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Some 170 higher-education lobbyists gathered for an annual meeting in December and commiserated about the nation's economic downturn. All but a handful of states are projecting tax-revenue shortfalls for the current or coming fiscal year, and higher-education advocates are seeking to stave off the worst of the budget cuts by emphasizing their institutions' roles in economic development.
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Karen McDowell, an information technology security analyst at the University of Virginia, dressed in a fish costume to raise awareness of e-mail "phishing," where con artists trick users into revealing their passwords or other personal information.
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Audio

As colleges pare down their budgets, it's important that they focus on "cuts that will actually reduce their long-term expenditures," rather than simply putting off needed spending, says Sandy Baum, an economist and a senior policy analyst with the College Board. Ms. Baum and another economist, Michael S. McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation, spoke with The Chronicle about how the recession could affect both colleges' costs and the price of tuition.

Michael Holquist, the 2007 president of the MLA, explains why the group's recent conference explored the role of humanities outside the academy.

Hear U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings talk about the continuing impact of last year's report by her Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
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Podcast

Tech Therapy

Overwhelmed by the volume of your e-mail? Tech Therapists Scott Carlson and Warren Arbogast discuss how to manage electronic messages.

Interviews

We don't just want our students to be educated about solar panels and more-efficient light bulbs, but about the sustainability movement in technology and its importance as a whole, says Debra Rowe, a professor of renewable energy, energy management, and psychology at Oakland Community College, in Michigan.

Slide Show

Traditional barbecue restaurants -- like Allen & Son, of Chapel Hill, N.C. -- aren't nearly as common as they once were, says John Shelton Reed, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photograph by Chris Hildreth
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The Chronicle took a private jet with Myron L. Rolle, Florida State University's star safety, from a Rhodes scholarship interview in Alabama to an evening football game in Maryland.
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Erica Saladino, the conservation technician in Brown University's special-collections library, makes beautiful boxes to protect the university's oldest, rarest, and most fragile books.
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Three young graduates of Wittenberg University crossed the country in a van, meeting alumni along the way.
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At Furman University this summer, Japanese artisans painstakingly reconstructed a Buddhist temple that had been disassembled into 2,400 pieces in their country and shipped to South Carolina.
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