Category: Higher Education/System

Average scores on the ACT college entrance exam rose for the first time in seven years, with the high school class of 2004 improving modestly across all subjects and most ethnic groups, according to test administrators.

A sociologist who calmed the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus during the dark days after 9-11 has been selected as dean of the university’s largest college.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 – Susan Lim, a 20-year-old Georgetown University student, is working 89 hours a week this summer: two part-time jobs and an unpaid internship offered through the Public Policy and International Affairs Program.

President Bush, who followed his father and grandfather to Yale University despite an undistinguished academic record, said Friday that colleges should get rid of ‘legacy’ admission preferences that favor the sons and daughters of alumni. (From 8/7/04) Capital Times print edition)

“College doesn’t prepare you for life.” It was part of a conversation I heard two young men having over a beer and a deep bag of greasy popcorn on the terrace at the UW’s Memorial Union one recent, balmy summer evening.

Colleges have spent a lot of money putting technology in the classroom, and while the innovations have made courses more convenient, the spending has yet to have a large impact on learning, according to a new survey of students. (Subscription required.)

You still won’t find dormitories or a football team at the University of Phoenix. But starting this fall the giant, for-profit university system will have something to make it look more like a traditional college: 18- to 21-year olds.

University of Wisconsin at Madison, $1.218-billion as of June 30 (increase of $1.2-million in the last month); the goal is $1.5-billion by 2007. (Subscription required.)

WHEN the budding pundit Walter Lippmann coined the term ”stereotype” back in 1922, he offered several examples from the America of his time: ”Agitator.” ”Intellectual.” ”South European.” ”From the Back Bay.” You know, he told the reader, when a glimpse and a word or two create a full mental picture of a whole group of people. As in ”plutocrat.” Or ”foreigner.” Or ”Harvard man.”

WHEN Teachers College at Columbia first started thinking about renovating its library about six years ago, the first question to answer was whether a library is even necessary anymore, says Gary Natriello, the library’s interim director. Maybe the library was going the way of carbon paper, an artifact of the predigital age.

The Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii System has rescinded its firing of Evan S. Dobelle as president and instead agreed to a mediated settlement in which it will pay about $1.6-million to him and other parties. (Subscription required.)

Hey up-and-comers, have we got a management opportunity for you: Supervise a huge organization spread around the state. Its employees are in perpetual uproar. Its prickly managers demand more autonomy and even more resources. Its customers complain constantly about rising costs and declining quality. Its board of directors consists mostly of political appointees.

Young Democrats plan an unprecedented drive to mobilize college-age voters in this fall’s presidential election, with a handful of groups spending upward of $40-million, a twentyfold increase over the 2000 election. (Subscription required.)

A man who University of Wisconsin-La Crosse administrators describe as personable and unassuming is expected to be approved as the new president of the UW System today by the Board of Regents.

Thousands of applicants to California’s public universities who were directed to community colleges because of expected budget restrictions would now be admitted to a four-year campus under the state-budget deal reached this week by California lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Subscription required.)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States is facing an uphill task trying to close the international knowledge gap among its citizens after surveys showed they are alarmingly uninformed about Asia and other regions and in the dark about cultures and languages other than their own.

New high school graduates who think they are finished being judged by colleges and universities should think again. Some are in for a big surprise this summer. (Capital Times 7/28/04 print edition)

Robert J. Birgeneau, president of University of Toronto, was named on Tuesday as the new chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley. (Subscription required.)

Foreign students and scholars applying to work in the United States will be allowed to remain in the country until more H-1B worker visas become available, in October, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced late last week. (Subscription required.)

A little-noticed provision in a federal higher-education law that requires colleges to make a “good-faith effort” to provide voter-registration materials to students is about to get a lot more attention, if politically active students have their way. They are starting their work this week here at the Democratic National Convention. (Subscription required.)