The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Kentucky IHEs Team Up To Give College Dropouts Incentives To Return

Kentucky colleges will team together to offer incentives aimed at luring back former students who were well along the path toward obtaining a degree before leaving school. The outreach effort brings together eight public universities along with the Kentucky Community and Technology College System and the Association of Independent Kentucky Colleges and Universities. The program, called "Project Graduate," will offer incentives and services to try to bring back former students with 90 or more credit hours to complete their degrees. Read more at:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KY_PROJECT_GRADUATE_KYOL-?SITE=KYLOU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-11-26-15-04-47

Elimination Of Early Admissions By Some IHEs Is A Boon For Those That Kept It

Early applications increased by 13 percent this year, to a total of 3,937 applicants. The increase comes as Harvard and Princeton Universities eliminated their early admissions programs. The rise, however, falls far short of increases at other competitive institutions such as Yale University. The 13 percent rise in early action applications was a “similar increase” compared to last year’s increase, “which was higher than we have seen in a number of years,” Interim Director of Admissions Stuart Schmill. Read more at:
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N57/earlyadmissions.html

Blackboard System Meltdown Results In Lost Data

Due to corrupt data in the statewide database Blackboard Vista, the system shut down, causing thousands of faculty and students at USU to lose all information submitted between Tuesday, Nov. 13 and Friday, Nov. 16. Any data entered during its shutdown has been permanently lost, said Mike Petersen, executive director of Utah Education Network. Blackboard is hosted by UEN and is used by schools across the state. Read more at: http://media.www.utahstatesman.com/media/storage/paper243/news/2007/11/26/CampusNews/Blackboards.Shutdown.Statewide-3115226.shtml?reffeature=textemailedition

Everyone Knows Universities Are Better Than Colleges

Massachusetts' public colleges are aggressively lobbying lawmakers so they can be called universities, saying a simple name change would give them a stronger brand name and a springboard to greater status. Bridgewater State College and Salem State College are leading the charge for the university designation, which administrators say will attract students, resources, and prestige. "It's a marketing and branding issue," said Robert Antonucci, president of Fitchburg State College. "People have this perception that universities are better than colleges, and we want to be on a level playing field." Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/11/25/public_colleges_seek_university_status/

It's Becoming An iLecture World

By making hundreds of lectures from elite academic institutions available online for free, Apple is reinvigorating the minds of people who have been estranged from the world of ideas.For several years universities have posted recorded lectures on their internal websites, giving students a chance to brush up on their classes or catch ones they missed. The universities want to promote themselves to parents and prospective students, as well as strengthen ties with alumni. Some also see their mission as sharing the ivory tower's intellectual riches with the rest of the world. Read more at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-fi-podclass24nov24,1,2641233.story?coll=la-news-learning&ctrack=1&cset=true

Ten Observations About Clueless Millennials

How to communicate effectively with Millennials is the topic of many research studies. We are told what they read (magazines) and what they don't read (newspapers), which brands they love (Apple) and which ones they hate (anything "too corporate"), devices they use (iPods and cellphones) and don't use (CD players). Most ominously, we are informed that they have lived in a media-saturated world from a young age. Consequently, they are clued in to -- and tuned out of -- marketers' most ingenious means of influence.
To the last pronouncement, I ask, "Really?" Here are my top 10 observations about what college students don't know about marketing and the implications for marketers. Read more at:
http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=122041

A Move To Standarized Testing At The College Level

This week, two big consortiums of public colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC), agreed to launch a Web site that will allow applicants, their parents and legislators to compare undergraduate experiences, costs and eventually—test scores that measure "student outcomes."  Participating colleges will begin administering standardized tests to see how much test scores measuring writing, analytic ability and critical thinking go up for students between freshman and senior year. Read more at:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70750

What's Being Done To Improve Large Lecture Classes

There already are 18 million American college students, and that number is expected to increase by 2 million over the next eight years, as the value of a college degree continues to climb. To get everyone through their coursework, monstrous class sizes are unavoidable. Students often tune out and are turned off. Charismatic lecturers get good reviews but, the data show, are no more effective than others at making the most important concepts stick. Why are so many big classes broken?  What can be done to fix them? Read more at:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/WireStory?id=3908417&page=2

As They Order More Online Students' Packages Overwhelm Mailrooms

The number of packages delivered to U.S.C. has nearly doubled in four years. By Dec. 31, officials expect they will have received more than 67,000 packages in 2007. Other universities have seen similar increases. To handle the volume, some have expanded their facilities or put in new procedures to track the stream of deliveries. It is difficult to gauge how much online spending is driven by college students. But such sales are soaring. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/education/21mailroom.html?em&ex=1195794000&en=e440887fae6a2a54&ei=5087%0A

Congress Looking More Closely At Controlling College Costs

Critics have complained for years about the galloping cost of college. But now, Democrats and Republicans are pushing measures that would go further than ever before to control college costs. Some proposals would reward schools that control their costs and cast an unflattering spotlight on those that don't. Others would require schools with multibillion endowments to use more of that money to lower tuition. Congress, with limited ability to curb costs, is considering incremental steps. Read more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/college/2007-11-19-college-costs_N.htm?csp=34&loc=interstitialskip