College News & College Videos: Education News: College // Current

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1 hour ago

To fix UC system budget failure, UCSD proposes to close UC Merced

The following is an excerpt from the letter signed by 23 department chairs at the University of California at San Diego. The letter was dated June 15, 2009 and was forwarded to the University of California Office of the President:

3. Establish different budget priorities for the profiles of different UC campuses. Every state system of public education save California manages to sustain (at best) one flagship campus. Many, including such states as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, do not manage even

that. We pretend we have ten such campuses. In better times, there were in reality four flagships (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, and – in its highly specialized way, UCSF). Rather than destroying the distinctiveness and excellence at Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD by hiring temporary lecturers to do most of the teaching (and contribute nothing to original research, nothing to our reputation, nothing to the engine of economic growth a first rate research university represents), we propose that you urge the President and Regents to acknowledge that UCSC, UCR, and UC Merced are in substantial measure teaching institutions (with some exceptions – programs that have genuinely achieved national and international excellence and thus deserve separate treatment), whose funding levels and budgets should be reorganized to match that reality.

We suggest, more generally, that in discussions systemwide, you drop the pretence that all campuses are equal, and argue for a selective reallocation of funds to preserve excellence, not the current disastrous blunderbuss policy of even, across the board cuts. Or, if that is too hard, we suggest that what ought to be done is to shut one or more of these campuses down, in whole or in part. We have suffered more than a 30 per cent cut in our funding from the state, and we can thus no longer afford to be a ten campus system – only a nine, or an eight (and a half) campus system. Corporations faced with similar problems eliminate or sell off their least profitable, least promising divisions. Even General Motors, which for decades resisted this logic, to its near-fatal cost, is lopping off Hummer, Buick, GMC, Opel, Saab and who knows what else.

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Oh the wonders of Facebook notes. . .The following is an excerpt from the letter signed by 23 department chairs at the University of California at San Diego. The... more

TheBrownKid
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17 hours ago

College officials charged using funds to buy liquor and pay parking tickets

The former chancellor at the City College of San Francisco has been charged with making illegal campaign contributions and steering public funds to a secret account used to buy liquor and pay parking tickets, prosecutors said Wednesday.

District Attorney Kamala Harris' office said it filed eight felony counts Tuesday against former Chancellor Philip Day Jr., including conspiracy, grand theft, misappropriation of public funds and using college funds to support a political campaign.

Two associate vice chancellors currently employed by City College — Stephen Herman, 61, and James Blomquist, 62 — also face charges.
Day, 63, was chancellor of the 110,000-student college from 1998 to 2008 and now heads the National Association of Student Aid Administrators in Washington.

Prosecutors allege that Day and Herman directed vendors who owed money to City College to make contributions totaling $70,000 to campaign committees for San Francisco community college bond measures in 2001 and 2005. They're also accused of diverting $28,000 to a committee promoting a statewide community college bond measure in 2006.

In addition, the men are accused of steering $45,000 in City College funds to a slush fund at the college's foundation that paid for alcohol at parties, parking tickets and a private club membership for Day.

Prosecutors say Blomquist asked a vendor to pay $10,000 owed to City College to the 2005 San Francisco bond campaign committee.

Michael Sweet, an attorney for Herman, said his client is innocent and has been cooperating with the investigation for the past two years.

Jim Collins, an attorney for Blomquist, said he has not seen the complaint, but "I don't believe that Mr. Blomquist did anything intentionally wrong."

Day and his attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

If convicted of all counts, Day and Herman face up to nine years in state prison and more than $300,000 in fines, Harris said. Blomquist faces up to three years in prison and $30,000 in fines, she said.

"We will not tolerate people abusing their positions of power and trust for personal benefit," Harris said. "In this age of diminished public resources, there can be no tolerance for that kind of behavior and activity."

