The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Partnership With University Helps Prison Inmates Obtain College Credits

On a recent morning inside Missouri's largest state prison, a class of students patiently waited for the professor to arrive. They had a pile of books each, and a collective pile of some of society's worst offenses. Never mind the gray uniforms, the rattling keys, the chirp of a guard's radio. When St. Louis University professor Stephen Casmier got through security, and the day's lesson in literary studies began, the men were in college. The class of 19 inmates, a small sampling of the 30,000 offenders in the Missouri Department of Corrections system, is part of the SLU Prison Program, an effort that educators and prison reformers are watching with hopeful, yet cautious, eyes. Read more at:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/st-louis-university-program-in-missouri-prison-helps-set-minds/article_a06b052a-064f-5ef4-bce9-d60036f1ac59.html#ixzz1hrEvZjCT

Events At Virginia Tech Demonstrate Difference The Emergency Communication System Makes

For those who were there in 2007, the shooting death of a campus police officer in a school parking lot and the apparent suicide of his killer brought back harrowing memories of what remains the worst mass killing in United States history. But the police and university response to the incident were also proof that the painful sacrifices of "4/16" were not in vain. "There have been a lot of people that have been working REALLY hard since 2007 to make sure that there are systems in place to prevent what happened in 2007 and the miscommunications that could have saved people's lives from EVER happening again," said Fred Cook, 26, who broke his ankle jumping from a second-floor window of Norris Hall, where student Seung-Hui Cho killed 30 of his victims and eventually took his own life. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/12/10/echoes_of_2007_color_reactions_to_va_tech_shooting/

Questioning County's Decisions About Prosecuting Sexual Assaults On Campus

The Chicago State outcome is not uncommon. Cook County prosecutors rarely file felony charges against students accused of sexual violence on college campuses, according to a Tribune analysis. A survey of 16 local colleges found that police investigated 109 reported sex crimes since fall 2005, with 12 resulting in arrests and five in convictions. Two of the arrests — including a 2011 rape allegation at Dominican University in suburban River Forest — have not gone to trial. In the Chicago State case, the Cook County state's attorney's office did not file a felony charge because of what it now describes as "inconsistencies in the evidence."  Read more at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/cook-county-college-sexual-violence-20111204,0,624361.story

Study Abroad Students Should Mix With Locals But Not Get Too Involved

American universities send tens of thousands of students to study abroad every year, thrusting them into one of the most exciting periods of their lives with a heavy dose of maternal advice: Mix with the locals, but be careful. Don't get in any tight spots. Avoid protests. Many universities and study abroad program coordinators have been trying to prod students out of what can become a comfort zone of huddling with their fellow Americans. The push to engage can be broadening in a "safe" country; in a country with a suddenly dicey political situation, it can be hazardous. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/11/30/american_students_abroad_told_to_resist_protests/

Tuition Protest Turns Violent With Police Arresting Students

A daylong rally by City University of New York students against a planned tuition increase turned turbulent Monday evening when marchers ignored police requests to clear the lobby of a building where the university’s trustees were meeting and 15 people were arrested. Carlos Pazmino, 21, a City College student who helped organize the protest, said that after students began opening lobby doors to the building where the CUNY trustees were holding a public hearing on the 14th floor, CUNY public safety officers surrounded the entrances and pushed back, using their batons. He said that when students formed a line to push past, the officers began hitting the students with the batons. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/education/cuny-students-clash-with-police-in-manhattan.html?_r=1&hpw

Students Will Need To Put Away Those Tape Recorders In Class

From videotaped lectures to podcasts, universities are rushing to embrace the digital revolution. Yet even as some schools invite the public to view course material online, they're starting to grapple with how to keep classroom discussions out of the wrong hands. At the University of Missouri, a leaked classroom video that went viral in the spring and triggered an uproar on conservative media has prompted what may be the first restrictions on students recording lectures since the advent of portable tape recorders more than 50 years ago. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/11/17/university_of_missouri_to_limit_lecture_recording/

Higher Ed's Parallel Judicial Universe Leads To Questionable Handling Of Crimes

The Penn State scandal has ended the reign of the university’s patriarch and longtime football coach, Joe Paterno, amid national expressions of shock. But the case is also emblematic of a parallel judicial universe that exists at many of the country’s colleges and universities. On most of these campuses, law enforcement is the responsibility of sworn police officers who report to university authorities, not to the public. With full-fledged arrest powers, such campus police forces have enormous discretion in deciding whether to refer cases directly to district attorneys or to leave them to the quiet handling of in-house disciplinary proceedings. But many serious offenses reach neither campus police officers nor their off-campus counterparts because they are directly funneled to administrators.Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/us/on-college-campuses-athletes-often-get-off-easy.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2 

 

Victim Of Sexual Assault By College Athletes Seeks To Prevent It From Happening To Others

 Before sunrise last Halloween, two female students would say they were sexually attacked by Marquette University athletes, touching off a crisis that quietly engulfed the school. One of those women contacted campus security within three hours of her alleged attack — a decision that would eventually expose the school's repeated mishandling of reported sex offenses. Yet the woman returned to the Milwaukee university for her sophomore year this semester, despite her parents' unyielding protests. She decided she was willing to endure the whispers for the rest of her college career, if it meant a chance to prove her resilience to the athletic department. Breaking her silence for the first time since reporting her allegations a year ago, the woman, now 19, said she agreed to share her story in an effort to help other women at Marquette. Read more at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-marquette-sex-cases-20111028,0,4057558.story

With More Online Education Comes More Online Fraud

With the huge expansion of online college courses, financial aid scams have become a serious problem: as of Aug. 1, the inspector general had opened 100 investigations into distance-education fraud involving thousands of suspects. The rings generally seek federal aid for “straw students” who have no intention of pursuing an education. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/education/14fraud.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

In Hunt For Terrorists Police Infiltrate New York Area Colleges

Investigators have been infiltrating Muslim student groups at Brooklyn College and other schools in the city, monitoring their Internet activity and placing undercover agents in their ranks, police documents obtained by The Associated Press show. Legal experts say the operation may have broken a 19-year-old pact with the colleges and violated U.S. privacy laws, jeopardizing millions of dollars in federal research money and student aid. The NYPD's intelligence division first turned its attention to colleges after receiving sketchy information that a student wanted to be a "martyr," Read more at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=141225420