Sustainable might sound like New Age jargon, but college students are embracing the idea: food grown locally with ecologically sound and seasonally sensitive methods. The concept also includes humane treatment for workers and animals and fair wages.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings called Tuesday for greater accountability by colleges and universities, including the creation of a national database to track how well students learn. She also called for an overhaul of the financial aid process and an increase in need-based aid.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 ââ?¬â? Saying she hoped to jolt American higher education out of a dangerous complacency, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings vowed Tuesday to help finance state universities that administer standardized tests, establish a national database to track studentsââ?¬â?¢ progress toward a degree and cut the red tape surrounding federal student aid.
Education leaders and policy makers responded with expressions of relief, disappointment, and concern on Tuesday after the U.S. secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, announced her five-point “action plan” for the future of American higher education.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 ââ?¬â? Saying she hoped to jolt American higher education out of a dangerous complacency, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings vowed Tuesday to help finance state universities that administer standardized tests, establish a national database to track studentsââ?¬â?¢ progress toward a degree and cut the red tape surrounding federal student aid.
WASHINGTON – Handed a plan to shake up college life in America, Education Secretary
Margaret Spellings is endorsing some of its key ideas and promising to get moving on them.
A federal plan to improve higher education can’t work without more financial aid, the University of Wisconsin-Madison provost said today.
Patrick Farrell was responding to reports that U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was expected today to endorse some of the recommendations of a panel charged with improving higher education. But she is expected not to commit to one major recommendation, increasing Pell Grants.
….One of the major recommendations Spellings wants to move ahead with is a massive database that would pull together students’ academic data. The intent is to create a picture of how well a college or university is performing. It would also give institutions the ability to track transfer students or dropouts.
Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of telecommunications, said he was worried when he read that Spellings believed the plan would allow parents and students to shop for colleges like they shop for cars.
Most students are familiar with many of the long-term study abroad options available at UW-Madisonââ?¬â?a semester in London, studying French in Paris or Spanish in Spain. However, there are lesser known programs available for venturing outside the country that many students are not as familiar withââ?¬â?programs that can cater to every major, interest, time constraint and monolingual speaker.
Today’s college students are failing to graduate with a knowledge of and appreciation for America’s history and institutions, a new report says. Warning of a ââ?¬Å?coming crisis in American citizenship,ââ?¬Â it blames U.S. colleges and universities for neglecting to prepare students for their civic responsibilities.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plans a many faceted campaign to carry out the recommendations of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education, including providing matching funds to colleges and states that collect and publicly report how well their students learn, building a ââ?¬Å?privacy protectedââ?¬Â database of college studentsââ?¬â?¢ academic records, and streamlining the process of applying for federal student aid.
Eighth-graders at Perry Tipler Middle School were thinking ââ?¬â? and talking about ââ?¬â? their educational futures Monday.
Jessica Doyle, wife of Gov. Jim Doyle, made a stop at Tipler to speak with students about the Wisconsin Covenant, an initiative that guarantees students with good grades a place in the Wisconsin higher education system.
Michael J. Tate runs an operation with the kind of resources that many small colleges would envy. He has an annual budget of $3-million and a full-time staff of 55, including two people focused exclusively on communications and a development officer who’s angling to raise $10-million. All this is in a unitÃ? ââ?¬â? the office of the vice president for equity and diversityÃ? ââ?¬â? that didn’t even exist here at Washington State University in the summer of 2004.
By Joanne Levy-Prewitt – Special to The Capital Times
High school seniors, if you’ve visited colleges this summer, chances are you’ve fallen in love with one of them.
It’s easy to do top-notch professors, stimulating programs, brick buildings with high-tech classrooms, friendly student tour guides, plush gyms and dining halls stocked with sushi and sundae bars.
Colleges intend to entice you with those goodies, and some, after luring you in, will tell you that your chances of admission are greatest if you apply early. Despite your infatuation, I urge you to think carefully before applying under one of the early admission programs.
