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.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
October 28, 2012, 1:47 pm
The Tempest Over a Study of Biology and Women’s Voting Patterns
When CNN posted a story about how ovulation supposedly affects women’s voting preferences, readers were outraged and the network pulled the story. But what about the study that story was based on? Over on Percolator, we ask the researcher to explain the work some have called “stupid” and “offensive.”
October 4, 2012, 2:41 pm
Presidential Candidates Are Urged to Strengthen Support for Public Colleges
The State Higher Education Executive Officers, a nonpartisan association, has written an open letter asking President Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, to strengthen federal support for public colleges.
In the letter, the association urges the candidates to sustain the amount of federal money for research as well as need-based student aid.
It’s not all about the money, though. State higher-education leaders also want the next president to continue to emphasize college completion as a national priority, and to support the development of clear educational standards from elementary school through college.
Higher education, the letter says, will be a key player in finding solutions to the difficult economic, environmental, and health-care challenges the country faces. “Without a stronger education system,” the letter says, “we will lack the human capital and technological…
October 4, 2012, 1:20 am
In Debate, Obama and Romney Clash Over Who Would Do More for Education
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and President Obama wave at the start of Wednesday night’s debate at the U. of Denver (Reuters/Rick Wilking/Landov).
In the first presidential debate of this fall’s campaign, which focused on domestic policy, President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, sparred over their tax plans, the federal deficit, Wall Street regulation, and health care.
Throughout the 90-minute debate Wednesday evening at the University of Denver, both candidates mentioned education several times in relation to its role in resolving the nation’s economic problems, and they sometimes traded barbs over whose policies would actually invest in education.
Mr. Obama charged that Mr. Romney’s economic plan would offer tax breaks to the richest Americans. Such a plan, he said, “will no…
October 2, 2012, 6:38 pm
In U.S. Senate Contest in Mass., Candidate’s Academic Post Is an Issue
Titles in academe can be a tricky issue, raising a host of complicated questions about identity, status, and etiquette.
But in one of the most closely watched Senate races this election season, the question of how to refer to a candidate who is also an academic is inherently a political one.
Elizabeth Warren (Photo by David Shankbone via Flickr/CC)
Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School who is running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, was asked at a debate on Tuesday night whether she was bothered by the practice of her opponent—Scott Brown, the Republican incumbent—of referring to her by her academic title.
“He always calls you ‘Professor Warren,’” said David Gregory, the NBC News journalist who moderated the debate. “Do you think he’s needling you, trying to cast you as an elitist …
October 2, 2012, 12:30 pm
Romney Says He Would Not Deport Illegal Students Who Hold Special Permits
Ahead of Wednesday’s first presidential debate, Mitt Romney has said that he would not repeal President Obama’s new policy granting a two-year hold on deportation for many young illegal immigrants, The Denver Post reports. After months of refusing to answer the question of how he would deal with the estimated 1.7 million young people who qualify for the Obama administration’s policy, Mr. Romney has now said that he would honor the special work permits until he could enact permanent reform.
“The people who have received the special visa that the president has put in place, which is a two-year visa, should expect that the visa would continue to be valid. I’m not going to take something that they’ve purchased,” Mr. Romney told the Post. “Before those visas have expired we will have the full immigration-reform plan that I’ve proposed.”
In June, President Obama’s decision to
September 21, 2012, 3:29 pm
In New Ad for Hispanic Voters, Romney Hits Obama on Soaring Tuition and Student Debt
Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign released a Spanish-language ad on Friday that blames President Obama and Democrats for rising tuition and high student-loan debt.
“Four years ago, Hispanics hoped Democrats would improve education,” the ad’s narrator says. “The reality is that more than 75 percent of the population thinks that college is not accessible, now that tuition costs have increased 25 percent under the Democrats and student debt is a trillion dollars.”
The advertisement uses footage of Mr. Obama’s promising “a historic commitment to education” and saying, “I want you to hold me accountable.”
The narrator concludes: ”On education, Obama and the Democrats have failed our children.”
The Obama campaign had previously, in an an advertisement last month, attacked Mr. Romney on the issue of college affordability, painting him as out of touch with students’ concerns…
September 7, 2012, 1:12 am
Student Aid Is a Recurring Theme as Obama Outlines Plans for a Second Term
Charlotte, N.C.—As he formally accepted his party’s nomination for a second term as president, Barack Obama framed this year’s election as a fundamental choice on important issues, including access to higher education.
President Obama, shown onstage with former President Bill Clinton at the convention on Wednesday, wove references to the importance of providing student aid into several parts of his acceptance speech on Thursday night. (Photo by Douglas Graham, CQ Roll Call, Getty)
In his 38-minute speech on Thursday night, Mr. Obama told an arena brimming to its legal capacity here that “no family should have to set aside a college acceptance letter because they don’t have the money.”
Mr. Obama listed as one of his achievements the end of the federal bank-based lending program, a move he said…
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