Editor's Note

SOMETIMES WORDS AND PHRASES CAN trigger images that we use to define things. For example, when I hear the word “sustainable” it often brings to mind a trip I took some years ago. I was among a group of people touring one of the largest working dairy farms in western Connecticut.

IN LATE MARCH, FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY (Conn.) became yet another of the 800 or so institutions to declare that they would not require the SAT as part of the admission package. While that number is slowly growing, about 72 percent of all colleges and universities still do require SAT or ACT scores.

I REMEMBER, IN A COLLEGE LITERATURE class, reading Jonathan Swift’s brilliant satirical essay “A Modest Proposal.” In it, Swift’s character suggests that the Irish could go far in alleviating a host of social ills—including overpopulation, abortion, food shortages, and unemployment—by raising their children to be eaten by the wea

LAST MONTH, THE RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION of America (RIAA) announced it would stop targeting college students who, allegedly, have illegally downloaded music.

We all know budgets are tight right now, but let me make a pitch for time and money well spent. To paraphrase the movie advertisements, if you go to one conference this year, make it the EduComm conference, June 16-18 at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes. Why?

I HAVE LEARNED THAT THIS COLUMN CAN touch a few nerves. Two examples of this are editorials I wrote about guns and alcohol, both of which continue to draw reader response long after they were published.

THESE ARE UNCERTAIN ECONOMIC TIMES, to be sure. When the stock market can both take its largest point plunge and post its largest gain within the space of a week, the term “rollercoaster economy” seems a gross understatement. But there are some industries that are usually seen as recession proof, and education is one of them.

A strange and inspiring thing happened this summer. Higher education grew a backbone. In July a group of 100 college and university presidents calling themselves the Amethyst Initiative came forward with the not-so-surprising news that young people on college campuses drink alcohol before they reach the legal age of 21.

WHAT WOULD YOU PAY FOR A COPY OF Introduction to Economic Analysis by R. Preston McAfee? $100? $150? How about nothing? Not to sound too much like a late night infomercial, but that’s the price for the book by McAfee, who teaches at the California Institute of Technology.