A study of the factors that play the greatest part in helping universities turn their biotechnology research into economic payoffs shows that scientific prowess is just part of the equation. Having an established and well-staffed technology-transfer office, and being located in a region with the right kinds of businesses, will also have a significant impact on the institution’s success, it found.
Women in science and engineering are hindered not by lack of ability but by bias and ââ?¬Å?outmoded institutional structuresââ?¬Â in academia, an expert panel reported yesterday. The panel, convened by the National Academy of Sciences, said that in an era of global competition the nation could not afford ââ?¬Å?such underuse of precious human capital.ââ?¬Â Among other steps, the report recommends altering procedures for hiring and evaluation, changing typical timetables for tenure and promotion, and providing more support for working parents.
Princeton University on Monday became the second elite university to drop its early admissions program, following Harvard in a move the Ivy League schools say will benefit disadvantaged students and reduce anxiety.
The college diplomas of the nation’s top executives tell an intriguing story: Getting to the corner office has more to do with leadership talent and a drive for success than it does with having an undergraduate degree from a prestigious university.
Finished with GRE prep?
Talk to any professors about letters of recommendation?
Ready to decide the next step of your life by December?
THIS fall, stacked amid the hefty new college admissions books like ââ?¬Å?The Best 361 Collegesââ?¬Â and ââ?¬Å?Financial Aid for the Utterly Confusedââ?¬Â is a guide about an entirely different sort of college acceptance.
ââ?¬Å?The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Studentsââ?¬Â (Alyson Books) profiles 100 of the countryââ?¬â?¢s ââ?¬Å?best campusesââ?¬Â for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, and it arrives at a time when gay students are more vocal and visible.
CHICAGO – Somewhere along the way, college life has gotten a whole lot more posh.
On a number of campuses, students are able to hire personal maids to clean and do their laundry. They pay moving crews to pack and transport their stuff ââ?¬â? plasma TVs and other high-end electronics included. And they’re living large in housing that looks like anything but a dorm.
CHICAGO ââ?¬â? When a research group started tracking what happens to Chicagoââ?¬â?¢s public school graduates after they enter college, it came upon a startling and dispiriting finding: the graduation rates at two of the cityââ?¬â?¢s four-year public universities were among the worst in the country.
Do you know parents of high school students who come to the rescue whenever their son or daughter is in a tough spot? Are they still delivering forgotten lunches or gym clothes to school? Have they tried to negotiate with the school for a different teacher or a better grade? If so, they may be helicopter parents.
Helicopter parents hover and swoop in to rescue their children from any adversity. College admissions offices began using this moniker a few years ago when they noticed that parents were becoming increasingly involved in the daily lives of their college-age children.
Giving another boost to 529 college-savings plans, a growing number of states are allowing their residents to take state-tax deductions for contributions they make to other states’ 529 plan.
Harvard did the right thing by abandoning its early admissions program, the first elite college to do so. We hope other institutions follow its lead and eliminate a process that is inevitably unfair and simply increases the frenzy of a college application process that is unnecessarily pressurized.
Officials at many elite colleges and universities said yesterday that they would carefully consider how to respond to Harvard University�s decision to eliminate early admissions, though none were yet ready to follow Harvard�s lead.
Harvard University, in announcing plans Tuesday to eliminate its early admissions program next year and move to a January 1 application deadline for all undergraduates, made clear that it would welcome any institution wanting to follow its lead.
Patti Kilroy, newly arrived at New York University from Miami, and her roommate, Bliss Baek, already suspected they would get along, even before arriving on campus.
