|
JULY 2008
COLLEGE GRADS TURN TO NON-PROFIT
WORK
MAY 2008
HOW COLLEGES MISLEAD 40% OF THEIR STUDENTS
MARTY NEMKO, CHRONICLES OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Among my saddest moments as a career counselor is when I hear
a story like this: "I wasn't a good student in high school,
but I wanted to prove that I can get a college diploma. I'd be
the first one in my family to do it. But it's been five years
and $80,000, and I still have 45 credits to go."
I have a hard time telling such people
the killer statistic: Among high-school students who graduated
in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions
were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas eight
and a half years later. . . Yet four-year colleges admit and
take money from hundreds of thousands of such students each year!
Even worse, most of those college dropouts
leave the campus having learned little of value, and with a mountain
of debt and devastated self-esteem from their unsuccessful struggles.
Perhaps worst of all, even those who do manage to graduate too
rarely end up in careers that require a college education. So
it's not surprising that when you hop into a cab or walk into
a restaurant, you're likely to meet workers who spent years and
their family's life savings on college, only to end up with a
job they could have done as a high-school dropout.
Such students are not aberrations. Today,
amazingly, a majority of the students whom colleges admit are
grossly underprepared. Only 23 percent of the 1.3 million high-school
graduates of 2007 who took the ACT examination were ready for
college-level work in the core subjects of English, math, reading,
and science.
Perhaps more surprising, even those high-school
students who are fully qualified to attend college are increasingly
unlikely to derive enough benefit to justify the often six-figure
cost and four to six years (or more) it takes to graduate. Research
suggests that more than 40 percent of freshmen at four-year institutions
do not graduate in six years. Colleges trumpet the statistic
that, over their lifetimes, college graduates earn more than
nongraduates, but that's terribly misleading. You could lock
the collegebound in a closet for four years, and they'd still
go on to earn more than the pool of non-collegebound - they're
brighter, more motivated, and have better family connections.
COURT RULES IT'S OKAY TO DENY COLLEGE AID
TO STUDENTS WITH DRUG CONVICTIONS
COLLEGE BOARD FINDS WRITING SAMPLE BEST
PREDICTOR OF COLLEGE GRADES
MARINES
INSISTING ON RIGHT TO RECRUITING ON CAMPUS
STATES SPEND 6 TIMES AS MUCH ON PRISONS
AS ON HIGHER EDUCATION
CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY FIRES QUAKER TEACHER
FOR MODIFYING OATH OF ALLEGIENCE
AGRIBUSINESS GAINING MORE CONTROL OVER UNIVERSITIES
ACADEMICS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRO-ISRAELI
MCCARTHYISM
STUDENT KICKED OUT FOR OPPOSING PARK LOT
NEW PRESIDENT OF HARVARD TAKES STAND FOR
REAL EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY REVERSES BAN ON TUTU
UNIVERSITIES: MORE GREEDY CORPORATIONS
RIAA HARASSERS AVOID HARVARD, HIT STUDENTS
AT OTHER COLLEGES
WELCOME TO FLEECE U - WHERE WE TRAIN YOU
TO BE IN DEBT
FEBRUARY 2008
ACADEMICS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRO-ISRAELI
MCCARTHYISM
CECILIE SURASKY, MUZZLE WATCH - The Ad
Hoc Committee to Defend the University, led by a number of academic
heavyweights from Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, (formerly) Brown
and UC Santa Cruz, has published a sign-on statement in this
week's Chronicle of Higher Education. No doubt the folks over
at Campus Watch can't wait to cut and paste the entire list of
names so they can send out "monitors" to report on
the "anti-Israel" and "anti-American" teachers.
The committee states:
"In recent years, universities across
the country have been targeted by outside groups seeking to influence
what is taught and who can teach. To achieve their political
agendas, these groups have defamed scholars, pressured administrators,
and tried to bypass or subvert established procedures of academic
governance. As a consequence, faculty have been denied jobs or
tenure, and scholars have been denied public platforms from which
to share their viewpoints. This violates an important principle
of scholarship, the free exchange of ideas, subjecting them to
ideological and political tests. These attacks threaten academic
freedom and the core mission of institutions of higher education
in a democratic society. Unfortunately and ironically, many of
the most vociferous campaigns targeting universities and their
faculty have been launched by groups portraying themselves as
defenders of Israel. These groups have targeted scholars who
have expressed perspectives on Israeli policies and the Israeli
Palestinian conflict with which they disagree.
