Entries for August 2009

The recession might be easing, but that doesn't mean law students will have an easier time finding jobs at top firms this fall, the New York Times reports.

Law students are competing for about half as many openings at the country's most prominent firms as their classmates were last year. For the first time in decades, the promise of a lucrative corporate law career for top students is uncertain, and in response, growing numbers of students are considering firms in smaller markets, opportunities in government, and jobs with public interest groups.

How bad is it?

California may be known worldwide for its inclusive, affordable, accessible network of higher education institutions, but a recent report highlights a schism in the system: Students are having an extremely difficult time transferring out of community colleges into four-year schools, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The research, conducted by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Cal State-Sacramento, shows that of the nearly 3 million students who attended a California community college during the 2007-2008 academic year, just 106,000 successfully transferred to University of California or California State University campuses, private colleges, or out-of-state schools. The report also found that if this trend continues, by 2025, there will be 1 million more jobs for college graduates in California than there are degree-holding residents.

A new poll taken by a professor at San Diego State University and Youth Pulse LLC found that students realize the attention-seeking, self-promoting reasons behind social networking, the San Diego
Union-Tribune reports.

Does this finding really surprise you? This morning, my Facebook news feed was filled with posts like this:

"[Name erased] is exhausted but ready for school to start on Monday after she enjoys a three-day weekend."

Who cares?

Well, according to the study, it doesn't really matter if anyone else cares. Two thirds of the 1,068 students from around the country who were polled agreed that their generation is narcissistic and overconfident. Of those polled, 92 percent regularly use Facebook or MySpace, and 84 percent said they go online several times each day. There's no truth to the rumor that they check for Paper Trail updates every 10 minutes.

"College students have clearly noticed the more self-centered traits of their peers—it's fascinating how honest they are about diagnosing their generation's downsides," says Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State and one of the poll's creators. "And students are right about the influence of social networking sites—research has shown that narcissistic people thrive on sites like Facebook, where self-centered people have more friends and post more attractive pictures of themselves."

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Known nationally as the "Lion of the Senate" and as one of the most effective legislators in the nation's history, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy—who died last Tuesday night of complications from terminal brain cancer—will also be remembered by the Harvard University community as one of its own, the Harvard Crimson reports.

As a child and young adult, Kennedy attended nearly a dozen different schools before graduating from Milton Academy in 1950 and subsequently enrolling in Harvard as his father and three brothers had done before him. But at the end of Kennedy's freshman year, the university suspended him after catching him cheating on a Spanish exam. For the next two years, Kennedy served in the U.S. Army as a military policeman in Paris before re-enrolling at Harvard in the fall of 1953.

Both before his suspension and upon his return, Kennedy was a reputable member of Harvard's football team. As a senior, he scored the only Harvard touchdown in that year's Harvard vs. Yale game. Instead of pursuing an offer to play professional football for the Green Bay Packers, Kennedy chose to attend law school at the University of Virginia.

In the half century following Kennedy's graduation from Harvard, he remained passionately connected to the university. He helped found the Institute of Politics, a center designed to commemorate the life and work of his brother John through research and scholarship. While serving on the institute's senior advisory committee, Kennedy hardly ever missed a meeting. He even joined in by teleconference when his declining health did not allow him to attend in person.

"We have been privileged and proud to have him as a member of the Harvard family, and I am one of the many, many people who will deeply miss his leadership, his courage, and his friendship," Harvard University President Drew G. Faust said in a statement released Wednesday morning.

In December 2008, Harvard awarded Kennedy an honorary degree in a special ceremony. He was supposed to receive the award at Harvard's June 2008 commencement ceremony but could not attend because of his battle with cancer.

"I hope that in all the time since [the 1950s] I have lived up to the chance Harvard gave me," Kennedy said after receiving his honorary doctorate. George Washington, Nelson Mandela, and Winston Churchill are the only other individuals to receive an honorary degree from Harvard at a special ceremony. "Now I know I have something in common with George Washington, other than being born on February 22," Kennedy said. "[Though] it is not being president, as I had once hoped."

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Southern Methodist University is one of a growing number of schools protesting a Bud Light advertising campaign that places school colors on beer cans, the Daily Campus reports.

