Northwestern Pres interview with People’s Daiy

Posted on December 20, 2006 by | Comments Off on Northwestern Pres interview with People’s Daiy

People’s Daily Online: US foreign policy should not steer higher education

Founded in 1851, Northwestern University is a private institution and one of the best universities in America. According to America’s Best Colleges 2007 by the US New and World Report, Northwestern University was ranked 14th among national universities in America. Its Kellogg School of Business was ranked 4th among America’s 2007 top business schools by the US News. Its Medill School of Journalism is one of the best J-schools in America. Recently Yong Tang, People’s Daily Washington-based correspondent, did an exclusive written interview with Henry S. Bienen, President of Northwestern University.

Yong Tang: Why is American higher education so strong and unchallengeable in the world?

Bienen: American higher education is strong but not unchallengeable in the World. There are challenges from Europe and increasingly from India and China. American higher education is strong for many reasons. Here are my main ones: American higher education brings together teaching and research, teaching is a serious component for major research universities; American higher education is very open, we look for the best students and faculty wherever they come from, our campuses are open for free discussion of all ideas; Up till now, both private donors and the Federal Government have been very generous in financial support for higher education.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Top Grades, Without the Classes

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The New York Times: Top Grades, Without the Classes

The House Ways and Means Committee sent shock waves through college sports when it asked the National Collegiate Athletic Association to justify its federal tax exemption by explaining how cash-consuming, win-at-all-cost athletics departments serve educational purposes.

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Posted in Commentary

Oxford Faculty Rejects Governance Shift

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Inside Higher Ed

The faculty of the University of Oxford has given a final rejection to a plan to overhaul the university’s governance and give more control to outsiders similar to boards of trustees in the United States. Oxford administrators have been pushing for such a change, saying that it is needed to provide the university with sound management. But dons have protested that their role would be diminished and academic values would be compromised. At a November faculty meeting, 62 percent voted down the plan, but Oxford administrators exercised their right to have a mail ballot of all professors. In that vote, 61 percent of professors opposed the plan. Oxford announced the results Tuesday. John Hood, the vice chancellor (the top position) at the university and a leading proponent of the rejected reform plan, issued a statement saying that “the priority now is for the university to come together in order to advance Oxford’s standing as a pre-eminent democratic and scholarly community.”

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Posted in Governance

Tenure Denied, and Accusations Fly at Youngstown

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The Vindicator: Ex-professor who was denied tenure sues university and a former dean

A former assistant professor of engineering at Youngstown State University has filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the university and a former dean, seeking reinstatement, back pay and more.

Inside Higher Ed: Tenure Denied, and Accusations Fly

John H. George’s bid for tenure at Youngstown State University last year looked good for a while. The director of the School of Technology supported him as did the tenured faculty. But after upper-level administrators rejected his bid last fall, George sued the university in federal court, saying that it discriminated against him based on age, sex and race. Among other things, George accuses Youngstown State of setting aside positions for minority applicants, a charge institution officials deny.

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Posted in Tenure & Promotion

Battle of the Boards

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Inside Higher Ed: Battle of the Boards

n an unorthodox move, North Carolina’s State Board of Community Colleges has passed a resolution admonishing the Board of Trustees of Blue Ridge Community College for failing to oversee how the college’s president has operated its baseball program.

Specifically, the state board suggested that Blue Ridge trustees had not acted aggressively enough after a special review by the state auditor found myriad violations, including the baseball coach’s misuse of work-study payments, improper use of state funds and a possible conflict of interest in a financial deal that involved the college and a company owned by the board chairman.

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Posted in Administration

Short-Term Reprieve for Affirmative Action

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Inside Higher Ed: Short-Term Reprieve for Affirmative Action

Three Michigan universities on Tuesday won the right to keep their current admissions and financial aid policies — the affirmative action portions of which could have been illegal in the state by the end of the week — until July 1. But long term, the ability of colleges to challenge the ban on affirmative action remained uncertain, with some advocates saying that the day’s developments strengthened efforts to do so, and others saying just the opposite.

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Posted in Diversity

Public Universities Chase Excellence, at a Price

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The New York Times: Public Universities Chase Excellence, at a Price

If there is any goal that the University of Florida has pursued as fervently as a national football championship for the Gators, it is a place among the nation’s highest-ranked public universities.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Bitter Dispute Over Botched Search Continues to Divide U. of Iowa — and Iowa

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The Chronicle News Blog:

Bitter Dispute Over Botched Search Continues to Divide U. of Iowa — and Iowa

Two more University of Iowa groups have voted no confidence in the Board of Regents over its management of the search for a new president. The Staff Council, which represents about 5,200 staff members, approved a no-confidence measure on Wednesday by a vote of 38 to 1, with two abstentions. In a statement, the council’s president, Mary Greer, said, “Secrecy, micromanagement, and authoritarianism demonstrate the leadership’s lack of respect for the university community and the public.”

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Posted in Uncategorized

Panel on Work-Force Skills Calls for Drastic Overhaul of America’s Education System

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The Chronicle: Panel on Work-Force Skills Calls for Drastic Overhaul of America’s Education System

A panel of political, business, and higher-education leaders laid out a sweeping proposal for overhauling the nation’s education system on Thursday. It calls for squeezing $67-billion from the current system and using that money to prepare some students for community college by the end of 10th grade, and to train teachers better and pay them more.

