Entries for February 2009

Much like the Arizona State system, the University of Arizona is trimming its budget. Arizona likely will merge the College of Fine Arts into the newly combined Colleges of Letters, Arts, and Sciences (formerly four separate colleges, until restructuring plans were announced in December) and eliminate several College of Education degrees.

With the addition of the fifth school, the Colleges of Letters, Arts and Sciences will now house more than half of the undergraduate students at the University of Arizona. Officials estimate the entire consolidation process will save the university about $2 million, which will barely put a dent in the $76 million in state cuts the school faces.

Meanwhile, the education school has proposed to cut two bachelor's degrees—secondary education and physical education. Future secondary education students will be rerouted into a similar master's degree program while current students will be able to continue their degree as planned.

The physical education degree is being cut entirely because of lack of demand. "We found that after researching local schools and statistics, there was not a real critical need for physical education teachers at this time," an education professor told the Daily Wildcat..

University hiring freezes are the norm nowadays, but the Tennessee Board of Regents—which controls Tennessee's six state universities, 13 community colleges, and 26 technology centers—is taking it to the next level, suspending its search for a new chancellor.

The board cited the economy and a potential restructuring of the state's entire higher education system, and it has asked the current chancellor, who had planned to retire, to stay on for the time being.

Worried that a sour economy will drastically decrease the number of out-of-state admitted students who choose to enroll and consequently the amount of tuition coming in, the University of Maryland has accepted more nonresident students this year compared with last, the Diamondback reports.

The numbers:

• Nonresidents pay $21,637 a year; residents pay $6,566.
• Nonresidents make up 24 percent of the student body (70 percent of the student body must be in-state students, a Board of Regents policy dictates).
• Nonresidents make up more than half the university's tuition revenue. "We're dependent on the 24 percent to balance the budget," said John Blair, the university's director of budget and fiscal analysis.
• For every 1,000 in-state students enrolled instead of out-of-state students, the university loses $15 million, Blair said.

University officials say the school isn't necessarily hoping to boost the number of out-of-state students who enroll but instead is making an effort to maintain the current ratio.

UC-Santa Barbara has noticed a spike in student suicide attempts, the Daily Nexus reports. Counseling services on campus reported four suicide attempts this quarter (starting January 5) and recorded a 22 percent increase between 2006 and 2007.

There is only speculation about why the numbers have gone up (the economy, the September 11 attacks), but officials stress that there is a difference between suicide and suicide attempts. "Out of the UCs, we have fewer suicides," counseling services director Jeanne Stanford said. "What we've seen here, though, is an increase in suicide attempts and an increase in people thinking about suicide."

Budget cuts most likely aren't helping the situation. A proposal for a suicide prevention program has been tabled, and an effort to hire more counselors to bring the psychologist-to-student ratio closer to 1 to 1,500, rather than the current 1 to 1,900, has also gone nowhere of late. Instead, the school has set up a 24-hour suicide prevention hotline and will continue to rely on student health services, which houses two social workers, a full medical staff, and a psychiatry program.

In addition to Wisconsin, Georgetown, Rutgers, Miami, and Houston, several more schools have dropped their Russell Athletic contracts following allegations that the company closed a factory in Honduras after unionizing efforts took place.

The schools:

Cornell University
Harvard University
Penn State University
Purdue University
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota
University of Washington

Am I missing anyone else?

What happens when you share a name with a disgraced Texas businessman who has been accused of running an $8 billion Ponzi scheme? First thing's first: You issue a press release, which is exactly what Stanford University did soon after news of Robert Allen Stanford's alleged wrongdoings broke.

To clarify, from the Stanford Daily:

1. Stanford University has no formal ties to Robert Stanford.
2. Over the past 10 years or so, the university has sued the businessman and his holdings several times over trademark infringement. They say he has used "willfully confusing imitations" of the Stanford University brand on his company website, on company apparel, advertisements in The New York Times, and sponsorships of various sporting events.
3. Stanford (the man) has said he is related to Leland Stanford, the college's founder. The school and its archivists said it has not been able to find any familial ties.
4. Stanford (the man) donated $2.5 million to the Leland Stanford Mansion Foundation and is a member of the organization's board, according to the foundation's website. The mansion is not affiliated directly with the university (only that they share the same namesake) and is actually a historic state park.

