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A recent study published in Science reveals that racial bias can influence tenure and promotion decisions in academia. The study analyzed over 1500 tenure and promotion decisions at five research-intensive universities in the United States and found that Black and Hispanic faculty members received more negative votes compared to their white and Asian colleagues, even when they were equally productive. The bias was particularly evident at the college level, where committees were less familiar with the candidates and their work. The study suggests possible remedies, such as adjusting the solicitation of external review letters and emphasizing scholarly productivity in the evaluation process. However, some critics argue that the study overlooks ongoing disparities and racial biases faced by Asian scholars. Overall, the study highlights the need for increased awareness and efforts to address racial bias in academia. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on a lawsuit against Tufts University by tenured faculty whose salaries were reduced, potentially setting a national precedent for tenure expectations. Topics discussed include the financial pressures on tenured professors to secure external grants, the implications of salary reductions for failing to meet funding targets, and the broader debate over the meaning of tenure and academic freedom in higher education.

NEWSIN FOCUS A time-lapse image of satellite tracks, taken in Montana over 1 hour, won a commendation this week from the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The photographer, Matt Jackson, says he wanted to help viewers consider downsides to humans’ growing reliance on technology. Thousands of satellites launched in recent years to provide global internet connections are marring ground-based astronomical observations.PHOTO (COLOR) [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on Eindhoven University of Technology's women-only hiring policy aimed at reducing the gender gap in academic positions, reporting a significant increase in female recruits over five years, which has doubled compared to previous percentages.

The article highlights that blinding reviewers for an early-career grant reduces reputational bias, benefiting faculty members from lesser-known institutions.

"They could offer me … an amazing deal and I still would be like, 'Nope, I will settle for less at a place that I feel safe and protected.'" Mae Guthman, a neuroscience postdoc at Princeton University who is applying for faculty positions, feels similarly. "To have a university that hasn't really talked about this, from my perspective, is dehumanizing", says a faculty member who works at a public university in a state that bans abortions. NEWS After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in June 2022, Alesha Thayer sat down with her husband and worked out a plan to leave the state where she has been a faculty member for more than 5 years. [Extracted from the article]

To date, 15 of Pruitt's papers on social behavior in spiders have been retracted, work that had earned them a prestigious Canada 150 Research Chair title. RESEARCH MISCONDUCT | McMaster University last week released results from its investigation into former faculty member Jonathan Pruitt, finding that the internationally acclaimed behavioral ecologist engaged in fabrication and falsification of data reported in eight papers. McMaster placed Pruitt on leave in 2021, and they resigned in 2022 in a settlement. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on a proposed change by the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to enhance transparency in university investigations of research misconduct by publicly disclosing findings that are currently kept confidential. Topics discussed include the potential benefits of greater transparency in research misconduct investigations, and the reservations of university administrators about the proposed change.

The article alleges that Harvard University dismissed researcher Joan Donovan, focusing on her claim that the university ended her work on misinformation in social media to please Meta.

The article reveals that the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has received a substantial gift from Ross Brown to fund fellowships for U.S. faculty in physics and chemistry, supporting transformative research.

The article focuses on the seizure of Nicaragua's Central American University (UCA) by President Daniel Ortega's administration, citing it as another blow to academic freedom and scientific autonomy in the country. Topics discussed include the government's allegations of the university being a hub of terrorism, the closure of smaller private universities, and the potential consequences of eliminating independent centers of academic research.

In this issue of Science, we are running a letter from Lauer and his NIH colleague Patricia Valdez that tells more of their story, much more than what Lauer told Mervis for the original article. After the editorial and news story came out, Michael Lauer, the administrator most closely associated with these actions, invited me to the NIH for an off-therecord session, showing me the documentation behind many cases of individuals who have been affected by these investigations. In March, Science published a news story by J effrey Mervis that chronicled five cases of individuals, mostly Chinese or of Chinese descent, whose research careers were disrupted or ended by personnel actions taken by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). [Extracted from the article]

