Higher Education Quick Takes

The chancellor of the University of New Orleans is out of a job -- though he and the president of the Louisiana State University System offered different perspectives on whether he jumped or was pushed. The LSU System announced Thursday that its president, John V. Lombardi, had accepted the resignation of Timothy Ryan, chancellor of the New Orleans institution since 2003, and that Lombardi and a team of system officials and local board members would oversee the campus until a successor is named. Later Thursday, Ryan held a news conference at which he told reporters that he had been called to Lombardi's office and "fired" because he "would not allow the LSU System to run UNO as a branch campus of LSU in Baton Rouge." The LSU system released a letter in which Lombardi said he was accepting a recent offer by Ryan to resign. Ryan admitted at the news conference that he had made such an offer, but said he had done so only after essentially being forced out. The LSU system is facing significant budget cuts, and the system's statement said that the interim management team would "conduct a thorough, top-to-bottom review of UNO's strengths in preparing to manage the difficult budget process" over the next year.

The University of Wyoming is not going to adopt a policy on guest speakers, despite recent controversies involving some invited to the campus, The Star-Tribune reported. Some have suggested the university needs a policy in light of its decision to stop an appearance by William Ayers, the former Weatherman leader who has gone on to a career as an education professor. But Tom Buchanan, the university president, on Thursday reiterated that he stopped that appearance because of safety concerns, not because of criticism of Ayers. While a federal judge went on to say that the decision was inappropriate, Buchanan defended it. "For me -- perhaps not for you, but for me -- it was a safety issue," Buchanan said. "I did what I thought was right, knowing that a judge and many others, on and off campus, might disagree."

Student journalists at Southwestern College, a community college near San Diego, say that the administration is trying to block them from publishing controversial election-related articles by invoking an old rule to require them to seek bids on their publishing contract, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The college has not enforced, for at least 15 years, a policy requiring the paper to seek bids before signing a printing contract, but the college now says that the paper may not be printed again until a bidding process takes place. The students say that this is an attempt to squelch them, but college officials say they just discovered the rule -- and they note that students can publish online.

Higher education leaders from 17 countries on Wednesday announced agreement on a set of principles for evaluating quality in master's and doctoral education. The agreement seeks to articulate principles in light of the trend in which much more consideration goes into global consideration of standards for undergraduate education. Among the principles: that quality evaluation must "go beyond the assessment of research quality" and consider such factors as admissions, recruitment and student learning outcomes; that "meaningful quality metrics" are needed to evaluate research; and that faculty members need to play a key role in the evaluation process. Higher education groups from the following countries signed on: Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.