To silence those they consider their political
enemies, they have used a range of tactics such as:
- unfounded insinuations and allegations,
in the media and on websites, of anti-Semitism or sympathy for
terrorism or "un-Americanism;"
- efforts to broaden definitions of anti
Semitism to include scholarship and teaching that is critical
of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and of Israel;
- pressures on university administrations
by threatening to withhold donations if faculty they have targeted
are hired or awarded tenure;
- campaigns to deny scholars the opportunity
to present their views to the wider public;
- the promotion of efforts to restrict
federal funding for area studies programs and the teaching of
critical languages on political grounds;
- lawsuits in the name of the "right"
of individual students not to hear ideas that may challenge or
contradict their beliefs;
- and demands in the name of "balance"
and "diversity" that those with whom they disagree
be prevented from speaking unless paired with someone whose viewpoint
they approve of.
The suppression of free speech undermines
academic freedom and subverts the norms of academic life. It
poses a serious threat to institutions of higher education in
the United States. The university should be a place where different
interpretations can be explored and competing ideas exchanged.
Academic freedom means not only the right to pursue a variety
of interpretations, but the maintenance of standards of truth
and acceptability by one's peers. It is university faculty, not
outside political groups with partisan political agenda, who
are best able to judge the quality of their peers' research and
teaching. This is not just a question of academic autonomy, but
of the future of a democratic society. This is a time in which
we need more thoughtful reflection about the world, not less.
A study by a Harvard sociologist last summer found that "a
greater percentage of social scientists today feels their academic
freedom has been threatened than was the case during the McCarthy
era." It is time to defend the norms of scholarship and
the best traditions of the academy.
http://www.muzzlewatch.com/?p=322
AD HOC COMMITTEE TO DEFEND THE UNIVERSITY
JANUARY 2008
TERROR JUNKIES TAKING OVER CAMPUSES
MICHAEL GOULD-WARTOFSKY, NATION - From
Harvard to UCLA, the ivory tower is fast becoming the latest
watchtower in Fortress America. The terror warriors, having turned
their attention to "violent radicalization and homegrown
terrorism prevention"--as it was recently dubbed in a House
of Representatives bill of the same name--have set out to reconquer
that traditional hotbed of radicalization, the university.
Building a homeland security campus and
bringing the university to heel is a seven-step mission:
1. Target dissidents. As the warfare state
has triggered dissent, the campus has attracted increasing scrutiny--with
student protesters in the cross hairs. The government's number-one
target? Peace and justice organizations.
From 2003 to 2007 an unknown number of
them made it into the Pentagon's Threat and Local Observation
Notice system, a secretive domestic spying program ostensibly
designed to track direct "potential terrorist threats"
to the Defense Department itself. In 2006 the ACLU uncovered,
via Freedom of Information Act requests, at least 186 specific
TALON reports on "anti-military protests" in the United
States--some listed as "credible threats"--from student
groups at the University of California, Santa Cruz; State University
of New York, Albany; Georgia State University; and New Mexico
State University, among other campuses.. . .
2. Lock and load. Many campus police departments
are morphing into heavily armed garrisons, equipped with a wide
array of weaponry, from Taser stun guns and pepper guns to shotguns
and semiautomatic rifles. Lock-and-load policies that began in
the 1990s under the rubric of the "war on crime" only
escalated with the President's "war on terror." Each
school shooting--most recently the massacre at Virginia Tech--adds
fuel to the armament flames. . .