But the spending measure "singling out a specific research institute sets a troubling precedent with implications that could limit the ability of public colleges and universities to pursue research and scholarship that benefits people and improves lives", said Pamela Whitten, the university's president, last month. The funding prohibition was introduced as an amendment to the bill by state Representative Lorissa Sweet, a Republican who alleged the institute has enabled sexual abuse. SEX RESEARCH | A spending bill signed on 4 May by Indiana's governor bars state funding for the famed research center on human sexuality founded by Alfred Kinsey in 1947. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the measurement of academic achievement at universities and colleges and its impact on faculty and faculty employment. Emphasis is given to topics such as the development of metrics for research impact assessment, the implementation of dashboard systems for tracking academic and clinical performance, and the inclusion of infographics and social media in professional development.

The article discusses the creation of a so-called Physical Internet, which would move goods the same way that digital data is moved on the Internet, by several researchers including industrial engineer Benoit Montreuil at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada. Topics include the Physical Internet's use to promote collaboration within the supply chain, which includes developing standardized containers, and the de-emphasis of logistics by many shipping companies such as DHL Express.

The article focuses on professor Richard Tapia at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Topics discussed include the creation of the Richard Tapia Center for Excellence and Equity, which helps minority students earn postdoctoral degrees (Ph.D.s) in the fields of mathematics and computer science, statistics on the number of black and Hispanic faculty in math-intensive disciplines between 2002-2012, and Tapia's experience with institutional racism while at Stanford University.

The article reports Tricia Serio, the only one of the 26 members of the class of 1991 of the molecular biophysics and biochemistry (MB& B) program at Yale University, who was offered a tenured faculty position at Brown University. Among the other members of the class include Dan Zimmer, Tammy Spain, Nobuyuki Ota, Deborah Kinch, Laura Silvian, Brian Dedecker, Tori Williams Reid, Matthew Goldberg, Julia Pinsonneault, Chad Brautigam, William Russ, Peter Kosa, Athena Nagi, Macarena Parra, and Laura Silvian to name a few.

The article reports on the plan of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to spend 2.2 billion dollars on programs aimed at eliminating racial disparities among biomedical faculty at universities and medical centers in the U.S.

Discusses the problems facing many university faculty members and officials these days, particularly those with industry partnerships, as their biases and personal financial stakes in areas of research are questioned. Guidelines set on conflict-of-interest and disclosure matters; Examples. INSET: The Florida case: Appearances matter, by E.M.; Harvard's tough....

The article discusses serving on faculty committees, focusing on career advice to faculty looking for opportunities for advancement. Topics include committees as an opportunity to practice abilities and promote new skills, types of committees to join, such as highly visible positions, and when to turn down offers, and opportunities outside of one's institution such as with professional associations, workshops, and journals.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the experience of the author, a native from India, in becoming a faculty member at the University of Southern California after his mentors helped him gain his confidence to embrace his identity and reclaim his name.

The article focuses on geneticists and co-directors of a laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University medical campus, Bert Vogelstein and Kenneth Kinzler. The author credits Vogelstein with helping to launch the discovery of modern genetics following the discovery of key mutations, noting that he and Kinzler have irked some of their colleagues with their comments on genomic medicine. Topics include Vogelstein's criticism of plans to use cancer genomics for treatment and risk prediction, Vogelstein and Kinzler's research using genetic tests for the early detection of common tumors, and an in-depth discussion of genetics research by Vogelstein and Kinzler since joining the lab as graduate students, including their discovery of the oncogene IDHI.

Individual assistant professors (a total of 2966 faculty) hired in science and engineering since 1990 at 14 United States universities were tracked from time of hire to time of departure by using publicly available catalogs and bulletins. Results of survival analysis showed that the chance that any given faculty member will be retained over time is less than 50%; the median time to departure is 10.9 years. Of all those who enter as assistant professors, 64.2% were promoted to associate professor at the same institution. Overall, men and women are retained and promoted at the same rate. In mathematics, however, faculty leave significantly earlier than other disciplines, and women leave significantly sooner than men, 4.45 years compared with 7.33 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how an individual can find a partner for their doctoral program (Ph.D.). Doctoral degrees can sometimes take up to six years to complete, can have a negative or positive impact on the rest of an individual's research career, and is largely dependent on completing a dissertation. Finding the right match of a potential doctorate adviser, within the right program, and the right graduate school are important steps to beginning a program. Topics include how individuals find the right match, the importance of the quality and commitment of a graduate school's faculty, and whether or not the faculty's interests coincide with an individual's research interests. Also discussed are practical issues to consider including financial support and geographic location.

