January 27, 2008
Connecticut Joins Inquiry Into Study-Abroad Deals
The attorney general of Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has joined an investigation led by his counterpart in New York into the arrangements colleges make with study-abroad program providers, The Hartford Courant reported.
Mr. Blumenthal has requested records from 10 higher-education institutions in that state, including Yale University and the University of Connecticut, the newspaper said. It identified the other institutions as the University of Hartford; Fairfield, Quinnipiac, Sacred Heart, and Wesleyan Universities; and Albertus Magnus, Connecticut, and Trinity Colleges.
Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York has requested information from 15 other institutions, in New York and other states, in the joint investigation. The attorneys general want to find out whether the universities or administrators received free trips, gifts, or other incentives to choose one program provider over another. Such practices can drive up costs for students.
In addition to records of financial transactions, Mr. Blumenthal has asked to see all student complaints about study-abroad programs at the Connecticut institutions since 2001, the Courant reported. It described his letters as “requests for voluntary production” rather than subpoenas, and quoted Mr. Blumenthal as saying the colleges were complying.
Two institutions, Wesleyan and UConn, told the Courant that they had paid the travel costs when their staff members went overseas to evaluate programs. One, Connecticut College, said that it allowed staff members to travel at the providers’ expense on “familiarizing trips,” but that such free trips did not sway its decisions. Yale officials said the university had policies to guard against conflicts of interest among administrators but could not immediately say if free trips were allowed.
Mr. Cuomo’s inquiry began last August with subpoenas to companies and expanded to colleges this month. —Charles Huckabee
Posted on Sun Jan 27, 07:55 PM | Permalink | CommentAcademic Leaders Offer Thoughts on Reforming Higher Education at AACU Meeting
Washington — For the closing session of its annual meeting on Saturday, the Association of American Colleges and Universities brought together three prominent academic leaders to discuss how educators might make some of the organization’s lofty ideas for improving undergraduate education a reality.
Derek C. Bok, president emeritus of Harvard University and a professor of law in its Kennedy School of Government, emphasized the value of research on pedagogical methods, particularly studies that might measure how effective colleges are in improving students’ writing and critical-thinking skills and their level of civic engagement. “This kind of research is the most powerful lever of change available to an academic leader,” he said.
George D. Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University at Bloomington, pointed to findings of his group’s National Survey of Student Engagement as focal points for change. He suggested that colleges incorporate into their curricula “high-impact practices” such as service learning and student-faculty research collaborations, which the survey has found increase students’ self-reported engagement and success in college.
Azar Nafisi, a visiting fellow at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, urged academics to “bring back critical dialog to the center of a liberal education.” Ms. Nafisi — whose memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, became a best-seller — spoke of the destructive effects of political correctness and politicization on higher education and said she would like to see academics take more radical action — such as organizing town-hall meetings or a march on the Capitol — to persuade those “who cannot imagine how reading Aristotle would help prevent war in Iraq” of the importance of a liberal-arts education.
Video of the closing plenary session and other panels from the meeting will be available on the association’s Web site. —Paula Wasley
Posted on Sun Jan 27, 06:08 PM | Permalink | Comment [2]January 26, 2008
Wyoming Governor Defends Academic Freedom
Gov. David Freudenthal of Wyoming came to the defense of academic freedom during a meeting on Friday of the University of Wyoming’s Board of Trustees, according to the Casper Star-Tribune. The governor, a Democrat and ex officio member of the board, said academics should be free to state unpopular opinions without fear of retaliation.
His comments followed a state legislative committee’s decision to reject a $500,000 budget increase that he had proposed for the university’s William D. Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources. Some lawmakers were angered by a report, issued by the institute, that criticized a technique for recovering methane from coal — a growing part of Wyoming’s fossil-fuel industry and of the nation’s natural-gas supply.
One co-chairman of the committee said he thought the institute’s educational mission had become improperly mixed with public-policy advocacy. The other co-chairman said lawmakers retained the right to challenge “false or misleading” statements. Still, he noted that the $500,000 could still be restored later in the budgeting process. —Andrew Mytelka
Posted on Sat Jan 26, 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comment [2]Hostage Drama at Lynchburg College Turns Into Local Mystery
Lynchburg College was hit with a scare just after midnight last night, as local police officers responded to a 911 report that an armed man had taken a hostage in a dormitory. The Virginia campus was locked down, students were evacuated from the building, and a campuswide early-alert system was activated.
Then, after a room-to-room search of the dorm, the police discovered that the report was spurious, according to the Lynchburg News & Advance, a local newspaper.
The police later charged a local man, a nonstudent, with making up the report. His motive remains unclear. The police also praised the college’s response to the episode.
In a statement on Lynchburg’s Web site, John G. Eccles, vice president and dean for student development, said that while the night’s events were a “great inconvenience,” it was good to know that the alert system was in “excellent working order.” —Andrew Mytelka
Posted on Sat Jan 26, 04:57 PM | Permalink | CommentKurdish Student's Death in Iranian Custody Prompts Global Criticism
The death in custody of an ethnic Kurdish university student this month in the northwestern Iranian city of Sanandaj has prompted anger in Iran and international calls for an inquiry into his death.
The student, Ebrahim Lotfallahi, was picked up by intelligence officers on January 6 as he was leaving the Sanandaj campus of Payam Noor University, where he was a fourth-year law student.
Mr. Lotfallahi’s family visited him three days later and found him in good spirits, although it was not clear what charges had been brought against him, Human Rights Watch says in its account of the case. “On January 15, officials from the detention center contacted Lotfallahi’s parents and informed them that they had buried their son in a local cemetery. The officials claimed that Lotfallahi had committed suicide in his cell.”