University officials worry the "fan cans" will undermine their efforts to curb underage and binge drinking, especially after a series of SMU students died from alcohol and drug overdoses during the 2006-2007 academic year. "We are joining the chorus of universities that are opposing this," Lori White, SMU's vice president of student affairs, told the Dallas Morning News.

Fan cans that match the colors of SMU, Texas Christian University, and the University of North Texas have been scheduled for sale in markets near those Dallas-area schools, but it is now unclear whether the promotional cans will ever hit store shelves. Dallas Morning News reporters' hunt for the cans late Tuesday found cans colored blue and silver for the Dallas Cowboys but none with the SMU red and blue.

"This is a voluntary program made available to all wholesalers nationwide, and roughly half of our wholesalers are participating," says Carol Clark, an Anheuser-Busch InBev vice president. "Certain cans are not being made available in communities where organizations had asked us not to offer them."

It is unclear how many schools nationwide have asked the company not to include them in the promotion, and even SMU officials concede they have not yet asked Anheuser-Busch to halt the school's participation in the program because they have not yet seen the SMU-inspired fan cans in stores.

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Here's another ray of recession sunshine for students at Florida's public universities and community colleges: The state will start charging students who begin their freshman year in 2009 half the cost of a credit for extra credit hours taken at state schools, the University of South Florida's Oracle reports.

The price of excess credit will fluctuate with tuition fees, so expect to see the fee rise, says Glen Besterfield, associate dean of undergraduate studies at USF.

It's a creative way to make some money off kids who take large numbers of credits. Only 120 credits are needed to graduate from Florida schools, like most places, and many students go way over that number before graduating.

"When you have students who . . . are graduating in 170, 180 hours, what they are doing is taking seats in classrooms away from other students," Besterfield tells the Oracle. "So, now we have an access issue—we can't admit more students if we've got students hanging around here longer than necessary to get their degree."

If payments aren't made, schools like USF are considering ways to force a student's hand. Angela DeBose, director of the school's registrar's office, says students might not be able to register for classes or obtain a transcript if there are outstanding payments due. And if the student is nearing graduation, they may not get their diploma or earn a degree.

The Oracle reports that the credits that are counted include all credits taken at a state or community college, even failed, repeated, and dropped courses. A number of credits will be exempted from the new fee: credits from classes taken more than twice; from another school that don't count toward a degree; from a second major; internships; Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses; certificate and certification courses; remedial and English-as-a-second-language courses; and any classes taken by active-duty military personnel.

We've heard of the U.S. government outsourcing parts of its ground operations in Iraq to private contractors who operate as complementary forces to the military. This school year, the University of Southern California will try the same approach—on a much smaller scale, of course.

The massive private college in Los Angeles has hired Contemporary Services Corp. to help protect students in areas near the campus, the Daily Trojan reports. There will be 22 security officers stationed at fixed locations around the school, and they'll be wearing the same yellow jackets security wears at sporting events.

The reasoning behind hiring the service is simple: USC can't afford to hire and train 22 new campus police officers, so the contracted security "ambassadors"—as they're being called—will stand guard and observe and report anything suspicious in their area.

Students seem to be on board with the idea.

"I like it because, if they're stationary, then I'll know if I have to run somewhere, that's where I'm running," says one student.

There's a litter problem at the University of Kansas. But if a trio of campus groups has its way, that issue will be remedied quickly. All it takes is some cooperation.

KU Recycling; the Center for Sustainability; and Facilities Operations and Housekeeping have teamed up to launch the Campus Litter Reduction Campaign, which will aim to cut down the trash on campus and limit the extra work for campus housekeeping, the Daily Kansan reports.

"We want to spread awareness that it's on us to keep these rooms clean during the day," Celeste Hoins, administrative manager for KU Recycling, tells the Daily Kansan. "It's littering. We shouldn't do it on the street; why would we want to dirty up our hallways and classrooms?"

The university will attempt to make recycling and trash bins more visible to students. There will also be videos played between classes that advertise the new campaign.

"It's your stuff," says one student. "It shouldn't be anybody else's problem. This is everyone's campus, you just need to do your part and keep everything picked up."

Portland State University is about to get a whole lot greener, but no one is planting trees. The University of Oregon system is planning something much bigger: a $90 million, 220,000-square-foot building called the Oregon Sustainability Center, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

The building will be next to PSU's campus in the heart of Portland and will house auditoriums, classrooms, meeting spaces, and some school-affiliated offices.

