Millions of college students are suddenly facing sharply higher prices for birth control, prompting concerns among health officials that some will shift to less preferred contraceptives or stop using them altogether.
A congressional panel is investigating Purdue University’s handling of challenges to a university scientist’s controversial “tabletop” nuclear fusion research.
The House Committee on Science and Technology has raised questions about Purdue’s internal investigation of whether nuclear scientist Rusi Taleyarkhan thwarted efforts to test his findings. “Despite the university’s statement that no misconduct has occurred, many disturbing questions remain about the scope and adequacy of the investigation,” said Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., who heads the panel’s subcommittee on investigations and oversight.
AMES, Iowa (AP) — The loss of 48 faculty members at Iowa State University and 67 from the University of Iowa last academic year is being blamed on low pay by university leaders.Gov. Chet Culver has promised that he will fully fund university salary requests, which university officials hope will help stem the loss.
As many in the higher education community are well aware from news coverage here and elsewhere, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of its member labels, recently initiated a new process for lawsuits against computer users who engage in illegal file-trafficking of copyrighted content on peer-to-peer (P2P) systems.
In the new round of lawsuits, 400 of these legal actions were directed at college and university students around the country. The inclusion of so many students was unprecedented. Unfortunately, it was also necessary.
Walk into a public relations class at the UW and you’ll see an example of a growing trend in higher education: there are 28 girls, and only 5 guys. At college campuses nationwide, the number of women is growing while the number of men is shrinking.
At the UW, there are 54 percent women to only 46 percent men. It might seem like a small difference, but remember there are 28,000 undergraduates.
Monique Yin is months from starting her freshman year at New York University, but she has already chatted online with hundreds of classmates and met many of them, too.
The Recording Industry Association of America says it is targeting 68 people on University of Wisconsin System campuses for litigation over copyright infringements.
Leading research institutions, including the UW-Madison, have warned that years of stagnant funding are threatening U.S. progress in medical research.
Nine universities – including Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Yale – produced a report for Congress. It says promising research has been halted in midstream due to flat funding from the National Institutes of Health.
(Psychology professor Richard Davidson is quoted.)
The ACT college entrance exam, long the Avis (“We try harder”) to the SAT’s Hertz, is celebrating a bit of a milestone this year: It now says it is accepted by every four-year college and university in the USA that requires such a test.
All but a handful of colleges have long allowed applicants to submit either test.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Davidson College announced Monday it will eliminate loans from its need-based financial aid packages and replace them with grants and work-study, a move school officials said would allow students to graduate debt-free.
The liberal arts college had capped loan amounts in recent years to reduce student debt, but higher education experts said it’s the only college of its kind to halt loan handouts in need-based aid packages.
Colleges and universities across the country may be receiving financial incentives from student loan companies, according to an announcement made Friday by New Yorkâ??s Attorney General.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Peter Burkholder was recruited heavily before he finally accepted his job as a music professor at Indiana University 19 years ago. He’s loved it, but now he’s threatening to leave if state lawmakers pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Burkholder said he has come to accept that Indiana likely never will recognize his union with partner Doug McKinney. But he fears the amendment will keep him and McKinney from receiving domestic-partner benefits through IU and so hurt the couple’s chances of adopting a child.
Following last weekâ??s approval of the Chippewa Valley Technical College liberal arts degree program, many students from CVTC and University of Wisconsin schools are looking forward to the upcoming changes.
Good grades and high test scores still matter â?? a lot â?? to many colleges as they award financial aid. But with low-income students projected to make up an ever-larger share of the college-bound population in coming years, some schools are re-examining whether that aid, typically known as merit aid, is the most effective use of precious institutional dollars. George Washington University in Washington, D.C., for example, said last week that it would cut the value of its average merit scholarships by about one-third and pare the number of recipients, pouring the savings, about $2.5 million, into need-based aid.
Hunting for an internship takes time and as more students realize their value, competition is getting fierce. Various businesses now offer to help match students with internships, charging hundreds to thousands of dollars to help them write resumes, identify potential employers and find summer housing.
Nearly half of America’s 5.4 million full-time college students abuse drugs or drink alcohol on binges at least once a month, according to a new study that portrays substance and alcohol abuse as an increasingly urgent problem on campuses across the nation. Alcohol remains the favored substance of abuse on college campuses by far, but the abuse of prescription drugs and marijuana has increased dramatically since the mid-1990s, according to the study released today by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. The center found that “the situation on America’s campuses has deteriorated” since 1993, CASA President Joseph Califano says.
Purdue University is about to become the first public university in the United States to sign a deal with a billionaire’s foundation that has been trying to provide $100-million endowments to universities to finance programs designed to kick-start commercialization of their inventions.