Mr. Lotfallahi’s death “has angered student activists, who believe it is part of a campaign of harassment aimed at supressing dissent before the March elections,” The Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported today. “They say students in the Kurdish part of the country, which includes Sanandaj, have borne the brunt of the crackdown.” The paper also reported that Mr. Lotfallahi’s grave had been filled with cement, to prevent his body from being exhumed for examination.
Mr. Lotfallahi’s death followed the death last October in northwestern Iran of a 27-year-old female doctor, who also was in custody when officials claimed she had committed suicide.
On Wednesday the American government joined Human Rights Watch in calling for a full investigation of Mr. Lotfallahi’s death, the Reuters news agency reported.
A statement on the State Department’s Web site urged the Iranian government to “release all individuals held without due process and a fair trial” and singled out “three Amir Kabir University students that prison authorities refuse to free despite an order issued by an Iranian judge in late December.” —Aisha Labi
Posted on Sat Jan 26, 04:27 PM | Permalink | CommentBack From the Brink: College of Santa Fe Won't Declare Exigency
The College of Santa Fe’s Board of Trustees decided not to declare financial exigency on Friday, concluding that such a drastic step might create more problems than it would solve and that other ways of saving money might be sufficient to close perennial budget deficits, The Santa Fe New Mexican reported today.
The liberal-arts college, which has a dwindling enrollment and multimillion-dollar deficits, announced last fall it would cut programs, lay off faculty members, and refocus its mission. Last week it said it might declare financial exigency, which would allow it to fire tenured professors.
But Stuart Kirk, the college’s president, said the situation was still dire, and if enrollment didn’t pick up, a declaration of financial exigency could be invoked a year or two from now. —Andrew Mytelka
Posted on Sat Jan 26, 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comment3rd Man Charged in Killing of U. of Chicago Student
A third man has been arrested in connection with the shooting death in November of a University of Chicago graduate student from Senegal who was just weeks away from receiving his doctorate, the Chicago Tribune reported this morning. The suspect, Jamal Bracey, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Amadou Cisse, who was studying chemistry and was awarded his degree postumously.
Mr. Bracey, like two other suspects who have been detained, was also charged with being involved in other violent attacks on the same night as Mr. Cisse was shot. The university’s response to the incidents drew criticism on the campus. —Andrew Mytelka
Posted on Sat Jan 26, 09:33 AM | Permalink | CommentJanuary 25, 2008
Dispute Over Closed Meetings Prompts Freeze at Student Newspaper
Montclair State University’s student government has blocked publication of the campus’s student newspaper and frozen its budget in a dispute over the paper’s legal challenge to the government’s practice of meeting in private. According to an account of the dispute in The Montclarion, the newspaper hired a lawyer to pursue its claim that the New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act forbids the student government to meet privately.
The student government’s president, Ronald F. Chicken, and its executive treasurer, Melissa Revesz, sent a letter to the newspaper asserting that hiring the lawyer violated procedures for expenditures of student funds. The officials also notified the newspaper’s printer of the budget freeze and told it not to print the paper.
The newspaper, which continues to publish online, receives $16,500 per semester from the student government. —Andrew Mytelka
Posted on Fri Jan 25, 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comment [3]Coach Forgoes Shoes for a Good Cause
A shoeless Ron Hunter coached his basketball team to victory last night in Indianapolis, but his bare feet were hardly a fashion statement.
Mr. Hunter, now in his 14th season as men’s basketball coach at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, is on a mission to gather 40,000 pairs of shoes for impoverished children in Africa, The Indianapolis Star reported today.
By all accounts, Mr. Hunter is on a roll, and not just because the Jaguars beat Oakland University, 82-69.
At game’s end, more than 100,000 pairs of shoes and $20,000 in cash had been donated to Samaritan’s Feet, a nonprofit Christian charity that is handling the effort.
Among the donors were the Department of Homeland Security, which gave 10,000 pairs; Soles4Souls, a Tennessee charity that gave 40,000; Wal-Mart, which gave 25,000; and Nine West, a shoe company, which gave 5,200. Converse, the sneaker maker, has promised a 15,000 more.
Mr. Hunter has said he plans to travel in July to Cameroon to deliver the gifts. This time, he’ll be wearing shoes. —Libby Sander
Posted on Fri Jan 25, 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comment [1]Pennsylvania Student-Loan Agency Faces Demand for $15-Million Repayment
Washington — The Education Department, after making more than $3.5-billion in payments this decade through a program of student-loan subsidies that Congress has tried to retire, said today it may ask one lender for a repayment. For about $15-million.
The department sent a letter today to the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, a nonprofit lender known as Pheaa, saying it agrees with part of a demand for repayment made by the department’s inspector general.
The finding involves the 9.5-percent loan program, which Congress created in the 1980s to give nonprofit student-loan companies a guaranteed return of 9.5 percent. The program was designed to encourage affordable student loans at a time when interest rates ran as high as twice that level. In more recent years, however, some loan companies have been accused of devising ways to keep some old loans eligible for the 9.5-percent repayment rate, even though Congress set new subsidy rates to reflect lower overall interest costs.
Today’s letter asks Pheaa to recalculate the subsidies it claimed on loans from October 2004 to September 2006. The department said it had estimated Pheaa would end up owing about $15-million in repayments.
A spokesman for Pheaa said it disagreed with the calculation and would challenge it. The spokesman said the department’s decision today, however, had cleared Pheaa of most of the $35-million in repayments that the inspector general had been seeking. —Paul Basken
Posted on Fri Jan 25, 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comment [1]
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