Los Angeles Times: Pay more, learn more
After Prop. 92’s defeat, the state’s community colleges should consider raising class fees.
Finally, a silver lining to California’s budget crisis: It no doubt played a role in sinking Proposition 92, which would have lowered community college fees and guaranteed the college system a higher share of state funding through a damaging ballot-box budgeting formula.
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Posted in Administration
Los Angeles Times: Where religion, ideology and the Web cross
The College of William & Mary’s president, Gene R. Nichol, quits — the latest incident in a string of campus disputes.
WASHINGTON — The College of William & Mary, the nation’s second oldest, lost its president last week after a culture-war clash that began when he ordered the removal of an 18-inch brass cross from the altar of the historic Wren Chapel.
His decision, an act of legal principle to some and a blunder of liberal activism to others, touched off a revolt among conservative bloggers and alumni of the state-supported school in Williamsburg, Va., and led to his resignation Tuesday.
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Posted in Campus Life
The Washington Post: $20 Million Saudi Gift Is Questioned
A Virginia congressman has asked Georgetown University to explain how it used a $20 million donation from a Saudi prince for its academic center on Muslim and Christian relations.
Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R) sent a letter yesterday to university President John J. DeGioia expressing concern about the donation and asking whether the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding has ever produced any reports critical of Saudi Arabia.
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Posted in International
The Arizona Republic: Guns in schools considered
State to debate bill that would OK firearms on campus
A day after a gunman killed five people and then himself on an Illinois college campus, Arizona lawmakers were preparing to debate whether those with proper permits should be allowed to carry their guns onto school grounds.
Senate Bill 1214, which a legislative committee will consider Monday, would exempt concealed-carry permit holders from a state law that bars individuals from bringing deadly weapons onto campuses of private or public K-12 schools, colleges or universities in Arizona
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Posted in Campus Life
The Chronicle: Some Anthropologists Continue the Slow Push Toward Open Access
When the American Anthropological Association announced in September that it would move its publishing apparatus from the University of California Press to Wiley-Blackwell, anthropology blogs and e-mail lists buzzed with discontent. Some advocates of open-access publishing complained that moving to a for-profit publisher seemed like a step backward. And the switch would almost certainly mean higher prices for libraries, they said, which might spark a decline in subscriptions.
“What good is the AAA to its members if its primary goal is survival, rather than the promotion and dissemination of our research?” asked Christopher M. Kelty, an assistant professor of anthropology at Rice University, on the group blog Savage Minds, when the deal was announced.
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Posted in Open access
Kirksville Daily Express: ATSU_president arrested for DUI_
The president of A.T. Still University is contesting charges after his second arrest in about three years for driving under the influence.
James J. McGovern, 68, of Kirksville, was arrested at 2:37 a.m. Nov. 28, 2007 after allegedly turning into the wrong lane at the intersection of 39th and Broadway in Kansas City.
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Posted in Administration
BBC: ‘Retrain ex-troops’ as teachers
Ex-servicemen and women should be retrained as teachers to bring military style discipline to tough inner city schools, a think tank has said.
The government is being urged to adopt a US-style programme returning former soldiers, sailors and airmen to school.
The Centre for Policy Studies says ex-soldiers could have a profound effect on discipline and learning.
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Posted in K-12 issues
Telegraph: Appeal upheld for youths ‘intoxicated by terror’
The country’s top judge has dealt a significant blow to a key plank of the Government’s anti-terrorism legislation after he overturned the convictions of five Muslim men jailed last year for downloading and sharing extremist terror-related material.
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Posted in Government, Legal issues
The Guardian: Tuition fees favour the rich – new study
Children from poor familes say fear of debt deterred them from university
Teenagers from poorer families are turning their backs on a university education because of fears they will be saddled with thousands of pounds of debt, new research shows. The study on the impact of tuition fees reveals today that nearly two-thirds of pupils who decided not to seek higher education cited anxieties about money.
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Posted in Economics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Regents board approves college logos on coffins
UGA and Tech fans can now place college logos on coffins or even urns
Want to show your undying devotion to Georgia Tech or UGA? Now you can.
