The Australian: Uni funding must rise to match Oxford
AUSTRALIA will never have a world-class university such as Harvard or Oxford without dramatically increasing funding to the tertiary sector, the head of the nation’s elite universities has warned.
Group of Eight universities chair Alan Robson said the country could not compete at the elite international level unless campuses were funded on a similar scale to Harvard – which benefits from a private endowment fund of more than $34.9 billion.
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Posted in Economics
The Daily Northwestern: U could add grad programs to campus in Qatar, Bienen says
Northwestern has had preliminary conversations with the Qatar Foundation to open additional programs at the graduate or professional school level at NU’s future campus in Qatar, NU President Henry Bienen told The Daily on Friday.
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Posted in Corruption
The New York Times: A Threat So Big, Academics Try Collaboration
It is a basic tenet of university research: Economists conduct joint studies, chemists join forces in the laboratory, political scientists share ideas about other cultures — but rarely do the researchers cross disciplinary lines.
The political landscape of academia, combined with the fight for grant money, has always fostered competition far more than collaboration.
But the threat of global warming may just change all that.
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Posted in Academics
The Boston Globe: Chinese turn to college students to build professional, highly educated army
The fliers circulating last month on the campuses of China’s most prestigious universities showed three soldiers positioned against a Chinese flag and an appeal that read in part: “Carry Your Pen to the Army to Become More Accomplished.”
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Posted in International
Haaretz: Striking professors say treasury’s offer of 14% is not enough
Negotiations to end the senior lecturers strike reached a stalemate Thursday after a meeting between Finance Minister Roni Bar-On and the chair of the university presidents committee, Prof. Moshe Kaveh, failed to achieve any progress.
Kaveh said the dispute is now at “a dead end,” and that “only the prime minister can find a solution to save the school year.”
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
New York Sun: Report of Attack Rattles Princeton
An alleged physical attack on a Princeton University student who is leading a movement to instill conservative moral values among undergraduates is rattling the campus here.
A politics major from Texas who is a junior, Francisco Nava, said he was physically attacked Friday, beaten, and rendered unconscious by two black-clad men about two miles from campus, he told the student newspaper, the Daily Princetonian, in an interview.
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Posted in Students
San Francisco Chronicle: Notoriously selective Stanford considers accepting more students
Stanford University is considering increasing, for the first time in decades, the number of students it enrolls each year.
The idea comes after Stanford, one of the most selective schools in the country, admitted just 10 percent of applicants this year, the smallest percentage ever.
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Posted in Academics
Houston Chronicle: Creationist school offers a degree of controversy
Science teachers are not allowed to teach creationism alongside evolution in Texas public schools, the courts have ruled. But that’s exactly what the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research wants them to do.
The institute is seeking state approval to grant an online master’s degree in science education to prepare teachers to “understand the universe within the integrating framework of Biblical creationism,” according to the school’s mission statement.
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Posted in Academics
Washington Post: Columbia Still Roiled by Iranian’s Visit
When the head of Columbia University suggested that free speech was banned in Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not only disagreed, he also invited Lee C. Bollinger to come and see for himself.
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Posted in Free speech
The Guardian: Universities fear massive cash loss
Universities will lose tens of millions of pounds in funding when tough new immigration laws are introduced next year, according to the man who represents the UK’s vice-chancellors.
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Posted in Administration
The New York Times: Report to Urge Sweeping Change for SUNY System
Warning that New York has “slipped in stature” and that its once-powerful position in national research has “faded,” a commission set up by Gov. Eliot Spitzer is recommending that the state free its public colleges and universities to raise tuition without the Legislature’s approval and to charge different prices from campus to campus.
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Posted in Academics
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Myers University president jailed; to be fired Friday
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul has jailed Myers University President Richard Scaldini for one day for violating a judicial gag order.
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Posted in Administration
Houston Chronicle: Accrediting group puts Texas Tech on probation
LUBBOCK — Texas Tech University has been placed on probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a regional accrediting organization, officials said on Wednesday.
Texas Tech was put on probation for failing to show that its curriculum met college-level competencies, according to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which issued the probation during an annual meeting in New Orleans on Tuesday.
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Posted in Academics
Tallahassee Democrat: Ammons: FAMU ready to rebound from probation
One day after suffering a setback in New Orleans, Florida A&M University President James Ammons told students, staffers and faculty what’s next for the institution.
Tuesday, the organization that accredits FAMU extended the institution’s probation for six more months. Probation is the most severe sanction doled out by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. But on Wednesday, Ammons didn’t want the group of about 100 to be disappointed by the outcome.
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Posted in Academics
Middle East Times: Moroccan student highlights visa concern
The arrest on firearms charges of a Moroccan student at the University of South Florida has highlighted what critics say are continuing security loopholes in the way U.S. visas are issued to those who want to come here to study.
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Posted in Students
St. Petersburg Times: UF flunks basic test on freedom of speech
A Times Editorial
Top administrators at the University of Florida might want to sit in on a class in constitutional law. It seems they need a refresher on the First Amendment.
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Posted in Free speech
The Boston Globe: Cambridge College chief put on leave
Cambridge College trustees placed the school’s president, Mahesh Sharma, on a six-week paid leave yesterday after concluding that he tried to use school funds for his nephew’s college tuition and appointed a college vice president whose company had a contract with the school worth at least $170,000.
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Posted in Administration
The Chronicle News Blog: British Stem-Cell Scientist Is Latest Prominent Researcher to Leave Singapore
Alan Colman, who has been leading Singapore’s efforts to establish itself as a global biomedical hub, has been appointed director of stem-cell research at King’s College London.
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Posted in Faculty
The Chronicle News Blog: Canadian Prosperity Is at Risk Without Higher-Education Strategy, Report Says
Canada’s lack of a national higher-education strategy is imperiling the country’s future prosperity, according to a report issued on Tuesday by the Canadian Council on Learning, a federally supported nonprofit group.
The report, “Post-Secondary Education in Canada,” looked at colleges, universities, and vocational programs, and concluded that Canada lacks national benchmarks and sufficient information on the sector. That dearth of national higher-education data is a growing issue among educators, researchers, and policy makers.
The report also recommended adopting a lifelong “unique student identifier” number that could track the academic progress of students who switch institutions or transfer from one province to another, helping efforts to monitor retention figures, graduation rates, and career-related education.
The proposal is similar to a controversial call last year by the U.S. Department of Education to create a “unit-record database.” A majority of Americans oppose the proposal, according to one poll, and members of Congress have repeatedly voted to forbid the database’s creation.
The left-leaning towers of ivory
The Washington Post: The left-leaning towers of ivory
Monocultural colleges need to encourage intellectual diversity
By ROBERT MARANTO
ARE university faculties biased toward the left? And is this diminishing universities’ role in American public life? Conservatives have been saying so since William F. Buckley Jr. wrote God and Man at Yale — in 1951. But lately criticism is coming from others — making universities face some hard questions.
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Posted in Commentary