Quick Takes
Lambuth U. Can't Make Payroll
Lambuth University, in Tennessee, was unable to make payroll Wednesday, citing the difficulty of obtaining a line of credit, The Tennessean reported. While officials blamed the problems on the national credit crunch, Lambuth has seen a series of high level departures and budget cuts -- predating the Wall Street crisis of the fall -- leading many professors and supporters of the university to question the extent of the fiscal difficulties.
Carolina Chancellor Apologizes for Speech Disruption
Protesters disrupted a speech Tuesday at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by former Rep. Tom Tancredo, a leader of the movement to limit benefits to those who do not have the legal right to live in the United States. Video posted on YouTube shows the incident, which led Tancredo to stop his talk. Holden Thorp, chancellor at Chapel Hill, called Tancredo to apologize for the incident Friday. Thorp issued a statement Wednesday strongly condemning the protest for blocking the talk, and vowing that the incident would be investigated. "We expect protests about controversial subjects at Carolina. That's part of our culture," he said. "But we also pride ourselves on being a place where all points of view can be expressed and heard. There's a way to protest that respects free speech and allows people with opposing views to be heard. Here that's often meant that groups protesting a speaker have displayed signs or banners, silently expressing their opinions while the speaker had his or her say. That didn't happen last night."
Valley City Will Go Virtual for Rest of Semester
Valley City State University, facing an evacuation order due to flooding in North Dakota, will finish the semester with online instruction only. An announcement by Steven Shirley, the president, said that faculty members have been asked to be "flexible and creative" in finding ways to finish up courses. Valley City was one of the first colleges to give all students laptops, and it makes extensive use of technology in courses. "If any campus has the ability to continue during these difficult circumstances, it is certainly VCSU!" Shirley wrote to students.
Sallie Mae Proposes Alternative to Obama Loan Plan
Sallie Mae, which as the country's largest student loan provider has a lot to lose from the Obama administration's proposal to eliminate the Family Federal Education Loan Program, is floating an alternative that would save the program but cut its costs significantly. In a letter to sent to its college customers, the lender outlined a plan that would entail permanently extending the emergency programs that Congress put in place in 2007 to ensure the continued availability of student loans given the distress in the financial markets but, like the Obama plan, contract out to companies through auction the right to service all federal student loans. Competing analyses of the Sallie Mae plan by Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Finaid.com, and the New America Foundation put the savings from the plan at between 80 and 90 percent of that promised by the administration's proposal to move to 100 percent direct lending.
$85M to Spur Innovation in Science Education
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute on Wednesday invited nearly 200 institutions to compete for $85 million in grants aimed at stimulating more innovative approaches to teaching science. To supplement the Maryland medical institute's standard science education program, it is offering supplemental grants this year designed to encourage more experimentation with curricular and teaching methods. “We want to test new ways of teaching science that no one has tried before,” Peter J. Bruns, HHMI’s vice president for grants and special programs, said in a news release. “We want to foster creativity and risk-taking.”
Book Returned to Washington and Lee Library -- 52,858 Days Late
Washington and Lee University has announced the return of a book to its library -- 52,858 days late. The book wasn't actually borrowed, but was taken by a Union soldier during the Civil War, when troops moved through Lexington, Va. in 1864. From an inscription written by the soldier, it appears that he thought he was taking the book from the library of the Virginia Military Institute (which is a neighbor to Washington and Lee). The book -- the first volume of W.F.P. Napier’s four-volume set, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France -- was passed on through generations. The most recent owner decided to figure out the book's owner and returned it to Washington and Lee.
