July 5, 2009

U. of Georgia Paid 2 Fraternities $2.4-Million to Relocate, Contracts Show

The University of Georgia paid two fraternities nearly $2.4-million to move from houses on property where it plans to build several academic buildings, the Athens Banner-Herald reported.

Three other fraternities also moved from the property, in an area of the campus known as the Northwest Precinct, but instead of cash those chapters accepted space in a new Greek Park that will open this fall. The university’s plans for the property being vacated include new facilities for the School of Family and Consumer Sciences and the Terry College of Business.

Contracts obtained by the newspaper show that the university paid the Chi Phi fraternity $1.75-million to move from its house on South Lumpkin Street, but a lawyer said the organization did not get a sweetheart deal. “We had owned and built our own fraternity house on Lumpkin Street with our own money,” said Jim Wimberly, who is a Chi Phi alumnus.

Another fraternity, Kappa Alpha, got $600,000 to move from its nearby house on South Lumpkin Street. Both fraternities are in negotiations to buy or build new houses in Athens. —Charles Huckabee

July 3, 2009

New Allegations in Admissions Controversy at U. of Illinois Suggest Ex-Provost Played a Role

The shoes keep dropping as the Chicago Tribune digs deeper into allegations that politically connected applicants have used a range of techniques to gain admission to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Today the newspaper reported that a Greek Orthodox priest got help from the state treasurer in putting a family friend on the list of applicants with clout. As a result, the Tribune reported, the student was admitted and the priest helped raise money for the state treasurer, who was running for higher office.

This latest disclosure resembles other tales, unearthed by the Tribune, of how political ties — often to Illinois’s ousted governor, Rod Blagojevich — helped applicants whose mediocre credentials made it impossible to admit them based on what they knew, only on who they knew.

The difference in today’s news is that the episode appears to tie the university’s former provost, Linda P.B. Katehi, to the leg up given to the priest’s family friend. Ms. Katehi, formerly the engineering dean at Purdue University, supervised the admissions office as provost at Illinois but has insisted she was kept in the dark about the special treatment accorded certain applicants.

She was named in May as the new chancellor of the University of California at Davis and is scheduled to take office next month, but since the Tribune started its series of articles on the alleged admissions abuses, one California lawmaker has questioned her appointment. The University of California’s president, Mark G. Yudof, told the San Francisco Chronicle two weeks ago, however, that “I have 100-percent confidence in her.” —Andrew Mytelka

July 2, 2009

Bedbugs 1, Charity 0

Never underestimate the power of pests to ruin a good thing on college campuses. This week the notorious villains known as bedbugs forced Colorado State University at Fort Collins to cancel its annual Great Sofa Roundup, which allows students to donate unwanted couches to other folks.

According to the Denver Post, there was “no evidence of mass infestations” in the area. Nonetheless, the event’s organizers feared that continuing the sofa swap was just asking for trouble — annoying, blood-sucking trouble — because bedbugs love to hang out in upholstered furniture, as many colleges have discovered in recent years (see a Chronicle video).

“You can get them in nice hotels,” Jane Viste, a spokeswoman for the Larimer County Health Department, told the Post, “anywhere you don’t know exactly where the furniture came from.” For now, the future of the Great Sofa Roundup is uncertain. —Eric Hoover

June 29, 2009

Private Colleges Report Lowest Tuition Increases in Decades

Private colleges and universities have raised their tuition and fees by the smallest average amount in 37 years, according to a report released today.

The report, based on a membership survey conducted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, says that tuition for the 2009-10 academic year rose an average of 4.3 percent at private colleges.

Over the past 10 years, tuition and fees have gone up by about 6 percent annually.

Private colleges raised their institutional student-aid budgets by an average of 9 percent for 2009-10.

The survey is based on responses from 350 private institutions. —Beckie Supiano

NCAA Will Recommend Sickle-Cell Testing of Athletes

As part of a settlement involving the NCAA, Rice University, and the family of Dale R. Lloyd II, a Rice football player who died after a workout in 2006, the NCAA announced on Sunday it would now recommend that athletes be tested for the sickle-cell trait.

The condition, a genetic blood disorder that affects one in 12 African-Americans, can result in “exertional sickling,” which CBSSports.com reports is the leading cause of death among NCAA football players in the last decade. During strenuous exercise, sickle-shaped red blood cells can clump together and pile up, blocking blood flow to limbs and organs. Seven out of 19 nontraumatic college-athlete deaths since 2000 are related to sickle-cell complications.

Mr. Lloyd’s family sued Rice for failing to test for the trait and faulted the NCAA for being negligent in warning about the risks associated with the blood disorder and overexertion

A National Athletic Trainers’ Association survey in 2006 found that 64 percent of Division I-A schools already screen for the trait. The NCAA now recommends that athletics departments check for the sickle-cell trait in all athletes, if it is not already known, during their required medical examinations.

