November 7, 2008
Thanks for Reading Campaign U.
After many months of twists and turns, the 2008 election season has come to a close. And that brings us to the end of our Campaign U. blog, too.
Thanks for joining us over the past year as we covered the various ways that higher education intersected with the campaigns and the candidates.
Watch for updates on Barack Obama’s transition to the presidency and his new administration elsewhere on our site, including on our news blog. We’ll also be closely following the new players and policy debates in Congress and in the states in our Government & Politics section.
Thanks again for reading.
Sara Hebel | Posted on Fri Nov 7, 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comment [1]November 6, 2008
UT-Brownsville President Chosen for Obama Transition Team
President-elect Barack Obama is still forming his transition team, but he’s already planning to include a college president with roots in the national higher-education establishment.
Mr. Obama has chosen Juliet V. Garcia, president of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, to help him find top officials to serve in his administration, The Brownsville Herald has reported.
Ms. Garcia is the first Mexican-American woman to head a four-year U.S. university, and is also a former chairman of the American Council on Education.
She also was chairman of the federal government’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance and has served on the National Advisory Council on Institutional Quality and Integrity, the federal body in charge of reviewing accrediting agencies.
Mr. Obama’s transition team is looking to fill hundreds of top-level federal positions in the 10 weeks before his inauguration, including dozens that could have implications for higher-education policy and spending.
Ms. Garcia was not available today for comment, though she provided The Brownsville Herald with a written statement saying she was “greatly honored” by the president-elect’s request. Her husband, Oscar Garcia, told the newspaper that her selection for the transition team was completely unexpected.
Paul Basken | Posted on Thu Nov 6, 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comment [4]Election Scholars’ 2008 Post Mortems
As our campaign blog winds toward its demise, let’s revisit a few of the political scientists who have been featured in The Chronicle this fall:
1. Two weeks ago, we profiled Andrew Gelman, a political statistician at Columbia University. At the end of that article, we quoted Gelman saying that on election night, he’d stay up late like the rest of the world.
Indeed he did. At 3:01 on Wednesday morning, Gelman sent an e-mail message announcing that he had posted a quick-and-dirty analysis of the exit polls.
The most interesting shift, in Gelman’s eyes: The sharp leftward movement among younger voters.
On Wednesday, Gelman also posted items on income and voting, the Congressional sweepstakes, and voter turnout since 1948.
Today he seems to be catching up on sleep.
2. Back in September, we looked at the stylized election forecasts being peddled by eight political scientists.
The goal of their exercises is to predict the share of the popular vote (excluding minor parties’ votes) that each presidential candidate will earn – and to make those predictions as early as possible, with as few variables as possible. (One scholar’s model, for example, uses just three variables: economic growth during the second quarter of the election year, the incumbent president’s approval rating, and the number of terms that the incumbent party has held the White House.)
According to this morning’s tallies, Barack Obama has won 53.1 percent of the two-party vote. So the winners appear to be Robert S. Erikson of Columbia University and Christopher Wlezien of Temple University, who at the end of August predicted a 52.2 percent share for Obama.
3. Last month we published an essay about Unequal Democracy, a new book by Larry M. Bartels, a political scientist at Princeton University.
Bartels doesn’t seem to have issued any post-election pronouncements, but in Monday’s Los Angeles Times, he wrote about voters’ ignorance and myopia. (A longer version of that essay is here.)
And two weeks ago, Bartels lectured at Harvard on economics, social class, and the fortunes of the Democratic Party:
(For a critique of Bartels’s analysis of the voting behavior of the white working class, see this new paper by David Brady and Benjamin Sosnaud of Duke University and Steven M. Frenk of Harvard University.)
David Glenn | Posted on Thu Nov 6, 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comment [2]Obama Advised to Make TV (but Not Education) an Urgent Priority
Before he can think about improving U.S. education, fixing the nation’s health-care system, or helping to repair the global environment, President-elect Barack Obama may have several more pressing priorities.
Among them: finding a replacement for the space shuttle and ensuring the continued availability of television.
That’s the advice of the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, which issued a list today of what it considers the 13 most urgent issues facing Mr. Obama and the newly elected Congress in the coming year.
The GAO’s list consists largely of issues involving national security and foreign policy, such as defense readiness and preparing for large-scale health emergencies. Other items making the GAO’s priority list include food safety, financial oversight, the space shuttle, and the transition to digital television.
But the 13-item to-do list doesn’t mean the GAO is suggesting Mr. Obama completely ignore education and other issues in his first year in office. In a separate list of priority issues categorized by federal department, the GAO says the new president will need to do more to ensure continued student access to federally subsidized student loans, including guarding against abuses by colleges and loan companies.
“Some of the practices of these schools and lenders,” the GAO said, “may have resulted in students and parents paying unnecessarily high interest rates on loans because of improper lender activities.”
The 13 items on the GAO’s most-urgent list aren’t necessarily the most important longer-term items to be faced by the Obama administration, said J. Christopher Mihm, managing director for strategic issues at the GAO. They instead reflect deadline-oriented needs that will require the president’s most immediate attention upon taking office, to avoid giving the public a negative first impression about his competency, Mr. Mihm said.
“We would never argue that health care is less important or climate change is less important or education policy is less important than the conversion to digital TV,” he said. “It’s the implications for the larger agenda.”
Paul Basken | Posted on Thu Nov 6, 01:04 PM | Permalink | CommentNovember 5, 2008
Stem Cells, Economic Stimulus Top Democratic Agenda in New Congress
In her first post-election speech today, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said Democrats will move quickly on economic-stimulus legislation and a bill to relax federal restrictions on stem-cell research.