3. Keep an eye (or hundreds of them) focused
on campus. Surveillance has become a boom industry nationally--one
that now reaches deep into the heart of campuses. In fact, universities
have witnessed explosive growth since 2001 in the electronic
surveillance of students, faculty and campus workers. . . The
International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators
reports that surveillance cameras have found their way onto at
least half of all colleges, their numbers on any given campus
doubling, tripling or, in a few cases, rising tenfold since September
11, 2001. Such cameras have proliferated by the hundreds on private
campuses, in particular. The University of Pennsylvania, for
instance, has more than 400 watching over it, while Harvard and
Brown have about 200 each. . .
4. Mine student records. Student records
have in recent years been opened up to all manner of data mining
for purposes of investigation, recruitment or just all-purpose
tracking. From 2001 to 2006, in an operation code-named Project
Strike Back, the Education Department teamed up with the FBI
to scour the records of the 14 million students who applied for
federal financial aid each year. The objective? "To identify
potential people of interest," explained an FBI spokesperson
cryptically, especially those linked to "potential terrorist
activity.". . .
5. Track foreign-born students; keep the
undocumented out. Under the auspices of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been
keeping close tabs on foreign students . . . As of October 2007,
ICE reported that it was actively following 713,000 internationals
on campuses, while keeping more than 4.7 million names in the
database.
6. Take over the curriculum, the classroom
and the laboratory. . . . DHS has launched its own curriculum
under its Office of University Programs, intended, it says, to
"foster a homeland security culture within the academic
community."
The record so far is impressive: DHS has doled out 439 federal
fellowships and scholarships since 2003, providing full tuition
to students who fit "within the homeland security research
enterprise." . . .
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20080128&s=gould-wartofsky
SEPTEMBER 2007
HIGHEST RANKED COLLEGE
NORML - Warren Wilson College in Asheville,
North Carolina is the nation's most marijuana-friendly campus,
according to The Princeton Review's annual sourcebook, "The
Best 366 Colleges." The report, which is based on candid
survey results from 120,000 students nationwide, ranks hundreds
of colleges in various categories such as academic achievement
and quality of life. Warren Wilson College topped Bard College
(New York), the University of Vermont, the University of California
at Santa Cruz, and Lewis & Clark College (Oregon) to emerge
as this year's top school for "higher" learning. The
US Air Force Academy ranked #1 on Princeton's "Top 20"
list of least pot-friendly campuses. Warren Wilson College was
also ranked by The Princeton Review as one of the most politically
active campuses in America.
OTHER RANKINGS
http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankings.asp
Missing from most of the coverage
of the University of Florida taser incident is what actually
led to it. This
is the first video we have been able to find that includes
the student's entire statement and questions. The police assault
begins at 1:30 (The question doesn't start until 11 seconds into
the tape). John Kerry couldn't even ask the way to the bathroom
in a minute and half, nor could any senator ask a question of
General Petraeus in that short a period. The police actually
first interfere only 30 seconds into the question
JUNE 2007
BLACK COLLEGES RECRUITING WHITE STUDENTS
KATRINA A. GOGGINS, ASSOCIATED PRESS -
White students are being actively recruited [to historically
black colleges], and attracting them has become easier for a
variety of reasons, including the offer of scholarships and lower
tuitions than those paid at non-black schools. Private, historically
black schools cost an average of $10,000 less per year than their
traditionally white counterparts, according to the National Association
for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.
The head of the association says lower
costs are not the only thing the schools have to offer. Whites
who attend the schools are preparing for an "increasingly
black and brown world," said Lezli Baskerville, the association's
president and CEO. "If you want to know how to live in one,
you can't grow up in an all-white neighborhood, go to a predominantly
white school, white cultural and social events, go to a predominantly
white university and then thrive in a world that is today more
black, more brown than before," Baskerville said.
White students say they've taken valuable
experiences from their time at black colleges. Skin color, the
students say, is much more of a factor away from the campuses
than it is on them.
http://www.blacknews.com/pr/black_college_whites101.html
MAY 2007
TEACHING AT STILLMAN COLLEGE
[This is not a happy story but well worth
reading. St Petersburg Times columnist and editorial board member
Bill Maxwell "kept a promise to himself, to become a professor
at a small historically black college, to nurture needy students
the way that mentors had encouraged him as a young man. His second
year started with promise but ended in despair."
