Eric Banks, a writer and critic based in New York who has written for The Chronicle Review and is a former editor of Bookforum, will be appointed the next director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University. Mr. Banks will go to the institute after a term as president of the National Book Critics Circle. His appointment was announced to the institute’s fellows in an e-mail on Monday. He will assume the post in July, succeeding Lawrence M. Weschler, who had led the illustrious scholarly institute since 2001.
4 Plead Guilty in Hazing Case at Jacksonville State U., in Alabama
Each man pleaded guilty to one count of hazing, a misdemeanor, in a case that stemmed from a 2011 incident at the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and that left Jason Horton in the hospital. In a lawsuit against the fraternity and its officials, Mr. Horton said he and other pledges had been forced to drink vodka and mustard, had been pelted with eggs, and had been beaten up. He later suffered from internal bleeding and kidney damage, his lawsuit says. A total of 18 men have been charged in the incident.
- Source: Annistonstar
Idaho State U. Will Pay $400,000 to Settle Medical-Records Case
Idaho State University will pay $400,000 to settle allegations that it violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the federal law, known as Hipaa, that governs the privacy of medical records, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights announced on Tuesday.
The office said the settlement concerned a breach of health records belonging to roughly 17,500 patients at the university’s family-medicine clinic in Pocatello, Idaho. The university notified the department of the breach, in which patients’ records were made vulnerable to exposure for at least 10 months because firewall protections on the university’s servers had been disabled.
An investigation by the federal office found that the university’s risk assessments were incomplete. The office said Idaho State had agreed to correct the problems identified in its investigation. An Idaho State compliance officer told the Associated Press that the institution had found that none of the records made vulnerable were actually compromised.
U.S. Won’t Appeal Decision on Controversial Gainful-Employment Rule
The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities said on Wednesday it had received word that the U.S. Department of Education has elected not to appeal a federal judge’s decision last year that blocked key parts of the agency’s controversial “gainful employment” rule before the regulation took effect.
Instead of continuing with litigation over the rule, the department this week convened the first of four hearings that it will hold in advance of a second round of rule making focused on fraud in the student-aid system, which is expected to begin in the fall. The rule-making process will revisit the gainful-employment issue.
The original rule would have cut off federal student aid to career-oriented higher-education programs whose graduates had high debt-to-income ratios and low loan-repayment rates, but a judge blocked key parts of the rule after the association, which represents for-profit colleges, challenged it in court.
“With the Congress expected to undertake Higher Education [Act] reauthorization in the coming months, we hope Congress will help all institutions of higher education, and the department, determine where and how we create appropriate protocols to determine outcomes for all students at all institutions,” said Steve Gunderson, Apscu’s president, in a written statement. The department did not immediately confirm that it decided not to appeal the decision.
Veterans Affairs Dept. Needs to Improve Management of GI Benefits, Report Says
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs should do more to improve the management of its Post-9/11 GI Bill Program, which provides benefits to veterans who pursue a higher education, by cutting down on payment delays, working with colleges to give veterans more information about their financial-aid options, and taking advantage of outcomes data.
Those conclusions are among the recommendations in a report released on Wednesday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which in 2011 also issued recommendations to the department regarding concerns about the program.
The GAO’s latest review found that, in the 2012 fiscal year, the department took an average of 31 days to process a new application, which is eight days longer than the department’s target benchmark. The department also took an average of 17 days to process a claim for benefit payment, five days longer than its target, the report says.
Student veterans faced several challenges as a result of the delays, the report says, and many said they took on more debt to cover the shortfall. Since its last report on the matter, the GAO said the department had worked on a new system to deal with such delays, though the GAO found the creation of that system had faced delays of its own.
The report says the department generally agreed with the GAO’s findings and vowed that it had taken steps to resolve problems identified by the review. It notes that the department is developing a long-term study to track veterans’ outcomes over the next two decades, and says officials expect an annual survey of Post-9/11 GI Bill beneficiaries to begin this year.
