Higher Education Quick Takes

E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University, has resigned as a board member of Massey Energy, a company that critics say engages in environmentally destructive practices to assist in coal mining. The announcement from Massey noted Gee's "responsibilities" leading Ohio State and thanked him for his service on the board on which he has served nearly nine years. Several environmental groups have been urging Gee to leave the board, saying that he is effectively endorsing the company's practices. Ohio Citizen Action organized several public campaigns to influence Gee, including having thousands of children write to Gee with messages expressing concern about mountain coal mining. Gee has not commented on his decision, but has said that he believed the company was acting legally and that he was helping to bring about positive change as a board member. The Columbus Dispatch reported that Gee owns about 28,000 shares of company stock and was paid $219,261 last year for his work on the board, to which he was re-elected last month.

Smith, Mount Holyoke and Hampshire Colleges plan to merge their public safety departments, The Republican reported. The move is expected to save money while also giving all three colleges the ability to have more security officers on site for major events, minimizing the need to pay overtime for such security coverage.

Tensions are growing between Australia and India over a series of attacks on Indian students studying in Australia, Reuters reported. The attacks have attracted major media attention in India. In one recent incident, four Indian students in Melbourne were attacked with screwdrivers by a gang. In a sign of the anger in India over the attacks, Amitabh Bachchan, a leading Bollywood actor, announced on his blog Saturday that he would be turning down an honorary doctorate recently offered by the Queensland University of Technology, saying that despite his respect for the university, he could not accept the honor in the context of the "most unfortunate and violent" attacks that have taken place.

A six-month investigation by The Columbus Dispatch has found that colleges and universities use "wildly different legal interpretations" of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act to deny access to information about athletics programs. The newspaper sent colleges with big-time athletics programs similar requests for information and found wide variation in what institutions provided, with FERPA commonly cited to avoid providing information commonly released by other institutions. Even within the same state, the newspaper found inconsistent interpretations. The newspaper also interviewed James Buckley, the one-time U.S. senator who wrote the law, and found that he was "stunned" at the way athletics programs are citing the measure to keep information secret.