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.
Higher Education Quick Takes
Quick Takes
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 3:00am
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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 3:00am
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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 3:00am
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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 3:00am
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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 3:00am
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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 3:00am
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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 3:00am
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.
Monday, September 28, 2009 - 3:00am
Robert J. Birgeneau and Frank D. Yeary, the chancellor and vice chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, proposed in a Washington Post essay on Sunday that a select group of leading public universities receive federal funds for operating support. They cited the financial crisis facing many state universities, and said that "the federal government should create a hybrid model in which a limited number of our great public research and teaching universities receive basic operating support from the federal government and their respective state governments. Washington might initially choose a representative set of schools, perhaps based on their research achievements, their success in graduating students, commitment to public service and their record in having a student body that is broadly representative of society." The funds would be used "to ensure broad access and continued excellence at these universities. A portion of these resources would ensure that out-of-state and in-state students pay the same tuition and have access to the same financial aid packages. The combined federal-state funding must be sufficient for these universities to maintain their preeminence as well as charge moderate fees to all U.S. citizens and permanent residents."
Monday, September 28, 2009 - 3:00am
City College of San Francisco has already made news with some of its strategies for raising money in a terrible budget year. Now the college is planning a large-scale garage sale, renting a campus parking lot to vendors to sell items, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The rental fees will be used to restore some of the hundreds of courses that had been called off due to budget cuts.