The writing and math tutoring centers at the University of Connecticut have been hit with a budget double whammy this year. As funding has been cut 3 percent schoolwide, the two tutoring centers have seen the number of visits skyrocket, presumably because students are turning to the study centers because face time with professors and teaching assistants is becoming scarce, the Daily Campus reports.

In particular, the math department has reduced the number of classes and increased class size. At the same time, the Quantitative Learning Center saw the number of visits jump from 7,000 visits in the fall 2007 to 9,279 this past fall.

The University of Massachusetts trustees are likely to approve a 15 percent tuition hike for all in-state students. That is a $1,500 increase, bringing the average tuition to $11,000 a year. The fee hike would take effect next year.

Along with the tuition hike, the five-campus system plans to reduce spending by about $50 million.

Meanwhile, the faculty at the University of Massachusetts in both Amherst and Boston has agreed to a wage freeze this year. The contract deal, reached Friday, raises salaries by 1.5 percent next year and 3.5 percent the following year.

Yale president Richard Levin announced that construction on two new residential colleges would be delayed, and that the parts of the university's budget—staff salaries and nonpersonnel costs—would be reduced 7.5 percent as opposed to the previously reported 5 percent.

Duke is preparing plans to "gradually" shrink its budget by more than 5 percent per year, roughly $100 million, over about two years. "What you're going to see is Duke become a smaller place over time," said Duke's executive vice president. Personnel will likely be hit first, with likely hundreds of nonvital positions left unfilled.

The University of Idaho has warned six nontenured faculty in its math department to start looking for jobs. Although they have not yet been formally laid off, a 7 to 10 percent budget cut is not a particularly encouraging outlook.

About 250 employees at Iowa State have volunteered for furloughs, saving the university around $420,000 or approximately 7 percent of the budget cuts needed.

Texas Christian University's athletic department is cutting back, making plans order equipment in bulk, planning travel further in advance, and scheduling competitions that are closer to home.

Bowling Green State University will cut off Saturday mail service in the dorms, which will save the school $50,000 a year.

Nicholls State University has cut the free printing allotment for students from 250 pages a semester to 100.

The College of New Jersey hosted Ann Coulter last week, and as could be expected, a trail of controversy was left in her wake. Coulter was invited by the College Republicans and gave a 45-minute speech that plugged her new book, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America.

Thirty minutes into the speech, up to 50 students staged a planned protest, standing up, and walking out of the auditorium, a disruption that protest planners called a "great success." The speech was also preceded by an old-fashioned sign-holding and yelling protest.

The excitement, of course, did not end there. At a book signing after the event, one student was arrested for disorderly conduct, and that student is now alleging the police showed "aggression and unprofessionalism" during the arrest. Police officials say they are looking into the accusation.

The Harvard Crimson treats us today with a series of stories about how a suffering endowment is affecting the school.

First off, Harvard is postponing plans to open an office in Beijing, designed to assist students studying in China. The move will save the university $500,000. Harvard opened its first China outpost in Shanghai last summer and had planned to open offices in Mumbai and Mexico City as well as Beijing. The projects have been tabled indefinitely.

Meanwhile, the Harvard College Library is trying to cut $12 million from its budget. It expects layoffs in the spring and now is shuffling personnel, eliminating some print subscriptions, and in general being more financially conscientious.

Lastly, Harvard is also slowing construction on its science complex in the Allston neighborhood of Boston. And people are none too happy about it.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for Greek-letter organizations nationwide. Five words: bad, bad fraternities and sororities.

At Miami University in Ohio, the Tri Delta sorority has been suspended for two years by its national organization for hazing, the Miami Student reports. According to the university's formal charges against the sorority, several pledges required medical attention after they were taken off campus, blindfolded, and forced to drink "excessive amounts of alcohol" at a January 29 event, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Also at Miami, the Sigma Nu fraternity has been suspended for two semesters by the university. The school found the fraternity guilty of violating university alcohol policies and engaging in disorderly conduct at a December 6 event, where a fight broke out between organization members and bar patrons, requiring police presence. The school's report also said that a bus driver accused the group of being "unruly and violent" and that underage members had been allowed to drink alcohol. Sigma Nu already has appealed the suspension and had it reduced from an original penalty of three semesters. Sigma Nu's adviser told the Miami Student that "it is upsetting that the actions of a few individuals, which we don't endorse or approve, have affected the more than 90 members that are in Sigma Nu."

