It's the night before one of Javier Jimenez's big job interviews at the Modern Language Association (MLA) meeting. The 35-year-old graduate student, who is scheduled to earn his Ph.D. in comparative literature this spring from the University of California at Berkeley, is trying to ward off anxiety and abdominal pains. The mystique of the MLA, the…

Discusses business and technology trends that affect the need for employees to have more information skills. Highlights include the globalization of commerce; competition; lower-cost digital technology; employment trends; the role of digital systems; the impact of technology; advanced information-related literacy skills; and future education…

Some of the uneven effects of the coming enrollment decline are delineated. This condition may be exacerbated by the competition for 18-year-olds from the military and business and industry. Statistical comparisons are included. (MLW)

Discussion of biomedical science and technology focuses on factors important to a vital health care industry. Topics addressed include high expectations about health care, spending for health care, aspects related to international competitiveness, constraints on growth in the biomedical industry, the role of research, and research and employment…

Throughout the early 1900s, the United States could either find technically skilled workers based upon their backgrounds or was able to train workers quickly. Farmers, military personnel, and other sources of skilled workers were available to fill the needs of the workforce. These sources of readily available skilled workers are no longer as…

Surveys of Australian college faculty, conducted in 1977 and 1993, provide data for tracing trends in workload. While time devoted to teaching and research have remained stable, changes at the margins of academic workload are considerable. These tasks are largely generated by demands of institutional competition, accountability, and quality…

One of the working papers in the final report of the Arizona Board of Regents' (ABOR) Task Force on Excellence, Efficiency and Competitiveness, this document discusses a survey on faculty recruitment and retention in Arizona's public universities. The importance of faculty, the projected nationwide shortage of faculty, and recruitment projections…

This document reports on how key stakeholders in work force preparedness nationwide are responding to pressures of the skills race. Part 1 presents an overview of the skills challenge and the economic and social consequences of failing to meet the challenge. Part 2 examines the impact of the skills shortage on major stakeholders and explains how…