The Board of Regents Wednesday re-visited a decades-old policy banning the use of college logos on burial items like coffins or urns, allowing fans to bring their love for their alma maters into the hereafter. A Macon-based business, Collegiate Memorials, asked the Regents to loosen the rules and after a closer look at other states’ policies, members of the board relented.
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Posted in Corporate University
Sacramento Bee: Former coach accepts $6.6m
Johnson-Klein takes reduced award, says it’s ‘right thing to do.’
Stacy Johnson-Klein said Wednesday she will accept a smaller award in her court victory over Fresno State, saying it’s time for her and the community to put a divisive trial behind them.
The former California State University, Fresno, women’s basketball coach said she consulted with family and her legal team and prayed before deciding to accept Fresno County Superior Court Judge Donald S. Black’s reduced award of $6.6 million.
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Posted in Equity, Legal issues
Inside Higher Ed: Hate in Their Midst
Scholars, documentary producers, and genocide survivors have gathered at California State University at Long Beach this week for the President’s Forum on International Human Rights, which is focused on modern genocides and society’s responsibility to prevent them. Participants report that the sessions have been engaging and intense, and the gathering is being praised for focusing attention on the most vile forms of hate. Some of those who have been participating, however, wonder if the university needs to look a little closer to home.
Also this week, a white supremacist Web site called Vanguard News Network (its motto is “No Jews. Just Right.”) drew attention to an article in the Long Beach student paper about how some professors there want more distance between the institution and a psychology professor, Kevin MacDonald, who has applied evolutionary psychology to studying Jews in ways that scholars find offensive and inaccurate.
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Posted in Faculty
CBC: Government, CUPE reach tentative agreement
A tentative deal has been reached to end a five-week-old strike by New Brunswick’s college custodians, corrections officers and human service counsellors.
Human Resources Minister Wally Stiles announced the tentative deal on Wednesday as the legislature met to consider back-to-work legislation, which was first announced on Monday.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Guardian: Russia shuts university that displeased Putin
The Kremlin was yesterday accused of mounting an unprecedented attack on academic freedom after one of Russia’s top universities was closed.
The European University at St Petersburg (EUSP) has been forced to suspend its teaching after officials claimed that its historic buildings were “a fire risk”. On Friday a court ordered that all academic work cease, classrooms be sealed and the university’s library shut.
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Posted in International
The Washington Post: William And Mary President Resigns
College Had Said It Wouldn’t Renew Nichol’s Contract
The president of the College of William and Mary resigned yesterday after being told over the weekend that his contract would not be renewed this summer.
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Posted in Administration
Inside Higher Ed: Harvard Opts In to ‘Opt Out’ Plan
Harvard University’s arts and sciences faculty approved a plan on Tuesday that will post finished academic papers online free, unless scholars specifically decide to opt out of the open-access program. While other institutions have similar repositories for their faculty’s work, Harvard’s is unique for making online publication the default option.
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Posted in Open access
Inside Higher Ed: Presidential Ouster at William & Mary
Gene R. Nichol resigned immediately Tuesday as president of the College of William & Mary, days after being told that his contract wouldn’t be renewed. In leaving Nichol issued a blunt attack on those alumni and conservatives who have sought his ouster, defended his stances in a series of controversial decisions, and accused board members of seeking to offer him a “substantial” sum of money to publicly state that he wasn’t losing his job for ideological reasons.
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Posted in Administration
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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Posted in Ethics
The New York Times: Teachers’ Union President to Step Down; New Yorker Is Seen as Successor
Edward J. McElroy, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, announced Tuesday that he would step down in the summer, a move widely expected to put Randi Weingarten, the president of the teachers’ union in New York City, in line to succeed him.
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Posted in Unions
Halting California Tuition Hikes
MRZine: Halting California Tuition Hikes
by Seth Sandronsky
Making ends meet is a fight for Valencia Henley, an ethnic studies major graduating from California State University, Sacramento this spring.
“Each semester I have faced being kicked out of classes due not to my grades but to being late paying student fees,” she said. “At times my professors have let me stay in their classes until I can pay. Many of my friends are also struggling this way.”
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Posted in Commentary