Many teachers - both black and white -
may find some things familiar in this piece. I was reminded of
two things. One was a talk that John Wilson, a black who was
chair of the DC city council, gave to a group of University of
DC students in which Wilson warned them of the limits of playing
the attitude card in getting through life. I remember thinking
how seldom this wise advice is proffered.
The other was some talks I had given to
local and out of town students over the years during which I
learned not to predict what would happen. For example, talking
to a hundred of students from Oklahoma high schools, I was interrupted
ten minutes in by a large black girl who stood and politely said,
"Excuse me, but you've lost me. Could you go over that again?"
I remember thinking: what courage. I never would have dared do
that in high school. Yet another group of out of town students,
when asked by a teacher to list the branches of the federal government
came up with the FBI, CIA and DEA.
On another occasion, talking to some DC
students concerned about violence and drugs in and out of school,
I was struck by the fact that they didn't even know how to ask
the a question, even about something that truly concerned them.
I asked a friend who had taught in the DC public schools about
this and she said, "They're not meant to ask questions;
only answer them."
Yet a year or so later, talking to another
group of students from the same system but a different high school
I found myself being peppered with intelligent questions about
the city's colonial status, clearly the result of having done
their homework. - Sam]
MAXWELL'S TOUR AT STILLMAN COLLEGE
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/05/20/Opinion/A_dream_lay_dying.shtml/
APRIL 2007
HARVARD TURNS DOWN 1,100 APPICANTS
WITH PERFECT 800 MATH SAT SCORES
SAM DILLON, NY TIMES
- Harvard turned down 1,100 student applicants with perfect 800
scores on the SAT math exam. Yale rejected several applicants
with perfect 2400 scores on the three-part SAT, and Princeton
turned away thousands of high school applicants with 4.0 grade
point averages. . . It was the most selective spring in modern
memory at America's elite schools, according to college admissions
officers. . . Stanford received a record 23,956 undergraduate
applications for the fall term, accepting 2,456 students, meaning
the school took 10.3 percent of applicants. Harvard College received
applications from 22,955 students, another record, and accepted
2,058 of them, for an acceptance rate of 9 percent. The university
called that "the lowest admit rate in Harvard's history."
Applications to Columbia numbered 18,081, and the college accepted
1,618 of them, for what was certainly one of the lowest acceptance
rates this spring at an American university: 8.9 percent.
"There's a sense of collective
shock among parents at seeing extraordinarily talented kids getting
rejected," said Susan Gzesh, whose son Max Rothstein is
a senior with an exemplary record at the Laboratory School, a
private school associated with the University of Chicago. Max
applied to 12 top schools and was accepted outright only by Wesleyan,
New York University and the University of Michigan. "Some
of his classmates, with better test scores than his, were rejected
at every Ivy League school," Ms. Gzesh said.
The brutally low acceptance rates
this year were a result of an avalanche of applications to top
schools, which college admissions officials attributed to three
factors. First, a demographic bulge is working through the nation's
population - the children of the baby boomers are graduating
from high school in record numbers. . . Another factor is that
more high school students are enrolling in college immediately
after high school. In the 1970s, less than half of all high school
graduates went directly to college, compared with more than 60
percent today. . . The third trend driving the frantic competition
is that the average college applicant applies to many more colleges
than in past decades. In the 1960s, fewer than 2 percent of college
freshmen had applied to six or more colleges, whereas in 2006
more than 2 percent reported having applied to 11 or more
MARCH 2007
ST LOUIS CAMPUS REBELS AGAINST YET ANOTHER
CANNED BELTWAY SPEAKER
INSIDE THE BELTWAY, WASHINGTON TIMES - "Let's not 'Meet the Press,'" blares
the headline of a St. Louis University student editorial, complaining
that the choice of NBC Sunday morning talk-show host Tim Russert
as the school's May 2007 commencement speaker "represents
another selection in a disappointing trend that appears to be
emerging."
