The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Battle Over Law Students' Innocence Project

As the Medill Innocence Project is raising concerns about another case, that of a man convicted in a murder 31 years ago, a hearing has been scheduled next month in Cook County Circuit Court on an unusual request: Local prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students themselves. The prosecutors, it seems, wish to scrutinize the methods of the students this time. The university is fighting the subpoenas. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/us/25innocence.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Is Now The Right Time To Create A New Law School

Brace yourselves, young attorneys and law students: you may soon face more competition in the job market. The University of Massachusetts is pushing to open a new public law school. Strange timing, huh, given that this is perhaps the worst job market for lawyers since, well, ever? “Law is a missing piece of the UMass curriculum,” said Jean MacCormack, chancellor of UMass-Dartmouth. “This would fill in that gap.” Read more at:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/10/15/another-law-school-possibly-lurks-on-the-horizon/

Part-Time MBA Programs Are Feeling Recession Pain

Part-time M.B.A. programs are under full-time pressure. While an economic downturn typically leads to a spike in applications to M.B.A. programs, this recession has left part-time programs—typically completed at night over three years—suffering, even as full-time programs experience growth in demand. Cost-cutting has led many companies and organizations to trim tuition-reimbursement programs, leaving employee-students to foot bills of as much as $20,000 per year. Read more at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204313604574328803979654792.html

New Test Will Measure Graduate Students' Personal Potential

A new type of admissions index introduced Tuesday can help the USA's graduate schools determine whether an applicant has personal attributes like resilience and creativity, which can't be measured by standardized admission tests. And it's just a matter of time before undergraduate admissions offices have a similar means at their disposal, says the testing company that designed the tool. The "Personal Potential Index," is an online-based system through which an applicant can be evaluated by his or her supervisors or professors on six "soft skills" — non-cognitive qualities that studies have suggested are related to success in either higher education or the workplace. Read more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-07-07-potential-index_N.htm

Is A Master's Degree Worth It

But the debate presents difficult questions for young people, who face the most difficult economy since the Great Depression. Many have decided to go to graduate school, to wait out the storm. Several commenters on our forums even said they had no choice but to seek a master’s degree (and incur more debt), arguing that a B.A. today is the equivalent of having a high school diploma 20 years ago and more employers require a higher degree. How do students know if a graduate education is worth it or not? What degrees are worth getting, and which are not? How does a student weigh the risks and benefits gain a higher education degree? Four experts weigh in on the value of a master's degree. Read more at:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/

GRE's New Addition Can Test For The Right Personality

Because nearly half of all students who start doctoral programs don't finish, educators have long wondered how best to judge applicants to graduate schools and reduce that attrition rate. Is there a way to evaluate a student's drive, persistence, honesty and creativity? What is needed beyond college grades, test scores and traditional recommendation letters? The Educational Testing Service says it has just the thing. The ETS, which runs the Graduate Record Examinations, will soon offer a supplemental assessment of graduate school applicants on those personal characteristics that could help students tackle advanced studies. Read more at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-na-grad-test22-2009jun22,0,1690247.story?track=rss

Reasons Why IHEs Are Cutting Back On Doctoral Programs

There are several reasons for this doctoral downsizing. For one thing, teaching graduate students costs universities money -- at least on first glance. They pay no tuition and receive a school-year stipend between $10,000 and $20,000. But graduates students also act as teaching assistants, doing a great deal of time-consuming classroom work (and grading) that professors themselves are thus not compelled to do. By providing cheap labor, graduate students save college administrations millions of dollars each year in salary costs. So why the cuts? Read more at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124054131801151501.html

USN&WR Issues Latest Graduate School Rankings

U.S. News & World Report has published its latest rankings of more than 12.000 graduate programs in business, education, law, medicine, engineering and even library science. Find it at:
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools

Too Much Graduate Program Duplication

Higher education officials are looking for places to cut because of restricted budgets and one place they are considering is duplicate graduate programs that aren't graduating enough students. Records show nearly 20 percent of graduate programs at Tennessee colleges and universities have duplicates at another public school in the state, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported. And 56 programs are underperforming because they fail to graduate a minimum number of students over five years, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission said. Read more at:
http://www.starhq.com/news/html/news/AP/articles.asp?day=Tuesday&article=e2918bc-tn-graduateprogram.html

Law Firm Layoffs Having No Affect On Law School Applications

The job market for lawyers, hit hard by the recession, seems to reach new lows every day. But that has not done much to discourage the thousands who are lining up to become the next generation of attorneys. In seeming defiance of logic, many law schools are surging in popularity. College graduates, educators say, are seeking refuge from the economy in the relative tranquility of higher education, hoping that the job market will improve by the time they graduate. Law schools also have been aided by the long-held belief that the legal business is relatively immune from recessions. Read more at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123741745678277765.html?mod=googlenews_wsj