The article discusses a U.S. Senate investigation that is forcing federally funded medical institutions to reveal the amount they receive from U.S. companies. The focus of the article is psychiatrist Alan Schatzberg and colleagues, of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who co-founded a company called Corcept Therapeutics to license technology for use in the clinical trials of mifepristone, which is a drug patented by Stanford. Topics include U.S. Senator Charles Grassley accusation that Schatzberg concealed from Stanford that he held stock in the company, the rule changes by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) from which Schatzberg received funding to perform a clinical study, and debate over the conflict of interests between corporations and academic researchers. INSET: SENATE PROBE OF RESEARCH PSYCHIATRISTS.

The article reports on the recruitment policies imposed by various universities across the U.S. and Europe to attract and retain more junior faculty. It stated that retirement age of senior faculty and the need to have faculty that reflect the gender and ethnic diversity of the population they serve are among the factors for such change in recruitment trend. A startup package which includes a custom-designed laboratory for the study of embryonic stem cells and tissue engineering was offered by Harvard University to attract junior faculty. The amazing resources and supportive environment at Harvard, specifically the junior faculty mentoring program, were claimed to be the key attractions of the school.

The article reports that Chinese universities should de-emphasize publication citations when evaluating scientific research, a striking shift from a long-standing preference in Chinese academe for relying on citations when deciding whether to promote faculty members or award degrees.

The article focuses on the issues concerning the part-time academic appointments in China. There were Chinese advocates who considered this type of position as a vital means of halting the country's loss of scientific knowledge. However, universities and colleges supported this kind of contract since they would gain benefits from it. They further expanded their programs and offered good packages that attracted the part-timers. These were those top-notch researchers who signed up to help their nation at the same time who kept their permanent jobs in foreign countries.

The article discusses how universities are increasingly emphasizing multidisciplinary research and teaching in the U.S. Anthony Masi, academic administrator at McGill University, explained that faculty members with multidisciplinary experience are hard to find and best universities are competing to hire those people. It explained that faculty members need to focus on a particular area of discipline to have depth and breadth, but with enough background in other fields to understand and work with specialists in those areas of discipline.

Profiles physicist Kip Thorne. Biographical and career information; Tenure as a professor at California Institute of Technology at Pasedena; Work concerning the study of gravity.

The article discusses research which indicates that the number of people with Ph.D. degrees who are employed by U.S. private sector firms is nearly equal to the number of Ph.D. degree-holders employed by educational institutions such as universities as of 2017. Declines in tenured and tenure track college faculty members in fields such as life and health sciences and mathematics are examined, along with career outcomes for Ph.D. degree graduates.

The article announces that U.S. President Donald Trump has nominated meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier, who was the former vice-chair of the governing board of the National Science Foundation (NSF), to be director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Topics include the delay in this process, Droegemeier's work at the University of Oklahoma, and his stance on climate change.

A personal narrative is provided in which the author explores her experience in changing careers from an nontenured university research faculty member to working for university fundraising, including in regard to the transferable nature of her science-related skills to fundraising.

The author reflects on how he became founder and president of the National Academy of Inventors, commenting that when he worked at the University of South Florida he heard of faculty who were denied promotions because they were spending too much time on inventions, and states traditional academic environments constrained quite a few faculty.

The article discusses faculty positions at ShanghaiTech University. It mentions School of Physical Science and Technology (SPST); School of Information Science and Technology (SIST) and School of Life Science and Technology (SLST) at the university. It adds instructions to apply for the position of faculty along with compensation and benefits.

