April 17, 2008
Bill Would Grant TA's at Private Colleges the Right to Form Unions
A bill introduced in Congress by the Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House of Representatives education committees would take the political mystery out of whether graduate assistants at private colleges and universities have the right to form labor unions.
The National Labor Relations Board has ruled both ways on the issue. In a landmark 2000 ruling, it asserted that graduate students at New York University could unionize, and a wave of union-organization efforts followed. But that movement faltered four years later, when a reconstituted board decided that teaching assistants at Brown University were primarily students rather than employees, and therefore were not covered by federal labor law.
The measure introduced today by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Rep. George Miller of California would amend the National Labor Relations Act so that the definition of an employee would specifically include teaching and research assistants at private universities and colleges, according to a statement on the senator’s Web site. —Charles Huckabee
Posted on Thu Apr 17, 08:37 PM | Permalink | CommentPlan Is Said to Be Near for Federal Banks to Help Student Lenders
Washington — Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. were described today by some student-loan-industry officials as nearing agreement on a plan in which the Federal Financing Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank System would help private lenders by purchasing their student loans, giving them cash to serve more students.
Ms. Spellings started negotiations just last week with loan-industry officials to put in place a large-scale lender-of-last-resort system, in which the government would either give money to nonprofit agencies for distribution to students or give additional federal benefits to private lenders to entice them to remain in the existing system of government-backed lending.
An announcement of the alternative plan, using the two federal banks, is expected by Ms. Spellings and Mr. Paulson within days, said Philip R. Day, president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Such an action would almost certainly eliminate the need to continue making preparations for a lender-of-last-resort system, Mr. Day said. The expected Spellings-Paulson plan would cause less disruption than a lender-of-last-resort system because it would rely more on existing channels of student-loan distribution, industry officials have said.
“It’s exactly the type of thing that we need to have come into play right now,” Mr. Day said. The idea has been backed publicly in recent weeks by Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, a Pennsylvania Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee’s subcommittee on capital markets.
Other officials involved in student lending said they also understood Ms. Spellings and Mr. Paulson were nearing an agreement on a plan for using the federal agencies to direct more government funds toward private student-loan companies, but did not yet regard it as imminent. A department spokeswoman, Samara Yudof, said that Ms. Spellings had no plans for an announcement on the matter “at this time.” —Paul Basken
Posted on Thu Apr 17, 06:51 PM | Permalink | CommentIRS Releases Draft Instructions for New Form 990
The Internal Revenue Service has released a draft version of instructions for its newly revised Form 990, the tax document filed annually by nonprofit colleges and foundations. Controversial additions to the form include more questions about executive compensation and endowment value. The agency is seeking public comment on the instructions, whose wording can influence uniform reporting. —Paul Fain
Posted on Thu Apr 17, 02:45 PM | Permalink | CommentYale Student Makes Her Abortions Into Art, Newspaper Says
(Updated at 9 p.m.)
A Yale University art student who told the campus newspaper that she had repeatedly inseminated herself artificially and then induced miscarriages as part of her senior thesis has retracted those statements, a university spokeswoman announced late today.
The student, Aliza Shvarts, was quoted in the the Yale Daily News as saying that the project was meant to explore the relationship between art and the human body. “I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” she said. The project was to culminate in an exhibit of video recordings of the miscarriages and plastic-wrapped blood from them, the newspaper said.
Ms. Shvarts told the News that she did not pay the sperm donors, but did require them to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. She also said that she had induced the miscarriages by taking abortifacient drugs that were legal and herbal, and that she was not concerned for the effects repeated miscarriages might have on her body.
After the article’s publication, however, Ms. Shvarts told senior officials at Yale that she had not impregnated herself and had not induced any miscarriages, the spokeswoman, Helaine S. Klasky, said in a statement posted on the university’s Web site.
Ms. Shvarts “has the right to express herself through performance art,” the statement says. It adds: “Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.” —Beckie Supiano
Posted on Thu Apr 17, 02:41 PM | Permalink | Comment [55]British Prime Minister Promotes Closer Ties Between Universities in U.S. and U.K.
British and American universities should cooperate “at a far higher level” than they currently do, Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote in an op-ed article published yesterday in The Wall Street Journal.
Citing the Rhodes, Marshall, and Fulbright scholarships as examples of programs that “have been bringing U.S. and U.K. students into each other’s countries for decades,” Mr. Brown wrote that he wanted to encourage “many more British and American university students to have the chance to study across the Atlantic.”
A study group headed by the principal of King’s College, in London, and the president of New York University will “examine how cooperation between U.K. and U.S. institutions can be intensified, starting with the potential for expanding faculty and research exchanges,” Mr. Brown wrote.
Academics at the two institutions are already among the first to receive money from a new grant awarded jointly by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities and the Joint Information Systems Committee, a British advisory body that promotes information technology in higher education.
The British prime minister’s op-ed, timed to coincide with his arrival in the United States on an official visit, outlined several broad areas in which cooperation between British and American institutions could be expanded, but was short on specifics about how the initiatives would proceed. —Aisha Labi
Posted on Thu Apr 17, 02:05 PM | Permalink | CommentBye, Bye Baby: Why Doctors and Lawyers Out-Reproduce Professors
Male and female faculty members are less likely than their counterparts in the fields of medicine and law to have children, according to a new study of professionals and fertility.
Nicholas H. Wolfinger, an associate professor at the University of Utah, is the lead author of a paper on the study, which used data from the 2000 U.S. Census. He is to present the paper, “Alone in the Ivory Tower: How Birth Events Vary Among Fast-Track Professionals,” on Friday at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, in New Orleans.
