Category Archives: Government

Vancouver Sun: Funding cut shocks universities

The B.C. government has delivered a nasty surprise to the province’s universities: Their funding for the coming year will be millions of dollars short of what they were told to expect.

The shortfall – nearly $16 million provincewide – is due to a decision by Victoria to shift money away from universities and into programs at B.C.’s colleges and trade schools.

Last spring, the B.C. government sent letters to all public post-secondary institutions outlining how much funding it expected to provide them over the next three years.

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The Chronicle News Blog: Spitzer Pushes $4-Billion Endowment Plan for New York’s Public Universities

The campaign for the creation of a $4-billion endowment for New York’s public-university systems is building steam. Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, touted the plan today during a conference call with presidents and trustees from the State University of New York and City University of New York systems.

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Inside Higher Ed: An Expensive Expulsion

The Kentucky Fairness Alliance is a group that focuses on gay rights, and it hasn’t historically been a player in issues of church and state. But when the University of the Cumberlands in 2006 expelled a student for being gay, and the Kentucky General Assembly shortly thereafter appropriated $10 million to the university to create a pharmacy school at the Baptist university, the alliance took note.

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The Tallahassee Democrat: When universities suffer, the middle class notices

If the Board of Governors was just bluffing, if it only wanted to focus the minds of state legislators and parents of university students in this impending budget crisis, hiking tuition and capping enrollment would be a marvelously clever tactical ploy.

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The Times: Universities join battle against terror as guidelines are agreed

University leaders have agreed to inform the police of any extremist behaviour by students or visiting speakers that they suspect may lead to terrorism.

A new “tool kit” for universities issued today by Bill Rammell, the Universities Minister, advises universities to draw up a national watch list of guest speakers who should be banned from speaking on campus. It also suggests that universities consider setting up multi-faith chaplaincies instead of separate prayer rooms for different faiths, to promote integration and prevent pockets of extremists forming.

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Inside Higher Ed: Democratic Candidates Back Military Recruiters

The three major contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination all pledged in a debate in Nevada Tuesday night that they would enforce vigorously a law — unpopular on many campuses — that requires institutions receiving federal funds to permit military recruiters on campus. The question was raised by Tim Russert, the journalist, not by the candidates themselves. Hillary Clinton answered “Yes” and then devoted her answer to the need to provide better benefits to people in the military. Asked in a follow-up specifically whether many of the leading universities without ROTC programs should have them, Clinton noted that many of these universities allow students to participate in ROTC through programs in the area, but added that these universities “should certainly not do anything that either undermines or disrespects the young men and women who wish to pursue a military career.” Barack Obama and John Edwards also answered “Yes” to Russert’s question and talked about other things — Obama about how he wants more Americans in national service, including positions requiring foreign language knowledge that could help the military and Edwards about poor medical care veterans are receiving and low pay for reservists. None of the candidates (nor Russert’s questions to them) noted the reason many colleges oppose the law — that the colleges have policies barring recruiters who discriminate against gay people — or the fact that following a Supreme Court ruling upholding the law, colleges have said they will follow the law. In addition, the Democrats didn’t note that they’ve all endorsed changing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that colleges view as a violation of their anti-bias policies. A transcript of the debate may be found on the Web site of The New York Times.

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The Arizona Republic: 3,850 college students denied in-state tuition

Nearly 4,000 students at Arizona universities and community colleges have been denied in-state tuition this year because they failed to prove they were legal residents. The largest share is at the community colleges.

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The Chronicle News Blog: N.Y. Governor Looks to Lottery for University-System Endowment

New York’s governor, Eliot Spitzer, floated the possibility of partly privatizing the state’s lottery, in order to create an endowment for public higher education, in his annual address to lawmakers today.

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The New York Times: Scholars and the Military Share a Foxhole, Uneasily

The United States military is frequently criticized for not doing enough to reduce civilian casualties or to stabilize the places it is fighting to protect. Yet what happens when the outside experts who can offer such advice are condemned for doing exactly that?

Questions about collaboration between soldiers and scholars have been around at least since World War II, but they have arisen with particular urgency in recent months at professional meetings, in journals, on campuses and on the Internet over programs related to Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Lexington Herald-Leader: Congress targets diploma mills

When prosecutors in three states won convictions against bogus medical practitioners who sought degrees from Kentucky-based Internet medical schools, there were no laws to target the diploma mills that handed out the fake credentials.

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The Chronicle News Blog: Anthropology Association Formally Disapproves of Military Program

The executive board of the American Anthropological Association has released a statement that “expresses its disapproval” of a year-old U.S. Army program known as the Human Terrain System, which sends anthropologists and other social scientists to advise military units in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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