Quick Takes

Richard H. Herman announced his resignation Tuesday as chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Herman was faulted by many on campus -- and by a special state review -- for enabling and participating in a since-disbanded system that gave preferential admissions to politically connected applicants. While Herman said that he sought to minimize such activity and to advance the university's political interests, a reconstituted board was conducting a review of whether he should stay on. By leaving now, Herman will forfeit a $300,000 bonus he would have received at the end of his contract. Herman will, in the short term, advise the university on math and science education issues and will later return to the faculty. An e-mail circulated on the campus said that Stanley O. Ikenberry, who was appointed this month to replace B. Joseph White as president of the University of Illinois system, and Interim Provost Robert Easter will lead the Urbana-Champaign campus temporarily (an interim chancellor will not be hired).

First-year medical enrollments are up 2 percent over last year, the Association of American Medical Colleges announced Tuesday. Half of that increase comes from the start of operations of four new medical schools, and half from increased enrollments at older institutions. Twelve medical schools -- responding to projections of a doctor shortage -- increased their class size by 7 percent or more for those entering this fall. Data released by the AAMC also show that:

• Male applicants (22,014) outnumbered female applicants (20,252) in 2009.
• The percentage of male enrollees also topped female enrollees in the 2009 entering class, 52 to 48 percent.
• The number of black applicants increased to 3,482 (up 4 percent over 2008), and this year's entering class had the largest number of black students (1,312, an increase of 7 percent).
• Latino applicant numbers dropped to 3,061, a 1 percent decrease from 2008; the enrollees in this group also declined slightly to 1,412 from 1,416 last year.

Harper College, a community college in Illinois, has agreed to abandon its push to offer a four-year degree, after a deal was reached with Northern Illinois University to offer the degree on one of the college's campuses, The Daily Herald reported. While community colleges in some states have moved into offering many four-year programs, the push was controversial in Illinois.

Big-time sports programs appear to be moderating their spending slightly, although the vast majority of programs continue to operate in the red, according to a National Collegiate Athletic Association report released Tuesday. The report showed that median revenues at Division I colleges outpaced expenses in 2008, and that expenses were about even with revenues during the three-year period from 2006 to 2008. But only 25 Division I colleges -- all in the top Football Bowl Subdivision -- generated a profit in 2008, up from 18 in 2006. NCAA officials speculated (perhaps hopefully) that the data suggest that "the advice from former NCAA President Myles Brand’s Presidential Task Force three years ago to moderate spending is being heeded." But they acknowledged, too, that the data reflect the period before the economy turned down sharply in the last half of 2008.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday proposed new regulations to govern the marketing of credit cards to college students. The rules, which were published in the Federal Register, would carry out changes to the Truth in Lending Act that Congress made as part of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, which was designed to give consumers more protections from the practices of credit card companies. Among the provisions aimed at helping young people is a requirement that credit card issuers and colleges and universities disclose agreements they make to market or distribute credit cards to students, including so-called affinity cards.

Geert Wilders, an anti-Islamic Dutch politician, was escorted from a stage at Temple University Tuesday night, cutting short a question period when some in the audience started to shout jeers at him, the Associated Press reported. The talk was sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a watchdog group, has issued a report strongly backing Rick Steiner, who has accused federal officials of getting him removed from receiving funds from the National Sea Grant Program and his administrators at the University of Alaska of going along with the decision and failing to stand behind his academic freedom. Steiner says that he has been punished for championing environmental causes that offend the oil industry and the public employee group found evidence to back that view. The university's president, Mark Hamilton, has recently issued a final rejection of Steiner's claims, consistent with earlier statements from the university denying that it had done anything wrong. In a strongly worded analysis of the situation, the public employee group's director said: “President Hamilton seems to believe that his faculty still enjoys academic freedom even while he permits imposition of penalties for views simply because they conflict with the university’s financial backers – big oil. This decision suggests that the University of Alaska is to academic freedom what Burma is to open political debate.”

In another sign of change in for-profit higher education, Corinthian Colleges, Inc. announced Tuesday that it was buying Heald College, a regionally accredited institution that is based in San Francisco and operates 11 campuses with about 12,300 students. Corinthian's announcement came a day after Princeton Review announced that it would buy Penn Foster Education Group, Inc.

Canisius College on Tuesday named John J. Hurley as the institution's next president; he will become the second Hurley brother to lead a Roman Catholic college in Buffalo. Hurley is currently the college’s executive vice president and vice president for college relations and will be the first lay president at Canisius. Paul Hurley, one of his brothers, is president of nearby Trocaire College. While there are and have been in the past other sibling presidents, the Hurley family may have the potential for a wider reach than most. Another brother is Dan Hurley, assistant vice president for government and community relations at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University.

A government-commissioned study has found that foreign language departments at British universities are "dumbing down" degrees in order to attract new students, The Guardian reported. The study comes amid drops in enrollment levels in language programs, which have led to the closures of some departments.