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Posted in Corporate University

Report card on hiringDespite Small Gains, Women and Minority-Group Members Still Land Few Jobs in College Sports, Report Says

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The Chronicle: Despite Small Gains, Women and Minority-Group Members Still Land Few Jobs in College Sports, Report Says

Increasing numbers of women and members of minority groups were hired in college sports in the past year, but white men continued to hold an overwhelming majority of positions, according to a report released on Wednesday

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Posted in Diversity

Ward Connerly Names States That May Be His Next Targets for Bans on Affirmative-Action Preferences

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The Chronicle: Ward Connerly Names States That May Be His Next Targets for Bans on Affirmative-Action Preferences

Ward Connerly, who played a key role in successful campaigns persuading voters in three states to prohibit the use of racial and ethnic preferences by public colleges and other state agencies, announced on Wednesday that he was looking at nine other states as potential sites for similar referenda in the fall of 2008.

Citing his most recent success, in Michigan, where 58 percent of voters last month approved an amendment to the state Constitution banning affirmative-action preferences, Mr. Connerly said he was optimistic that the days when colleges considered applicants’ race and ethnicity would soon be over. “I think that we are witnessing the end of an era,” he said.

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Posted in Diversity

An Inward Look at Racial Tension at Trinity College

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The New York Times: An Inward Look at Racial Tension at Trinity College

James F. Jones Jr. had been president of Trinity College for two years before a black student pointed out to him that he always ate lunch on the side of the dining hall where white students gather.

Since that day last month, Mr. Jones, who is white, has made a point of taking a table on the other side, with the minority students.

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Posted in Diversity

Ties Cut With Iran Institute Over Holocaust

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The New York Times: Ties Cut With Iran Institute Over Holocaust

Some of the world’s leading policy institutes announced Friday that they were breaking off relations with a group within the Iranian Foreign Ministry that organized a conference on the Holocaust in Tehran featuring discredited academics and Holocaust deniers.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Casting a Wide Net

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Inside Higher Ed: Casting a Wide Net

The Bush administration has not always been friendly to affirmative action in higher education — coming out against the University of Michigan’s affirmative action admissions plans, for example, when they were reviewed by the Supreme Court in 2003.

But with one of the leading groups opposing affirmative action in higher education attacking the way colleges try to diversify their applicant pools for faculty and administrative positions, one of the administration’s key civil rights agencies is backing colleges and angering their conservative critics. At issue is the practice of colleges stating in job notices that they particularly welcome applications from female or minority scholars (and in some case in fields traditionally dominated by women, that male applicants are welcome).

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Posted in Faculty

Apollo Says Ex-Officers May Have Concealed Practices

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Bloomberg.com: Apollo Says Ex-Officers May Have Concealed Practices

Apollo Group Inc., the largest U.S. owner of for-profit colleges, said former officers may have hidden failures in reporting of stock-options grants. The company will delay its annual financial report.

The former executives were Chief Financial Officer Kenda Gonzales, 49, and Chief Accounting Officer Dan Bachus, 36, both of whom resigned in November, said Joe Cockrell, a spokesman for the Phoenix, Arizona-based company. John R. Norton, 78, the chairman of its compensation committee, is resigning because he doesn’t plan to seek re-election, Apollo said in a statement today.

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Posted in Corporate University

What’s in a name?

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Inside Higher Ed: What’s in a name?

With new ownership, new management and a new location, Pacific Western University also has plans for a new title — California University. Located in San Diego, Pacific Western is an unaccredited, for-profit institution of distance learning. An official of the university says that it is changing its name because it is linked with past controversies, unlike the new name, which some think will sound a bit too much like the University of California.

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Posted in Corporate University

College desegregation case ends after 25 years

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The Birmingham News: College desegregation case ends after 25 years

After 25 years, Alabama’s higher education desegregation case is over except for some court-ordered expenditures that the state will have to meet for several more years.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Connerly is emboldened by his anti-preference win in Michigan.

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Sacramenton Bee: Racial battle could spread

Building on his success in Michigan, Ward Connerly announced Wednesday he is exploring possible ballot measures in nine more states to ban racial preferences in public education, employment and contracting.

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Posted in Diversity

Professor’s Attendance at ‘Conference’ Stuns Canada

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Inside Higher Ed: Professor’s Attendance at ‘Conference’ Stuns Canada

he president of a Canadian university on Wednesday condemned the “conference” on the Holocaust held in Iran this week — amid shock at his institution and elsewhere in Canada at the news that one of his professors had presented a paper there.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Michigan Universities Seek Delay on Prop 2

Posted on December 18, 2006 by | Comments Off on Michigan Universities Seek Delay on Prop 2

Inside Higher Ed: hree Michigan universities are seeking a federal court order to allow them to complete the current cycle for admissions decisions without having to change their policies to comply with Proposition 2, a measure approved by Michigan voters last month to bar the consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions decisions. “It would be extremely difficult, and unfair to prospective students, to change our admissions and financial aid processes in mid-stream,” said Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, in a statement. Michigan State University and Wayne State University also joined in seeking the legal ruling. A lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which has pledged to oppose moves to water down Proposition 2, said that the group would “most likely” challenge the universities’ request.

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Posted in Diversity