"For the past four years, seniors
have been treated to uninspiring politicians or uninspiring pundits
as their speaker at graduation," the editorial states. "Moreover,
the decision on who should be the commencement speaker has been
made without consulting the senior class." Commencement
speakers at the Jesuit-run Catholic university in recent years
have ranged from former President Bill Clinton's secretary of
state, Madeleine K. Albright, to former British Prime Minister
John Major. (Wow, we can relate to the students' concerns.) The
graduating seniors add that Mr. Russert has delivered so many
canned commencement addresses to so many colleges and universities
that when he spoke at Harvard's Commencement in 2005 the graduates
played "Tim Russert Bingo."
"Responding to the fact that Russert
consistently gave similar addresses to all of the graduating
classes that he spoke to, those seniors shouted 'Bingo!' whenever
Russert repeated key phrases from other speeches," the editorial
explains. "The choice of commencement speaker should be
one that seniors will remember, not an excuse to play bingo."
At last count, according to Mr. Russert's biography, the TV host
has received 43 honorary doctorate degrees from American colleges
and universities, no doubt running out of wall space to hang
them all.
FEBRUARY 2007
COLLEGE STUDENTS BECOMING MORE NARCISSISTIC
[Missing from this story is any discussion
of the effects of a quarter century of neo-capitalism that has
increased the gap between success and failure, damaged community
and eliminated safety nets. Growing population has had an impact
as well. Such factors have made it harder being a student these
days, encouraging more competitiveness and less cooperation and
weaker community. Add to that the atomization of life encouraged
by modern media and you've got quite a problem.]
DAVID CRARY, ASSOCIATED PRESS - Today's college students are more narcissistic
and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive
new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could
be harmful to personal relationships and American society. .
.
The researchers describe their study as
the largest ever of its type and say students' inventory scores
have risen steadily since the test was introduced in 1982. By
2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average
scores, 30 percent more than in 1982. . .
The study asserts that narcissists "are
more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived,
at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit
game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors.".
. .
The researchers traced the phenomenon back
to what they called the "self-esteem movement" that
emerged in the 1980s, asserting that the effort to build self-confidence
had gone too far. As an example, Twenge cited a song commonly
sung to the tune of "Frère Jacques" in preschool:
"I am special, I am special. Look at me.". . .
The new report follows a study released
by the University of California at Los Angeles last month that
found that nearly three-quarters of the freshmen it surveyed
thought it was important to be "very well-off financially."
That compared with 62.5 percent who said the same in 1980, and
42 percent in 1966.
Yet students, while acknowledging some
legitimacy to such findings, don't necessarily accept negative
generalizations .
PROFESSOR FINDS IT IS UNETHICAL IN ILLINOIS
TO BE INTELLIGENT
INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION - Certainly not
Tony Williams. After passing a new online test on ethics required
of all state employees, [Tony Williams, a tenured professor]
in the English department at Southern Illinois University at
Carbondale received a notice from his university ethics officer
and from the state inspector general that he was not in compliance
with state ethics regulations, a failure that state officials
said could result in punishment that included dismissal. The
reason? He had completed the test too quickly.
"It's a very simple test designed
for thousands of state employees, and it's more relevant for
people in purchasing or positions of power," he said. "Anybody
with a fair degree of intelligence can get through it quickly."
However, state officials have asked him
to complete another ethics training course for "noncompliant
employees," which they sent him in the mail. The letter
sent to the professors states how long it took them to complete
the test, and reads: "Contrary to instructions, you appear
to have failed to carefully read and review the subject matter
contained in the program's introduction and the lessons."
After completing the course, Williams and others were told to
sign a letter acknowledging their participation in the "ethics
orientation for noncompliant employees.". . .
Drawing a line, he and at least three other
professors at Southern Illinois refused to sign the form by last
week's deadline. "We're going to sue the state for the illegality
of this training," said Marvin Zeman, a professor of math
and president of the faculty union, which is affilated with the
National Education Association.
Zeman has also refused the sign the form.
His letter from the state inspector general charged that he had
completed the test in only 6.18 minutes. . .
"Each question had four choices and
you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out,"
he said. . .
