September 30, 2007
Admissions Group Eases a Rule on Early-Admissions Offers
At the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling in Austin, Texas, members voted on Saturday to reverse a policy approved at last year’s conference that would have prevented colleges from making admission offers to students before September 15 of their senior year in high school.
The new policy will allow colleges to notify students of acceptance upon receiving a transcript that “reflects completion of the final semester of the junior year of high school or the equivalent,” meaning that colleges can accept students as early as June.
The previous policy, which had been scheduled to go in effect next year, was intended to rein in “admissions creep,” the trend of students increasingly becoming involved in the college admission process — and stressed out about it — earlier in their high-school careers. Many guidance counselors and college-admissions professionals have said they think students need more time to contemplate their college choices and feel too much pressure to make decisions about which institutions to apply to and attend before they are ready (The Chronicle, October 9, 2006).
But that rule drew complaints and criticism from some community-college and state-university officials who felt the policy did not fairly account for the many students they educate. Many of their applicants, officials of those institutions say, need encouragement to realize that college is a viable option for them. An early acceptance offer, they say, helps many first-generation and low-income students realize that college is possible for them.
When Mary Lee Hoganson, the association’s departing president, announced the decision at the association’s general membership meeting, she noted that the September 15 deadline had been debated for two years, and that the current decision was a compromise. “The final decision that was made recognizes the validity of both perspectives,” Ms. Hoganson said.
The new policy is scheduled to go into effect beginning with students who would matriculate in the fall of 2009, but at the same time, members voted to have the association’s Board of Directors appoint a panel to research the actual impact such a change would have on colleges.
That study group is scheduled to report its findings in September 2009. —Elizabeth F. Farrell
More Chronicle coverage of the Nacac meeting:
- Private Admissions Consultants Are Popular With the Middle Class, Not Just the Rich
- At Admissions Conference, Marketing Mixes With Mission
- Frustrations With Standardized Testing Boil at Annual Admissions Conference
- Report Notes Trends in College Admissions
- Common Application Group’s Leader Hears Complaints About Online Version of Form
University Allows Student Journalist Who Discovered Data-Security Flaw to Remain
A student at Western Oregon University, who discovered while working at the campus newspaper that the institution had left private information about some applicants out in the open, on an unsecured computer network, will not be kicked out of the university. A disciplinary committee, which met on Friday to determine the student’s fate, decided that he could stay.
Blair W. Loving, a 29-year-old senior English major and copy editor for the student paper, had been accused of violating the university code of conduct because he accessed sensitive material on a university computer, The Oregonian reported. The incident, which occurred in June, had already cost the job of the newspaper’s faculty adviser, Susan Wickstrom.
The trouble started on June 5 when Mr. Loving, while working at the student-run Western Oregon Journal, logged on to the university’s network and opened a file that contained the names and Social Security numbers of 100 applicants to Western Oregon’s College of Education. He told The Oregonian, a newspaper in Portland, Ore., that he found the file by accident, and was shocked to see how much confidential information it contained.
Mr. Loving says he made a copy of the file and immediately told the editor at the student paper, who informed Ms. Wickstrom of the discovery that same day. She reportedly kept a copy of the file given to her by the students. The editor also informed College of Education officials; the newspaper went on to publish a story about the security lapse that month.
By June 7, university administrators had begun an investigation. It is not clear what they did to shore up computer security, but it is clear that they felt both Mr. Loving and Ms. Wickstrom may have violated the institution’s computer-use policy. Ms. Wickstrom — who did not immediately inform the administration of the data breach — was notified on August 8 that her contract would not be renewed. Mark Weiss, Western Oregon’s vice president for finance and administration, said that he could not comment directly on the dismissal because it was a personnel matter. But he stated that a journalism adviser should be able to inform students about the importance of privacy as well as the importance of press freedom.
Mr. Loving went before the Student Conduct Committee on Friday. Tina Fuchs, dean of students, told The Oregonian that she would not comment on the decision because it was confidential.
