Quick Takes

Matthew Healey, a freshman at Miami University, appears to be the fourth student to have died from H1N1 complications during this academic year. The Boston Globe reported that Healey, who is from Massachusetts, and his three roommates all contracted H1N1, but that the roommates recovered quickly.

The president of Radford University, Penelope Kyle, has offered to reverse two layoffs of student services administrators, following widespread objections by student and faculty leaders to both the original layoff decision and the way it was carried out, The Roanoke Times reported. While deep budget cuts in Virginia have made campus cuts no surprise, the elimination of the jobs of the two officials, both seen as key figures on campus, stunned many at Radford. It is unclear whether the officials, who were given hours to leave campus when they lost their jobs, will accept the university's offer.

In a key win for literary scholars who work with the estates of authors, the estate of James Joyce has agreed to give $240,000 in legal fees to Carol Shloss, who in a 2007 settlement, ending years of litigation, won the right to use certain materials in her biography of Joyce's daughter. Schloss was assisted in her legal fight by the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society's Fair Use Project. In a statement, Shloss said: "It's a breakthrough, not just for me but for everybody who has to deal with a literary estate. This has been going on for decades. Scholars are not wealthy people. We don't have easy access to the legal system to determine and vindicate our rights if someone threatens us with a lawsuit." Details about the latest settlement may be found here on the Stanford Web site.

An official in Canada's Science Ministry sent an e-mail to the country's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council suggesting that its grant to support a controversial York University conference on the Middle East would make it difficult for the agency to support budget increases for the council. The e-mail was revealed by the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which criticized it as an unreasonable intrusion by the government into the grant-awarding process. The council issued a statement to The Globe and Mail saying that the e-mail was inaccurate.

A faculty member at Marshall University is charging the education school dean with changing two grades given to the daughter of the state treasurer, The Charleston Daily Mail reported. University officials say that the grade changes - from incomplete to A's -- were based on additional work.

Canadian universities are seeing an increase in the number of American students, many of whom find that they can enroll at half the cost they would face at leading private universities in the United States, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The article cited data from the the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, showing that American enrollments hit 8,200 in 2007-08, up from 3,312 a decade ago. Canadian universities are doing joint recruiting this year, with the goal of additional increases.

Adam F. Falk, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, has been named the next president of Williams College. Falk is a theoretical physicist, whose work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

Seminole Community College has become the latest Florida community colleges to rename itself as part of a shift to adding four-year programs. But as The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported, the college invited submissions from the public on possible name changes. While the college ended up going with a fairly modest name change, becoming Seminole State College of Florida, some proposals were more dramatic. Among the ideas submitted: Obama State College, Ronald Reagan State College, Zora Hurston College, Tebow College, Michael Jackson State College and Bob Saget State College.