Several public and private universities have rejected the money from the Alfred E. Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering because of concerns that the foundation was seeking too much control over the universities’ intellectual-property rights (The Chronicle, March 17, 2006).
Faculty at Wisconsin technical colleges are paid more than faculty at the University of Wisconsin System in many areas of the state, a state audit found.
….The audit by the Legislative Audit Bureau – requested by the state Legislature – found that average annual earnings for full-time faculty exceeded annual earnings at the two-year UW Colleges by about $22,000.
The majority of professors at University of Wisconsin System institutions continue to earn less than their colleagues at nearby technical colleges, according to a report released Tuesday.
Nine years ago, in the forefront of a national trend, the University of Wisconsin launched an initiative to combine many academic disciplines and create new collaborative fields of study.
Full-time faculty at two-year Wisconsin Technical College System schools are among the top earners nationally and make more on average than their counterparts at many University of Wisconsin campuses, according to a state Legislative Audit Bureau report released Tuesday.
Last week saw two court rulings and one campus dispute focused on church and state. In all three cases â?? and in several others in the last year â?? advocates for religion won, and supporters of a strict separation of church and state lost.
Talent and heart rule on the basketball court â?? the teams with the most skill and the players who want it the most tend to win. So itâ??s kind of a crazy exercise to look at who might advance through the bracket of the National Collegiate Athletic Associationâ??s menâ??s basketball tournament with an eye toward anything else but those factors. But this is higher education, after all â?? right? So if you happen to cling even faintly to that antiquated notion that college sports are supposed to be about what happens to students in the classroom, too, maybe, just maybe, itâ??s appropriate to view the NCAA tournament bracket through a slightly different prism.
Virginia S. Hinshaw, who now serves as provost and executive vice chancellor of the University of California, Davis, has been recommended as the new chancellor for the University of Hawai’i-Manoa.
Hinshaw received the recommendation of a UH search committee, and the UH Board of Regents is expected to vote this week to make her selection official.
To retain minorities in science and engineering majors, culturally relevant ways to build self-confidence must be found and developed, according to preliminary results from a University of Wisconsin study.
The first-year results of the Sloan Project for Diversity in STEM Retention were presented as part of the “Wednesday Nite @ the Lab” series at the UW Biotechnology Center Wednesday. About 25 people attended the presentation of the three-year study.
Until now, I have refrained from commenting on the law school controversy involving what happened in UW Law School professor Leonard Kaplan’s classroom, because I believe discussion — while sometimes uncomfortable — is part of what a strong university should offer and tolerate.
Free expression is a cornerstone of UW-Madison.
In recent years, the recording industry has brought lawsuits against college song-swapping suspects by filing batches of “John Doe” subpoenas, which identify students by their computers’ Internet-protocol numbers and ask college technology officials to provide names matching the numbers.
Now, though, the recording industry is asking colleges to get involved before it files any legal papers. Under the lawsuit process described in this letter from the Recording Industry Association of America, the group’s lawyers will send colleges batches of e-mail form letters, each identifying a particular Internet-protocol number, and will ask that the messages be forwarded to students whose machines correspond to those numbers. The messages explain that unless the students agree to an out-of-court settlement, the association will sue them.
ST. PAUL, Minnesota (AP) — Winona State University senior Rick Howden, a business administration major, figures he knows a bad deal when he sees it. A $4,500 tab for his college textbooks by the time he graduates? Bad deal.
That includes a $142 business text he had to buy that he has barely opened.
“It ends up sitting on the floor next to my desk,” Howden said. “It’s hard for me to justify.”
Salon.com
Alarmed by recent reports of student depression and fearing malpractice lawsuits, colleges are struggling with ways to treat suicidal students. Overwhelmed by a rise of troubled students in the past several years, colleges are dealing with mental health issues with renewed intensity. A 2006 survey found that more than 9 percent of college students seriously contemplated suicide in the previous year. Further, college researchers estimate that more than 1,000 kill themselves each year, making it the second leading cause of death among college-age men and women (after auto accidents).
In a technical sense, a ruling by a federal judge Thursday handed defeats to both the University of Wisconsin at Madison and to a Roman Catholic group seeking to receive support through student fees at the university. But the fault that the judge found with the Catholic group is one that it can fairly easily fix. On the key issue of legal philosophy, the judgeâ??s ruling was very much what the religious students wanted: an order that the university not deny them recognition on the basis of Madisonâ??s non-discrimination policy.
Wisconsin students planning to enter a public college or university in Minnesota next fall can now count on paying their own in-state tuition fees for the next four years.
The two states’ higher education boards said Wednesday that the existing tuition reciprocity deal will continue – at least for now.
