A number of noteworthy items related to the landscape of higher education found their way into major newspapers this week, including the announcement that Harvard University's endowment reported a 21.1 percent gain on its investments for the fiscal year 2004. This was the best performing year for Harvard's university fund since 2000, although the school also announced that the projected returns...

The Investor Protection Trust is a non-profit organization that was established in 1993 as part of a multi-state settlement to resolve charges of misconduct. Their website provides non-commercial investor education materials. Visitors should definitely start their journey to becoming educated investors by reading the "Seven Investor Education Booklets" that can be found in a link on the right...

Throughout history, cities have risen and fallen from prominence, and in recent times more attention has been paid to why this ebb and flow persists across the centuries. Documenting this process has increasingly been the province of historians, archaeologists, city planners, sociologists, and of course, photographers. Many photographers have been very interested in the world of post-industrial...

Iowa Byington Reed was born in 1851 and grew up in the Iowa City area. She was quite an accomplished seamstress, and she married William "Will" Reed in 1896. The University of Iowa acquired her papers and diaries and digitized them for access by the general public. Visitors can read through these works to learn about her daily life, her lengthy courtship with Will, and her visit to the St. Louis...

Despite the peaceful sounding phrase "town-gown" relations, the relationship between universities and their surrounding region (town or otherwise) have often been fractious. The St. Scholastica Riot of 1355 pitted the townspeople of Oxford against a few young scholars from the University of Oxford, and it was a matter that was not forgotten for four centuries. Happily, the residents of Iowa City...

Iowa Folklife Volume 2 is a companion website to the website Iowa Folklife: Our People, Communities, and Traditions. Iowa Folklife Volume 2 does a wonderful job of allowing online visitors the opportunity to explore the "traditional music, foods, dance, rituals, and crafts of Iowa's diverse cultures." The areas explored here are found at the top of the page, and include "Blues", "Bosnian",...

The Iowa State University Extension, like many state university extension services, concerns itself with almost every aspect of life a person will encounter from birth to death. Even though this website is geared towards Iowans and the unique problems and opportunities they face living in a heavily rural state, this website has a lot of practical research-based information that would be helpful...

Iowa State University Extension & Outreach offers a number of free, printable resources relating to childcare and child development. These resources, which are available in English and Spanish, are designed for parents and caregivers and may also be of interest to parent educators, health care professionals, early childhood educators, social workers, and others who work closely with families with...

Launched in 1988, the ippr is a well-known British think tank committed to producing high quality research in a number of important sectors, including media, asylum and migration, and transport issues. As the website notes, "Our aim is to continue a be a force for change by delivering far-reaching and realistic policy solutions that we hope will produce a fairer, more inclusive and more...

In 2001, the Iran Chamber Society was created in order to provide a non-partisan, non-commercial, comprehensive source of information on Iran. The website's "About Us" section states that their aim is to "create a global awareness about Iranian society and eradicate the misunderstandings and misconceptions about Iranian society, and to play an educational role as well." Visitors will find the...