ACUHO-I News Blog

This week at Inside HigherEd, a B.A. that takes three years to earn; Virginia’s governor issues an order protecting non-discrimination policies, and other news.

FAULT LINES: Budget cuts are taking their toll on City College of San Francisco, where limited course offerings bar student access and unfilled vacancies leave jobs undone.

REVERSAL IN VIRGINIA ON ANTI-GAY BIAS: Governor issues order protecting colleges’ nondiscrimination policies from demands by attorney general that they be changed.

EXPRESS LANE TO A B.A.: A year after politicians and pundits started talking about three-year degrees, more colleges are starting programs or considering them.

CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVES: College leaders in the U.S. urged to enhance unity of North American higher ed on same day European academics issue study on how unified their institutions have become.

NEW BATTLEGROUND FOR PUBLISHERS: With demand for online assessment and e-tutoring tools growing, good textbooks alone are no longer enough to win over professors.

This week on Inside HigherEd, reaching out to gay applicants and drop-out insurance for parents of little faith, among other stories.

PROTESTERS RECEIVE COY EMBRACE: March 4 demonstrations across California and nation will call for greater higher ed support, but college leaders give tepid public endorsement to volatile grass roots movement.

HIGHLIGHTING E-READERS: Colleges release analyses of major experiments with Kindles — and find students use less paper with the devices, but want better note-taking ability.

OUTREACH TO GAY APPLICANTS: Like many colleges, Penn has undergrads help woo admitted students with similar interests or ethnic backgrounds. Now the university is recruiting based on sexual orientation too.

FAMILY VALUES AND THE NCAA: Amid criticism from gay rights advocates, athletic association pulls advertisements from pro-family group that sparked Super Bowl controversy.

DROP-OUT INSURANCE: Is the market to assure parents of tuition refunds about to take off?

Happy Monday, kiddos! Here’s your Inside HigherEd news for today:

CEILING FOR TUITION HIKES: Middlebury, in unusual move, plans to limit increases for the long run to no more than 1 percentage point above inflation rate.

STEP RIGHT UP: Sensing opportunity, more private institutions court community college transfer students.

CREDIT CARDS AND CAMPUSES: As federal law takes effect Monday, consumer advocates students will earn significant new protections, and colleges face several new requirements.

IS HECKLING A RIGHT? Incident at Irvine prompts debate over whether repeatedly interrupting a campus speaker is an exercise of free expression or the suppression of free expression.

ALLERGIC NATION: Colleges take steps to accommodate growing numbers of students with food allergies.

At Inside HigherEd this week, balancing the rights of the accused and the accuser when claims of sexual harassment are made; motivating students to motivate themselves; and Dartmouth quits their ‘no loans’ policy too.

BAD NEWS BINGHAMTON: Independent audit of scandal surrounding SUNY institution’s basketball team reveals severe lack of oversight from outgoing president and former athletics director.

RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED: As faculty and administration at Southern Illinois at Carbondale hammer out a policy for sexual harassment claims, professors fear for due process rights.

MEN OF MERIT: Michigan’s Jackson Community College thinks its black male students may be their own best motivators.

E-LIBRARY ECONOMICS: New research indicates that e-book oriented libraries could save colleges a bundle, but academics may have a hard time letting go of the stacks.

DARTMOUTH DROPS ‘NO LOANS’: Shift, a week after similar move by Williams, suggests more institutions will restore borrowing to students’ aid packages.

In Inside HigherEd this week: Campus counseling centers report a 16% increase in their visitors in 2009; the gender gap has quit growing (mostly), and plagiarism education helps prevent that form of cheating — perhaps because students are aware their institution is paying attention to the issue; perhaps because they previously didn’t realize what qualifies as plagiarism.

NO MORE EARLY VACATIONS: Think it’s not worth holding class the Friday before spring break? Faculty leaders at Penn State want you to know they disagree.

LOOKING FOR HELP: Campus counseling centers report a 16% increase in last year in students seeking assistance.

GENDER GAP STOPS GROWING: New analysis suggests that — except for Latinos — the decline in male enrollment rates has leveled off:

PLAGIARISM PREVENTION WITHOUT FEAR: New trial suggests that teaching students about integrity issues can be effective, especially with those who may otherwise be the most likely to copy.

