ensure his access to medical care, family and legal counsel.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina left Delgado Community College underwater and in shambles, the largest institution of higher education in New Orleans is beginning to look like its old self again. Student enrollment and the number of full-time faculty members are now greater than they were before the storm. Demolition of the last few damaged buildings and their reconstruction on the college’s main City Park Campus are imminent.

The University of Louisiana System's Board of Supervisors decided unanimously today to postpone voting on changes in its tenure policy.

The Iranian government says it will restrict the number of students admitted to humanities programs at universities, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports.

A mathematics professor was arbitrarily detained by Vietnamese authorities on 13 August on charges of “subversion” and belonging to a banned political group, Radio Free Asia reported on 18 August 2010.

There is little unusual about academics, other staff and students suing institutions over alleged sexual harassment or discrimination based on race or sexual orientation. Universities, after all, are large employers with deep pockets, making them popular targets of litigation.

On May 31, I joined some 50 students and faculty members who gathered outside Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to demonstrate against the Israeli military assault on the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid toward Gaza. In response, the next day a few hundred students marched toward the social-sciences building, Israeli flags in hand. Amid the nationalist songs and pro-government chants, there were also shouts demanding my resignation from the university faculty.

The Georgian chapter of the international writers' association PEN has stepped up its campaign for international recognistion of what it describes as a "bute violation of the right of expression and free speech" after what it says was the arrest of three poets for reading their own and Walt Whitman's verses at a protest against the naming of one of Tbilisi's major streets in honour of George W Bush.

Seventeen months after President Obama bolstered stem-cell research on university campuses by allowing federal support for studies involving a broad range of cells derived from human embryos, a federal judge has ordered the policy suspended, alarming academic scientists who warn of slower progress in studies seeking treatments for a variety of devastating diseases.

A three-member delegation from the American Association of University Professors will visit Louisiana State University's Baton Rouge campus this week to investigate two high-profile academic-freedom disputes, according to a report in The Daily Reveille, a student newspaper.

For professors, publishing in elite journals is an unavoidable part of university life. The grueling process of subjecting work to the up-or-down judgment of credentialed scholarly peers has been a cornerstone of academic culture since at least the mid-20th century.

August 22, 2010 — Oral arguments were held Friday in Albemarle County Circuit Court, with the University of Virginia again asking the court to set aside the Virginia attorney general's civil investigative demands, or CIDs, regarding a former professor's climate research.

Ethiopia is radically expanding its higher education sector: from two federal universities to 22 in just over a decade and another 10 to open soon. Even so, the percentage of the available cohort that attends higher education is still low at about 3%, compared with a Sub-Saharan average in 2007 of 6%, according to Unesco. The huge expansion of student numbers is mainly in new regional universities and a vibrant private system.

Although Britain this month ended a six-month suspension of issuing student visas in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, it has tightened student visa rules to include new language requirements. Many overseas students say this is too restrictive and could lead to genuine students opting to go elsewhere for their studies.

Israeli professors took to the pages of the country's leading Hebrew newspaper on Friday with a large advertisement denouncing "political pressures brought to bear on universities recently, which are tantamount to blatant interference in academic freedom."

ILHAM TOHTI rarely worries about his personal safety here — at least not at the hands of would-be thieves. That is because Mr. Tohti, an economics professor and unofficial spokesman for this country’s embattled Uighur minority, frequently has a police escort. Whether they are looking out for his well-being is another matter. “You may not see them, especially if I’m out with friends, but they’re there,” said Mr. Tohti, 41, whose ever-present smile seems to convey more sadness than joy.

Saudi Arabia will stop providing scholarships for students to attend a number of universities in the United States, the Middle East, and elsewhere, the country's Ministry of Higher Education announced, reports Eurasia Review.

An international group of scientists has accused the University of Manchester of overreacting to media coverage in its handling of allegations that led to the resignation of one of its professors.

Reports of the "declining social position" of British academics are greatly exaggerated, but power and influence lie disproportionately with the research elite.

ASHGABAT -- Turkmen authorities are reportedly allowing some university students to return to Kyrgyzstan to continue their studies, RFE/RL's Turkmen Service reports.

There’s growing concern over the fate of jailed human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari following recent comments by her lawyer, Mohammad Sharif. In an interview he said that she is facing serious charges including waging war against God (Moharebeh), which carries the death sentence in the Islamic Republic.

Majid Tavakoli, an Iranian student leader described as “one of the most prominent symbols of Iran's embattled student movement,� has been moved from Evin prison to Rajaeeshahr without his family or lawyer being informed, RFE/RL reported on the 18th August. Tavakoli was one of 17 political prisoners in Iran who recently went on hunger strike for several weeks to protest their treatment in prison, and was one of three who reportedly refused water as well as food.

DUSHANBE -- Western diplomats in Tajikistan have expressed concern over the fate of the country's only private university, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.