Obama Pledges Veto for House GOP Bill on Student-Loan Interest Rates
President Obama promised on Wednesday to veto legislation, currently pending in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, that would prevent interest rates from doubling on some federal student loans by switching to a market-based formula for setting the rates.
The bill, HR 1911, was approved last week, on a largely party-line vote, by the House education committee. Sponsors of the bill, including the panel’s chairman, Rep. John P. Kline Jr. of Minnesota, described the measure as a rare opportunity for bipartisanship because it paralleled Mr. Obama’s proposal, in his budget plan for the 2014 fiscal year, to switch to market-based rates.
But in an announcement on Wednesday, the White House objected to the bill on several grounds, as “the wrong approach.” Unlike Mr. Obama’s proposal, in which an interest rate would be set for the life of each loan, the legislation “would not guarantee low rates.” Interest rates would be reset annually (although they would be capped), an approach that would “create uncertainty and lessen transparency” for students and their families, the White House said, and would particularly hurt low- and middle-income families struggling to finance a college education.
The White House statement also said Mr. Obama objected to the House plan because it would not allow all borrowers to take advantage of new repayment options and because it would use any money saved to reduce the federal budget deficit.
The Republican-backed legislation is expected to be approved by the full House, but its prospects in the Democrat-controlled Senate, where other bills are pending, are dimmer.
Yielding to Critics, Czech President Won’t Block Professor’s Appointment
President Miloš Zeman of the Czech Republic on Wednesday abandoned his opposition to conferring the title of professor upon one of his critics, after taking issue with the scholar’s gay-rights activism. His refusal to appoint Martin C. Putna, an esteemed literary historian at Prague’s Charles University, set off a wave of criticism from students, academics, and other politicians. Mr. Zeman asked the country’s education minister to bestow the title upon Mr. Putna.
- Source: Wsj
In a unexpected twist, he may actually be doing just that. Both left and right-leaning politicians now want to strip the presidency of the power to name professors.
In a move that may signal he knows when he has been outmaneuvered, Mr. Zeman Wednesday said he would support legislative efforts to transfer the naming of professors to university deans, thereby reducing the power of his young presidency.
Read more at: blogs.wsj.com
Financial Troubles Lead NYU to End Law Program in Singapore
New York University’s law school has announced that it will shut down a legal-education program it had introduced in partnership with the National University of Singapore, saying that the program will end when its Class of 2014 graduates. In its announcement, NYU said the cost of graduate legal education had risen “significantly” in recent years, and said the program had been made possible by a grant from the government of Singapore. The two universities have agreed to end the program without seeking additional money to continue it. The move marks the second time in the last year that NYU has decided to end a program in Singapore due to financial woes. Last November its Tisch School of the Arts Asia announced that it would stop admitting new students.
- Source: Nyu
Longtime Official at Northern Illinois U. Will Retire After FBI Inquiry
Eddie R. Williams, Northern Illinois University’s executive vice president for finance and chief of operations, will retire at the end of this month, shortly after returning from a two-month leave of absence. His leave began when FBI agents executed a search warrant indicating that they were investigating whether he had used campus police officers to respond to crimes reported at a housing development he owns. Mr. Williams has worked at the institution for more than four decades.
- Source: Chicagotribune
Education Dept. Releases New Data on College Tuition Across Sectors
The National Center for Education Statistics, the Education Department’s statistical arm, on Tuesday released a “first look” report at new data on college pricing across sectors, finding that tuition and required fees for in-state students at four-year, public institutions rose by 6.7 percent from 2010-11 to 2012-13. That increase outpaced the rise in tuition for out-of-state students over the same period, which the report said was 4.1 percent. Four-year, private nonprofit institutions saw an increase of 3.1 percent. At four-year, private for-profit colleges, tuition and fees dropped by 2.2 percent. The report also includes data on 2011-12 enrollments as well as degrees conferred.
