Category: Higher Education/System

College students from Missouri to Oregon are urging their schools to stop using coal-based electricity in favor of cleaner energy sources ranging from wood chips to geothermal power.

When critics question the validity of the calculations U.S. News & World Report uses to rank colleges, one answer the editors of the magazine have given is to note that it publishes not only the total rank, but also data on how colleges perform in the various categories that go into the rankings. So a prospective student who cares more about faculty resources or competitiveness or any other factor can see how colleges do there, and judge accordingly.

The marriage of philanthropist Michael Cudahyâ??s money and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos Santiagoâ??s vision appears to be on the rocks.

Tuition for University of Minnesota graduate and professional students ranks in the middle to high range compared with the University of California-Berkeley, Penn State and other “peer” institutions. The price that in-state dentistry students pay tops the list. The average U medical student graduated with $137,268 in debt from that degree alone in 2008.

A serious outbreak of H1N1 influenza in Minnesota schools is likely as class begins, University of Minnesota and state health officials predict.

Schools in the southern United States that began in mid-August have had about 18 percent of students and 12 percent of teachers absent due to H1N1 influenza, State Health Commissioner Sanne Magnan said. This is an â??important reminder of what is coming to Minnesota,â? Magnan said.

The hottest job areas from now to 2016 will be in health care, education, information technology and clean energy, a new report says.And though some require bachelorâ??s degrees or higher, many call for an associateâ??s degree and sometimes additional vocational training.

Public universities fare well in Washington Monthlys annual college rankings, released today. “Unlike the U.S. News & World Report rankings â?¦ our goal is to determine what colleges and universities are doing for the country â?? by improving social mobility, producing research and promoting public service,” says editor Paul Glastris.

From the report: Of 11 members of the Big Ten Conference make our top 75.

A summer of anticipation and worst-case-scenario planning has given way to a new academic year of inevitable illness as the H1N1 flu virus appears at colleges and universities across the nation.

As many institutions ratchet up to full capacity with students, faculty and staff returning for fall classes, campuses from Kansas to California and just about everywhere in between are beginning to report handfuls to hundreds of cases, mostly among students. Though itâ??s still too early to predict how widespread and severe H1N1 will be this fall and winter, administrators are taking cues from state governments and the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services in anticipating outbreaks much larger and more dangerous than those seen among students during the spring and summer.

For an increasing number of college administrators, hosting an opening convocation ceremony is not just tradition for traditionâ??s sake; many believe the ritual can improve student retention.

The University of Vermont, for example, introduced a new convocation ceremony two years ago as part of a comprehensive effort to boost first-year retention and graduation rates. The revamped ceremony stands in stark contrast to the fairly modest and sparsely attended event of years past.

The college president is an economist. He knows numbers and history, theories and reality.

As he prepares for his Sept. 25 inauguration as Beloit Collegeâ??s 11th president, Scott Bierman surveys the landscape of higher education with cold-eyed realism. Hard times have hit Americaâ??s college campuses, endowments taking a hit during the stock market collapse, budgets tightening even as financially strapped parents seek increased financial aid for their children.

Beneficiaries of the new Post 9/11 GI Bill may be more likely to attend four-year universities and enroll in college full time than were their recent veteran counterparts, who typically enrolled at community colleges and attended part time, according to a new report from the American Council on Education.

An official at Clemson University created a firestorm earlier this summer when, speaking candidly at an academic conference in Atlanta, she said nearly all policies at her institution were driven by how they would help the South Carolina school move up in the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings of Americaâ??s best colleges.

Education reporters who were at the June conference of the Association for Institutional Research reported that Clemson faculty member Catherine Watt said her university had doubled its tuition this decade to be able to significantly increase faculty salaries, manipulated class sizes and even attempted to downgrade the academic reputations of other institutions when answering peer assessment surveys — all in an attempt to propel the university onto the list of the top 20 public research institutions.

Though Clemson administrators denied Wattâ??s claims and said the accusations were “outrageous” examples of “urban legends,” Inside Higher Ed — an online higher education news source — decided to try to “gauge the extent to which Clemson was an anomaly or an example” when it came to giving low scores to rival universities on U.S. Newsâ?? “reputation” survey in an attempt to make its own institution look better.