The paper says that male faculty members are 21 percent less likely than male physicians and 12 percent less likely than male lawyers to have children. The paper attributes the difference in part to doctors’ and lawyers’ higher incomes, which give them more money for day care.
In addition, the paper says, male doctors are more likely to have children because they are also twice as likely as male professors to be married to wives who do not have jobs. Male professors, by contrast, are more likely than male doctors or lawyers to be married to female professors, who are the least likely of women in the three professions to have babies.
In fact, the study found that female professors are 41 percent less likely than female doctors and 24 percent less likely than female lawyers to have children. Female faculty members, says the paper, are also more likely than their female counterparts in medicine and law to be divorced or separated. —Robin Wilson
Posted on Thu Apr 17, 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comment [9]Texas State U. Cuts Ties to Troubled Foundation After a Cocaine Arrest
Texas State University at San Marcos, which has long benefited from the largess of the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Foundation, has cut ties with the nonprofit organization following the arrest on cocaine charges of Scott Mitte, who was until recently the foundation’s senior vice president as well as president of its board. He is also the son of the charity’s founders.
In a letter posted on a blog for sports fans of the San Marcos campus, Denise M. Trauth, the university’s president, explains that she has resigned from the foundation’s board and returned gifts that supported a scholarship program under the Mitte name.
“For many years, Texas State University enjoyed a relationship of mutual benefit, trust, and respect with the Mitte Foundation of Austin,” the letter says. “After the recent arrest of Mr. Scott Mitte, the then-president of the Mitte Foundation, on a charge of cocaine possession, I had to reconsider whether that relationship remained in our university’s best interest, given the exemplary conduct we expect of our faculty, staff, and students. In spite of efforts by the university to come to an agreeable position with the Mitte Foundation, I have concluded that the time has come for me to recommend to the Texas State University System Board of Regents that the university sever its ties with this foundation.”
Some students and alumni commenting on the blog said that Ms. Trauth was overreacting. But the foundation has been on a downward spiral for many years, notably while Mr. Mitte has been involved with it, as The Chronicle reported last month.
Some have questioned his spending at the foundation, where he has used money to buy concert tickets and doors for his home. Foundation dollars also covered sexual-harassment lawsuits against him. Most recently, the foundation backed out of supporting various scholarships at several colleges, saying that it was running out of money. The colleges were forced to dig into their own pockets to support the students.
Mark S. Hendricks, a spokesman for the university, said the decision had been based not merely on the arrest, but also was “tied to a steady degradation of the foundation.” —Scott Carlson
Posted on Thu Apr 17, 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comment [7]AAUP Re-Elects Cary Nelson as President
Members of the American Association of University Professors have given Cary Nelson a second two-year term as president. Mr. Nelson is a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Since he took office, in 2006, Mr. Nelson has tried to increase the association’s flagging membership rolls with a national campaign. He has also begun a twice-monthly online newsletter to AAUP members and issued statements on politics in the classroom and academic freedom.
Mr. Nelson was challenged for the presidency by Thomas E. Guild, a visiting professor in the business school at Oklahoma City University. Mr. Guild’s campaign Web site said the AAUP was facing a financial crisis — running a deficit and liquidating investments to meet its staff payroll. He garnered 41 percent of the vote. Only 6,156 of the 40,000 AAUP members eligible to vote cast ballots.
The members also voted in a slate of officers to the National Council, which is the AAUP’s governing body. Results are available on the AAUP’s Web site. —Robin Wilson
Posted on Thu Apr 17, 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comment [4]Ad Campaign by New Zealand's Colleges Seems to Promise Carnal Knowledge
What does making out have to do with higher education? A recent advertising campaign sponsored by New Zealand’s higher-education industry draws an intimate connection. According to the ads, going abroad to get your degree means “You’ll Go Far.” Just how far you’ll go is left to the imagination.
In a steamy hot-tub video, a young, presumably Chinese couple essentially tries to swallow each other’s tonsils. As the camera pulls back, it turns out the couple is not alone. Their disapproving parents, also in the hot tub, are watching the make-out session. The words “Get further away from your parents” flash at the bottom of the screen.
The campaign, “Study in New Zealand: You’ll Go Far,” appears to be aimed at young Asians, particularly in China, which is New Zealand’s largest source of international students. Several short videos are showing up on YouTube.com but are clearly meant to run as television ads, at least in markets without zealous censors.
The videos are sponsored by New Zealand Educated, a nonprofit group that promotes the country’s colleges and universities. The group’s Web site contains information on scholarships and courses of study in several languages, including Chinese, Indonesian, and Korean. Using adjustable meters to set priorities — such as “city buzz,” “surf,” and “snow” — it also allows potential students to find the university far from home that is just right for them. —Martha Ann Overland
Posted on Thu Apr 17, 11:55 AM | Permalink | CommentApril 16, 2008
White House Backs House Student-Loan Bill, With Reservations
Washington — The White House supports student-loan legislation that the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on tomorrow, but shares for-profit colleges’ concerns that raising federal loan limits could cause some institutions to lose their eligibility to award student aid, the Bush administration said in a statement released late today.
The statement, which is the administration’s official policy on the bill, HR 5715, says President Bush backs provisions that would allow the Education Department to purchase loans from cash-strapped lenders and to designate lenders of last resort on an institution-wide basis, rather than a student-by-student basis.
But the president asks that the education secretary’s authority to designate lenders of last resort be “temporary” and says he fears that raising loan limits, as the bill proposes, would cause some institutions to run afoul of the 90-10 rule, which requires that colleges receive at least 10 percent of their revenues from non-federal sources in order to participate in the federal student-aid program. For-profit colleges have long opposed the rule.
The bill passed the House education committee just last week. —Kelly Field
Posted on Wed Apr 16, 09:56 PM | Permalink | Comment [2]
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