Today, on our fourth day of classes, UA students are finally getting into a routine. We have found our classes, we have our syllabi and some have even started lectures. Yet our Sun Devil and Lumberjack peers will be stepping into class for the first time today. As it happens, our academic calendars are very different, as those of you with siblings or friends at ASU and NAU already know.

Starting school only three days before a three-day weekend poses two major problems: Monday-only classes are behind, and a Monday holiday three days after school begins means it is not much of a break from school. [Read article]

How ironic: Going to college in the richest country on Earth is becoming unaffordable, difficult and, in many cases, beyond reach.

A few weeks ago, Vice President Dick Cheney had to cut short his visit to the Middle East in order to cast the tie-breaking vote on a bill that will cut $40 billion dollars of federal spending. The bill will end funding for, among other things, student aid totaling $12.7 billion. [Read article]

There are nearly 30,000 undergraduates on the UA campus, but according to Cade Bernsen, they're not all created equal. In recent weeks, the president of the Associated Students of the University of Arizona has proved that, above all else, he's a master of looking out for No. 1.

When students elected Bernsen to office last spring, it wasn't on the basis of fact. As a recent transfer student and ASUA outsider, he had no experience, no credentials and no reputation to speak of on the UA campus. [Read article]

Choosing a new university president occasions a form of collective soul searching that provides a space for asking ourselves such large questions as what we are, who we are and who we want to be. Given our history and our present, the following are seven traits that constitute a desired portrait of a university performing effectively in today's globalized world:

1. A global university. The UA is a university whose concerns and aims are global, not merely local and national. In a world of fragile boundaries - economic, political, social and cultural - the UA rightly devotes itself to the search for solutions for the globe's most important problems, including water and environmental sustainability, human health, crop improvement through biotechnology, drug development, nanotechnology, cross-cultural and religious understanding and diplomacy. Indeed, universities that have a global reach have the best hope today of bringing home the best solutions to local, state and national problems. [Read article]