AWAITING THE TABLET: Will Apple’s new electronic device galvanize the market for e-textbooks and transform higher education?

More bookstores are renting more textbooks; keeping student health affordable, a report states that minority students haven’t benefitted enough from aid given to public research universities, and other stories are at Inside HigherEd this week.

TEXTBOOKS FOR RENT … EVERYWHERE: Major bookstore chains announce plans to launch or expand rental programs, suggesting a market shift.

KEEPING STUDENT HEALTH AFFORDABLE: Higher ed asks Congress to tweak its bill to ensure that college-based plans aren’t classified as pricier “individual” policies.

FLOGGING THE FLAGSHIPS: Despite well-publicized expansions of aid, public research universities have made too little progress in expanding representation of low-income and minority students, report asserts.

SHIFTING GROUND ON THE SIDELINES: As 3 football coaches lose jobs for mistreating players, have the rules about acceptable behavior — and the balance of power in college sports — changed?

HISTORIANS, SONS, DAUGHTERS: A panel of parents and children in the same academic discipline consider their field and their generations.

Micah Fialka-Feldman, an intellectually disabled student at Oakland University in Rochester, MI, is in a program for students like him; he takes mainstream classes, but uses tutors and other assistants to keep up and complete his coursework. Since he’s a part-time student in a special program, he was not allowed to live on campus. His commute from his parents’ home takes about two hours, and Fialka-Feldman felt he was missing out on campus life. He sued for the right to live in the on-campus residences, and recently found out he won. He’s hoping to move in soon, to begin his last semester at Oakland.

Many institutions limit on-campus housing to full-time students because allowing part-time students to live in campus might lead to other issues: people who are mostly non-students taking advantage of the low rental rates on campus; students with too much free time. However, this sort of policy excludes students such as Fialka-Feldman, who are part-time for other reasons. Students with varying disabilities (diagnosed or otherwise) make managing the living environment more challenging. On the other hand, students who drink too much, who violate the community rules or who avoid participating in community gatherings, also make it harder to nurture a cohesive and safe community. Not all disruptive factors can be controlled, and at what cost? Have you encountered similar issues on your campus? How have you dealt with them?

Jennifer Weiler, a freshman at Green Mountain College in Vermont, has sued the Vermont Department of Public Safety because Green Mountain offers co-ed bathrooms in her residence hall. Weiler contends that public buildings, including residence halls, are required by state law to offer bathrooms for men and women, and thus the state is remiss in policing its own policies. While the co-ed bathroom has private shower and toilet stalls Weiler says that men would often disrobe in the middle of the room. After she complained, the university designated one bathroom as female-only, but men kept using it anyway.

The suit echoes other bathroom issues nationwide, as students dispute if co-ed bathrooms are acceptable, if transgender students need their own washrooms, and so on. Our very own Communications Director, James Baumann, is quoted.

This week in Inside HigherEd, comparing two cities’ higher ed enrollment; community colleges gain students; Russian is the new hip language; a federal judge refuses a college’s request to allow a Supreme Court ruling to limit faculty speech; and Penn fires their basketball coach at an odd time. Plus, lots of Quick Takes for those of you in a quiet office.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES: Dissecting fall enrollments in Pittsburgh and Dallas, we find that public colleges boomed and independent institutions mostly held on, thanks to rising tide (and more merit aid). 

DEFINING THE ENROLLMENT BOOM: New study documents extent of the gains at community colleges, which are seeing particularly large increases in full-time students:

RUSSIA(N) IS BACK: Whether it’s Putin or Pushkin, student interest is sending language enrollments to levels unheard of since the Cold War:

FIRST AMENDMENT IN THE CLASSROOM: Federal judge rejects college’s request to apply Supreme Court ruling in way that would limit free speech rights of faculty members at public colleges:

JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE? Penn fires its men’s basketball coach midseason — an unusual step for any college, let alone an Ivy League sports program:

This week on Inside HigherEd, the Supreme Court will soon decide whether religious student groups at public colleges and universities can ban gay members; more institutions find that what seems like an awful time for class is a great time for some prospective students; Lincoln University backs off requiring a health class for obese students; the GRE is redone again and Pell costs go boom.

CONFLICTING RIGHTS: Supreme Court will decide whether public colleges can apply anti-bias rules — including bans on anti-gay discrimination– to religious student groups seeking recognition or funding.

IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR: Community colleges that started offering sections in the middle of the night are finding the strategy worked, and such scheduling is spreading to other institutions.

LINCOLN U. ENDS OBESITY RULE: Faculty members vote to keep health class that set off national debate, but to make it optional.

THE NEW GRE, REDUX: Key test for graduate admissions will lose antonyms and analogies, replace some geometry with data analysis, alter scoring, and let test takers move among questions. ETS calls shifts significant; critics see cosmetic changes.

PELL COSTS EXPLODE: With demand booming, U.S. says grant program’s price tag will soar by $18 billion through 2011. Democrats see no impact on student loan reform.

This week on Inside HigherEd, read about how colleges and universities are attempting, with mixed success,  to social-network for money; how fewer students are coming to the United States for higher eduation; and how students’ paid affects their lives.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA MAZE: Colleges are eager to leverage Facebook and Twitter to boost recruiting and fund raising, but many still don’t have a coherent strategy for how to do it.

WILL WORK FOR BEER: Economists find evidence that college students choose to take jobs not to pay tuition but to cover other expenses and, unless they work a lot, those jobs don’t do much to harm their academic performance.

INTERNATIONAL ‘LEAPFROGGING’: Study examines impact of decline in share of world’s college students who are educated in the United States.

COURSE HERO OR COURSE VILLAIN?: Professors worry that new companies might be making money from their copyrights while encouraging plagiarism among their students.

DARWIN, FROM THE CREATIONISTS: Anti-evolution group plans to distribute 100,000 copies of Origin of Species next month — with an introduction designed to undercut the book and promote a literal view of the Bible.

This week, Inside HigherEd features articles on the growth in Chinese applicants; students from virtual high schools and an analysis of which student aid programs really work.

EVALUATING ONLINE APPLICANTS: With the growth of virtual high schools, new issue surfaces for admissions officers.

‘THE CHINESE ARE COMING’: Colleges in U.S. see dramatic increases in undergraduate applications from world’s most populous nation — and face ethical issues raised by the way students are recruited and coached.

FORWARD INTO THE CLOUD: With more students auto-forwarding e-mail to private accounts, even colleges  that have not outsourced their e-mail find it difficult to keep correspondence on their own servers.

WHAT WORKS FOR THE NEEDY:Analysis of which financial aid programs most help low-income students says that simplicity often trumps targeting and finds promise in aid tied to academic performance and support services.

GROUP CHEMISTRY: U. of Maryland Baltimore County uses classroom technology and shifts student roles to boost grades, attendance, and retention in chemistry courses.

This week’s items from InsideHigherEd.com discuss what “college ready” really means, budget cut protests in California, and what the libraries of the future will look like.

’60s TACTICS, NEW CAUSE: With an approach reminiscent of the protest movement, University of California students, faculty and staff plan walkouts and teach-ins today in response to budget cuts.

THE LAST STOP: Among last to start classes in California, community colleges on quarter system struggle — amid severe budget cuts and overcrowding — to serve students being turned away elsewhere.

DEFINING ‘COLLEGE READY,’ NATIONALLY: State school officers and governors, with higher education’s help, develop “common standards”designed to align high school and college curriculums.

WHEN LESS IS MORE: Changes in essay requirements to apply to MIT and Penn reflect sense among admissions officers that students don’t need to write a book (or even 1,000 words).

LIBRARIES OF THE FUTURE: What will they look like? Prediction about vanishing physical infrastructure intrigues some college librarians and frustrates others.

Toni Greenslade-Smith, Associate Director of University Housing at Ohio State University and Charles Gibbs, Interim Vice-Provost for Student Affairs at Howard University talked to National Public Radio’s Linda Wertheimer about how they make roommate matches and deal with conflicts for a story on Tell Me More.

Online publication The Daily Beast wrote a story about room assignments, How to Play Roommate Roulette. As you may suspect, we did not suggest the headline. To cover our bases, I will add that ACUHO-I does not compare the assignments process to roulette (though it can make some of our members a bit shaky with anxiety) and we do not condone roulette in general, in residence halls or otherwise. That said, there’s a nifty photo essay about celebrities and their roommates.

Also, I heard a story on NPR’s Morning Edition that may be of interest to you: Becoming Close: The Geography of Friendship. The story discusses how friendships form, particularly in the college roommate housing context.