Inside Higher Ed: Buying Its Way Onto the Program?
At this year’s meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, plagiarism was a hot topic, with many panelists talking about ways to teach students about academic integrity. Generally, panelists spoke of the importance of not relying on plagiarism-detection software, which they said may scare but doesn’t necessarily instruct.
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Panel: Bresch didn’t earn M.B.A.
A five-member panel has concluded unanimously that Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch, daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, did not earn an M.B.A. degree from West Virginia University and that administrators acted improperly in granting her the degree retroactively in October, according to a person familiar with the report.
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Reno Gazette-Journal: Glick fires UNR whistleblower professor
A professor who reported animal abuse at the University of Nevada, Reno and who also was accused of plagiarism and mishandling funds has been fired and banned from the campus.
“I was fired by President (Milton) Glick and escorted from my office by campus police as if I were a criminal,” Hussein S. Hussein said Monday.
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Deutsche Welle: German Law Professor Jailed in Doctorates Racket
Man discreetly slipping money into his breast pocket
The professor is said to have pocketed a substantial amount
A law professor in the north-central German city of Hanover has been sentenced to three years in jail for taking money from students wanting to obtain doctorates.
The 53-year-old professor, who taught law at Leibnitz University in the city of Hanover, is said to have pocketed 153,750 euros ($240,719) in bribes in exchange for accepting students as doctoral candidates although they did not meet the necessary academic requirements.
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Inside Higher Ed: Florida Lawmaker to Forgo Pay in University Job
A Florida state senator is giving up her $120,000-a-year position at a university reading research center that she was instrumental in helping to create, four days after Inside Higher Ed first publicized the arrangement.
An article on this site last week highlighted the appointment of Sen. Evelyn J. Lynn to help Florida State University get a new outreach center for its Florida Center for Reading Research off the ground on Lynn’s home turf of Daytona Beach. While Lynn was a longtime teacher and administrator in the schools of Florida’s Volusia County and has a doctorate in instructional leadership and administration, the arrangement drew scrutiny because, as head of the Senate’s education committee in 2006, she worked to ensure that language creating the center made its way into legislation.
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Inside Higher Ed: A State Senator’s Sweet Deal
Evelyn J. Lynn has spent much of her professional career as an educator, putting in 30 years as a teacher and administrator in the schools of Florida’s Volusia County and earning a doctorate in instructional leadership and administration from the University of Florida. So it’s no stunner that when Florida State University sought someone to help get a new outreach center for its Florida Center for Reading Research on Lynn’s home turf of Daytona Beach, they hired her for the nearly $120,000 position, which she began in September.
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Kentucky Post: Settlement In University Board Case Announced
Gov. Steve Beshear and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway announced Tuesday, a settlement agreement that will resolve litigation filed by former Attorney General Greg Stumbo against former Gov. Ernie Fletcher.
“I am pleased the matter has been resolved without further litigation or detraction from the work of the universities,” said Beshear. “This settlement allows the universities to move forward in such a way that will not be disruptive, while bringing proper balance and perspective to the boards.”
Beshear and Conway have agreed that former Fletcher illegally and improperly appointed a disproportionate number of members of one political party to the boards of the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville and five of the state’s six regional universities.
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Inside Higher Ed: Buying a Spot on the Syllabus
Some professors at Marshall University believe that the institution has crossed an ethical line by accepting a gift that requires that a specific book — Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged — be taught in a course.
While the criticisms have come from professors who are not fans of Rand’s philosophy, they stress that their objection has nothing to do with this particular book, and that they would have no problem with a professor making the choice to include it on a syllabus. Their concern, they said, is a university accepting a gift that requires any book to be taught — when book selection should be a faculty prerogative.
“Atlas Shrugged can be taught. It’s the required part that is problematic,” said Jamie Warner, director of undergraduate studies in political science. Under this precedent, she said, “you could see neo-Nazis giving money and saying that you have to teach Mein Kampf.“
New York Post: PLAGIARISM’ PROF PINCHED MY IDEAS
COLUMBIA STUDENT’S RAGE
February 23, 2008 — The Columbia professor under fire for plagiarism didn’t just lift passages from a former student’s dissertation – she stole the whole topic.
