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Quick Takes: MIT President Wants Professors to Get Along, More Opposition to Upward Bound Changes, El Camino to Run Compton, Leaving Beirut, Cleaning Up Plagiarism Mess

  • Amid accusations that a prominent neuroscientist discouraged a rising star in the field from accepting a position at MIT, the president of the institute has appointed a special committee to encourage collaboration among professors. Susan Hockfield, the president, said that collaboration was particularly important “because the most important intellectual challenges of our time call for interdisciplinary approaches.”
  • A coalition of higher education associations is weighing in against an Education Department proposal to narrow the eligibility criteria for the Upward Bound program. The letter states that the department’s proposed changes ignore Congressional intentions for the program and its record of success.
  • El Camino College will take over the management of Compton Community College in the wake of the latter institution’s loss of accreditation, the Los Angeles Times reported. While Compton has been plagued by financial and managerial problems, many in its California region have relied on it for higher education.
  • Seventy-three American students at the American University of Beirut were evacuated Tuesday, on a ship that took at total of 200 Americans from the city. A spokeswoman in the university’s New York City office said that about 190 American students remain on its Beirut campus. Most of them are enrolled at colleges in the United States and were in Beirut for summer programs in Arabic. She said that some students are waiting to leave, and others are staying, hopiong that the university will be able to resume classes.
  • Ohio University has sent letters to more than 50 people who earned master’s degrees with material believed to be plagiarized, asking them to return their degrees, rewrite their theses, or demand a hearing, The Athens News reported. In May the university found “rampant and flagrant plagiarism” among some graduate students in its mechanical engineering department.

Scott Jaschik

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Comments

Proposed changes in Upward Bound

As a former Upward Bound student, I know very well what the program can do for a student who is looking for an opportunity to acquire a college education. I’m fond of stating that as I grow older, the decision to become an Upward Bound student at Purdue in 1976 stands out as the single best decision that I’ve ever made.

That being said, I don’t trust the proposed changes in UB. I fully agree with the letter that good students would in effect be largely excluded from participation. I along with many of my colleagues might have been denied the opportunity that UB provides. Additionally, a focus on “at-risk” students, albeit a worthy goal, may result in lower numbers of UB students going on to college. What would stop the Administration from stating even stronger that “see, UB doesn’t work, which is why we want it eliminated". I might see the rationale under an administration that had been more supportive of UB, but under this administration I view their proposal as a back-door way of justifying killing it.

Christopher Mobley, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Chattanooga State Technical Community College, at 11:45 am EDT on July 19, 2006

Thanks, El Camino College

Although it’s too bad that Compton Community College won’t be pursuing its accreditation right away, I’m glad to see that El Camino stepped up to help. I hope that Compton CC will be able to re-group and plan for re-accreditation in the future. Compton has been woefully neglected in terms of infrastructure, and its residents truly do not deserve to lose their community college as well.

Compton Supporter, at 1:05 pm EDT on July 19, 2006

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