After censoring the news media and internet in the wake of the May crackdown, the Thai government has turned its sights on campus plays for signs of political dissent. Seemingly innocuous and entertaining amateur dramatics by students have come under scrutiny by the nervous authorities, who fear they may contain seditious ideas or affect national security.

BISHKEK -- The private Friendship of the Peoples University in the southern Kyrgyz city of Jalal-Abad has been closed, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.

Igor Sutyagin was shovelling cinders on to a path in his prison compound in Russia's Arctic north early last month when he was told suddenly and without explanation that he should prepare to leave. Shortly afterwards he was handcuffed and put under guard on a flight to Moscow. It was only in the capital's Lefortovo prison that he heard of several other prisoners in the same position and understood that something unusual was up. "You never get any explanation why you are transported anywhere," Sutyagin...

Four groups have filed an amicus brief asking a judge to set aside a demand from Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for documents related to the research of a global warming expert once employed by the University of Virginia.

QUEBEC CITY The clouds of the financial downturn may have a silver lining for activist adjuncts hoping to make progress toward better wages and working conditions.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is planning to expand opportunities for Americans to travel to Cuba, the latest step aimed at encouraging more contact between people in both countries, while leaving intact the decades-old embargo against the island’s Communist government, according to Congressional and administration officials.

Sweden's newly adopted university entrance selection process has come under fire for discriminating against students from other Nordic countries and the European Union. After receiving a complaint, the European Commission has now asked the Swedish government for an explanation.

A university professor’s life is at risk, following his investigation of the issuance of fake diplomas in Libyan universities, University World News reported on 15 August 2010.

At the University of Virginia today, a protest is planned over Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's attempt to obtain records about climate change research conducted there -- an attempt that faculty members view as intimidation of scholars whose findings offend the Republican politician. The university, at the behest of its faculty, has gone to court to block the attorney general's information request, and a decision could come as soon as today.

WASHINGTON -- The Government Accountability Office’s “secret shopper” investigation of recruiting practices at for-profit colleges was a mixed blessing for the U.S. Department of Education.

President Obama yesterday signed into US law legislation aimed at protecting American authors, journalists and academics from Britain's libel laws.

Tariq Ramadan, the prominent Swiss Muslim scholar, is embroiled in a public dispute with a Dutch city over his hosting of a television program that airs on an Iranian channel.

Texas, in replacing affirmative-action preferences in public-college admissions with a guarantee of acceptance for students in the top 10th of their high-school class, appears to have hurt the graduation prospects of lower-ranked minority students who ended up shut out of its most-selective higher-education institutions, according to the findings of a study recently published in the Economics of Education Review.

A recent study that measures the scientific performance of Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries over the past 15 years throws doubt on the capacity of the region to meet its own development goals.

More than 70 Iranian graduates have launched a campaign calling for the release of their friend and colleague, student photographer Hamed Saber, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty reported last month. Saber was arrested on 21 June and there had been no communication regarding his whereabouts.

University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala was detained and interrogated for two hours at Ben-Gurion Airport on her way back to the U.S. after a visit to Israel last month, according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. She was subjected to a "humiliating" security debriefing because of her Arab last name, the newspaper reports.

A surge in research output in Iran has come at the cost of honesty, with the pressure on academics to publish leading to a widespread culture of plagiarism.

An expert on university management has proposed two "Hippocratic oaths" for higher education - one for university scholars and one for managers.

A Harare magistrate has ordered that the trial of eight University of Zimbabwe (UZ) student activists should start on the 23rd of August without fail.

DUSHANBE -- Tajikistan's only private university is suing the country's education minister for defamation, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.

Iranian students hoping to sit English language examinations that open the doors to top US and British universities were caught in the crossfire of sanctions imposed by the US and the United Nations when exams were suspended for two weeks.

Egyptian American human-rights activist and democracy campaigner Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who spent three years in self-imposed exile following intense pressure from the Egyptian government, has returned to Cairo.

Iranian Health Minister Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi has announced that new restrictions will be applied on students seeking to study in Britain and the United States, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports.

The Palestinian security services have arrested six faculty members and a student at An-Najah University, in Nablus, for ties to a charity that is suspected of being a Hamas front.

The hearing featured a report by the Government Accountability Office, whose investigators found deceptive practices or fraud at the 15 for-profit colleges they visited, including two University of Phoenix campuses, two Kaplan Colleges, and a Corinthian Colleges institution.

Let's say a student group wants to invite Sarah Palin to campus, or Bill Ayers for that matter. Can a public university say that approval is contingent on the student group paying all extra security costs associated with such a visit?

BERKELEY, Calif.—BP's catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is fueling opposition to the University of California, Berkeley's research partnership with the British company, with activists and professors on the famously liberal campus calling for a severing of ties.