So says former Teachers College psychology student Tracy Juliao, whose 2005 dissertation studied the ability of women to balance their multiple roles in life, such as mother and breadwinner.
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The Chronicle News Blog: University Official Is Accused of Pocketing Federal Research Grants
An assistant provost at North Carolina Central University has been accused by the state auditor of embezzling more than $36,000 from the university and a federal grant program, as well as falsifying financial documents.
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Tulsa World: ORU money funneled, suit claims
More than $1 billion annually was funneled through ORU, a former accountant claims.
A former Oral Roberts University accountant revised his lawsuit Thursday to allege that more than $1 billion annually was funneled through the university, possibly to regents.
“It appears that many of the former board members were actual participants in the funneling of money through the university for their own eventual personal use, and thus, the foxes were watching the hen house,” says former accountant Trent Huddleston’s lawsuit.
The money “was not used for any legitimate purpose” that Huddleston
knew, his lawsuit says.
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Posted in Administration, Ethics, Legal issues
The Chronicle News Blog: Historians and Other Scholars Fight Proposed Expansion of IRB Rules
Oral history should not be subject to approval by institutional review boards, according to dozens of comments submitted by historians and others to the federal Office for Human Research Protections, which announced last October that it would amend the rules governing what kinds of research qualify for expedited review by the boards.
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Montgomery Advertiser: Lawmaker arrested, charged with fraud
State Rep. Sue Schmitz was arrested Thursday after being indicted on federal charges of taking $177,251 in pay from a program affiliated with Alabama’s two-year colleges yet doing virtually no work.
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Inside Higher Ed: New Conflict of Interest Allegations
Three senior admissions officials of prominent American universities sit on an advisory board of a Japanese company that helps applicants in Japan get into top M.B.A. programs in the United States — including programs at their universities.
The officials confirmed their involvement and that they receive a free annual trip to meetings in Japan for their services, which are boasted about on the Japanese company’s Web site. One of the officials said that there is also pay involved, but declined to say how much. One official said he couldn’t answer questions about his pay. And one official denied being paid except for the free trip to Japan.
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AP: WVU reforms team to probe degree granted to governor’s daughter
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University tapped three independent educators from New York, Missouri and Pennsylvania on Monday to help investigate allegations that Gov. Joe Manchin’s daughter was granted a master’s degree she didn’t earn.
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Inside Higher Ed: North Carolina and Coach Settle Sexual Harassment Suit
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has settled a former female soccer player’s lawsuit alleging that the university’s high-profile women’s soccer coach harassed and sexually discriminated against her and that North Carolina officials failed to stop the behavior.
As part of the settlement, the university agreed to pay $385,000 to Melissa Jennings and to revise its sexual harassment policies and procedures after an independent review; Anson Dorrance, the coach, went further than he had before in acknowledging having engaged in “inappropriate and unacceptable” behavior by participating in “group discussions of … team members’ sexual activities.” Dorrance will face no punishment from the university.
Inside Higher Ed: Are IRB’s Needed for War Zones?
A common complaint among social scientists in recent years is that institutional review boards — which are supposed to protect the interests of human subjects in research — are too involved in work they don’t understand. Good social science is getting held up, the social scientists say.
Press & Sun-Bulletin: Ph.D. student suing BU, says prof stole his work
Contending that his work was stolen and that he was forced out of a doctoral program, a former graduate student has filed a $202 million lawsuit against Binghamton University and four of its current and former staff members.
Charles O. Ogindo filed the civil lawsuit in state Supreme Court in May seeking $200 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages and attorney’s fees. For the case to continue, he will have to re-file it in the state’s Court of Claims after a Friday pre-trial hearing before Judge Ferris D. Lebous determined the state Supreme Court had no jurisdiction over the matter.
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Tulsa World: Updated: Roberts taking leave of absence
Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts issued a written statement on Wednesday saying he is taking an indefinite leave of absence, following intense scrutiny spawned by financial, political and other allegations raised in a lawsuit.
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The Boston Globe: Judge: No extra break for lactating exam taker
A Harvard medical student and new mother will not be permitted to take extra break time to pump breast milk during her licensing exam to become a doctor, a judge ruled yesterday.
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