Mr. Loving told the Portland newspaper that he would be allowed to remain at the university, but he would have to write a proposal for helping students understand the responsibilities of using the computer system. And he would have to write a commentary in the student paper about the importance of reading campus policies.
The university, for its part, agreed to restore Mr. Loving’s computer access. —Josh Fischman
Posted on Sun Sep 30, 07:51 PM | Permalink | CommentDelaware State U. Expels Student Charged in Shootings
Delaware State University has expelled Loyer D. Braden, the freshman who is charged with having shot two of his classmates on September 21. A university spokesman told the Wilmington News Journal that Mr. Loyer had violated the university’s “zero tolerance” rule prohibiting guns on its campus.
Under the terms of Delaware State’s judicial policies, a student discovered with a gun on the campus is automatically expelled, said the spokesman, Carlos Holmes. Prosecutors have charged Mr. Braden, 18, with one count each of first-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and reckless endangering.
“At the bare minimum, even if he’s found not guilty of that other stuff, he admitted to shooting a firearm in the air,” Mr. Holmes said. But he added that, technically, Mr. Braden still has a week to request a hearing by the university’s judicial-affairs office. “He’s got a right to due process if he chooses to avail himself of that process,” Mr. Holmes said.
The university has been praised for its quick response to the shootings (The Chronicle, September 24). —Lawrence Biemiller
Posted on Sun Sep 30, 09:08 AM | Permalink | CommentSeptember 29, 2007
Duke U. President Apologizes for Handling of Rape Accusations
Duke University’s president, Richard H. Brodhead, apologized in a speech Saturday for the university’s failure to offer more support to the four lacrosse-team members accused last year of rape. The accusations turned out to be unsubstantiated.
According to The News & Observer, a newspaper in Raleigh N.C., Mr. Brodhead said that by “not repeating the need for the presumption of innocence equally vigorously at all the key moments,” the univerisity may have “helped create the impression that we did not care about our students.”
“If there’s one lesson the world should take from the Duke lacrosse case,” he said, “it’s the danger of prejudgment and our need to defend against it at every turn.”
It was the first time Mr. Brodhead had apologized in public for the university’s handling of the accusations. —Lawrence Biemiller
Posted on Sat Sep 29, 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comment [1]Retiring Pa. Loan-Agency Official Could Leave With Generous Pension
Richard E. Willey, who announced Wednesday that he would step down as president of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency at the end of the year, could be paid a pension of up to $370,000 annually, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Mr. Willey, a former state lawmaker, has been a state employee for 32 years. He has been criticized for lavish spending on retreats and other luxuries, and the U.S. Department of Education is now investigating whether his agency overcharged the federal government for subsidy payments on student loans.
The Post-Gazette said that if Mr. Willey were indeed given a pension of $370,000 a year, it “would be enough to pay annual tuition for 35 undergraduates at Penn State University.” —Lawrence Biemiller
Posted on Sat Sep 29, 10:26 AM | Permalink | CommentSeptember 28, 2007
A Pro-Football League Whose Players Must Have Diplomas? Not Just a Pipe Dream
A San Diego entrepreneur who struck it rich in the student-loan business is moving ahead with plans to start a six-team professional-football league for NFL rejects, according to the Sports Business Journal.
His idea: Tap into all the rabid college-football fans who don’t have much else to cheer for in the spring and summer by fielding teams to play in college stadiums that are otherwise dormant at that time of year.
The league, called the All American Football League, is set to debut in April. It has signed stadium leases with the University of Tennessee, the University of Florida, and municipal fields in Detroit and Little Rock, Ark. The colleges could gain as much as $3-million apiece from the lease arrangements.
Startup football leagues have never fared well, but indoor arena football has had success in recent years.
