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"Some college administrators seem so distracted with fund raising, academic infighting, and community initiatives that they set up their emergency communications departments very poorly. Training is poor to nonexistent, secretaries are pressed into service with tremendous responsibilities for running 'notification systems' 24/7 and on weekends because no one else knows how to do it and the administration won’t pay for additional staff. Procedures are seat-of-the-pants and dependent on HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion), except when something like Virginia Tech happens and there is some sort of scramble to do something different." --Donna
Most Colleges Avoid Risk Management, Report Says
Jill Biden Shines a Global Spotlight on American Community Colleges
Speaking at a Unesco conference in Paris, the vice president’s wife stressed the importance of two-year institutions to the nation’s educational goals.
Connecticut Public Colleges Lose 200 Professors to Early Retirement
Administrators are scrambling to plug holes in their course schedules for fall, with most expecting to do so by hiring more adjuncts or increasing class sizes.
U. of Georgia Paid 2 Fraternities $2.4-Million to Relocate, Contracts Show
The two were among five with houses on property where the university plans to build new academic facilities.
New Allegations in Admissions Controversy at U. of Illinois Suggest Ex-Provost Played a Role
Linda P.B. Katehi, the incoming chancellor of the University of California at Davis, has insisted she knew nothing of the admission of politically connected applicants at Illinois.
Sonoma State U. Foundation May Lose $350,000 on Loan to Former Board Member
The foundation will be forced to issue fewer scholarships in the 2010-11 academic year because of a diminished endowment, a university official said.
College Suspends Student for Working in Gay Pornography | 58
President Obama's Visit to Notre Dame Carries Barely a Hint of Controversy That Preceded It | 58
Drug Sting Nabs 21 Students at U. of Illinois | 57
Faculty Members and Union Protest Staff Layoffs at Temple U. as 'Cruel' | 57
North Dakota Board's Vote Puts 'Fighting Sioux' Mascot on Thinner Ice | 57
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July 24, 2007
Report Urges Colleges Not to Cave In to Threats and Pressure on Affirmative Action
Colleges have been unnecessarily scaling back their affirmative-action programs in response to threats of litigation and pressure from Bush-administration officials, a report released on Monday by the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles argues.
The Civil Rights Project, which long had been based at Harvard University but moved to the University of California at Los Angeles (and appended its name) this year, says that the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision upholding race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Michigan’s law school should have been seen as a green light to colleges to continue considering students’ race and ethnicity for the sake of promoting diversity.
Instead, the report argues, critics of affirmative action — including many conservative advocacy groups and officials in the Bush administration — have “attempted to interpret the law as if they had won the case” and have managed to pressure many colleges to quietly abandon policies and programs that were within the bounds of the law. The report echoes comments about colleges’ cautious reaction to the case that began not long after the court ruled.
The report assails such timidity. “Colleges and state policy makers have much more discretion than they are led to believe by those trying to roll back civil-rights policy,” it says.
The report’s editor, Gary A. Orfield, a director of the Civil Rights Project, said in a written statement accompanying the report that “we can expect ongoing controversy” over affirmative action because “it is unreasonable to expect a deeply divided country to come up with a clear and simple, lasting answer” to the controversy.
The report, written by more than a dozen scholars at colleges around the nation, includes chapters saying that bans on race-conscious admissions policies have greatly hurt diversity at law schools; that black and Hispanic students are falling behind in terms of college access when demographic changes are taken into account; and that California colleges would benefit from duplicating many of the policies developed in Texas for the sake of promoting diversity in college enrollments. —Peter Schmidt
Posted on Tuesday July 24, 2007 | Permalink |Comments
Previous: Baylor U.'s Hopes for Bush Library Become Entangled in Lawsuit Against SMU
Next: Laureate Education's Doug Becker Is Moving to China to Focus on Asia
How is it possible to publish a chapter which in part focuses on the U. California system (chaper 7) in which there is virtually no mention of the percentages of Asian students at U Cal selective schools?
Is there no interest in examining the exceptional performance of these students?
— {ad}missionofficer Jul 25, 12:03 PM #