The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Wesleyan University President Explains Why A Three-Year Option Is Needed

As I prepare for my commencement speech this year, I remember vividly when I first realized that I could graduate college in three years rather than four. But I realized that graduating in three years would save my family lots of money. We will also make more visible -- and provide more support for -- the “three year” route that I chose in the mid 1970s. Again, by no means is the three-year option for everyone. But if we can offer families the same quality undergraduate degree at a significantly reduced total price – and I think we can – why not do it? Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/wesleyan-president-a-degree-in-three-marvelous-years/2012/05/23/gJQANAIIlU_blog.html

End Of Open Admissions At CUNY Creates Demographic Shift

More than a decade after the City University of New York ended open admissions to its four-year colleges, a marked shift has occurred at its top institutions as freshman classes now enter with far better academic credentials and also a different demographic mix. The ethnic changes at CUNY’s top colleges confirm the predictions made during the battle over ending open admissions, one of the city’s most charged political disputes of the 1990s: Proponents said the colleges would rise in status, while opponents said black and Hispanic enrollment would fall. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/nyregion/at-cunys-top-colleges-black-and-hispanic-freshmen-enrollments-drop.html?_r=2&hpw

New Dorm Building Changes The City Skyline

The new dorm tower at Massachusetts College of Art and Design is the most interesting Boston high-rise in years. Even though it isn’t finished, it’s already an architectural landmark. There’s a youthfulness about this building, a feeling of play, of experiment. Those are qualities an art school ought to have. Read more at:
http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-13/arts/31653663_1_panels-pastel-chalks-design

Missed Paycheck Leads Adjuncts To Form A Union

Kelly O'Leary, a part-time English and French instructor at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, says it only took one bad September for her and her part-time instructing colleagues to decide they'd form a union.  O'Leary says it all started when she didn't get her first paycheck Sept. 15, the date she had been told she would be paid. A group of 11 part-time instructors gathered some 200 signatures from both part-time and adjunct instructors in favor of creating a bargaining unit. Read more at:
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/05/part-time_instructors_say_late.html

Can A University Run Like A Growth Business Buy Its Way to Success

Nothing like this existed here seven years ago, when Nido Qubein, a motivational speaker and multimillionaire, became president of what was then a sleepy little Methodist college. It was Qubein who launched the effort to transform the 88-year-old school into a nationally recognized institution. Some $700 million has already been spent to refurbish and expand the campus. “The world is marveling at how High Point University has grown so successfully in the midst of the worst economic times in 54 years,” Qubein says. Since becoming president in January 2005, he’s raised about $159 million in gifts and pledges, and has promised to kick in $11 million of his own money. There’s more to come: new dorms, a health-sciences school, a college of pharmacy, a sports arena—all told, a planned $2.1 billion in improvements by 2020. All this in the middle of a depressed North Carolina mill town. Read more at:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-19/bubble-u-dot-high-point-university

How Much Should It Cost For A University President To Travel

Ohio State University has spent at least $844,000 on President E. Gordon Gee’s travel since 2007, including more than $550,000 in the last two years. The travel costs far exceeded what Ohio’s two governors during that time spent, and was about three times the amount spent by University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, who holds a comparable position to Gee. Ohio State officials noted that unrestricted endowment funds — and not tuition or tax money — cover the costs. Read more at:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/osu-president-gees-travel-bill-tops-800k-1371154.html

Top IHEs Expand Their Intellectual Reach Through The Internet

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are teaming up in a $60 million venture to provide classes online for free. The move is the latest by top universities to expand their intellectual reach through the Internet — a trend that is changing higher education. He says interest in online courses has exploded because it's become much cheaper and easier to put a class online. "That has combined with using technologies in new ways to make these online classes better." Read more at:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/05/02/151876426/explosion-in-free-online-classes-may-change-course-of-higher-education

University And City Reach Agreement On Plan To Avoid Bankruptcy

Brown University will voluntarily pay Providence $31.5 million more over the next 11 years to help address financial problems that Mayor Angel Taveras has warned could put the city on the brink of bankruptcy.The deal caps months of contentious dialogue between the tax-exempt Ivy League school and its struggling host city and hands Taveras a key victory in his efforts to resolve a $22.5 million budget deficit. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/05/01/brown_u_to_pay_ri_city_315m_more_to_help_budget/

Innovation Campus Brings College Industry Together

Whether exclusive private schools or massive public campuses, college has long been seen as extended preparation for the real world. These days, the real world is spending more and more time at college. Historic lows in public funding and a shortage of skilled manufacturing workers are leading a growing number of states to turn to the private sector to train and educate students, potentially speeding their path through college, providing needed labor and reducing some budget burdens faced by higher education. In Missouri, the emerging partnerships have spawned a so-called "Innovation Campus" where businesses will employ students as apprentices and help pick up the cost for their education -- either by paying them or contributing money for their tuition. Read more at:
http://www.semissourian.com/story/1843255.html 

 

UC Campuses Asking For More Power To Govern Themselves

The 10 campuses of the UC system should be given more power to govern themselves and be allowed to set their own tuition, decide how many out-of-state students to enroll, approve construction projects and control some investments under a proposal released Monday by UC Berkeley leaders. It contends that UC has gotten so complex and governance has become so balky that campus governing boards should be established and given autonomy over many issues, similar to states in a federal system. Read more at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0424-uc-20120424,0,4754981.story