The 2012 Election:
What Academe Needs to Know
There's more at stake than which candidates win federal and state offices. Explore our election guide to find out what's at stake for student aid, for-profit colleges, research, and more.
Author Archives: Lee Gardner
November 7, 2012, 4:29 am
Calif. Voters Approve Ballot Measure to Stave Off ‘Trigger Cuts’ at State Colleges
On the same night that President Obama won a convincing victory in a race for re-election that at one time was considered too close to call, Gov. Jerry Brown of California appears to have pulled off a win in a similar squeaker. The Democratic governor declared victory for Proposition 30, a ballot measure crucial to the financial future of California’s public colleges. Proposition 30 led 54 percent to 46 percent with 87 percent of precincts reporting.
Governor Brown introduced the measure in order to help cover a $16.7-billion state-budget shortfall. If it passed, Prop 30 would raise the sales tax by a quarter of a cent and increase the income tax on top earners. If it failed, the governor’s 2013 budget called for a series of “trigger cuts” that would reduce state support for the University of California system, the California State University system, and the California Community…
September 19, 2012, 5:02 pm
Universities Group Recommends Research-Friendly Policies for Next President
Paying for college may be the big higher-education issue in this year’s presidential race, but research universities hope whoever wins in November will keep them in mind as well. The Association of American Universities has released a policy paper, titled “Partnering for a Prosperous & Secure Future,” that suggests ways the next administration can work with research universities to their mutual benefit.
If you’ve read the National Research Council’s recent report on the state of American research universities, the association’s report will ring familiar. Among other things, it recommends that the next president:
- Sustain support for student access, via direct federal aid and by ensuring that student-loan programs “encourage sound borrowing and manageable repayment plans.”
- Enact “comprehensive” immigration reform, including turning “immigrant talent into American talent” with…
September 18, 2012, 1:06 pm
Florida Professor on Leave After Campaigning-for-Obama Controversy
A community-college professor in Florida has taken a leave of absence after she was accused of electioneering on behalf of President Obama in class.
Sharon Sweet, an associate professor of mathematics at Brevard Community College, in Cocoa, Fla., is being investigated for allegedly urging her students to vote for Mr. Obama and distributing printed pro-Obama campaign material to them.
On Thursday, Brevard received a complaint from a parent of a student in one of the five classes Ms. Sweet teaches on the college’s Melbourne campus, said John J. Glisch, its associate vice president for communications. (She teaches an additional class online.) College policy forbids faculty members to engage in political activity during class.
Mr. Glisch added that the college was treating the complaint “very, very seriously” and was conducting “an extremely thorough investigation” that would…
September 12, 2012, 1:01 pm
Facebook Can Motivate Users, and Friends of Users, to Political Action, Study Finds
Regular users of Facebook may be so weary of political messages in their news feeds that they try to tune them out, or wish they could. But a recent study from the University of California at San Diego, conducted with the cooperation of Facebook, found that the social-media service could effectively influence hundreds of thousands more voters to head to the polls.
The lead author, James H. Fowler, a professor of medical genetics and political science at UC-San Diego, said that the study, published in Nature, had been devised “to see whether or not a political message might not just affect your behavior, but might spread through the network and affect your friends’ behavior, and that’s exactly what we found.”
During the 2010 Congressional elections, more than 60 million Facebook users who logged in on November 2 received a nonpartisan “get out the vote” message in their feeds, with …
August 31, 2012, 3:26 pm
Lynn U. Rolls Out Curriculum Devoted to U.S. Presidency and Debates
On October 22, Lynn University will welcome President Obama and the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, to its campus, in Boca Raton, Fla., for their third and final presidential debate. By then, Lynn’s 1,600 students should be well prepared for the rhetorical battle, thanks to 80 classes related to the presidency and political debates that the private, nonprofit university added to its catalog for the fall semester.
Shortly after the college learned last fall that it had won the right to host one of the presidential debates, Gregg C. Cox, vice president for academic affairs, says he “immediately went to the faculty and said, ‘Here’s an opportunity. We’ve got something right here on our campus that will help ignite some excitement in our students.’”
Mr. Cox asked the faculty to examine existing courses and seek to tailor the material in ways that would complement the…
August 30, 2012, 1:01 am
In Scant References to Higher Ed, Ryan Digs at Obama
Rep. Paul Ryan during a walk-through before his speech. (Photo by Charles Dharapak, AP Images)
Rep. Paul Ryan accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for vice president of the United States on Wednesday night with a speech that contained only a few brief references to higher education.
Addressing the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., Mr. Ryan hammered “Obamacare” and President Obama’s handling of the economy. Early in his speech, however, he mentioned college students among those affected by the nation’s slow economic recovery. Of the “millions of young Americans” who have graduated from college during the past four years, Mr. Ryan said, “half of them can’t find the work they studied for, or any work at all.”
This was an apparent reference to a Rutgers University study, released in May, that …
August 28, 2012, 1:41 pm
Obama Goes on College Tour
As the national news media focus on Tampa, Fla., for this week’s Republican National Convention, President Obama has embarked on a brief college tour.
Mr. Obama is scheduled to make stops at Iowa State University on Tuesday, Colorado State University at Fort Collins on Tuesday, and the University of Virginia on Wednesday. UVa officials declined the Obama campaign’s request to have the president speak at the institution, citing a desire to avoid disruption for students on the second day of fall-semester classes. His appearance will take place nearby.
Mr. Obama is expected to tout his administration’s record on increasing federal aid to college students.
Speaking of the convention, watch this space for coverage of the Republican gathering as well as next week’s Democratic National Convention, in Charlotte, N.C., both by The Chronicle’s own Michael Stratford.
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