Quick Takes: Professors Sue Antioch, Lansing Settles Suit, Baby's Death Investigated at Mercyhurst, Undocumented Student Tuition in Colorado, Student Spending Projected to Rise, Court Win for Registrars' Group, Unusual Refund From Hebrew U.

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Quick Takes: Professors Sue Antioch, Lansing Settles Suit, Baby's Death Investigated at Mercyhurst, Undocumented Student Tuition in Colorado, Student Spending Projected to Rise, Court Win for Registrars' Group, Unusual Refund From Hebrew U.

August 15, 2007 - 4:00am

By

Scott Jaschik

Professors at Antioch College sued the board of Antioch University in Ohio court Tuesday, seeking to block the board's decision to suspend operations of the college. The suit charges that the board's actions violated contractual obligations to consult with the faculty and not to take steps that would damage Antioch. University officials could not be reached, but have defended their decision as necessary.

Lansing Community College has agreed to pay $175,000 to its former general counsel to settle a lawsuit in which he said he was fired for reporting what he said was the misuse of college funds, The Lansing State Journal reported. The college stipulated that the settlement did not represent an admission of guilt. Tim Zeller, the former general counsel, said that the college's president had authorized inappropriate overtime pay, made excessive purchases, and given out unauthorized raises -- all charges that the college has denied.

Authorities have concluded that a baby born to a volleyball player at Mercyhurst College, in Pennsylvania, was suffocated within minutes of its birth, the Associated Press reported. The birth took place in an off-campus apartment.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers issued an opinion Tuesday saying that students born in the United States who can demonstrate that they have lived in Colorado for at least one year qualify for in-state tuition rates at public colleges, regardless of their parents' immigration status, The Denver Post reported. "Because it is the student, rather than the parents, who is the legal beneficiary of in-state tuition status, the fact that the parents may be in the country illegally is not a bar to the student's receipt of that benefit," the attorney general wrote.

The average "back to college" consumer spending per student is projected to be $956.93 this year, up from $880.52 a year ago, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation. While items like technology and clothing remain strong, a large percentage increase is expected this year in dormitory furnishings, in part because stores have been heavily promoting such purchases.

A federal court judge has forced a program that evaluates the academic credentials of foreign students to help them gain admission to American universities to stop using the name and other trademarks of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers to imply that it has the U.S. group's support. The registrars' group sued the American Universities Admission Program in 2006 for trademark infringement, suggesting that the group giving its imprimatur -- and by association, AACRAO's -- to institutions of questionable quality. Over the last year and a half, a federal court in Washington forced the Florida association to stop using the registrars' group's marks, but in a decision this month, the court also declined AACRAO's request to cite the group for civil contempt and punish it further. Still, AACRAO said in a news release, "Through this litigation, AACRAO has shown that it will doggedly enforce its trademarks and pursue every avenue of relief available to ensure that students and administrators do not fall victim to these types of illegitimate services."

Hebrew University in Jerusalem has refunded two years worth of tuition at today's prices to Baruch Kaplan, 85, whose father paid for two years of instruction at the university for him in 1939, only to have World War II make it impossible for Kaplan, a native of Poland, to get to the university, The Jerusalem Post reported. Kaplan ended up studying chemistry at the University of Lvov and became chief scientist of the Research Institute of Rare Metals at the Russian Academy of National Sciences. He immigrated to Israel in 1992. Kaplan said that since each of his grandchildren all have doctorates, he would give the money to his great-granddaughters for their tuition.

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