The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

To Save On Fuel Costs Community Colleges Drop Friday Classes

As gas prices continue to climb, a growing number of community colleges are giving commuter students a 20% break on their fuel tab: They're dropping one day of classes to save students a trip to campus. The push to drop a day, usually Fridays, is rippling primarily through two-year colleges serving rural areas, where many students drive long distances and public transportation is harder to come by. Services such as the library and tutoring usually continue on a normal schedule, but class periods are longer and held over fewer days. Read more at:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-05-28-college-gas_N.htm

Women's Wrestling Is No Longer An Oddity As A College Sport

Women’s wrestling teams are sprouting in the most unlikely places. The growth of such an unconventional women’s sport at these small, private institutions has little to do with the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX and everything to do with their bottom line. Officials at tuition-hungry colleges say women’s wrestling is an untapped market of prospective students, one that has curiously been all but ignored by bigger universities.  Read more at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/sports/othersports/27wrestling.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

More Parents Expect Their Students To Pay Their Own Way

Financial planners and college aid directors say the Les are part of a growing number of parents who in recent years have shifted responsibility of paying for college to their children. Stagnant family incomes combined with skyrocketing tuition rates have pushed more parents into taking the sink-or-swim philosophy, experts say. Students long have paid their way in the past, but experts believe the numbers are growing and that it's likely more challenging than ever. In some cases, parents want their children to learn the value of money and responsibility. But many more, according to college financial planners, simply can't or won't take on the burden of an undergraduate degree. Read more at:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-payforcollege_both_28_may28,0,7397945.story 

Why This Alum Won't Be Giving Any Money To Harvard

At Harvard, where I’m on my way for my 25th reunion, I’d have to be drunk to fall for their pitch. Many colleges may genuinely still need alumni contributions to stay solvent, but Harvard isn’t one of them — nor are Yale, Princeton or several other super-rich universities. A few hundred alumni have formed Harvard Alumni for Social Action, to try to channel 25th-reunion giving to destitute universities in Africa. So where are the rest of the alumni? Why do all those clever classmates of mine continue to invest their money in an institution with such a lack of imagination about how to deploy its resources? Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/opinion/25bogert.html?scp=1&sq=Enjoy%20the%20Reunion%20harvard&st=cse

IHEs Seek Off LImits Family Income Data To Recruit Low-Income Students

College recruiters trying to reach the most promising applicants can purchase customized mailing lists. One category, however, has been off-limits since the early 1980s: family income. The College Board stopped the practice after some colleges misused the information to find wealthy students who could pay full tuition. But now, as some of the nation's most elite colleges are trying to bring more economic diversity to their overwhelmingly affluent student bodies, admissions officers who want to lure low-income students to campus are pushing to get that data. Read more at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-low-income_bd25may25,0,5957061.story

Turning Cafeteria Scraps Into Friendly Soil For Farms

Composting projects at several Connecticut universities are helping turn cafeteria leftovers into environmentally friendly soil for farms and campus gardens. Officials and student activists at several colleges say the composting helps universities reduce their carbon footprints, since sending the waste to landfills adds to the creation of carbon dioxide and methane gas. Read more at:
http://www.courant.com/news/local/statewire/hc-26150455.apds.m0900.bc-ct--campmay26,0,4664385.story

Students From India Now Have Largest International Presence at US IHEs

With a rising middle class better able to finance American university degrees and schools such as USC actively recruiting them, Indians have doubled their presence at US campuses in the past decade. Numbering more than 83,000 last year, they are the largest group of international students in the country, overtaking the Chinese in 2002, surveys show. The increased enrollment from India at US universities also reflects a shortage of space in graduate programs in India, as well as the relaxation of some procedures to obtain a student visa imposed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/05/25/students_from_india_turning_demographic_tide_at_calif_university/

Harvard Students Want To Start The Next Facebook

Mr. Adler is just one of the Harvard students who have caught start-up fever since Facebook, founded when Mr. Zuckerberg was at Harvard in 2004, exploded in popularity. Other recent Harvard-born start-ups include Internet companies Kirkland North Inc., Drop.io Inc. and Labmeeting Inc. And Facebook has become a model for these start-ups on many fronts, from the look of company Web sites to their corporate strategies. A start-up contest this year attracted 55 entries, up from 10 to 18 for past contests. Read more at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124707865805855.html?mod=djemSB

Students Can Lead The Green Campus Movement

While previous generations focused on recycling and cleaning up rivers, these students want to combat global warming by figuring out ways to reduce carbon emissions in their own lives, starting with their own colleges. They also view the environment as broadly connected with social and economic issues. With their professors as collaborators, and with their own technological and political savvy, students are persuading administrators to switch to fossil-free fuel on campus. Students are planting organic gardens and competing in dorm energy-use Olympics. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/education/26green.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

Maybe The Worst Year Of A Young Life

High school has long been enshrined in popular culture -- from the musical "Grease" to television shows like "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Friday Night Lights" -- as a time of classes, sports and overwrought adolescent drama. But these days, junior year is the worst year in high school for many ambitious students aiming for elite and increasingly selective colleges -- a crucible of academic pressure. How did 11th grade become such a grind? Read more at:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121158515508718929-7MoNqXqmTLHQ4W3J323BtZgZ0EU_20090524.html?mod=rss_free