Quick Takes

Buzz began building last week that Amazon was planning a major announcement in New York this week, potentially with a higher education theme. Reports in The New York Times and other publications Monday about the prospect of a bigger, newspaper-friendly third iteration of the Kindle culminated late Monday in a Wall Street Journal article saying that the new Kindle, to be released Wednesday, was designed specifically to attract the interest of academic and textbook publishers. The Journal's article said that Amazon's unveiling of the new Kindle in New York would be accompanied by news of joint projects with six colleges and universities, apparently designed to experiment with students' use of online textbooks. Officials at Amazon and at several of the colleges identified in the article -- Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Pace and Princeton Universities, Reed College, and the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business -- declined to comment on the relationship with Amazon, except to say that they would have news Wednesday. (Note: Inside Higher Ed and Amazon have struck an agreement for Inside Higher Ed to be available through the Kindle.)

The board of the College of DuPage on Monday night rescinded a version of the "Academic Bill of Rights" -- David Horowitz's statement about faculty responsibilities that is widely derided by faculty groups as a distortion of academic freedom principles -- that the board adopted just last month. Monday's meeting, however, was with a reconstituted board that followed board elections in which voters turned out key supporters of the measure encouraged by Horowitz. Faculty leaders at DuPage and elsewhere condemned last month's vote as an attack on academic freedom. In the hours prior to the board's vote Monday, statements were issued by several groups urging the board to reverse the April decision.

A new deal has emerged to save the College of Santa Fe, a private college that has been on the verge of going under. Under the latest plan, announced by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the City of Santa Fe, with help from the state, will purchase the campus and lease it to Laureate Education Inc., a for-profit organization, which will operate the campus. An earlier plan for a Laureate purchase collapsed because of the college's large debts, and a plan for the state to take over the campus ran into legislative skepticism.

S. Ann Dunham, the mother of President Obama, died in 1995, a few years after she finished her dissertation in anthropology for the University of Hawaii, but before she could turn it into a book. Duke University Press announced Monday that it will be publishing the book, Surviving Against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia, this December. At the request of Maya Soetoro-Ng, Dunham's daughter, two anthropologists — Alice G. Dewey, Dunham’s graduate adviser, and Nancy I. Cooper, a fellow graduate student — revised and edited the dissertation. Ken Wissoker, editorial director of Duke University Press, issued a statement in which he said: “It is a great privilege for Duke University Press to be publishing this remarkable work by Ann Dunham. Her global perspective and obvious respect for other people’s intelligence and self-direction is a model we all can learn from. Her children clearly have!”

California's work safety agency has fined the University of California at Los Angeles $31,000 for three "serious" violations of state regulations that came to light in an investigation of a the fatal burning of a research assistant in a December fire, the Los Angeles Times reported. The agency found that the lab assistant who died was never properly trained and was not wearing protective clothing at the time of the fire in a chemistry lab. Further, UCLA was cited for not correcting deficiencies that had been identified in an earlier review, prior to the December accident. UCLA officials have announced a series of measures to improve lab safety, will not appeal the fine.

The Jesuit School of Theology will merge with Santa Clara University, the two institutions announced Monday. The theology school will keep its campus in Berkeley, and will maintain its ties with other theological schools there, but will also become part of Santa Clara, which is a Jesuit institution.

An investigation by The Houston Chronicle explored the substantial campaign contributions flowing to Texas Gov. Rick Perry from those he has appointed to state boards, many of them dealing with higher education. In a number of cases, the newspaper found donations flowing to the governor in the weeks before or after appointments were announced to prestigious board positions. Governor Perry has accepted nearly $5 million in donations from those he has appointed to state boards, and nearly half of the total involves higher education boards, the analysis found. More than $840,000 came from appointees to University of Texas positions.

Russell K. Osgood announced Monday that he will step down as president of Grinnell College in July 2010. Osgood has been president at Grinnell since 1998, and has been a prominent spokesman on behalf of Grinnell and liberal arts colleges. During his tenure, Grinnell enhanced students' financial aid packages, and embarked on many building projects on campus.

China has placed 25 students from the University of Montreal under a quarantine for seven days, The Montreal Gazette reported. The students, who had arrived in the country to study Mandarin, displayed no symptoms of swine flu, but Chinese authorities saw danger anyway because of some cases in Canada.