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Showing posts from August, 2019

Florida Career College to Close

Florida Career College to Close Doug Lederman Fri, 01/26/2024 - 03:00 AM Byline(s) Doug Lederman from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/avZRfLi

The Ballad of the Twin XL Mattress

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries several outbreaks of infectious disease in the U.S. , including the flu, tuberculosis, and pneumonia, prompted public-health officials and homemaking experts to suggest a tweak to American bedrooms as a safety measure: Couples (and children) sleep in separate beds. As a result, twin beds quickly entrenched themselves as a staple in American homes and remained popular long after the plague outbreak was over. In the mid-20th century it was still relatively rare to see depictions of married couples sleeping in the same bed (see: I Love Lucy , The Dick Van Dyke Show ). Hilary Hinds, an English professor at the U.K.’s Lancaster University who wrote A Cultural History of Twin Beds , argues that while the smaller beds were a huge cultural fad, it’s not clear numbers-wise exactly how many households adopted them. She cites one 1950 study in her book that found more than two in three beds purchased in the U.S. at the time were twins, compared with

Saving the Planet Hasn’t Persuaded Colleges to Divest From Fossil Fuels. Will Saving Money Do the Trick?

Administrators’ typical argument against divestment — that it would betray ‘fiduciary duty’ — is growing weaker as fossil-fuel sector continues to decline. In fact, divesting may end up saving colleges money. from The Chronicle of Higher Education https://ift.tt/2ZqdXPx

An Admissions Group Is Scrambling to Delete Parts of Its Ethical Code. That Could Mean Big Changes for Higher Ed.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling sent a message to members saying the government had objected to some provisions, saying they “inhibit, to some extent, competition among colleges for students.” from The Chronicle of Higher Education https://ift.tt/2NFZGqz

An Admissions Group is Scrambling to Delete Parts of Its Ethical Code. That Could Mean Big Changes for Higher Ed.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling sent a message to members saying the government had objected to some provisions, saying they “inhibit, to some extent, competition among colleges for students.” from The Chronicle of Higher Education https://ift.tt/32hLJ6u

Colleges launch new academic programs

Albertus Magnus College is starting a major in general health sciences. Tidewater Community College is starting a courtroom technology certificate program. University of Missouri at St. Louis is starting a major in computer technology. Teaching and Learning Editorial Tags:  New academic programs Is this diversity newsletter?:  Newsletter Order:  0 Disable left side advertisement?:  Is this Career Advice newsletter?:  Magazine treatment:  Trending:  Display Promo Box:  from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/2HNMuMT

Controversial president of Kean University will retire

Dawood Farahi on Thursday said he would step down as president of Kean University next year, after 17 years on the job. As president, Farahi's performance has won praise from the board but criticism from faculty members at the New Jersey public institution. Farahi was known as a builder. He pushed for creation of the New Jersey Center for Science, Technology and Mathematics at Kean; for the integration of the Liberty Hall Museum campus into Kean; and for an arrangement with Ocean County College that allowed Ocean City students to earn a Kean degree on their own campus. He led the creation of a campus in China, Wenzhou-Kean University. But as Farahi built these and other programs, he constantly clashed with faculty members. A major source of unrest was the discovery in 2012 of inaccuracies on his résumé. He never talked to Inside Higher Ed about the errors but told The Star-Ledger that the mistakes had been made by Kean employees but not by him. The board investigated F

Marybeth Gasman required students at her research center to sign blanket nondisclosure agreements, which experts say is unheard-of in academe

Part of the 2017 sexual harassment complaint against higher education scholar Marybeth Gasman, revealed this week in Inside Higher Ed , is that she required graduate and staff assistants at her University of Pennsylvania research center to sign blanket nondisclosure agreements. "Basically what is said or done at the center stays within the walls of the center!" the agreement says, in bold. Both master’s and doctoral students at Penn's Center for Minority-Serving Institutions were told they had to sign the document during program orientation, former center assistants recalled. One described the conversation as “aggressive and jarring.” And as concerns about center climate grew, the former assistant said, Gasman’s “power” -- coupled with the NDA -- “really made folks feel handcuffed. I thought if I spoke out, Penn would sue me.” It’s easy to see how an NDA could exacerbate climate concerns in an academic environment -- especially for students. But are NDAs ever approp

Pursuing a new kind of “big deal” with publishers

WASHINGTON -- Making the transition from paying to read to paying to publish academic research won’t be easy for universities or publishers. But it is possible, attendees at an open-access-publishing event were told Thursday. The University of California, which canceled its “big deal” with publisher Elsevier earlier this year after negotiations to establish a new agreement broke down, hosted a public forum discussing how libraries, publishers and funders can support a system where all research articles are made free to read at the time of publication -- a standard known as gold open access. So-called transformative agreements, which increase gold open access and shift payments away from the traditional subscription model, will be essential to accelerating the progress of the open-access movement, said Jeff Mackie Mason, university librarian at UC Berkeley. “The open-access movement has been around for 25 years, and still just 15 percent of articles are fully open at the time of