This is where Aaron Brower, UW-Madisonâ??s vice provost for teaching and learning, got dragged into the debate.

In an effort to control damage from the stateâ??s worst scandal in public higher education, Gov. Patrick J. Quinn on Wednesday appointed to the University of Illinois board of trustees two new members who he said would help restore integrity to the admissions process.

Stan Jaskolski said Monday he plans to retire as dean of Marquette Universityâ??s engineering school on June 30 or when a successor is named, whichever is later.

A Federal Trade Commission attorney criticized a controversial Anheuser-Busch InBev NV marketing campaign that features Bud Light cans decorated with college-team colors, urging the brewer to drop any plans for similar promotions.

Janet Evans, a senior FTC attorney who oversees alcohol advertising, says the federal agency has “grave concern” that the campaign could encourage underage and binge drinking on college campuses. Dozens of schools have protested the promotion, with some threatening legal action over trademark issues.

As millions of students head back to campus this month, college and university health care workers are stocking up on masks and flu-fighting drugs such as Tamiflu as they encourage students to get both annual seasonal flu vaccine and the H1N1 vaccine in mid-October.

A University of Wisconsin committee brainstormed how to get food to sequestered students in dorms and what routine appointments to halt at the student health center if there’s an influx of flu patients, says epidemiologist Craig Roberts. “We think about it almost constantly.”

Regardless of whether they are called university spinoffs, spinouts, or just plain start-ups, the University of Utah sure has a lot of them: 23 that started just last yearâ?? thatâ??s second best of all universities in the nation. Think about how impressive that is. Like many places here in the Midwest, Utah has not historically had the amount of venture capital, the number of serial entrepreneurs, or the depth of tech company managerial talent that much of the coasts and the handful of hotspots in between enjoy.

The U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services on Thursday released their most detailed guidance yet on how colleges should prevent H1N1 outbreaks and what options should be considered if they take place despite such efforts. Given that the severity and size of outbreaks could vary widely, the guidance is more of a menu of options than a rulebook — and the ideas cover everything from washing doorknobs to ending the requirements that students submit medical notes for absences to when to consider suspending operations.

The annual U.S. News and World Report rankings are out today.

UW-Madison was ranked 39th in the “Best National Universities” category, tied with the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. That’s a drop of four spots from last year, when the school was ranked 35th.

University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, was ranked 61st, tied with four other schools.

MADISON – The University of Wisconsin-Madison ranked ninth among public institutions in annual rankings released today (Aug. 20) in the U.S. News and World Reportâ??s 2010 edition of Americaâ??s Best Colleges.

The university also tied for 39th out of 262 national doctoral universities. In 2008, UW-Madison ranked seventh among public universities and tied for 35th among national doctoral institutions.

“This national ranking report is one of several national instruments that provide potentially useful information to students and their families when considering the choice of an institution of higher education,” says UW-Madison Provost Paul DeLuca.

The annual U.S. News and World Report rankings are out today.

UW-Madison was ranked 39th in the “Best National Universities” category, tied with the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Thatâ??s a drop of four spots from last year, when the school was ranked 35th.

Perennial contenders Harvard and Princeton share the top spot in the latest edition of the influential U.S. News & World Report university rankings. Williams heads the list of liberal arts colleges while Dartmouth wins a new category ranking commitment to undergraduate teaching. The latest edition of the contentious but closely followed “Americaâ??s Best Colleges” appears online and in print Thursday.

College participation in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings increased this year, after reaching its lowest level ever last year. Forty-eight percent of college leaders who were sent the peer-assessment survey responded this year, up from 46 percent.

The peer surveyâ??the most controversial part of the rankings formulaâ??asks presidents, provosts, and admissions deans to rate institutions on a scale of 1 to 5. The response rate has dropped from 68 percent in 1999, amid a steady drumbeat of anti-rankings rhetoric.

Even before the midnight embargo lifted last night, colleges started sending out announcements about how they fared in this year’s annual rankings by U.S. News & World Report. The boasting — at least sometimes by colleges that criticize the rankings — is an tradition each August.

We’ll let you go to the magazine itself to find out who is No. 1, but can assure you that there are no shockers. What may be more newsworthy is the annual fight over participation in the survey portion — seen by many as the least valid part of the rankings.