Ms. Kilroy, a violin major, posted some funny pictures of herself on Facebook, a networking Web site used by many students, along with her favorite music joke. (So a C, an E flat and a G walk into a bar and the bartender says, ââ?¬Å?You know I donââ?¬â?¢t serve minors.ââ?¬â?¢Ã¢â?¬â?¢ So the E flat walks out and the C and G split a fifth.ââ?¬â?¢Ã¢â?¬â?¢)
LONDON (Reuters) – The United States remains the most
popular destination for foreign students, but its share of the
competitive international education market has fallen to 22
percent from 25 percent in four years, a study said on Tuesday.
Madison, Wis. – Wisconsin high-school students are again among the nation’s elite when it comes to scoring well on the ACT, a major college preparedness test. With an average score of 22.2 on a 36-point scale, Wisconsin ranked second nationally among states that depend on the ACT, falling only one-tenth of one percentage point behind first-place Minnesota.
Harvard University is ditching its early admission policy next year, a move a University of Wisconsin official called “Harvard coming into the 20th century.”
“Harvard is beginning to think like Wisconsin,” said UW admissions director Rob Seltzer, after the Ivy League school announced it is dropping its “early action” policy because the policy favors wealthier students over minorities and the poor.
The state of Wisconsin received a failing grade for affordability in a national report released last week, and the United Council of UW Students is blaming UW tuition increases for the poor mark.
An overwhelming majority of first-year medical residents continue to ignore a well-known ethics code, according to a study released earlier this month.
The University of Wisconsin Business School received a rare and prestigious designation yesterday from the Charter Financial Analyst Institute.
Stanford University Medical Center will prohibit its physicians from accepting even small gifts like pens and mugs from pharmaceutical sales representatives under a new policy intended to limit industry influence on patient care and doctor education.
Harvard University, breaking with a major trend in college admissions, says it will eliminate its early admissions program next year, with university officials arguing that such programs put low-income and minority applicants at a distinct disadvantage in the competition to get into selective universities.
On this point few people familiar with the state of American higher education can disagree: The country is not doing a good job educating students from low-income families now, and with the number of low-income Americans poised to grow, that problem is poised to become much more dire.
Madison Area Technical College recently ordered and received a biodiesel reactor. The reactor will be used to educate MATC students in the production and use of biodiesel fuels, and to promote biodiesel awareness around the state. To find their reactor MATC looked no further than UW-Madison.
For most of its 81 years, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has enjoyed a reputation as a pioneering and savvy leader in the commercialization of university inventions, the force that helped bring to market vitamin-D-enriched foods with to fight rickets, the blood thinner Warfarin to prevent strokes, and key technologies used in PlayStation 2 video-game machines.
Here on the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin, the foundation commonly referred to as WARF is also widely heralded as an enduring and generous benefactor of the research enterprise. It has provided close to $1-billion for professorships, research grants, and new buildingsÃ? ââ?¬â? including, most recently, a matching gift that will help build the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. The project, announced this spring, will foster cutting-edge collaborations in biology, nanotechnology, and computer science.
Brigham Young University has placed Steven E. Jones, a senior professor of physics, on paid leave because of concerns over his involvement in Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a group that says the U.S. government permitted and may have even orchestrated the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001.
Five years ago, academe braced itself.
In the days and weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, when title logos like “America Under Attack” still loomed over newscasts, some scholars said they could already feel the free exchange of ideas constricting. As news commentators proclaimed an end to the age of irony, many professors feared the start of a new McCarthy era.
In a national report on higher education released Wednesday, the state of Wisconsin received a B+ grade overall, but an F in affordability.
Higher education in Wisconsin received high grades in several areas but, like most states, it flunked when it comes to affordability of colleges and universities in a national report released today.
The report gave Wisconsin an A in completion of higher education, A-minus in participation, B-plus in preparation, B-minus in benefits, and F in affordability.
It found a continuing racial gap, with 37 out of 100 whites aged 18-24 enrolled in college, compared with 25 of 100 from other groups.
Public college costs are taking a much bigger bite out of the average Minnesota family’s annual income than in recent years, according to a nationwide report released today.
