FACULTY SALARIES: With data from the American Association of University Professors, The Chronicle of Higher Education recently put those salaries into perspective with an article on faculty salaries and the cost-of-living, especially as it relates to real estate. Where do some of the better cost-of-living bargains exist? Rice University in Houston, where the average full professor salary rises from $127,000 to $142,734 when cost-of-living adjustments are made; Washington University in St. Louis, where the average full professor salary of $135,200 rises to $139,986; and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where the average full professor salary of $126,600 rises to $132,709. For the AAUP salary survey, visit their Web site at www.aaup.org/surveys/06z/zrep.htm.

EGYPT: In cooperation with an international team of scholars, UCLA is launching the world's first comprehensive online encyclopedia dedicated to all aspects of ancient Egypt and its legacy. Over the next decade, hundreds of scholars are expected to contribute to the constantly evolving and peer-reviewed UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, which ultimately will contain about 4,000 entries and weigh in at 6 million words. www.uee.ucla.edu....

INDUSTRY SUPPORT: Industry support for academic research and development for science fell 2.6 percent in fiscal 2004, the third consecutive year of a decline, according to a report from the National Science Foundation. Industry funds represent the smallest of the various categories of sources for academic R&D expenditures tracked by the NSF, accounting for $2.1 billion out of a total of nearly $43 billion in such spending. ...

RESEARCH RIVAL: Lee Todd Jr., the University of Kentucky's president, recently introduced a lengthy and ambitious road map to make Kentucky a top 20 public research university by 2020. The plan calls for the university's budget to grow by more than $1 billion over the next 14 years, with the money to be used to hire 625 new faculty members, increase research expenditures by about $300-million, and raise enrollment by about 7,000 students, or 26 percent, to 34,000. ...

LOW SECURITY: In February, several patients at an unlicensed mental health facility in Columbus, Ga., told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer newspaper that they had recently worked security at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta during football games of the University of Georgia and the Atlanta Falcons. The facility, the Greater Grace Community Center, has recently been shut down, but the newspaper was able to verify much of the patients' story. Among the facility's patients are those diagnosed with antisocial personalities or bipolar disorder or homicidal tendencies. ...

TABLES TURNED: In March, students at Mount Saint Vincent University in Bedford, Nova Scotia, persuaded the administration to prohibit professors from using any plagiarism-detecting aid, to avoid (said the student union president) a "culture of mistrust," according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. ...

ENERGETIC ENDORSEMENT: When Ralph Cavanagh's turn came to speak at the Energy Efficiency Center's April 12 news conference, he said the new center is in "the right place" — at UC Davis. And he said he maintains this belief even though his wife, Deborah Rhode, is a Stanford law professor, and even though he works at the Natural Resources Defense Council with many "proud Davis graduates and Davis parents." And they will all be shouting "Go Aggies!" in his presence, said Cavanagh, who is Yale-educated and serves as director of the energy program for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It is a cruel irony for me to be in this role," he said jokingly after the news conference. His role includes serving as a member of the board of directors of the California Clean Energy Fund, which gave $1 million to help launch the Energy Efficiency Center, and which ran a competition among universities that wanted to host the center. Also vying were UC Berkeley and Stanford. "I cannot imagine a better place (than UC Davis) to do this," he said. ...

NEW INQUIRY: The Daily Camera, a newspaper in Boulder, Colo., reports that the committee investigating University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill is weighing whether to broaden its inquiry into new claims of research misconduct. The committee is currently reviewing seven charges of misconduct against Churchill, who became notorious in 2005 for calling some victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks "little Eichmanns." The latest issue involves alleged misrepresentations in his 1997 book, A Little Matter of Genocide. The committee anticipates releasing its findings on the initial charges in early May. A university spokesman said those findings could make the new claims "moot." In his defense, Churchill said the new allegations are only an attempt to wear him down, "but I don't wear down." ...

JOURNALISM: Orville Schell, dean of UC Berkeley's journalism school for a decade, plans to step down in order to spend more time on his own journalism, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. ...

PHARMACY: The Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UC San Diego opened May 2. This is the first year in which all four classes, freshman through seniors, are enrolled; the year the school's inaugural class of 24 students will graduate. The Skaggs School is the only public university school of pharmacy in Southern California, and one of only two public pharmacy schools in the state. ...

MOOD CLOTHING: Professor Greg Sotzing of the University of Connecticut at Storrs is developing clothing with electromagnetic polymers that can be manipulated to change colors while being worn, allowing the user to style himself depending on mood or whimsy, according to the New Scientist.

— Clifton B. Parker