BJ&B was the only unionized factory in the Dominican Republic’s Free Trade Zone, until its closing was announced on February 22, due to Nike pulling out all its business.
This exemplifies how Nike business practices lead to international sweatshop exploitation. Not only is Nike a major supplier of retail University of Minnesota apparel, but the University athletics department is in the process of finalizing a $9 million exclusive merchandising contract that would make them the sole producer of University uniforms and sports gea
New House ethics rules that restrict lobbyist-funded travel exempt trips paid for by colleges and universities, a powerful lobbying force in Washington. Colleges, universities and other higher-education groups spent at least $75 million on federal lobbying efforts in 2005, and more than $900,000 on travel for lawmakers since 2000, according to a USA TODAY analysis of travel and lobbying reports compiled by non-partisan data-tracking firms.
Measured in constant dollars and per student, state and local support for public higher education has been falling but rebounded in fiscal 2006, according to an analysis being released today by the State Higher Education Executive Officers.
The Department of Education plans to announce today that it will scale back a proposed expansion of its annual survey of colleges.
The announcement, which is scheduled to appear in a Federal Register notice this morning, comes just over a month after the department announced in another notice that it was seeking to add several new questions to the survey, known as the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or Ipeds (The Chronicle, February 19).
U.S. universities will need to drastically change the way they do business in order to meet growing competition in the knowledge-based global economy, according to a national report released today.
The report by the Making Opportunity Affordable initiative says the “degree gap” between expected U.S. college graduates and the number needed to compete with best-performing nations will reach nearly 16 million by 2025.
As soon as they started to appear, the quotes seemed remarkably offensive. The remarks were attributed to Leonard V. Kaplan, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. But a few weeks after the class in which he was alleged to have said those things, and after students at the law school exploded in anger as the comments were circulated by e-mail, a new view is starting to emerge.
David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, announced on Tuesday that he would step down from his post in February 2008.
Mr. Ward has led the council, which represents more than 1,600 higher-education institutions, for five and a half years. He said he plans to stay in Washington and consult, write, and lecture on higher-education issues.
The Morgridge Center for Public Service at UW-Madison will mark its 10th anniversary with a conference titled “Celebrating the Many Faces of Public Service at UW-Madison” on Friday and Saturday.
The conference will focus on UW-Madison’s past as a leader in public service, as well as the current accomplishments and goals of the Morgridge Center.
The recording industry is again seeking the names of college students it suspects of downloading songs illegally, but it will now let students settle out of court at a discount before suing them, industry officials said.
Cary H. Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, said in a letter to college officials last week that the trade group had revived its campus lawsuit campaign, which had been dormant for about a year, as “a last resort.”
The music industry is ramping up its campaign against illegal file sharing by college students â?? and asking campus administrators to play a more central role in that process.
Daniel Creasy and the other Johns Hopkins University admissions office staff have to read 200 files a week to get through the 14,840 applications piled on chairs and crates in the hallways. That’s 65 percent more applicants than they had just five years ago — so many, Creasy joked, that he has to get his dog to help read them.
Pick any numbers you like to define college football’s premier teams â?? points scored, yards allowed. Or the big money earned by their coaches. The sport’s dizzying salaries spiral has come to this, a USA TODAY study finds: The million-dollar coach, once a rarity, is now the norm.
The last of the Free Silver Cheese Co. scholarships was recently awarded – the winner’s name was pulled from a hat at the county fair – and with it went a small part of Wisconsin’s cultural and economic history.
The amount was $100, a sum that represented a certain rural generosity of spirit but surely has little impact in these days of $3,000 per semester tuition.
Second-generation Hmong and those known as the 1.5 generation – they were born in Laos and moved to the United States at a young age – are becoming increasingly vocal and visible in standing up for their heritage and demanding respect.
Colleges are snuffing out smoking everywhere on campus, even in outdoor light-up spots such as main quads and sidewalks. At least 43 campuses from California to New Jersey have gone smoke-free, a trend that is accelerating, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights. Most have been community colleges and commuter schools, but more large universities with student housing are debating campus-wide bans, says the group’s Bronson Frick.
A mystery odor still emanates on occasion from parts unknown. And chapel renovations aren’t quite finished. But athletics have returned, and so has some nightlife. And expansion plans that had to be delayed are moving forward. Xavier University, mired in up to 5 feet of water after Hurricane Katrina, looks more like a campus than a disaster area these days, and that is nothing short of a “miracle,” says president Norman Francis.
UW-Madison is a nationally renowned institution of higher education, well known for its research, outstanding faculty and beautiful campus.
However, one thing that usually slips through the cracks in UW-Madison recruiting measures is the severe problem the university has with the retention of students of color. In trying to increase the level of diversity on campus, UW-Madisonâ??like many state schoolsâ??falls short in graduating minority students.