Succeeding in College

Campuses want college students to succeed. In today's Academic Minute, part of Back to School Week, Delaware Valley University 's Allison Buskirk-Cohen looks at a couple of factors that could swing the balance. Buskirk-Cohen is an associate professor of psychology at Delaware Valley. A transcript of this podcast can be found here . Section:  Academic Minute File:  08-30-19 Delaware Valley - Succeeding In College.mp3 Event's date:  Thursday, August 29, 2019 - 4:45pm School:  Delaware Valley University from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/2HyZW73

"Natural Rate"

Blog:  Confessions of a Community College Dean Users of Twitter know the thrill of seeing a tweet so good that you want to have it embroidered on pillows.  The form lends itself to aphorisms or clever asides; Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker would have loved it. This week, the economist Stephanie Kelton posted a tweet for the ages:  “What is the natural rate of college enrollment?” It’s slyly great. It’s a play on the “natural rate of unemployment,” a discredited concept popular in the 90’’s. The NAIRU was supposed to represent the unemployment rate an economy couldn’t go below without triggering runaway inflation.  (It was based, in turn, on the “Phillips curve.”) The assumption underlying the NAIRU was that unemployment and inflation were inversely related, so if unemployment got too low, inflation would result.   It’s an elegant theory that keeps not working.  But it was used for decades to argue against allowing too many people to find jobs.  That is, it functioned to enfo

Specific ways institutions can improve their campus climate and the quality of life for faculty of color (opinion)

Category:  Conditionally Accepted Michael Johnson Jr. provides some concrete suggestions for how institutions can improve their campus climate and quality of life for such faculty. Job Tags:  Academic administration Section:  Diversity Topic:  Diversity Editorial Tags:  Faculty Show on Jobs site:  Image Size:  Thumbnail-horizontal Is this diversity newsletter?:  Is this Career Advice newsletter?:  Disable left side advertisement?:  Trending:  from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/2HyZV2Z

Western Michigan's Law School Cuts Tuition

While several highly selective law schools for the first time are charging more than $100,000 per year in total cost of attendance, Western Michigan University 's Cooley Law School this week announced that it was reducing tuition rates beginning next year from $1,750 per credit hour to $1,375, a decline of 21 percent. The law school is also closing its campus in Auburn Hills, Mich., and reducing the size of its Lansing campus. “We realize that a significant part of providing access to legal education is cost. To put it simply, we became too expensive,” James McGrath, the law school's president and dean, said in a written statement. “The board believes that lowering tuition, maintaining the higher admissions standards adopted in January 2019 and reducing its footprint will allow the law school to maintain its access mission, continue to serve a diverse population, improve student outcomes and strengthen its affiliation with Western Michigan University.” Is this divers

Academic Minute: Succeeding in College

Today on the Academic Minute , Allison Buskirk-Cohen, associate professor of psychology at Delaware Valley University , looks at a couple of factors that could help colleges help their students to succeed. Learn more about the Academic Minute here . Is this diversity newsletter?:  Hide by line?:  Disable left side advertisement?:  Is this Career Advice newsletter?:  Trending:  College:  Delaware Valley University from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/2HzFIKq

Student Charged With Threats at Campbell University

For the third time this week, a college student has been arrested for allegedly posing a threat to campus. Campbell University on Thursday said in a statement to a local television station that the county sheriff's office had arrested one of its students for "communicating threats to the university," WRAL.com reported . "This behavior was taken seriously, and the person who allegedly communicated these threats was quickly taken into custody." Neither the statement nor the television station's article specified the nature of the threats. Campbell is the second North Carolina university to report threats this week. Officers on Tuesday arrested a 19-year-old student at High Point University after confiscating two firearms and ammunition, which the student allegedly planned to use in to commit violence on the campus, a local television station reported . And officials at the College of Southern Nevada announced late Wednesday that officers had arrested

Ala. Governor Apologizes for Joining Racist Skit While at Auburn

Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama apologized to legislators and state residents for having participated in a racist skit while a student at Auburn University in the 1960s, AL.com reported . Audio was revealed Thursday of a radio interview in which Ivey and her then fiancé described her donning blackface for a skit at a Baptist Student Union party. "I fully acknowledge -- with genuine remorse -- my participation in a skit like that back when I was a senior in college," Ivey said. Is this diversity newsletter?:  Hide by line?:  Disable left side advertisement?:  Is this Career Advice newsletter?:  Trending:  from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/2HzWcSF