US News Faulty Methods UncoveredAugust 19th, 2009 · by Scott Anderson · Filed Under: College Admissions · College SelectionUS News and World Report is expected to publish its 2010 list of the â??Best Collegesâ? this week.  In anticipation of the report, the journal Inside Higher Ed published a scathing review of US Newsâ?? faulty methodology.After accessing the original survey responses, Inside Higher Ed found some very telling responses:

University of Illinois chancellor Richard Herman is seeking the advice of national higher education leaders as his campus decides how to implement admissions changes.

Herman said the task force will be guided by input from current and former university presidents and other higher education leaders, including M. Peter McPherson, President of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the former president of Michigan State University; John Wiley, former chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Shirley Strum Kenny, president of Stony Brook University. (Note: John Wiley has declined to participate in the taskforce.)

The form submitted by the provost at the University of Wisconsin at Madison deemed 260 of its 262 peer institutions to be of â??adequateâ? quality. A survey from the University of Vermontâ??s president listed â??donâ??t knowâ? for about half of the universities. The forms provided by Ohio State Universityâ??s president and provost were virtually identical. And the University of Floridaâ??s president, like his highly publicized colleague at Clemson University, rated his own institution well above many of his competitors.

Long a sore spot for many critics, the peer assessment survey for U.S. News & World Reportâ??s annual college rankings has been subjected to especially tough scrutiny since June, when an official at Clemson revealed that her bosses, as part of a larger strategy to propel the university up the rankings, had regularly given low scores on the “reputational” survey to other universities to make Clemson look better.

For as long as high school seniors have been visiting colleges, it seems, there have been tour guides walking backward in front of them, breathlessly reciting statistics from a script while, hopefully, avoiding tree roots and other hazards.

H1N1 flu may have two surprising symptoms: innovation and empathy. At least thatâ??s the hope of University of Michigan officials, who are encouraging faculty to make broader use of technology to help sick students keep up with class work.

As faculty create syllabuses for the coming semester, Michigan officials want them to consider the possibility of an outbreak infecting large numbers of students in the coming months. That means finding ways to work with students who may be absent for days by putting greater emphasis on distance learning tools like listservs, e-mail and Web-based teaching platforms. To that end, the universityâ??s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching has laid out a series of guidelines to help faculty prepare for what could be a challenging year of illness.

It was in the delivery room on a cold Friday in December 1990, minutes before her triplets were born, that a doctor’s bellowing voice started the clock ticking to a day Betsy Tanner has dreaded ever since.

“You’ve got 18 years,” the doctor said, “till they all go to college.”

Now, in a Wilmette living room, the final hours have arrived. Plastic hampers fill up with mattress pads, laundry detergent, computers galore — the essentials of dorm life far, far from home. They’re in triplicate and, as always, in order of birth, one each for Geoff, Alex and Emily.

The single greatest part of U.S. News & World Reportâ??s formula for ranking undergraduate colleges is also the most controversial: the “peer rankings” in which college presidents rank all similar institutions.

Criticism of the system as unfair has grown, leading many liberal arts college presidents to boycott this part of the system. The rankings system was also the subject of much ribbing when Clemson University released records showing that its president ranked his university about every other one in the country.

Rankings will be much in the news in the weeks ahead, with the latest from U.S. News due out this week and the doctoral program rankings of the National Research Council, using a new methodology, due out some time soon.

Struggling with budget shortfalls that reach into the billions, several states are making deep cuts in college financial aid programs, including those that provide a vital source of cash for students who most need the money.

At least a dozen states are reducing award sizes, eliminating grants and tightening eligibility guidelines because of a lack of money. At the same time, the number of students seeking aid is rising sharply as more people seek a college education and need help paying the tuition bill because they or their parents lost jobs and savings during the recession.

Also quotes Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on financial aid.

Usually it is not good news when I show up in somebody’s office on the campus.

Oh, it’s good news for me. I’m going to get an answer that I need or have a problem solved. It’s just not good news for the person I’m visiting.

Here’s a swell idea (or maybe not) for you recent college grads who are having trouble finding a job … Just sue the school from which you earned your degree. That’s what Trina Thompson did, according to this New York Post article. The 27-year-old Thompson reportedly filed a lawsuit last week against Monroe College in Bronx Supreme Court and is seeking the $70,000 she spent on tuition.