Research has shown that students of color leave the university due to campus climate. Thus, research serves as evidence of racial problems on a predominantly white campus.
From the stories coming out about a University of Wisconsin law professor, it seems that UW-Madison has its very own tenured Michael Richards. Unlike Richards, however, UW law professor Leonard Kaplanâ??s remarks targeted Wisconsinâ??s Hmong minority. Also unlike Richards, Kaplanâ??s remarks, however insensitive they may seem in the lack of context in which we are seeing them, were not racist.
Low-income students continue to face increasing difficulties with getting into college and having the resources to complete a degree, according to new research conducted at the University of Wisconsin.
Patrizio Piraino and Matthew Steinberg, researchers from the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, have been dissecting the factors contributing to the decline in enrollment of lower-income students.
In the search to fill an administrative position at the University of Wisconsin, officials aim to find the most qualified applicant who will ease smoothly into the university system.
When the university recently appointed Lori Berquam as the dean of students, administrators knew Berquam could fit into the system because she had experience working as the interim dean of students. And the transition into a high-profile administrative position may be easier for someone already familiar with UW.
University of Wisconsin Law Professor Leonard Kaplan has faced accusations of making derogatory remarks about the Hmong community in his class, and now he could face questions about his position as a tenured professor.
UW Political Science Professor Donald Downs said since Kaplan is tenured, he is able to take more risks with his lectures than when he served as an assistant professor.
Pressured by colleges and universities with similar stories, the College Board is launching its first major oversight effort of the popular advanced placement courses this year. By fall, the organization responsible for the AP program and its associated tests expects to have reviewed detailed descriptions of what’s being taught in about 120,000 courses throughout the world bearing the AP label.
The law school dean the University of Wisconsin at Madison sent an e-mail message to students and faculty members last week apologizing for the hurt caused by a professorâ??s anti-Hmong comnents during a class lecture, while also saying that no harm had been intended by them.
â??All of us in the Law School administration deeply regret this unfortunate course of events,â? wrote Kenneth Davis, the dean. He added that the professor involved, Leonard Kaplan, â??feels deeply sorry that his classroom remarks have caused so much pain for some of his students.â? Of the law school more broadly, the dean said: â??I can assure you that the school takes very seriously the professional conduct of our faculty, both in and out of the classroom. The Law School also takes very seriously our long-held core values of diversity, fairness, and respect for all.â?
High school seniors are taking more challenging classes and earning higher grades than ever, but their reading skills have actually worsened since 1992, data released Thursday by the U.S. Education Department suggest.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Minnesota lawmakers might insert themselves into a dispute over a tuition reciprocity agreement that has some Wisconsin students paying less to attend Minnesota universities than their home-state classmates.
A House higher education panel heard testimony Wednesday on a proposal to raise Wisconsin students’ tuition rates to Minnesota levels by fall 2008. Under the reciprocity pact, a Wisconsin student pays about $2,000 less a year to attend the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.
WASHINGTON – College students who faced lawsuits for illegally sharing large music collections over campus computer networks increasingly risk being unplugged from the Internet or even suspended over lesser complaints by the recording industry.
In a nationwide crackdown, the music industry is sending thousands more copyright complaints to universities this school year than last. In some cases, students are targeted for allegedly sharing a single file. For students who are caught, punishments can vary from e- mail warnings to semester-long suspensions from classes.
Charitable contributions to U.S. colleges and universities reached $28 billion last year, up 9.4% from the year before, a survey says. It adds that alumni giving, which represents about 30% of such support, grew by “an impressive 18.3%” last year, to $8.4 billion. Though the percentage of alumni making contributions declined, the value of the average gift has increased, from $971 in 2005 to $1,195 in 2006.
When a sculpture of a deer on DePauw University’s campus was vandalized, in October 2005, administrators got a tip that they would find the perpetrators by looking at postings on Facebook.
The Indiana university eventually identified and disciplined several students for defacing the sculpture. DePauw would probably not have found them without using the social-networking Web site, says James L. Lincoln, vice president for student services.
But is Facebook a law-enforcement tool?
Two months after he finished up as president of Middlebury College in 2004, John M. McCardell Jr. wrote a column for The New York Times called â??What Your College President Didnâ??t Tell You.â? In the piece, he discussed how he was â??as guilty as any of my colleagues [as presidents] of failing to take bold positions on public matters that merit serious debate.â? Taking advantage of his new emeritus status, he proceeded to take a few such positions. Among other things, he wrote that the 21-year-old drinking age is â??bad social policy and terrible law,â? and that it was having a bad impact on both students and colleges.
