Category: Higher Education/System

When the prominent professor who had recruited her locked her out of the research lab, there was no question what Denice Denton would do. Fight back.

But the odds were against her. He was entrenched in the electrical and computer engineering department. She was a junior faculty member, without tenure and one of two women among 180 men in the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Login required.)

State institutions should tie tuition to median family income, and colleges need to find ways to reduce costs if they ever hope to return to the days when higher education was seen as a public good, Larry R. Faulkner, president of the University of Texas at Austin, told college leaders here on Sunday at the opening session of the American Council on Education’s annual meeting.

Saying higher education’s long-standing tenure system harms the careers of many women with spouses and children and needs to be changed to attract the best talent, a panel of university leaders has called for colleges to make the traditional academic career path more flexible.

A Colorado professor who likened Sept. 11 victims to Nazis will be allowed to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, a decision the chancellor said was repugnant but necessary under First Amendment principles of free speech.

The decision Thursday sparked outrage among state lawmakers, who said they would appeal to UW System President Kevin Reilly to intervene and would also make other formal protests to block the speech by Ward Churchill.

MINNEAPOLIS – The University of Minnesota wants to be one of the world’s top public research institutions and it expects to more selectively pick students for the future. However, Minnesotans want the university open to average Minnesota students and they put national rankings low on the list of things the university ought to pursue.

BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 10 – Prof. Ward L. Churchill has made a career at the University of Colorado out of pushing people’s buttons, colleagues and students say, clearly relishing his stance as radical provocateur and in-your-face critic.

Saying higher education’s long-standing tenure system isn’t familiy friendly and harms the careers of women, a panel of university leaders called Thursday for colleges to make the traditional academic career path more flexible.

Ward Churchill is becoming a hot property. Hot, in two senses of the word.

Virginia lawmakers endorsed legislation this week that would grant the state’s public colleges more operating flexibility and would lay out a process by which some institutions’ governing boards could seek even greater management freedom from the state.

Hours after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Ward Churchill compared the victims to the Nazis. A professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, he wrote in an essay that those killed at the World Trade Center were not innocent civilians but “little Eichmanns.”

The University of Wisconsin System has a proud tradition of ideas — ideas born of the free discussion that allows opinions to be sifted and winnowed, the good from the bad, so that the good can advance to benefit society.

WHITEWATER – A decision will be made today or early Thursday by UW-Whitewater officials on whether to allow a Colorado professor who compared the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to Nazi war criminals, to make a speech at the campus.

The campus of American Capital University has no tree-shaded quadrangle, no stately old buildings or libraries, no classrooms, no fraternity houses � not even a student curled up with a book in a quiet corner.

A University of Colorado professor at the center of a national controversy over free speech and a person’s right to criticize the United States stepped forward to defend himself Tuesday night as college administrators consider firing him.

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater administrators spent much of the day Tuesday fielding calls from people expressing their opinions about the school’s plan to host Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado ethnic studies professor whose 2001 essay compares some World Trade Center victims to a Nazi war criminal.

President Bush called on Congress to raise the maximum Pell Grant by $500, to $4,550, over the next five years, and to eliminate a $4.3-billion shortfall that has plagued the program, as part of his 2006 budget request, released on Monday.

He also asked lawmakers to raise the amount that students in their first two years of college can borrow from the government’s direct- and guaranteed-student-loan programs

The chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is considering canceling a talk by Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor whose remarks comparing the victims of the World Trade Center attacks to a World War II Nazi war criminal have sparked national debate on the appropriate limits of free speech.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Faced with state budget cuts and the need to remain competitive, public universities around the country are beginning to focus on students as young as freshmen and sophomores as prime targets for fund-raising campaigns

The University of Wisconsin-Madison may soon offer a master’s degree in women’s and gender studies. The proposal comes before the Board of Regents at its meeting next week.

On another matter — a group of UW students delivered the last of 5,000 signatures to Gov. Jim Doyle’s office on Friday. They asked Doyle to keep tuition affordable and keep the university providing a high quality education.

Jennifer L. Ewald taps her foot rapidly as she sizes up the crowd. Here, inside the ballroom of the posh Lima Marriott Hotel, are hundreds of potential students. Law students, medical students, business students, undergraduates.

Last year, midway through planning construction of a new library at the University of Nevada at Reno, Lyle Woodward saw the prices of steel, concrete, and other essentials skyrocket. The project’s cost, which had started at $66-million, was climbing toward $86-million. He and other administrators had a predictable response.

BERKELEY, California (AP) — The cash-strapped University of California handed out $2.4 million in bonuses to administrators at its five medical schools, angering campus workers and students.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 – The House has approved a measure calling for the government to contest a federal court decision that educational institutions have a First Amendment right to keep military recruiters off their campuses to protest the policy of excluding gays from military service.

Roger Thompson trails the Crimson Tide across the South. He knows there are few college spectacles as grand as football and, as the head of admissions for the University of Alabama, he is out to draw a crowd.

Marquette University has declined to renew the contract of Tom Mueller, faculty adviser for the Marquette Tribune, in a decision professors said raised concerns about journalistic freedom for the newspaper’s student editors.

The president of Harvard, moving to counter widespread criticism of his comments last month on women’s science capabilities, announced initiatives Thursday to improve the status of women on the faculty, including a commitment to create a senior recruiting post.

Dear Editor: If Colorado is enamored with TABOR, as Rep. Frank Lasee claimed in his guest column Tuesday, I don’t see it. Apparently Lasee isn’t reading the Denver Post to find out what the Colorado Legislature is working on.

High schools often take the blame when students aren’t prepared for college. But some experts say entire communities should be held accountable.

Paying for college is becoming more of a struggle, especially for the growing number of low-income kids aspiring to earn degrees. And many experts say most colleges and states are turning a blind eye to the problem.

Moe writes about a new book, “Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus,” by Donald Downs, a UW-Madison professor of political science, law and journalism.

“It is compelling reading, and somewhat chilling, looking in hindsight at what for the most part good-intentioned people can do to something as seemingly unassailable in this country as free expression. It is also an optimistic book, for those who believe in the right of free speech, in light of what finally became of the (speech) codes.”