Foreign Policy magazine ranked Dartmouth eighth on its list of top international relations programs in its March/April 2009 issue. Dartmouth is the highest-ranking institution to offer an international relations curriculum only at the undergraduate level, according to a Dartmouth press release. The rankings are based on data gathered by a group of researchers at the College of William and Mary who polled a thousand faculty members nationwide. "Our international relations faculty come to Dartmouth because they want to be in an environment where conducting high-quality research and teaching undergraduates is done synergistically," government professor Michael Mastanduno, the associate dean of faculty for the social sciences, said in the release. "The fact that Dartmouth students can interact one-on-one with a faculty of among the top IR scholars in the world is what makes this place so special."
The number of support staff at universities nationwide has doubled while the number of positions for instructors only increased by 50 percent from 1987 to 2007, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Richard Vedder, an economics professor at Ohio University, attributed the increases to a shift away from core academic operations like teaching and research, The Chronicle said. Support staff jobs have greatly outpaced enrollment increases, and have also led to higher spending on salaries and benefits, according to The Chronicle. These trends will be presented in a report to be released this week by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
The economic recession may play a large role in students' decisions about where to attend college, a new survey by the College Board and the Art and Science Group suggests, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. The poll found that the impact of the recession is most pronounced among lower income students. Of the students polled, 65 percent said they had discussed with their parents how the recession could affect their family's ability to pay tuition. The economic crisis has largely not forced students to enter the workforce rather then attend college, according to the The Chronicle, as 78 percent of students polled said they had never considered dropping out entirely.
