May 15, 2013, 3:51 pm
By Lee Gardner
When the Tennessee Higher Education Commission contacted Berry College recently and demanded money, the president of the Georgia college, Stephen R. Briggs, was taken aback.
“We were kind of stunned,” he said. “You’ve gotta be kidding?”
At issue was a single billboard Berry had rented near Nashville that features a flattering view of the campus, the slogan “26,000 acres of opportunity,” and the college’s name and Web address.
The billboard doesn’t mention that the small private college is in Rome, Ga., about 200 miles down the interstate from Nashville. But the commission told Berry that, under Tennessee law, the out-of-state college needed to register as an educational institution in Tennessee—paying a hefty fee in the process—or face stiff fines.
Berry responded on Monday with a lawsuit filed in federal court against the Tennessee Higher Education…
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May 7, 2013, 1:43 pm
By Lee Gardner
The broader economy sputters on, but cash is gushing into the University of Texas at Austin at an unprecedented rate. On Monday the flagship institution announced that it had raised $302-million so far during the fiscal year that ends on August 31—an average of $1-million in gifts per business day. At the same point last year, it had raised $222-million.
The university is on pace to break its previous annual fund-raising record, of $366-million in 2008.
A substantial part of the current total derives from the flagship’s incipient medical school. In January the university announced that the computer magnate Michael Dell and his wife Susan had contributed $50-million through their foundation to establish the Dell Medical School, which is scheduled to enroll its first class in 2016. (The state’s higher-education coordinating board has suggested that Texas universities refrain from …
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April 19, 2013, 2:01 pm
By Lee Gardner
Colleges may still be unsettled by the prospect of MOOCs, but they are increasingly comfortable with another Web-based game-changer: social media.
On Thursday the Council for Advancement and Support of Education released its latest annual survey of social-media use by colleges, with more than 1,000 institutions responding. (The full results are here.) Colleges may be more social-media savvy, perhaps even social-media dependent, but at most colleges it’s still something employees do on the side.
Not surprisingly, the two most popular social media used by colleges over all remain Facebook (used by 96 percent) and Twitter (82 percent). The use of the photo-sharing site Flickr has declined, from 51 percent in 2012 to 38 percent this year. While colleges have begun to use newer (and younger-skewing) social media such as Instagram and Tumblr, which were not included in the CASE survey…
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March 29, 2013, 4:55 am
By Lee Gardner
Four-year colleges have long made a high priority of maintaining relationships with their alumni, who offer a durable source of support for their alma maters. That hasn’t been as much the case at two-year colleges, where even what constitutes an alumnus—someone who earned an associate degree? a guy who took a class once?—varies from institution to institution.
The results of a new survey, conducted by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, highlight both the often feeble job that community colleges do in cultivating their alumni and the benefits for those that do it well.
According to data gathered from 133 institutions that responded to the survey, about 46 percent of community colleges dedicate only one full-time employee to alumni relations. At about 35 percent of colleges, that single employee works part time. The survey also found that community colleges’ …
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March 20, 2013, 3:07 pm
By Lee Gardner
Three weeks after introducing an updated costume for its Sparky the Sun Devil mascot, Arizona State University is going back to the drawing board for a new new look—this one to be determined by popular vote.
Last week the university was still playing down the protests against the new mascot costume, rolled out on March 1. ASU attributed the outcry against the anime-ish redesign to a small but vocal minority of students, alumni, and fans whose displeasure was amplified by social media.
But on Tuesday the university announced that it would redesign the mascot costume’s head based on the votes of “members of the Sun Devil community,” according to a written statement. The new new look will be unveiled at Arizona State’s first football game this fall.
Software is being designed to allow those on the university’s mailing list to vote online in about four weeks on specific features…
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March 12, 2013, 1:19 am
By Lee Gardner
The new Sparky (right) got his look as part of a campaign to attract younger fans. (Photo courtesy Arizona State U.)
Some of the early buzz on the new look for Sparky, the Arizona State University Sun Devils’ mascot, has been, well, diabolical.
“Creepy” has popped up several times since its unveiling, on March 1.
“Sparky looks like he is on meth,” one Internet commenter offered.
“It’s like a cross between Jafar from ‘Aladdin’ and the honey bee from the Honey Nut Cheerios commercials, with a little bit of Buzz Lightyear thrown in,” the ASU State Press opined.
Even worse, as far as some students and alumni are concerned, “none of the stakeholders were brought up to date that this was coming,” said Shaun Bainbridge, a 2000 graduate who is president of an ASU alumni group in Colorado and one of the…
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March 7, 2013, 12:01 am
By Lee Gardner
The liberal arts may be facing waning public financial support and increased pressure to show their career benefits to graduates, but the University of Michigan’s graduate program in creative writing just received a hefty vote of confidence. The Associated Press reports that Helen Zell, wife of the billionaire Sam Zell and a Michigan alumna, is making a $50-million gift to the program.
Ms. Zell has donated about $10-million to the university in recent years via the Zell Family Foundation, of which she is executive director. The new gift—the third largest in the institution’s history, according to the AP—will support Michigan’s renowned Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, which will be renamed in her honor. The program’s unusual year of postgraduate support is already known as a “Zellowship.”
Ms. Zell graduated from Michigan in 1964 with a degree in…
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March 3, 2013, 9:58 pm
By Lee Gardner
Bottom Line is rounding up the latest news and reports on other Web sites about the potential effects of sequestration, the mandatory federal spending cuts that kicked in March 1. This is the latest in a series of posts.
- As mandated by law, President Obama signed orders on March 1 to begin the process known as sequestration. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued its required report to Congress on the details of the cuts. Specifics on how and when the cuts are to be carried out have yet to be released.
- The Association of American Medical Colleges has joined the chorus warning against the deleterious effects for health care. In a statement, it said that cuts to federal funds for research and doctor training “will not just have an impact this year, they will have consequences for years to come.”
- The American Indian Higher Education Consortium also released a
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March 1, 2013, 4:55 am
By Lee Gardner
Bottom Line is rounding up reports on other Web sites about the potential effects of sequestration, the mandatory federal spending cuts that kicked in at midnight. This is the latest in a series of posts.
- Boston University is among the institutions where the effects of the sequester have already been felt, according to an article on its BU Today Web site. The university has already seen some federal research grants withheld, with accompanying layoffs and hiring freezes. Notable quote, from Provost Jean Morrison: “The loss of federal revenue cannot be made up elsewhere.”
- Elsewhere, colleges in Western Michigan are bracing for reduced financial aid, and the University of Vermont and the University of Minnesota are pondering millions of dollars cut from their research budgets. Notable quote, from Len Biernat, a law professor at Hamline University: “This is a crazy way to operate.…
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February 27, 2013, 8:32 pm
By Lee Gardner
Bottom Line is rounding up reports on other Web sites about the potential effects of sequestration, the mandatory federal spending cuts scheduled to kick in on Friday. This is the latest in a series of posts.
- The National Skills Coalition is warning that sequestration would “devastate” job-training programs. According to a report the group released last week and an infographic released on Wednesday, sequestration would slash more than $450-million from federal job-training programs this year, shutting out more than two million workers from services that might help them find new jobs.
- Likewise, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology cautions that sequestration will have “devastating” effects on biomedical research. The group, a coalition of biomedical-research associations, released an analysis on Wednesday that forecasts a $1.2-billion loss in research grants …
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