Administrators

The California State University System will close enrollment on most of its campuses for the spring 2013 semester, eliminating spots for about 16,000 would-be students, because of budget cuts imposed by the state, system officials said Monday. The statements by Robert Turnage, the system's assistant vice chancellor for budget, came in a call with reporters in advance of a trustee meeting later this week. Turnage told reporters that the system would limit enrollment next spring to all but a few hundred students who quality for transfer to one of eight campuses under a recent state law. (The campuses are Channel Islands, Chico, East Bay, Fullerton, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Bernardino and Sonoma.)

The number of students whose enrollment is blocked could rise to 25,000 in the 2013-14 academic year, Turnage said, depending on the outcome of November ballot measures that seek to raise taxes to supplement the state budget. 

Felice Nudelman, executive director of education for The New York Times Company, was named Monday as the next chancellor of Antioch University. In her current position, Nudelman has worked to promote numerous education initiatives, including the offering of courses and the creation of educational materials and technology tools. At Antioch, she will lead a system of five geographically dispersed campuses and distance programs. Antioch College -- the undergraduate residential institution -- is now independent of the university system.

More than 100 top faculty members at the University of Illinois sent a new letter to the Board of Trustees seeking the dismissal of Michael Hogan as president of the university system, The News-Gazette reported. Faculty anger has been growing in recent months against Hogan, who following a meeting at which board members urged him to repair faculty relations said he would do so, and apologized for the breakdown. But a new letter suggests that the faculty leaders have not been impressed by the new efforts by Hogan. While the faculty leaders thanked the board for taking their earlier concerns seriously, they added in their new letter that it was time for a new president. It is "all the more urgent that action be taken quickly to preserve the credibility of the board in the public arena as well as internally amongst the faculty, staff and students of the university," the letter said. "A board that does not act when there is a president who is so ethically and reputationally compromised as to be unable to function is one that is, in truth, itself unable to effectively govern the institution that it stewards."

A team of lawyers continued their barrage of legal actions challenging the accuracy and legitimacy of law school placement rates, threatening class actions against 20 more schools. David Anziska, the lawyer leading the group, said that the 20 schools -- like the 14 previously sued -- had misrepresented their post-graduate employment rates. He also warned that "at the end of this process, nearly every law school in the country will be sued.” The schools cited in this round include some more-visible names than the prior targets. The 20 schools are American University Washington College of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law, Chapman University School of Law, Loyola Marymount University Law School, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, New England School of Law, Pace University School of Law, Pepperdine University School of Law, Roger Williams University School of Law, St. Louis University School of Law, St. John’s University School of Law, Seattle University School of Law, Stetson University College of Law, Syracuse University College of Law, University of Miami School of Law; University of St. Thomas School of Law, Valparaiso University School of Law, Western New England University School of Law, and Whittier Law School.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Chicago State University to reinstate a former adviser to its student newspaper that the institution fired in 2008 in the wake of a series of critical articles, the Student Press Law Center reported. The judge's decision sided with Gerian Steven Moore, ruling that the public university had violated his First Amendment rights and ordering him to be reinstated to his job as executive director for communications or a similar position. The decision did not go entirely for the plaintiffs, however, as the court ruled against the newspaper's former editor, who had sought action against the former administrators who helped bring about the demise of the Tempo, the student newspaper at the time.
 

A jury on Wednesday sided with the parents of two students killed in the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, finding the university negligent for waiting to inform the campus about the gunman, the Associated Press reported. After deliberating for three and a half hours, jurors awarded $4 million each to the families of two women who were among the 33 dead. Lawyers for the state -- who had argued that university officials did all they could in the face of an unprecedented tragedy -- immediately filed to reduce the size of the verdict, the AP reported.