A new "behavioural capability framework" proposed by the administration at RMIT University in Australia would require professors to be "positive" and "optimistic," as a rule. It would mandate niceness, in academia.

Not long ago, getting into college involved nothing more than a fair-to-middling G.P.A., an essay about reading to the blind, and your parents' checkbook. Things are a bit more complicated now. College budgets are being slashed. Competition is intense. So intense that kids are starting the "college hunt" in ninth grade. Are you really prepared? You're about to be.

Jason Cohen is a young English professor at Kentucky's Berea College. Oh Jason Cohen, what did you put on the Twitter this week???

L'Oreal (now putting less mascara in the eyes of bunnies!) gave the University of Oxford a huge pile of money to endow the "L'Oréal Professor of Marketing" chair. Of course, being a great academic university, Oxford would never allow millions upon millions of dollars to interfere with the principle of absolute academic freedom.

Apparently Vinny Guadagnino, the big-dicked guido from Jersey Shore, the greatest sociological experiment of our time, was a guest speaker at a Columbia sociology class yesterday. And it sounds like the students weren't too happy about it.

Hip hop culture is a very deserving field of study. Rap lyrics are some of the most powerful popular poetry of the past three decades. Studying rap music in a classroom is kind of a drag compared to studying rap music, say, in a car full of weed smoke, but hey, it's not the worst thing you could do in a classroom.

For the past 25 years, John Schneider has been a tenured religion professor at Calvin College, a Christian school in Michigan. Not any more! Schneider has left his job because he didn't want to cause "harm and distraction" by pointing out the existence of science.

The strange case of activist Aaron Swartz—who faces 35 years in prison for downloading a ton of academic articles—is predictably shaping up to be a rallying call for information freedom supporters. One guy just dumped 18,592 journal articles on The Pirate Bay in solidarity.

I have always called Jersey Shore the most important sociological experiment of our time, and it seems one intrepid University of Chicago student agrees with me because he's not only stolen my tag line, but is trying to organize an academic conference around the reality show. This is a brilliant idea.

The saga surrounding the mysterious suicide of embattled Princeton lecturer Antonio Calvo continues. On Friday, 23 faculty and students signed a petition for the university to release "a full report on how and why it suspended Dr. Calvo," the New York Times reports. On Sunday, Times published portions of Calvo's personal "notebook" and a reprimand from his employers.

One portion of the devastating documentary about the global financial collapse, Inside Job (which won an Oscar, so you have to see it), dealt with academic economists—specifically, the ways that they became financially tied to banks and other players in finance, and how that may have compromised the entire practice of economics. It even showed the heads of the economic departments at Harvard (pictured) and Columbia blithely asserting that there was no need to disclose their financial conflicts of interest in academic papers. It was sickening.

Philosophy! Not only are just about all of us ignorant of the field's meaning, teachings, and history—we're also ignorant of its gossip. That ends today, lucky philosophites! Everyone's talking about Philosophy Department sexual harassment.

The Internet has been enraged in the past few days over the sad tale of William Cronon, a well known history professor at the University of Wisconsin who suddenly finds Republican operatives trying to dig through his private email.

Northwestern University: so awesome, it's too awesome for the President of Northwestern University. The crusty ol' prez is "launching an investigation" into the recent hot sexxxy in-class fucksaw demonstration for a Northwestern psychology class. What's the matter, Morton Schapiro— didn't get enough hot live fucksaw action the first time around?

Northwestern University simply cannot stop being awesome. From getting drunk and hollering about blowjobs to throwing blackface Halloween parties to producing a little rapper by the name of Chet Haze, Northwestern University never does anything less than the most awesome thing to do in any given situation. That's why regular schools have "Human Sexuality" classes, but Northwestern University has HOT LIVE FUCKSAW demonstrations:

Tihomir Petrov, a math professor at Cal State Northridge, has been charged with two misdemeanors for allegedly pissing on a colleague's office door due to some sort of dispute between the two. The school took this dispute very seriously.

Martin Gaskell is an astronomer who studies quasars. He's also a Christian who questions evolution. The University of Kentucky decided not to hire him at least partly because of his religious views. Now Gaskell's won a settlement over it. Good.

You're a college professor. A student's missing class because she's just given birth. Do you a) send an email to the entire class polling them on what grade she should get? Or b) anything but that? One professor chose "A."

NYU's Tisch School has named Ruff Ryders producer (and Alicia Keys' husband) Swizz Beatz as its "Producer in Residence" for the coming school year. That high tuition buys something at last, kids! He's no DJ Premier, but. Baby steps.

Janette Turner Hospital is the author of Orpheus Lost and other books, and a professor at Columbia. She sent MFA students at her old school, the University of South Carolina, the following note about their inferiority. It is amazing.