Those with the condition will most likely still be able to compete but may need more time to adapt to intense workouts. —Ashley Killough

June 28, 2009

At Nacubo Meeting, Arizona State Official Describes 'No Frills' College Education

Boston — Students in Arizona may have a cheaper option to get a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University if a proposal to create a “no frills” program is approved by the state, the university’s chief financial officer told an audience at the National Association of College and University Business Officers’ meeting here today.

Morgan R. Olsen, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Arizona State, spoke at a session about “the new reality” for colleges in the wake of the financial crisis, and what kind of changes might occur because of tighter resources. Mr. Olsen said his university was considering operating more than one business model, providing different student experiences at different prices.

Under the “no frills” model, students would attend focused classes at a different location than the university’s current campuses. The programs offered would be in high-demand areas such as business and education, and the teacher-student ratio would be higher, Mr. Olsen said. (A similar proposal was put forward in Pennsylvania this year.)

The program is envisioned as a middle ground between the state’s research universities and its community colleges. Students would receive Arizona State degrees, but they would not have the student-life or research opportunities available to students on the main campus. Tuition would be lower than the cost of attending one of the existing campuses, probably not exceeding the amount of a full Pell Grant, Mr. Olsen said.

The presidents of all three of Arizona’s public universities presented the proposal to the state’s Board of Regents this month as a way of increasing the number of bachelor’s degrees granted in the state, according to an Associated Press report. If approved, Arizona could have one no-frills location in place by the fall of 2010, with more to follow.

The message today at the Nacubo meeting was that colleges cannot continue operating in the way they did before the recession. When asked by the moderator, Kai Ryssdal of public radio’s Marketplace, what the financial future looked like for universities, both Mr. Olsen and another panelist, Yoke San L. Reynolds, vice president and chief financial officer of the University of Virginia, predicted it would get worse before it got better.

“The next two years, at least, have great potential to be even more challenging than now,” Mr. Olsen said. —Kathryn Masterson

June 25, 2009

Editor at U. of Hawaii Student Paper Is Said to Have Fabricated 21 Sources

The University of Hawaii-Manoa’s student newspaper, Ka Leo, ran a 27-item correction page on Wednesday, listing spurious sources among other errors said to have been committed by the paper’s former news editor.

The university has confirmed that from January 2008 to May 2009, the editor, Kris DeRego, made up the names of 21 sources in his articles and quoted eight people identified as students who were not enrolled at the time the articles were published.

While most of the articles listed on the correction page describe minor campus-life issues, one story — about the university’s presidential finalists — includes “candid” quotes from nonstudents about what officials were looking for in a president, Pacific Business News reported.

Mr. DeRego, who is 26, no longer works at Ka Leo and could not be reached for comment by Pacific Business News. As a result of his fabrications, the student newspaper, with a circulation of 10,000, now requires all reporters to provide e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of sources who are quoted. —Ashley C. Killough

Update (6/26): Mr. DeRego has issued a written statement denying that he fabricated any sources or quotations during his time at Ka Leo, according to today’s Honolulu Advertiser. In the statement, he said that the articles in question had been “adulterated during the copy [editing] process — a problem encountered by other staff members working at Ka Leo.” The newspaper’s adviser, Jay Hartwell, said no other reporters had made such a complaint before.

June 24, 2009

Culinary Institute Fails to Provide Alcohol-Free Alternative, Student Says

A student at the Culinary Institute of America says a required course in which students drink wine, and the institute’s unwillingness to come up with an alcohol-free alternative, is frustrating his efforts to remain sober.

The student, Jeremy Umansky, who is 26, filed a complaint in March against the institute with the New York State Division of Human Rights.

He says the institute failed to offer him an alternative to the required three-week wine course, even after he provided doctor’s notes saying that alcohol and Mr. Umansky don’t mix, The New York Times reported today.

Mr. Umansky, who has been sober for seven years, told the Times that he has “an unhealthy mental obsession with alcohol.”

“Being in a room with that much alcohol is not healthy for me,” he said.

Tim Ryan, president of the institute, told the Times that while he could not comment on Mr. Umansky’s situation, students can graduate from the institute without ever tasting or smelling alcohol, regardless of their reasons for abstaining. Students could videotape the wine lectures, he said. —Austin Wright

June 23, 2009

How 15 States Are Working to Improve Remedial Education

Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit group focused on work-force development, released a report today on promising initiatives in 15 states to reduce the need for and to improve remedial education. The report, “Setting Up Success in Developmental Education: How State Policy Can Help Community Colleges Improve Student Outcomes,” is connected to a new program, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation for Education, and MDC, to expand states’ efforts to improve remedial education. —Elyse Ashburn

Storm-Spawned Flooding Destroys 3,000 Diplomas at Pitt

Flooding at the University of Pittsburgh last week destroyed more than 3,000 diplomas that were awaiting delivery to spring graduates, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported today, but the university plans to replace all of them at a cost that might amount to $21,000.

Like most universities, Pitt does not hand out actual diplomas at its commencement. The damaged diplomas were being stored on the ground floor of Thackeray Hall, one of several campus buildings that experienced “major flooding” from severe thunderstorms, according to the registrar’s office. Delivery of the new diplomas will be delayed only slightly. —Andrew Mytelka