She also acknowledged that the nation’s economic struggles could put a crimp in the party’s plans, despite large gains in yesterday’s election. Democrats picked up at least 20 seats in the House, with some races still too close to call.
“Many of our options have been diminished because of the downturn in the economy over the last couple months,” she said.
Details of the stimulus package are still being negotiated, but colleges are asking lawmakers to include money for education and research. Democrats hope to take up the bill during a lame-duck session later this month.
Ms. Pelosi did not offer a time frame for the stem-cell bill, but mentioned it, along with a children’s health-care measure, as a “discrete piece” of the Democrats’ health-care agenda that could move quickly. Congress has twice tried to relax President Bush’s restrictions on stem-cell research, passing bills that would allow scientists to conduct research on human embryos from in-vitro fertilization clinics that would otherwise be discarded, but the measures were vetoed by Mr. Bush.
President-elect Barack Obama has indicated that he would support the bill, and has promised to repeal Mr. Bush’s restrictions once he takes office.
Kelly Field | Posted on Wed Nov 5, 01:56 PM | Permalink | CommentNovember 4, 2008
Like Everyone Else, Students Face Long Lines, Voting Problems
College students, many casting their first ballot for president, have not been immune to the long lines, registration problems, and general confusion that have affected many voters today. Here are several incidents that have already cropped up, with several hours of voting still to go:
A Virginia Republican is trying to challenge 300 college students who received absentee ballots from their home state but also registered to vote in Virginia, according to The Washington Times.
Many students at Virginia Tech found that they had to travel to a polling place more than six miles away from the campus with no available public transportation, according to Rock the Vote. They are in a precinct with 5,600 registered voters, more than double the number of voters the state allows at one location.
Republican Party leaders want to toss out the votes of 50 Grinnell College students who listed the university’s general address rather than their individual campus addresses on their absentee ballots, according to The Des Moines Register.
Students at several universities reported long lines to vote: Temple University (two hours), Arizona State University (one hour), and the University of South Florida (over three hours).
rwiedeman | Posted on Tue Nov 4, 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comment [5]Obama in Rout Among College Newspaper Editors
College newspapers across the United States may have a lot of variety. But on this Election Day, almost all seem to have one thing in common: They support Barack Obama.
A running tally by Editor and Publisher magazine shows that of 84 college newspapers to make endorsements, all but two are backing Mr. Obama for president. The lone holdouts identified by Editor and Publisher are the Criterion, of Mesa State College in Colorado, and The Daily Mississippian, of the University of Mississippi.
The Daily Mississippian’s endorsement is the more emphatic of the two, praising John McCain for his “experience in foreign affairs and his decision to not raise taxes on anyone of any class of society.” The Criterion says it favors the Republican for his policies concerning energy, education, and the Iraq war, although it includes praise of Mr. Obama for working to hold down college costs and criticism of President Bush for his policies on public education and Iraq.
Early reports today from polling stations are suggesting record levels of turnout, a factor that often favors Democrats, both on college campuses and among the general public.
In the swing state of Pennsylvania more than 1,000 students were lined up this morning at Pennsylvania State University, according to Rock the Vote, a non-partisan advocate of youth voting. And 395 people had voted by noon, with another 179 in line, at Drexel University in Philadelphia, already exceeding the precinct’s full-day total of 425 voters in 2004, Rock the Vote reported.
Paul Basken | Posted on Tue Nov 4, 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comment [20]Professor Who Stole Republican Campaign Signs Resigns
A visiting professor at St. Olaf College who confessed to stealing several Republican campaign signs has quit his teaching job.
Philip Busse, acknowledged last week in The Huffington Post that he had stolen signs touting John McCain from yards along a rural stretch of highway near Northfield, Minn., where the college is located.
Mr. Busse, who had a one-semester temporary visiting appointment to teach one course on introductory media studies, “has tendered his resignation and is no longer affiliated with St. Olaf College,” according to a college spokesman quoted in the Northfield News.
On top of losing his job, Mr. Busse has been charged with misdemeanor theft and faces up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, the newspaper reported.
Eric Kelderman | Posted on Tue Nov 4, 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comment [23]E-Mail Hoax Tells George Mason Students to Vote November 5
Let the Election Day tricks begin.
Hackers broke into the e-mail account of George Mason University’s provost and sent an e-mail message to more than 30,000 students and about 5,000 faculty and staff members with an odd announcement last night: Election Day had been moved.
“Please note that election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you,” the message read.
According to Daniel Walsch, a university spokesman, hackers were able to gain access to a closed list that includes the e-mail addresses for all students and employees at the university. The provost, Peter N. Stearns, promptly sent a subsequent message assuring students and the faculty that the election was still being held today.
Both campus police and the FBI are investigating the hoax.
| Posted on Tue Nov 4, 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comment [4]Obama, McCain Offer Fixes for the Sports World
After nearly two years of talking about the economy, health care, and the war in Iraq, Barack Obama used one of his final national television appearances before Election Day to advocate for yet another change he believes the country needs: a college football playoff.
Appearing at halftime of ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” broadcast last night, Mr. Obama said the one thing he would change in the world of sports is ending college football’s Bowl Championship Series and replacing it with a playoff.
“I am fed up with these computer rankings,” said Mr. Obama. “Get eight teams, top eight teams right at the end, you got a playoff, decide on a national champion.”
John McCain also appeared on the broadcast, and declared that his one wish would be to rid sports of anabolic steroids. Both candidates taped their interviews earlier in the day.
“It’s a game that we’re gonna be in for a long time,” said Mr. McCain. “It’s not good for the athletes, it’s not good for the sports, it’s very bad for those who don’t do it, and I think it can attack the very integrity of all sports going all the way down to high school.”
| Posted on Tue Nov 4, 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comment [6]