Extra Credit

Fort Worth native takes helm of state historical association

J. Kent Calder, formerly director of Arizona State University's Scholarly Publishing Program, started his new job as executive director of the Texas State Historical Association on Tuesday.

The association will be housed at the University of North Texas' Denton campus beginning this fall.

As executive director, Calder will be responsible for representing the association at public and governmental functions, managing its personnel, leading strategic planning and other initiatives of the board of directors and developing and implementing the association's annual budget and fund raising activities.

The TSHA, founded March 2, 1897, on the 61st anniversary of the Texas Declaration of Independence, is considered in academic circles as one of the nation's most dynamic regional history organizations.

In January, the TSHA announced that it had chosen UNT as its new home, based on the UNT history department's commitment to teaching and research of Texas history and on UNT's extensive library holdings.

Calder, a Fort Worth native, was the TSHA's director of publications from 2003 to 2006 before being hired by ASU.

-Patrick M. Walker

Myths about Asian students

All Asian students are prodigies who wind up at Harvard and other prestigious universities to be doctors, scientists and engineers, right? No, say educational researchers in a recent report discussed by experts at a Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. You may be surprised at what they found.

-Martha Deller

Powerful tools for fighting meth

While channel surfing the other night, I caught a piece on PBS about the Montana Meth Project. It's a large-scale, research-based advertising effort aimed at reducing the meth problem, which is all around us.

I wish Texas had thought of this. But since it didn't, we should all use the tools on the Montana Web site and help spread the word about them. (By the way, the effort has already produced impressive results.)

This is just one of several ads that the project has created and had broadcast. You can see them all here.

-Patrick M. Walker

Banding together to bolster student success

No surprise. Youth in economically-depressed cities need more help to ensure their success before and after graduation. A new report says communities are responsible for making sure that happens. Read more about it. 

-Martha Deller 

School for babies?

At first this sounds a little ridiculous, but research suggests that infants and toddlers absorb more and should begin their education earlier, especially poor children and those at risk for failure in school. Read more about it in a Chicago Tribune article.

  -Martha Deller

Not really education but too funny to miss

The University of Michigan released a new study that found having a husband creates seven more hours of work for a woman each week. A man, on the other hand, saves an hour of housework by having a wife.

-Eva-Marie Ayala