All three men are being ordered to surrender to authorities by Tuesday. Bail was set for $75,000 for Day, $65,000 for Herman and $10,000 for Blomquist, according to the district attorney's office.The former chancellor at the City College of San Francisco has been charged with making illegal campaign contributions and... more

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2 days ago

Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice?

Russell H. Fazio, an Ohio State psychology professor who has studied interracial roommates there and at Indiana University,... more

TravG73
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3 days ago

Mashable Launches the Summer of Social Good Campaign

Summer of Social Good is the first large scale online charitable campaign to raise funds through the power of Social Media and the... more

communiversity
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4 responses

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3 days ago

Scientists Create Eerie Ambient Music Using Human Brains, MRI Machines

A professor at Trinity College in Connecticut has written what is essentially a MIDI player for the human brain, converting MRI... more

slagface
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28 responses

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7 days ago

Lack of sleep is more dangerous for women than men, claim scientists

Eight hours is the recommended length of time people should spend in bed, the study discovered, but for women who get less have a... more

slagface
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8 days ago

New Plan for College Loans: Income-Based Repayment

College students are often forced to make a decision between two life paths: one that feeds the soul and one that feeds the bank... more

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12 days ago

Large solar parking lot

At Fresno State we have a huge solar parking lot that will supply 20 percent of the university's annual power needs.... more

Teeefiki
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15 days ago

Student hopes to go from homeless to Harvard

Kenneth Chancey, 17, walks down the littered streets of Skid Row, one of the roughest areas of Los Angeles. Drug deals are made... more

singrrr
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2 responses

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16 days ago

New Law To Help In Paying Back College Loans

To help new college graduates who are entering a rough job market with massive loans hanging over their heads, a new law has been... more

islek
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12 responses

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16 days ago

Classical music helps blood circulation, claims study

Classical music directly boosts health by affecting the heart and blood circulation rhythm, says a study published in Circulation,... more

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16 days ago

College Savings Plans and Education Funding

Planning Strategies for College The cost of a college degree continues to trend upward, year after year. As a result, prospective... more

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19 days ago

The Humane Society University Now Offers 4-year Degrees

The Humane Society of the United States has formed the Humane Society University and was recently granted a license to grant... more

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20 days ago

Obama looks to colleges for future spies

To the list of collegiate types — nerds, jocks, Greeks — add one more: spies in training. The government is hoping they'll be hard to spot.

The Obama administration has proposed the creation of an intelligence officer training program in colleges and universities that would function much like the Reserve Officers' Training Corps run by the military services. The idea is to create a stream "of first- and second-generation Americans, who already have critical language and cultural knowledge, and prepare them for careers in the intelligence agencies," according to a description sent to Congress by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair.

In recent years, the CIA and other intelligence agencies have struggled to find qualified recruits who can work the streets of the Middle East and South Asia to penetrate terrorist groups and criminal enterprises. The proposed program is an effort to cultivate and educate a new generation of career intelligence officers from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds. Under the proposal, part of the administration's 2010 intelligence authorization bill, colleges and universities would apply for grants that would be used to expand or introduce courses of study to "meet the emerging needs of the intelligence community." Those courses would include certain foreign languages, analysis and specific scientific and technical fields.

The students' participation in the program would probably be kept secret to prevent them from being identified by foreign intelligence services, according to an official familiar with the proposal.

Students attending participating colleges and universities who agree to take the specialized courses would apply to the national intelligence director for admittance to the program, whose administrators would select individuals "competitively" for financial assistance. Much like the support provided to those in the military programs, the financial assistance could include "a monthly stipend, tuition assistance, book allowances and travel expenses," according to the proposal. It also would involve paid summer internships at one or more intelligence agencies.

Applicants to the intelligence training program would have to pass a security background investigation, although it is unclear when they would have to do so. Students who receive a certain amount of financial assistance would be obligated to serve in an intelligence agency for the same length of time as they received their subsidy.To the list of collegiate types — nerds, jocks, Greeks — add one more: spies in training. The government is hoping... more