What makes it so "green"? To start, there will be shifting temperatures and limits on water and electrical outlet use.

"My biggest concern from a risk-management factor is: Is this thing going to be such a freak that nobody will want to live in it or work in it?" Jay Kenton, the Oregon University System's vice chancellor for finance and administration, told the Chronicle.

For the second time, a college hoops team coached by John Calipari will have its wins vacated by the NCAA, a source told the Memphis Commercial Appeal. In 1996, the University of Massachusetts team that was coached by Calipari had its season's accomplishments, which included 36 wins and a Final Four appearance, erased. Now, the NCAA will scrap the achievements of Calipari's 2007-2008 University of Memphis team, which won an NCAA record 38 games and lost in the national championship game.

The source told the newspaper that the largest factors in the NCAA's decision were Derrick Rose's falsified SAT scores (another person took the test for him) and the school's poor monitoring of its charter plane, which had some $2,000 in unpaid travel expenses from Rose's brother.

It's not clear what, if any, punishment will be given to the University of Memphis, which is now coached by Josh Pastner, a former assistant to Calipari. Calipari took the head coaching position at the University of Kentucky after the 2008-2009 season.

A federal judge on Monday ruled in favor of the University of Texas-Austin and against two white applicants to the state's flagship public college who sued because they felt the school's admissions policies unfairly favored minority applicants, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks found that the university's admissions policies were narrowly tailored, especially in terms of race, and therefore constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the University of Michigan Law School's use of race in admissions, guided Sparks's decision. "The Texas solicitor general summarized this case best when he stated, 'If the plaintiffs are right, Grutter is wrong,' " Sparks wrote in his decision.

Two Texans, Abigail Fisher of Sugar Land and Rachel Michalewicz of Buda, filed the lawsuit together last year. The suit argued that the university should not have started considering applicants' races when it had in place a more effective, race-neutral approach to achieve diversity. The suit refers to a law in place since 1997 that automatically grants admission to any of the state's public colleges or universities to Texas students in the top 10 percent of their high school class.

In Grutter v. Bollinger, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that colleges may consider race in admissions but must first give "serious, good-faith consideration" to "workable, race-neutral" alternatives to achieve diversity. Race-conscious policies must be narrowly tailored to promote a compelling government interest, the court said. Since Grutter, the University of Texas has reintroduced some consideration of race into the application process to ensure greater diversity than the 10 percent law can achieve.

The Montana university system has extended registration and other deadlines for students fighting to prevent the wildfires that often ravage the state at this time of year, the Associated Press reports.

Student firefighters and those providing support services for crews will have two weeks after the start of the fall semester to finalize their registration, financial aid, and housing, the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education says. After receiving record rainfall in August, state and local officials view the current wildfire threat as low, but they want to be prepared.

For the thousands of Michigan college students whose financial situations have soured like the economy since they applied for aid last spring, the financial aid appeals process could be their ticket back to college, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Although applications for federal financial aid typically are due in the spring, experts say it's not too late for families to seek more robust financial aid packages. Financial aid appeals have jumped about 60 percent at Western Michigan University and Northern Michigan University. Wayne State University saw a fivefold increase in appeals this summer, while Michigan State University's financial aid office saw appeals more than double.

Many colleges and universities are investing in professors' increased use of technology in the classroom, but at least one dean is pushing for the opposite, something he calls "teaching naked," National Public Radio reports.

Jose Bowen, dean of the Southern Methodist University Meadows School of the Arts, is encouraging professors to stop using technology in the classroom and instead alter current lecture-based collegiate teaching models. Instead of having students come to class to ingest information being disseminated by a lecturing professor (likely one using PowerPoint or Blackboard), Bowen wants students to use these technologies to familiarize themselves with material before coming to class. He then hopes class time can be devoted to discussion of course material among students and their professor.

Summer reading has long been an activity synonymous with books considered "classics," but this summer incoming freshmen at one Massachusetts college were asked to read the newspaper in lieu of a novel, the Boston Globe reports.

Students preparing to attend the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., were asked to read a newspaper, post interesting articles to an online forum, and use the forum to discuss those articles with their classmates. Faculty members hope the untraditional assignment will expand students' understanding of the world, improve their writing and critical thinking skills, and help them connect with one another.