Quick Takes: Reducing Community College Remediation, Minimal Progress on Science, Princeton's Study Abroad Pilot, Rangel's Fund Raising, Test-Posting Web Site Changes Rules, $4.2M Settlement in Hazing Death, JFK U. to Merge With National, Fear of Texas

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Community colleges in California might be able to significantly reduce the need for remedial education among students by using the results of 11th grade state testing to better direct students prior to enrollment, says a new report from the California Partnership for Achieving Student Success, known as Cal-PASS. California State University campuses have had success in reducing the need for remediation by using high school results to show students very specifically what they need to do to be college-ready by the time they leave high school, and the report says community colleges could have similar results.
The United States is making minimal progress at doubling bachelor's degree production in science and technology fields from 2005 to 2015, according to a progress report issued Tuesday by the Business Roundtable. That group, along with other business organizations, set the goal as part of the "Tapping America's Potential" program, but the update found that bachelor's degree production in science and technology fields appears to be relatively flat.
Princeton University is moving ahead with an idea, first floated in February, of sending some newly accepted students to perform public service outside their home countries prior to their enrollment. The university announced Tuesday that a pilot version of the program would start as early as fall of 2009, initially with 20 students. The program will be tuition free.
Rep. Charles B. Rangel, a New York Democrat who as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is among the most powerful members of Congress, sent fund-raising letters on his Congressional letterhead to wealthy people whose businesses his panel reviews, seeking donations for a center to be named for Rangel at City College of the City University of New York, The Washington Post reported. Rangel has also worked to secure Congressional earmarks for the center.
PostYourTest.com, a new Web site that allows students to submit tests and exams for others to download, has suspended a service that allowed professors to ban students from uploading their materials. As the “banned list” is no longer accepting new professors, there is no longer a preemptive method for instructors to stop their students from uploading materials to the site. While all professors currently on the “banned list” will have their prior wishes honored, new users who wish to have content removed will have to follow the Web site’s regular content removal protocol. According to the Web site's founder, Demir Oral, about 20 to 30 percent of the requests for inclusion on the “banned list” were completed improperly. Some users, for example, could not be properly identified or did not use a valid “.edu” e-mail address per instructions. Oral said the Web site needed something with more “structure” to take the job of the “banned list.” Now, all content removal requests must meet the stipulations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. “This is just a technicality,” said Oral, who once touted the “banned list” among his defenses of the Web site and its purpose. “Tests quickly get taken down, typically within one or two days. We wanted to have something that could be respected and not necessarily debated.”
The family of a University of Texas at Austin freshman who died of alcohol poisoning in 2005 at a fraternity event for pledges has agreed to accept a $4.2 million settlement for a suit against Lambda Phi Epsilon and some of its members, The Houston Chronicle reported. Some of the funds will be used for a video on the dangers of binge drinking.
John F. Kennedy University -- facing declining enrollments and increased competition -- plans to merge into National University, The Contra Costa Times reported. Both institutions are private and based in California.
British authors and universities are afraid that the University of Texas at Austin is outbidding British archives for the collections of many of the country's writers. The Guardian quoted an author who sold Texas a collection after being offered 10 times what a British university proposed. "Stuff is bleeding out of this country. I'm obviously flattered to have this interest from America, but I'm hardly the only British writer there," he said, adding that when he was at Texas, "I held Blake paintings and Coleridge notebooks in my hand. I couldn't help thinking that they didn't belong there." A British archivist is quoted as saying: "Two things are inevitable: death and Texas."