The article presents the author's views on her experience of conducting a career seminar for graduate students' training to become STEM professionals. Topics include the initiatives of the faculty members for the career development program, presentation of an executive from the pharmaceutical industry, and effect of the seminar on students.

The author shares her experience of frequently seen as a mother in the department as a female faculty member in the environmental sciences. She mentions that students anticipate her to take care of them, and often met with a defensiveness which students do not show toward male colleagues when she offers constructive criticism or advice. She states that female instructors are frequently approached regarding personal issues which interfere with class work.

An interview with theoretical physicist Kip Thorne at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena is presented. Thorne, who worked with screenwriter Jonathan Nolan on the film "Interstellar," directed by Christopher Nolan, discusses how much of his original treatment remains in the final film, places the filmmakers strayed outside his guidelines, and the science elements Christopher Nolan brought to the screenplay, as told in Thorne's book "The Science of Interstellar."

The article discusses the use of automated camera networks and weather radar to track falling meteorites. Topics include what scientists can learn by tracking a meteorite as it enters planet Earth's atmosphere, techniques for spotting falling meteorites by Michael Zolensky and Marc Fries of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, and a camera network in Australia built by Philip Bland at Curtin University, Bentley, in Australia.

The article discusses the legal battle facing Egyptian microbiologist Rania Siam following her departure from Misr University for Science & Technology (MUST) near Cairo in 2005, due to repeated arguments with administrators and colleagues over working conditions and research support. Topics include MUST's claims that Siam's departure caused damage to their reputation and scientific credibility and Siam's grant from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB).

The article discusses the challenges faced by the private Christian Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) founded in 2009 by U.S. businessman and university president Kim Chin-Kyung in Pyongyang, North Korea, also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).The institution has encountered problems attracting funding in light of tensions between its largely South Korean donors and the North Korean government, as well as a lack of proper laboratory equipment and difficulties in recruiting faculty members. PUST is aided by the DPRK government's allowance of Internet access and investments in information technology, but critics fear the university will suffer from increasingly intrusive government control.

The article discusses professorial teaching and research conducted at research universities, the educational culture that distinguishes between the 2, and the synergistic effects of accomplishment in both. The authors, professors and biomedical research scientists at Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), explain their opinions on science education, noting the importance of content knowledge, analytical thinking, and other aspects of academics. The authors note evidence that accomplishment in these areas is best fostered through active engagement, inquiry, and research curricula.

The article discusses how U.S. schoolteachers and higher-education faculty members can benefit one another by improving teaching and student learning. According to the authors, higher education leaders and STEM faculty members in elementary and secondary schools argue that the academic success of students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are limited and that their efforts to teach STEM are undermined by the low status given to STEM education resources. An overview of the collaboration between middle and high school teachers with university faculty to break the STEM education barriers and the U.S. National Science Foundation's Math and Science Partnership (NSF-MSP) program, which is designed to help overcome STEM education obstacles, is presented.

The article discusses the impact the U.S recession has had on various science departments at Florida State University (FSU). According to the author, FSU's science departments have been significantly impacted by funding cuts made by the Florida state legislature. FSU has eliminated several small departments and laid off numerous science faculty members in an attempt to balance their budgets. Topics include an overview of how Florida's failed housing market left the state in financial trouble, how the legislature's across-the-boards cuts are crippling institutional research, and how Florida's legislature decides the amount of funding FSU receives. Statistics related to the percentage of faculty laid off, since 2007, and the science departments most affected by budget cuts are presented.

The article discusses the efforts by the microbial ecologist Ruth Ley to transform medical microbiology into an interdisciplinary science. Ley worked in a medical lab at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, as a microbial ecologist with no training in physiology or human biology. Topics include her knowledge in the field of genomics, ecology, and bioinformatics that helped position her for a career in medical microbiology, how, with the help of colleagues, she demonstrated how variations in the kinds of microorganisms individuals host affect health and disease, and her tenure as an assistant professor at Cornell University. Ley's early career as a plant community ecologist and her investigation of the role of gut microbes is also discussed.