The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

New Technology Helps Visually Impaired Students With Science Courses

Subjects like physics, calculus and biology are challenging for most students, but imagine tackling these topics without being able to see the graphs and figures used to teach them. A new smartpen and paper technology that works with touch and records classroom audio aims to bring these subjects to life for blind students. A new technology will enable students and teachers to produce and explore diagrams and figures through touch and sound using a smartpen and paper technology that is low-cost, portable and easy to use. Read more at: http://literacynews.com/blog_c/2007/12/16/p377

What College Affordability Crisis

A new report to Congress by the General Accountability Office paints a far different picture of the topic of college affordability than the rhetoric on Capitol Hill and in the media would suggest. The report, Higher Education: Tuition Continues to Rise, But Patterns Vary by Institution Type, Enrollment, and Educational Expenditures, validates much of what the higher education community has been saying about cost and access over the last decade. For example, Only 3 out of every 100 students were enrolled at institutions where the average annual tuition and fees were more than $25,000 per year. Read more at:
http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=HENA&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=25071

A Dangerous Way To Finance A College Education

More than 50 percent of Maryland college students and families with "unmet financial need" use credit cards to cover education costs, according to a recent survey by the Maryland Higher Education Commission. State officials and experts called the findings a troubling echo of a national trend, though some financial aid authorities said that when used responsibly credit cards do not necessarily lead to unmanageable debt. "This is a very dangerous way of paying for higher-education costs," James E. Lyons Sr., state secretary of higher education, said in a statement yesterday. Read more at:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.debt21dec21,0,5579658.story

Like Most Lotteries This One Has Winners And Losers

State lawmakers promised a lottery would make a college education in South Carolina more affordable. For some students — including the highest-achieving and those enrolled at two-year institutions — the lottery has lived up to lawmakers’ promises. But for college-bound students of average achievement, the lottery hasn’t made college less costly. Some now shell out more for tuition and fees than in the pre-lottery days. Read more at:
http://www.thestate.com/education/story/261632.html

Specialized Programs Seek To Improve Teacher Education

Taking the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships as a model, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton is creating a fellowship program that it hopes will lure top students into teaching and transform teacher education in the United States. Other programs, like Teach for America and the New York City Teaching Fellows, have also tried to attract more top students to the teaching profession using approaches like recruiting at prestigious universities, and offering fellowships and training. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/education/20teaching.html?ex=1355806800&en=c12c4624b6b17f82&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Expecting A Slow Week

As higher education takes a break next week it's likely things will be on the slow side here at KUAL. Maybe a few posts here and there. So perhaps this is a good time for me to says thanks to all of you for your continued readership - and to new folks who are just discovering KUAL as a source of information about higher education. The number of visits and posts read continues to grow, and I appreciate that. So have a good holiday and a great new year. Here's looking to more news and information about higher education in 2008.

This College Is Small But Green

Tiny College of the Atlantic, with 300 students and only one major, human ecology, has become the nation's first "carbon-neutral" campus, school officials said Wednesday. The private college said it has offset emissions of 2,488 tons over the past 15 months by investing in a greenhouse gas reduction project in Oregon. The cost: about $25,000. The school is among more than 450 universities and colleges to take "net-zero" pledges through the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment program. Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/19/AR2007121901908.html?nav=rss_education

Minority Enrollment Boom Is Projected Over Next Ten Years

Minority enrollment at postsecondary institutions is slated to see some significant increases over the next 10 years, analysts say. It is projected to increase 140 percent between 2005, the last year of actual data, and 2016, according to moderate projections by researchers at the National Center for Education Statistics.

From 1991 to 2005, total enrollment at degree-granting institutions increased 22 percent. Read more at:
http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_10423.shtml

New Commitments To Increasing Enrollment Diversity

All his life, Martin Dyer's diploma had been a symbol of pride. Dyer became the first African American student to attend St. John's College in Annapolis and the college became the first south of the Mason-Dixon line to voluntarily desegregate. When Dyer returned to sit on the college's governing board, that he saw the enrollment figures and realized that something had gone wrong. There were even fewer black students on campus than in the 1950s after Dyer graduated, and the percentage of minorities overall had dwindled into single digits. Colleges across the nation are taking another look at minority enrollment. This fall, universities in 17 states created an initiative to drastically improve enrollment and achievement among minority and low-income students by 2015. Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/15/AR2007121501829.html?nav=rss_education

Public Universities May Become Less Affordable Than The Elite IHEs

The cost of attending college has been rising faster than inflation and faster than family incomes, prompting anguished outcries from consumers and calls in Congress for colleges to rein in their costs or disgorge more of their endowments. Although Harvard is often a trendsetter in assisting students with tuition, it is not clear that many other schools can afford to follow. Its endowment of $35 billion is the largest of any university. Most other colleges rely heavily on tuition and fees and can’t readily give up that income. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/opinion/19wed3.html?_r=4&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin