Higher Education Quick Takes

In another sign of tightening Chinese oversight of higher education, the government has barred a law professor -- Zhang Xuezhong of the East China University of Political Science -- from the classroom, the Associated Press reported. Zhang has been faulted by Chinese authorities for advocating that the country have a constitution under which the Communist Party would operate rather than having the constitution (as is currently the case) operate only within the rules of the party. Officials have said that Zhang's positions are unconstitutional.

In today’s Academic Minute, Adam Siepel of Cornell University explains why humans and chimpanzees are drastically different despite sharing much of the same DNA. Learn more about the Academic Minute here.

Robert Rumbelow resigned as director of the band at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign last week after officials determined that he sold $87,000 in old instruments of the university's on eBay and elsewhere, The Chicago Tribune reported. Rumbelow faces felony theft charges because the funds from the sales were deposited in his own account. Rumbelow's lawyer said that his client intended to turn the funds over the university once all the old instruments were sold (he now has done so) and enough funds had been raised for a new band building.

The American Association of University Professors on Saturday released a statement strongly questioning President Obama's proposal to evaluate colleges and favor those with high graduation rates and low costs in the availability of Pell Grants and generous terms on student loans. "The solution to the current crisis in higher education, characterized by rising tuition and student debt, is not a report card based on poorly defined metrics," said the statement, by Rudy Fichtenbaum, president of the AAUP. "Albert Einstein was reported to have said, 'Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.' In his rush to measure the performance of higher education institutions the president should remember this maxim. The creation of so-called report cards based on graduation rates and earnings of graduates from colleges that serve diverse student populations will result in a race to the bottom, driving public universities and non-elite private universities to standardize their curricula to insure they get a passing grade. For millions of working class and middle class students, particularly students of color, the president’s plan will result in a decline in the quality of higher education, in the name of increasing graduation rates.If we were truly interested in increasing graduation rates, we would provide more funding for K-12 education to insure that students were better prepared for college. If we were truly interested in controlling or reducing tuition, we would increase public funding of higher education both at the state and federal level by taxing the rich, particularly the top 1 percent who have benefited disproportionately from government bailouts and have been the recipients of the lion’s share of income growth since the 1970s."