Another catch: Players must have college degrees. Lots of college-football players walk away from the classroom without their diplomas. But if this league flies, maybe more of them will go back to finish. —Brad Wolverton
Posted on Fri Sep 28, 07:16 PM | Permalink | CommentForeign Students Insist They're Not 'Cash Cows' at Canadian University
Students at Montreal’s Concordia University say they have managed to stave off, for now, a 10-percent increase in tuition for international students. As in many countries, foreigners pay substantially more than residents to attend universities in Canada. Concordia’s student government has accused it of treating the foreign students as “cash cows” in imposing the additional fee without the formal approval of the university’s governing board.
The student-government president, Angelica Novoa, a student from Colombia and also a member of the board, organized an 11th-hour protest when she discovered, just hours before the board’s meeting this month, that the tuition increase was on the agenda. She says the protest worked because the board deferred action on the matter, and the fees already collected were returned to foreign students. However, the tuition increase will be on the agenda again at the October meeting. —Karen Birchard
Posted on Fri Sep 28, 07:09 PM | Permalink | CommentBritish Faculty Union Cites Legal Advice in Abandoning Proposed Boycott of Israel
The British faculty union that stoked international controversy this year when delegates to its annual meeting voted to consider whether to boycott Israeli universities and refuse to cooperate with Israeli academics has now told its members that such a move would be illegal and could not be carried out.
The announcement — by the University and College Union, which represents 120,000 members — followed consultation with lawyers, who informed the organization that a boycott would breach antidiscrimination laws.
“It would be beyond the union’s powers and unlawful for the union, directly or indirectly, to call for, or to implement, a boycott by the union and its members of any kind of Israeli universities and other academic institutions; and that the use of union funds directly or indirectly to further such a boycott would also be unlawful,” legal advisers told the union.
The union’s announcement was immediately hailed. Universities UK, the umbrella organization representing the chief executives of all British universities, issued a statement calling the development “good news.” Rick Trainor, principal of King’s College London and president of Universities UK, said in the statement that “speculation about a potential boycott has been damaging to the international reputation of UK higher education. ... The best way forward now is to continue the dialogue and exchanges between universities in the UK and in Israel and the Palestinian territories.”
The International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom, a group based at Bar-Ilan University, in Israel, issued a statement congratulating the union on its decision and echoing those sentiments. —Aisha Labi
Posted on Fri Sep 28, 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comment [4]MIT Makes $65-Million Deal With Swiss Company to Devise Drug-Making Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is getting into the drug business with the help of a 10-year, $65-million research collaboration with Novartis AG, a pharmaceutical giant based in Switzerland.
The partnership, as the university calls it in a joint announcement today with Novartis, will create a new Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing. The center will focus on developing technologies for producing drugs. The money will be used to support seven to 10 MIT faculty members, as well as students, postdocs, and other staff members.
The collaboration may well be one of MIT’s largest industrial partnerships. In 1999 MIT announced a $35-million alliance with DuPont, a deal that was renewed for an additional $25-million in 2005. According to The Boston Globe, MIT and Novartis will share ownership of intellectual property that they develop jointly in the partnership.
Since the mid-1990s, MIT has been among the most active universities in pursuing research collaborations with industry. —Goldie Blumenstyk
Posted on Fri Sep 28, 02:33 PM | Permalink | CommentPetition Seeks Resignation of Southern Illinois U. President Over Alleged Plagiarism
A philosophy professor at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville who has publicly voiced concern about the plagiarism charges leveled against the university’s president, Glenn Poshard, and the Board of Trustees’ handling of the matter is asking faculty members to sign a petition that could further embarrass Mr. Poshard.
The professor, Robert Bruce Ware, began distributing today a petition demanding that Mr. Poshard resign or that a panel unaffiliated with the university investigate the plagiarism accusations. He is circulating the petition on a faculty e-mail list. He says that after a few days of collecting signatures, he will try to publish the petition in various newspapers.
Mr. Ware has criticized university officials for allowing a group of faculty members on the Carbondale campus to look into the plagiarism allegations. He says the panel cannot be impartial because Mr. Poshard has some authority over them. —Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Fri Sep 28, 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comment [6]
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