Penn State's Beta Theta Pi fraternity was officially disbanded by its national organization last week and will be forced to vacate its house by the second week of March, the Daily Collegian reports. The fraternity was put on interim suspension after numerous allegations of policy violations, including hazing. The group was formally disbanded after "the chapter disregarded imposed sanctions."

The Alpha Tau Omega fraternity at De Pauw was put on probation last week, while two other fraternities, Phi Kappa Psi and Delta Tau Delta, had their probations extended, the De P auw reports. All the punishments are related to party and alcohol violations. The Delta president declined to comment; Phi Kappa Psi's president says, "It's a temporary thing"; and ATO's president, while accepting the probation, says, "We felt that punishment didn't fit the violation we had."

Last fall, George Washington University's medical school was put on probation by its accrediting body. The school cited several superficial reasons for the probation—lounge space and administrative paperwork problems—but both the GW Hatchet and the Washington Post (quoted below) report that there have been a number of complaints that point to problems much more severe.

According to a confidential evaluation document and interviews, GWU has done an inadequate job of monitoring students' time with patients and ensuring that those clinical experiences relate to classroom learning. Student debt levels are among the highest in the country, according to the seven-page letter sent by the accrediting agency in June and later obtained by The Post. Students complained of mistreatment. Problems flagged as long ago as 2001 still had not been addressed when the school was put on probation.

The Hatchet also reports that one post-probation complaint alleged that the school violated at least 26 accreditation standards, including the use of a rotting cadaver in an anatomy class.

GW officials maintain that the issues that led to the probationary status can be easily resolved and in some cases have already been remedied. The medical school's officials say that the accrediting agency already has approved GW's plan for improvements.

The University of Georgia president has apologized to the Catholic League for an STD/birth flier that used Christian imagery to explain how to use condoms properly, the Red and Black reports. The flier features the hand of God giving a condom to man. The flier was distributed in dorms by the university health service as part of Sexual Health Awareness Week, which ended last Friday.

The poster prompted the Catholic League to write in a letter:

I understand that the University of Georgia has just finished having Sexual Responsibility Week. If condom distribution is to be part of that program, surely it can be done without needlessly offending the religious sensibilities of Catholics and Protestants.

I hasten to add that the University of Georgia would never choose a depiction of Muhammad to hawk condoms. Indeed, only a few years ago an inoffensive depiction of this Islamic figure in a Danish cartoon led to murder and churches being burned to the ground. One can only imagine what would have happened had he been portrayed pushing condoms to youth.

Upon receiving the complaint Wednesday, the Georgia president quickly apologized to the league—even though the fliers had been taken down last week.

George Mason University has crowned a new kind of homecoming queen: She is actually a he, but in drag. Ryan Allen was named queen at GMU's Saturday basketball game, beating two female contestants. The selection has, not surprisingly, caused some controversy, the Washington Post writes.

Mason was recently named the No. 1 national university to watch by U.S.News & World Report, said one student—it should act like it.

"It's really annoying," said [the student], who works as an ambassador for the admissions office. "The game was on TV. Everyone was there. All eyes were on us. And we do something like this? It's just stupid."

But enough about that controversial stuff. How'd Allen do it?

Allen said he decided to enter the Ms. Mason contest this year as a joke, a last hurrah for his senior year. Soon he had donned a silver bra and zebra-print pants and was lip-syncing to Britney Spears's "Womanizer" at the qualifying pageant Feb. 9, overseen by Miss Virginia 2009. Competitors included a government and politics major from Chesapeake and a Chi Omega sorority member. . . .

Allen. . . endured years of taunts from classmates after coming out during his freshman year in high school. When Allen came to Mason in 2005, his world grew wider. His drag alter ego, Reann [Ballslee], began performing at nightclubs. . . His fame grew as each year he emceed Mason's drag show, held during Pride Week. And with fame, acceptance.

Then came Saturday.

"When they said 'Ms. Mason 2009 is Reann Ballslee,' the crowd went wild," Allen said. "It was one of the best feelings I've felt in a long time. I had so many friends supporting me."