The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

One In Five Students Lacks Health Insurance

About one U.S. college student in five lacks health insurance, leaving the federal government and states to pay for their care, a report to lawmakers found. Uninsured students who got sick didn't pay $120 million to $255 million in bills to hospital emergency rooms and doctors' offices in 2005, according to the report. Uninsured students were more likely part-time, older, or from families with lower incomes than those with coverage, according to the report. Uninsured students also were more likely to be Hispanic, black or Asian, mirroring the nation's uninsured population. Read more at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=agNwGt4uV.dA&refer=home

How A Recession Impacts IHEs And Students

The national economic downturn is certainly felt in college towns like this one, home to three very different institutions within a few miles of one another, in a region still smarting from the loss of thousands of textile jobs. As for job prospects for new graduates, the news is mixed. For colleges themselves, an economic slump can be good for business, reminding people of the value of more education and pushing them to get a diploma when other opportunities are scarce. Colleges plan for the long haul, so many can take advantage of the effects of an economic slump, such as lower construction costs and - if the credit crunch passes - lower costs to borrow money. Read more at:
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/17133001.html

Chastity Clubs Of The Ivy League

Many college students today, however, grew up with abstinence classes and clubs in their communities, and so the movement has raised a generation of activists. The Ivy League’s abstinence clubs began emerging several years ago about the same time as student sex blogs, sex columns and, at Harvard and Yale, student sex magazines. Those involved, however, say that the most important catalyst was university-sponsored safe-sex education, which they saw as institutional encouragement of promiscuity. The founders of the Princeton club, the first to form in the Ivy League in 2005, wanted to offer an opposing view. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/magazine/30Chastity-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5088&en=95b9e352087336e2&ex=1364529600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Using Threat Assessment Groups To Help Troubled Students

In a practice adopted at one college after another since the massacre at Virginia Tech, a University of Kentucky committee of deans, administrators, campus police and mental health officials has begun meeting regularly to discuss a watch list of troubled students and decide whether they need professional help or should be sent packing. These "threat assessment groups" are aimed at heading off the kind of bloodshed seen at Virginia Tech a year ago and at Northern Illinois University last month. Read more at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23847510

Community Service Has To Be About More Than Getting Into College

There are thousands of young people every year who donate amazing amounts of time and money to go to poverty-stricken islands and villages to make life better for others. What I continually see, though, are high school students who are convinced that all they have to do to be a hero or to catch the eye of a college is to go overseas. As long as you hear the call for help across the ocean and genuinely answer, rather than go overseas just to say you went, your application will probably glow with the difference. But, additional local community service would show you understand charity begins at home, and that's not a bad lesson to embrace. Read more at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0328/p09s03-coop.html

Students Protest Deceptive Credit Card Practices

Free T-shirts, food, Frisbees and even iPods don't make up for "unfair or deceptive marketing practices" that some credit-card companies use to get college students to sign up for their cards. That's the view of most college students, according to a study released yesterday by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The survey of more than 1,500 college students at 40 colleges nationwide, including Ohio State University, found that 74 percent think that only credit cards with fair terms and conditions should be allowed to be offered on campus. And 80 percent said they want schools to toughen regulations on credit-card marketing. Read more at: http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2008/03/28/student_credit.ART_ART_03-28-08_C12_HF9P1DB.html?sid=101

Ivy League Institutions Overhaul Financial Aid

Tuition at private universities has skyrocketed over the past 20 years, but over the last few months a number of elite institutions have unveiled plans to make college more affordable for undergraduate students. Since December 2007, six of the eight Ivy League universities have announced major overhauls to their financial aid offerings, which in most cases substantially increases aid for low- and middle-income families. It may be no coincidence, however, that this financial aid windfall comes just months after the Senate Finance Committee held public hearings on the cost of higher education, focusing on ballooning tuition and tax-exempt endowments. Read more at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/23693130/

Don't Mess With Our Campus Bunnies

The bunnies are part of a large and growing population living and breeding on the 140-hectare University of Victoria campus. They're collectively regarded as the campus mascot. There's no official count, but their numbers are estimated in the thousands. Cuteness notwithstanding, the rabbits are destroying the campus gardens, trashing the sports fields and playing havoc with construction projects. Neil Connelly, UVIC's director of campus planning, acknowledged that a bunny cull would be as popular on campus as a baby seal hunt. Read more at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080324.wbcbunnies24/EmailBNStory/National/home

IHEs See Growth In Renewable Energy Majors

As business and industry are taking more interest in renewable energy, academia is not far behind. Anticipating increased demand for new technical and design skills, colleges and universities across the nation are offering degree programs in the field. The Oregon Institute of Technology has developed the country’s first four-year undergraduate degree program in renewable-energy systems. This year the program is training 50 students and will graduate its first class. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/business/businessspecial2/26degree.html?ex=1364270400&en=726cc6581ab86109&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Integrating Harry Potter Into The College Curriculum

J.K. Rowling has retired Harry Potter, but the fictional boy wizard lives in on college classes across the country where the children's books are embraced as literary and academic texts. Drawing on their expertise in theology, children's literature, globalization studies and even the history of witchcraft, professors have been able to use Harry Potter to attract crowds of students eager to take on a disciplined study of the books.Read more at: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/03/25/cnnu.potter/