Not an Onion study

"Many Faculty-Senate Leaders at Doctoral Institutions Lack Clout, Survey Finds"

Once again, higher education has managed to be the study of something that sounds like it should be, but is not, from
the Onion's indispensible series of "study finds" articles, such as Study finds working at work improves productivity, New Study Finds College Binge Drinking To Be A Blast, Study Finds Link Between Red Wine, Letting Mother Know What You Really Think, and Teen Sex Linked To Drugs And Alcohol, Reports Center For Figuring Out Really Obvious Things.

An actual news story from a real newspaper

Pedagogy a poor second in promotions
10 December 2009
By Rebecca Attwood

Study finds 'hypocritical' sector fails to practise what it preaches. Rebecca Attwood reports

Universities stand accused of hypocrisy this week over their claims to value teaching, after a major study of promotions policy and practice found that many are still failing to reward academics for leadership in pedagogy.

Research by the Higher Education Academy and the University of Leicester's "Genie" Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning examines the promotion policies of 104 UK universities.

It states that the use of teaching criteria is inconsistent, often absent and not always applied even if included.[...]

George MacDonald Ross, senior adviser to the HEA's Philosophical and Religious Studies Subject Centre, said: "Considering how long official inquiries and policy documents have been saying that teaching and research ought to have equal status, it is quite shocking that so many older universities still fail to recognise leadership in teaching for promotion purposes, particularly at the professorial level.

"It is hypocritical for certain universities to say in their mission statements and strategies that they give equal weight to teaching and research, and not to practise this in their promotion procedures."[...]

One academic, speaking anonymously, said that while teaching and learning criteria were included in their university's promotion policies, they were not aware of anyone promoted on that basis.

As I've said once before about a riveting study of higher education: That, surprisingly enough, is not from the Onion's indispensible series of "study finds" articles, such as New Study Finds College Binge Drinking To Be A Blast, Study Finds Link Between Red Wine, Letting Mother Know What You Really Think, and Teen Sex Linked To Drugs And Alcohol, Reports Center For Figuring Out Really Obvious Things.

Shocking headline of the day

"Students Tend to Ignore Hygiene Tips, Study Finds"

That, surprisingly enough, is not from the Onion's indispensible series of "study finds" articles, such as New Study Finds College Binge Drinking To Be A Blast, Study Finds Link Between Red Wine, Letting Mother Know What You Really Think, and Teen Sex Linked To Drugs And Alcohol, Reports Center For Figuring Out Really Obvious Things.

Best passage:

College health officials who want students to change their habits must be creative, communicate through social-networking sites, and lose the scientific jargon and polite euphemisms, says Benjamin J. Chapman, an assistant professor of family and consumer sciences and a food-safety specialist at North Carolina State.

"For example," he says, "don't refer to something as a 'gastrointestinal illness.' Instead tell them, 'This could make you puke,' or 'Dude, wash your hands.'"

I hereby formally ask my students to wash their hands from time to time in the event of an H1N1 outbreak, and in exchange promise not to address them as "dude."