Category Archives: Students

Toronto Star: MBA students likelier to cheat

Who says cheaters never prosper?
MBA students in Canada and the United States are more likely to cheat than students in other disciplines because they believe it is how the business world operates — and because they believe their peers cheat, according to a new study.

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Inside Higher Ed: You May Have Been YouTubed

f you don’t like what RateMyProfessors.com has done for the image of professors, get ready for the YouTube effect. YouTube is the immensely popular Web site where people post videos of themselves and their friends hanging out, doing mock television shows, watching television, or just about anything you can imagine in front of a video camera of some sort.

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The Chronicle: Report Blames College Practices for Limiting Access of Minority and Low-Income Students

Federal agencies, state governments, and especially institutions of higher education are driving students who are from low-income families or are members of minority groups away from colleges and universities, according to a study released on Thursday that analyzed class mobility and racial matriculation rates in academe. The study concluded not only that such students face greater financial burdens than ever before, but also that those who end up at college are “attending in ways far less likely to lead to a degree.”

Higher education has become “simply another agent of stratification,” says the report, produced by the Education Trust, a nonprofit research-and-advocacy organization, which did not blame any one group for that outcome. The group noted that federal Pell grants have leveled off in recent years and have not kept up with rising tuition costs, and also that state-government aid to low-income students has increased at smaller rates than aid to middle-class and wealthy students.

But the report, “Promise Abandoned: How Policy Choices and Institutional Practices Restrict College Opportunities,” also faulted universities and colleges for hindering access to higher education, especially through practices that are often hidden from the public. At a news conference on Thursday, Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust and author of the report, singled out the two-pronged practice of “enrollment management” as especially troublesome.

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In These Times: SDS, New and Improved

Over the first weekend of August, more squirrels were scampering through the Quads at the University of Chicago than students or professors. But from Aug. 4 to 7, students adorned with political pins and T-shirts transformed the drab front hall of Cobb Hall into a scene reminiscent of a political rally. For the first time in 37 years, the newly re-formed Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) exchanged ideas and strategies at a national convention, one that contained both contention and hope for the modern student left.

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The Chronicle: 3 Former Athletes Sue New Mexico State U., Alleging Religious Discrimination

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit on behalf of three former athletes at New Mexico State University who say they were discharged from the football team because of their Muslim faith.

The plaintiffs — Mu-Ammar Ali and twin brothers Anthony and Vincent Thompson — have accused the head football coach, Hal C. Mumme, of making them “feel like outcasts” because of their religion, in violation of their First Amendment rights.

Inside Higher Ed: Team Building or Coercion?

Three former football players at New Mexico State University have sued the institution and its head coach, charging that they were driven from the team because they were Muslim. University officials say the accusations were disproved by an internal investigation last fall and that the players were kicked off the squad because they performed poorly and behaved badly.

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BBC: Canada university in campaign row

A small Canadian university has sparked controversy with its recruitment drive by using posters and a website mocking US President George W Bush.

Lakehead University in northern Ontario set up www.yaleshmale.com in a bid to attract potential new students.

It shows a picture of Yale graduate Mr Bush with the caption: “Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart.”
The president of Lakehead’s student union called the campaign “repugnant”.

The university has issued posters bearing the black and white image of Mr Bush, who graduated from Yale in 1968, encouraging people to visit its campaign website.

It was literally a tongue-in-cheek way of getting attention
Frederick Gilbert,
Lakehead University president and vice-chancellor
Once there, users are invited to click on a link if they agree with the caption, and are taken through to a page promoting Lakehead, which is based in Thunder Bay and has 7,600 students.

“There are universities and then there are universities. So let’s not beat around the bush,” it says.

“Lakehead is different. We believe the person you become after you graduate is even more important than the person you were when you enrolled.”

There is then a further link to take users through to Lakehead’s official site for potential students.

‘Inappropriate’

The university has defended its campaign, which also includes prizes of a car lease and handheld computer games consoles, saying it has had a positive effect.

“It was literally a tongue-in-cheek way of getting attention,” university president and vice-chancellor Frederick Gilbert told Reuters news agency.

The website had received more than 7,000 hits, he said on Monday, and online comments had been 95% positive.

But he acknowledged the university had received e-mails which were “running in the opposite direction”, which was a concern.

“Older generations” and some of Lakehead’s students considered the campaign inappropriate, he said.

The university would not retract its campaign, however, although it would try to respond to individual concerns, he said.

Student union president Isabelle Poniatowski told Reuters the campaign was low-brow and lacked class.

“It still strikes me as being very repugnant,” she said. “Lakehead has so many positive attributes that you could really sell to people that live down south.”

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5294690.stm

Published: 2006/08/29 11:22:17 GMT

© BBC MMVI

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Tallahassee Democrat: FAMU tops list of black colleges

The top university for black students in the U.S. is Florida A&M University, according to Black Enterprise magazine’s college rankings in its September issue.

FAMU outpolled universities such as Howard University, which was No. 2, North Carolina A&T State University, No. 3, Harvard University, No. 4, and Spelman College, No. 5.

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The Post and Courier: Citadel leads academies in sex assaults

Nearly one woman in five attending The Citadel last spring reported being sexually assaulted since enrolling at the school, according to a survey launched by the new president to gauge the campus climate on gender relations.

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Houston Chronicle: Now UT really has something to party about

Maybe it was Vince.

Maybe it was Shiner’s first light beer.

Maybe it was the timeless lyrics of Robert Earl Keen, chanted like tribal ritual at fraternity parties, that finally sunk in.

For whatever reason, students at the University of Texas seem to have decided that the booze goes on forever and the party never ends.

UT, home of the 2005 college football national champions under quarterback Vince Young, is now the No. 1 party school in the nation, up from No. 15 last year, according to the annual Princeton Review survey released Monday.

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Express-News: Colleges see an influx of ‘helicopter parents’

Melanie Mays tried to hang back as her oldest child, Lindsay, unpacked boxes in her dorm room at Trinity University, each move taking the college freshman farther away from the family home in Houston.
“You know what I’m dying to do? Make the bed really cozy,” Mom said, springing into action.

She worked the brown and turquoise bedding she and Lindsay bought together onto the twin mattress, arranging the throw pillows just so.

“It’s what I live for,” she said. “It’s like my last function.”

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The Chronicle: College Students in India Angered by Reports of Test-Grading Scam

Many university students in northern India have been angered by police reports that examinations were being graded by unqualified evaluators, some of whom were reportedly as young as 16.

Police officials in the city of Agra said that officers acting on a tip had raided a house on August 12 and found unqualified evaluators grading college exam papers. The officials said that during the raid, officers found 60,000 answer papers of students from Chaudhary Charan Singh University, which has over 100 affiliated colleges and is located in Meerut, about 124 miles north of Agra, in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

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San Francisco Chronicle: State campuses struggle with enrollment surge

UC Davis and some other California universities have admitted more freshmen than they have room for and now are scrambling to find extra bed space, hire more instructors, and expand student academic and health services.

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The Chronicle: Former Leader of Muslim Group at British University Is Among 24 Suspects in Alleged Terrorist Plot

One of the 24 suspects detained by British authorities last week in their investigation into an alleged terrorist plot against trans-Atlantic flights was until recently the president of the Islamic Society at one of London’s largest universities.

Waheed Zaman, a 22-year-old biochemistry student at London Metropolitan University, was among 19 of the men whose assets were frozen on Friday by the Bank of England.

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