Category: Higher Education/System

Michigan’s overwhelming adoption of a ban on the use of affirmative-action preferences by public colleges and other state agencies appears likely to result in months of legal wrangling over the measure’s enforcement there and the emergence of campaigns for similar ballot proposals in other states.

As ballots were counted through Wednesday morning, unofficial election results showed that the proposed ban on preferences, known as Proposal 2, had passed with 58 percent of the vote. It was resoundingly approved despite being up against a much-better-financed opposition campaign that enlisted much of the state’s economic and political establishment, in a year when Democrats made a good enough showing at the polls to win most key elections.

Gov. Jim Doyle, who made his support for stem cell research a pivotal issue in a hard-fought governor’s race, defeated Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Mark Green on Tuesday to become the first Democrat re-elected Wisconsin governor in 32 years.

Quoted: John Coleman, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Voters appeared to say no to spending caps in three states, dealing a serious blow to anti-tax activists, while, in Missouri, a ballot measure that would have explicitly permitted research on embryonic stem cells was too close to call.

Meanwhile, Democrats were poised to pick up a number of governor’s seats, winning key open races in Arkansas and Ohio and apparently defeating the Republican incumbent in Maryland. Thirty-six governorships were contested in this election.

Besides making college more affordable, training more scientists and engineers, and expanding federal financing of stem-cell research (see article), here are some other higher-education issues to watch now that the Democrats have gained control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The newly configured Congress that emerged from Tuesday�s election is likely to change the landscape for higher education in significant � but not necessarily predictable � ways.

Andrew Polakowski, an 18-year-old freshman at Ohio State University, was among the last of 24 students who crammed into a dormitory elevator on Friday night, October 20, at 11:20 p.m. The students were all leaving the dorm together and wanted to stay together. The elevator has a maximum weight capacity of 2,500 pounds � a total probably exceeded by 1,000 pounds with 24 students on board. As Polakowski entered, the elevator car began to descend without its doors closing. He tried to jump out, was pinned by the elevator, and was killed.

Total foreign enrollments at American graduate schools increased by 1 percent this fall, after three consecutive years of decline. In what is seen as a particularly promising sign, the number of new foreign students increased by 12 percent, suggesting that total enrollments should continue to rise.

The University of California disproportionately serves the state’s highest-income, best-educated families, and UC needs to look beyond test scores so high-school graduates from all backgrounds get a fair chance of being admitted, say two faculty reports released Friday.

(AP) — Cornell University is going all-out this week.

Thursday features a news conference in New York City with the mayor. On Friday, 1,000 volunteers and wealthy alumni such as former Citigroup chairman Sanford “Sandy” Weill will be back on the main campus in Ithaca, New York, for an elaborate dinner. The menu: a salad that includes wild mushrooms and sweet vermouth cheesecake, marinated beef tenderloin and a hazelnut Godiva chocolate tart with minted raspberry sauce.

Cornell should more than recoup the bill. The festivities are kicking off a campaign to raise $4 billion.

At colleges across the country, students will be dressing up and downing drinks this weekend, engaging in any number of tricks not for kids. Traditions, new and old, die hard on Halloween. One legendary party is being resurrected, another lives on, while others on campus use Halloween as an opportunity to do good � and even, strange as it may seem, to address the country�s challenges in science education.

College costs are rising less severely this year but still are significantly above the national inflation rate, the College Board said Tuesday.

The size of tuition and fee increases at four-year public colleges declined for the third year in a row, according to the College Board’s annual tuition survey, which was released on Tuesday, but lagging federal grant aid has left many lower- and middle-income students still struggling to keep up with the rising cost of college.

One student loan company has invited college and university officials, and their spouses, to attend an education conference � in the Caribbean this February, all expenses paid. Another pays universities bonuses based on how much their students borrow. Others gave away gifts like iPods at a recent conference for financial aid administrators.

ââ?¬Å?My campus is greener than yours.ââ?¬Â

ââ?¬Å?Yeah, well we have more energy-efficient classrooms than youââ?¬â?¢ll ever see.ââ?¬Â

Were two college officials to tangle at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education�s conference, a meeting of the minds for campus environmental experts, the dialogue might sound something like that.

The UW-Milwaukee shut down the student government Friday after its leaders refused to release financial records for review.

A national free speech group lambasted Marquette University administrators Wednesday for removing a quote by humorist Dave Barry from a graduate student’s office door.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education criticized a Marquette administrator for removing this Barry quote from the office door of doctoral student Stuart Ditsler last month: “As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.”

The SAT and ACT college entrance exams each report the number of students taking their test this month is up sharply from a year ago, a likely sign more students are trying both exams to boost their admission chances.

The number of alcohol arrests on college campuses in 2004 was 10 percent higher than the figure for 2003, according to statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Education. The numbers of arrests for possession of illegal weapons and for drug-related offenses, meanwhile, were up 12.9 percent and 3 percent, respectively, in the same year.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Historical Society announced Thursday that they are making nearly 500,000 historical books and documents available for a new search engine that aims to do with books what Google has done for Web sites.

LIKE it or not, the No Child Left Behind Act passed under President Bush has transformed the conversation about American public education. The law has its flaws, but the nation has benefited from its focus on results and its willingness to confront gaps in educational achievement.

The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that today’s overscheduled lifestyle is robbing children of the developmental benefits of play. It also cites pressures created by the high-anxiety college admissions process.

With midterm Congressional elections only a month away, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi of California, said in a speech at Georgetown University on Thursday that the affordability of higher education would be a key issue for the Democratic Party if it retakes control of the House.

Despite a nationwide shortage of nurses, U.S. nursing schools turned away tens of thousands of qualified applicants last year for a reason that’s now getting a fresh raft of attention: The schools couldn’t find enough teachers.

NASHVILLE � Just before 6 p.m. on a recent evening, students began to fill a lecture hall at Vanderbilt University. Some pressed cellphones to their ears, others sipped cups of coffee. Flip-flops scuffed the carpet as the students shed book bags and opened laptops.

A typical class, perhaps ââ?¬â? until the teacher with the shock of white hair rose from the table at the front of the hall, greeted the students and asked a question: ââ?¬Å?How many of you have experienced a hate crime against yourself? Letââ?¬â?¢s see the hands.ââ?¬Â

It turns out that there is a single variable that can predict whether graduation rates are going to increase or decrease: the pattern of state appropriations.

In ââ?¬Å?Does Public Funding for Higher Education Matter?ââ?¬Â Liang Zhang, an assistant professor of higher education, answers with an emphatic Yes. The paper was just released by the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, where Zhang is a faculty associate.

Colleges and universities are requiring background checks of new staff members far more often than of their faculty members, but there are signs that trend may be changing.

After years of talk, the notion that American higher education needs to do much more to help students from low-income backgrounds get into and through college finally seems to be getting up a head of steam.

Black men are underrepresented at institutions of higher learning over all, and even more so at flagship universities in the 50 states, says a report released on Wednesday by a national research center.

An advisory commission report sent this month to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings recommends a wide range of proposals related to the accessibility, affordability and accountability of higher education.

The offer of admission from the University of North Carolina was wonderful, of course, but it was the letter from the financial aid office that made all the difference for Canada Steele. Her mother, Lori Brown, a single parent of seven in Hickory, calls it ââ?¬Å?a blessing.ââ?¬Â Steele, 18, her oldest, calls it ââ?¬Å?a miracle.ââ?¬Â The miracle’s name is the Carolina Covenant, a UNC program that promises low-income students such as Steele that their college costs are paid off and they can graduate debt-free. Now in its third year, the Covenant serves about 950 students and has become a model for other public universities.