Higher Education Quick Takes

The University of California has abandoned plans for large, widespread increases in graduate and professional school tuition, The Los Angeles Times reported. The original plan would have resulted in major increases for about 14,000 students. Now only about 800 students, primarily in nursing, will be affected. And those who still face an increase would see costs go up by about $619 a year, not the $2,700 originally planned. Governor Jerry Brown had strongly opposed the originally planned increases.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker vetoed a budget provision on Sunday that would have kicked the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism off of the University of Wisconsin’s campus and barred any university employee from working with the nonprofit group. Walker said since the journalism center is a private group, relationships between it and the university should be addressed by the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, not lawmakers in the state budget, according to the Journal Sentinel. The veto comes as a relief to Greg Downey, the director of the School of Journalism at UW-Madison, who fought to reverse the Joint Finance Committee’s budget provision after it was introduced in early June. On his blog, Downey wrote a blog post titled “Ten things to consider if you find your research, teaching, or service under political attack,” in which he explains the lessons he learned from this experience.

The Arabic Overseas Flagship Program is relocating from Alexandria, Egypt to Meknes, Morocco, having determined that restrictions in place to ensure students’ safety were undermining opportunities for informal language and cultural learning. 

Demonstrations against Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi have swelled in the last week; an American college student in Alexandria was fatally stabbed on Friday while observing a protest. The U.S. State Department has warned against non-essential travel to Egypt in light of the growing political and social unrest, prompting universities to reevaluate their study abroad programs there.

“In recent days, it had become clear that in order to guarantee the safety of our students in Egypt, it had become necessary to establish curfews and limitations on their movements (including escort and shuttle arrangements to and from classes at the university), [meaning that] the students were essentially having to give up many of the kinds of informal language contacts and cultural exploration that overseas immersion study is designed to provide,” Dan Davidson, the president of the American Councils for International Education, which administers the program, said in an email.

“It was as much a concern for the quality of the learning experience available to our students under present conditions in Egypt, as it was immediate specific concerns about the students' immediate personal safety” that the decision was made to relocate the program to Morocco beginning July 6, Davidson said. The program's Egyptian partner institution, Alexandria University, will be transferring some of its language teachers to Morocco to continue working with students.

The yearlong Arabic Overseas Flagship Program began in early June and involves 18 students from five U.S. universities. The Flagship language programs are funded by the U.S. Department of Defense’s National Security Education Program.

Sonoma State University is apologizing for an incident in which a student working an an orientation event for new students was told by an administrator to remove her necklace because it had a cross on it, and that might offend other students. The Liberty Institute, a group that defends the rights of religious people, has written the university, demanding that the student be allowed to wear the cross, which is an expression of her religious faith. A spokeswoman for the university said that the student never should have been asked to take off the necklace, and that the university regrets the incident and wants to make sure nothing similar happens in the future.