Hampshire Says It Will Enroll Up to 750 Students This Fall

Hampshire College officials said Thursday that they expect to enroll between 700 and 750 students when classes resume next week. That suggests Hampshire retained more of its previous students than expected, since The Boston Globe reported last month that the college would enroll only 15 new freshmen. Officials at Hampshire, where an alumni revolt forced out a previous administration that had sought to merge or close, announced in February that they would admit only those students this fall who had previously deferred enrollment or who had signed up for early admission. Is this diversity newsletter?:  Hide by line?:  Disable left side advertisement?:  Is this Career Advice newsletter?:  Trending:  College:  Hampshire College from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/328DM3g

$360K Settlement for Grad Coercion Whistleblower

The University of Missouri at Kansas City settled for $360,000 with a professor who said he was retaliated against for reporting another professor for using foreign students as servants, The Kansas City Star reported. Mridul Mukherji, an associate professor of pharmacy, sued the university in 2016 and 2018, alleging employment discrimination and work harassment following his internal complaints.  Mukherji eventually told Star reporters that his boss, Ashim Mitra, made students from India do unpaid labor for him, including at his home. Mitra was later suspended. He denied abusing or threatening gradate students but resigned in the face of additional allegations that he stole a student’s research and sold it to a pharmaceutical company. The university terminated another pharmacy professor, Anil Kumar, last week following a review by a faculty committee, according to the Star . Kumar could not immediacy be reached for comment. The campus said only that he was dismissed for cause.

Case Against Rochester Survives Legal Challenge

The federal lawsuit against the University of Rochester filed by current and former faculty members and students in the brain and cognitive sciences department may proceed, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo said this week in a lengthy decision. The university had previously cleared T. Florian Jaeger , a professor in the department, of sexual harassment and asked the court to dismiss the related, ongoing legal case. The @UofR tried to crush us with millions of dollars in lawyers, and filed a case arguing that what they did to us was legal. They were wrong. WE WON THE MOTION IN COURT TODAY @celestekidd @NeuroPolarbear @spiantado @anotherketurah — Jessica Cantlon (@CantlonLab) August 29, 2019 Beyond harassment, the lawsuit also alleges that the university retaliated against those involved in reporting Jaeger. Vilardo said the university failed to clearly establish that the lawsuit had no merit. "The alleged incidents are not isolated or one-off insults," he said

Universities must be agents of change (opinion)

I have always regarded America’s top universities as agents of change. Social movements begin and come of age on our campuses and move out into our communities. Political and economic theories emerge from our lecture halls, and scientific revolutions are born in our laboratories. Our campuses are places where ideas are hatched, theories are examined, practices are studied and philosophies are debated. In our halls and on our grounds, young people are nurtured to be thinkers, skeptics, analysts and dreamers. Our universities are the breeders of ideas and ideologies, and they are places where the next generation takes its first steps. American higher education has come under increasing criticism in the last decade for a variety of reasons. People debate and decry -- in living rooms, boardrooms and certainly in the news media -- the cost and value of higher education. They accuse higher education of becoming too politicized, too liberal or too ideological. And some feel our campuses h

The Age of the Comfy College Dorm

Being a college student is a lot comfier than it used to be. This fall, many of the undergrads settling into their campus dwellings will find themselves in buildings far better appointed than the ones that now-graying alumni once called home. These students are the beneficiaries of a generation of construction that has spawned ritzy new dorms and other facilities at many colleges, as well as, more infamously, such amenities as rock-climbing walls and lazy rivers . At some schools, the building continues. “The vision is to develop the coolest, hippest, most compelling destination in downtown,” the president of Emerson College, in Boston, told Architectural Digest last year when discussing a project that includes a new cafeteria and dorm. Meanwhile, at Arizona State University, a new residence hall for engineering students has 3-D printers, a fitness center, and Wi-Fi that can handle multiple devices per student . Campus living has entered a new era. For most of the history of Americ

Varieties of Dual Enrollment

Blog:  Confessions of a Community College Dean Over the last several years, dual enrollment and its variations (concurrent enrollment, middle college, early college…) have grown wildly. I’ve noticed folks on campus, myself included, struggling just to theorize what’s happening. So, based on direct observation and participation, a few varieties of dual enrollment: Come to Campus . This is the simplest model to explain. High school students get to the college campus somehow, and take classes along with everybody else.  Historically, this model was focused on high-achieving students who had bumped up against the curricular ceilings of high school or homeschool. That would be the math prodigy, or the Lisa Simpson type who blasted through AP classes early and was otherwise out of things to do. Depending on scale, this model can exist almost without most people noticing. When it grows, there can be issues with high school students clustering in particular sections, or with differen