NEW YORK – A depressed Hunter College student who swallowed handfuls of Tylenol, then saved her own life by calling 911, was in for a surprise when she returned to her dorm room after the ordeal.
The United States, long the world leader in higher education, has fallen behind other nations in its college enrollment and completion rates, as the affordability of American colleges and universities has declined, according to a new report.
The United States has made incremental improvements in preparing students for college in recent years, but it has made ââ?¬Å?no notable progress since the early 1990sââ?¬Â in increasing college participation rates, a report says. And, it says, degree-completion rates in the USA compare poorly with those of other countries.
The instructions Michel A. Wattiaux received when he started a faculty job in dairy science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison six years ago were simple yet daunting: Change the way the students learn.
Sarah Moen earned straight-A grades all the way through school except for that one B-plus in third grade.
But when she starts classes today as one of 5,600 freshmen at UW- Madison, she’ll be just another valedictorian starting over.
U.S. News and World Report ranked the University of Wisconsin the seventh-best public college in America and the 34th-best college overall this month in its annual national rankings.
USA TODAY’s special report on the toll from college fires outlined a serious safety issue that parents, college students and local governments face. Passing the blame will not resolve this issue.
Education Dept. Shared Student Data With F.B.I.
The Federal Education Department shared personal information on hundreds of student loan applicants with the Federal Bureau of Investigation across a five-year period that began after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the agencies said yesterday.
A little-known federal program created days after Sept. 11, 2001, examined financial aid records of college students targeted by the FBI in terrorism investigations, but it’s unclear whether it netted any terrorists, according to U.S. Education Department documents.
Drinking in the dorms will be a tougher task this year at the University of Minnesota — even if you’re legal.
The U.S. Education Department has given the Federal Bureau of Investigation information on hundreds of students who applied for financial aid over the past five years as part of the federal government’s antiterrorism investigations following the attacks of September 11, 2001.
USA TODAY’s annual survey of tuition and fees at 75 public flagship universities in 50 states looks at figures for first-year, full-time freshmen and includes all mandatory and major-specific fees assessed for students in basic Arts and Sciences programs. Room and board, books and other costs are not included.
A typical freshman headed for a public flagship university in his or her home state this fall will pay about $5,838 in tuition and fees, suggests USA TODAY’s annual survey of 75 top schools in 50 states. The median increase among schools studied was 6.4%.
Vermont, Burlington 72.7%
Delaware, Newark 66.2%
North Dakota, Grand Forks 54.2%
New Hampshire, Durham 50.5%
West Virginia, Morgantown 50.0%
Rhode Island, Kingston 49.9%
Mississippi, Oxford 47.4%
Iowa, Iowa City 42.3%
Colorado, Boulder 41.4%
Auburn (Ala.) 39.5%
Illinois State, Normal 0.9%
Buffalo (SUNY) 5.0%
Texas, Austin 5.5%
Texas A&M, College Station 5.7%
UCLA 7.2%
North Carolina State, Raleigh 9.7%
Ohio, Athens 9.8%
SUNY (Stony Brook) 10.0%
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 11.3%
Michigan State, East Lansing 12.1%
Financial aid for students attending public flagship universities increased from 2002 to 2005 ââ?¬â? but not as much as tuition and fees did, suggests USA TODAY’s annual 50-state survey.
BURLINGTON, Vt. ââ?¬â? For Virginia native Max Wilson, getting into the University of Vermont, his top choice, practically was easier than driving up to start his freshman year. Not only was he accepted early, he was admitted into the honors college, which landed him in a brand-new dorm ââ?¬â? “an awesome perk,” he says.
The University of Illinois is in many ways a classic state university system. Urbana-Champaign is a flagship, with a history of Nobel laureates and competitive admissions. The Chicago campus has been very much on the rise in the last 10 years, expanding research and graduate programs and attracting academic stars. Springfield has more of an undergraduate and liberal arts focus.