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/23/siuc
Students learn by e-mail
when their laundry is done
STUDENTS LEARN BY E-MAIL WHEN THEIR
LAUNDRY IS DONE
PRESS CITIZEN, IOWA - Thanks
to software installed along with new high-efficiency washers
last fall, the school's dormitory residents can receive e-mail
alerts when their laundry cycles have finished. The school also
has a new Web-based service, called Laundry View, that lets residents
look online for open washers and dryers. . . The school paid
for the $13,000 annual software fee in part by raising the cost
of a load of laundry by about 50 cents, according to Fitzgerald.
The company, Laundry View Monitoring Service, has been providing
the software to colleges and universities since 2004.
USC LIMITS FREE SPEECH TO A FEW ACRES
OF CAMPUS
DAILY TROJAN, USC, CA
- The USC Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation held a
knit-in in front of the Pertusati University Bookstore to protest
the university's contracts with manufacturers it claims use sweatshop
labor to produce Trojan merchandise, but the knit-in was broken
up minutes after the participants began knitting.
Lori White, associate vice president for
Student Affairs, told SCALE it would have to relocate its protest
to Hahn Plaza, an area near Tommy Trojan and the Student Union
that allows for large group gatherings without informing the
university beforehand.
"It's very clear about where groups
of students can be without having prior approval," White
said. "This group did not have prior approval to be here;
they (could) do it over in (Hahn Plaza), absolutely no problem."
SCALE complied with White's request, but not without questions.
. .
JANUARY 2007
THE COST OF FOOTBALL TO HIGHER
EDUCATION
[From Campus Progress]
ANDREW KROLL, WESTERN MICHIGAN
UNIVERSITY On Nov. 16, USA Today reported on a recent investigation
into the salaries of NCAA Division I-A head football coaches.
. . According to the article, the average head football coach
of a premier program earns $950,000 per year, not including benefits,
incentives, and other perks which include, but are not limited
to: subsidized housing, use of private jets, million-dollar annuities,
and family travel accounts. The study also found that at least
42 of the 119 coaches will earn $1 million or more this year.
The University of Oklahoma's head football coach Bob Stoops makes
a reported $3.35 million per year, highest among Division I-A
coaches.
As the salaries of college football
coaches continue to rise, the overwhelming discrepancy in pay
between coaches and faculty members grows. Universities now pay
these coaches six- and seven-figure salaries along with lucrative
bonuses and incentives, while the salaries of the faculty at
the same institutions of higher learning pale by comparison.
For example, the average salary of a full professor at the University
of Oklahoma is $95,650 - roughly $3.2 million less than head
coach Bob Stoops. InsideHigherEd.com found that the average salary
for a full professor at a four-year institution in 2005-06 was
roughly $83,000, $867,902 less than the average head coach's
at a premier Division I-A school. . .
The most prominent example of
a group of universities emphasizing academics over athletics
is the Ivy League. Just after the 1981 season, the eight Ivy
League football teams were downgraded from Division I-A to I-AA
due to an argument with the NCAA over television revenue. Instead
of appealing this decision, the Ivy League presidents gladly
walked away from Division I-A football. A Nov. 17 article in
The New York Times examined the state of Ivy League football
25 years after it made the switch from Division I-A to I-AA.
While several coaches and athletic directors believe Ivy League
football could exist successfully in Division I-A both academically
and athletically, the consensus among Ivy League university presidents
is that the move to Division I-AA football was the right one.
. .
One might think that the revenue
these football programs bring in is split up between both athletic
and academic programs, so it would benefit the academic as well
as athletic programs. Unfortunately that is rarely the case,
as the athletic departments of many NCAA Division I schools actually
operate independently of the university itself, with all athletic
earnings going into a separate budget solely for themselves.
The athletic department then uses these earnings for athletics-only
purposes, such as paying the salaries of their coaches, building
new facilities, and ensuring that all existing sports are fully
funded. . .
Universities ought to reduce
coaches' salaries and stop sending the message that winning football
games is 10 times as important as the hard work of higher education.
. .
[Andy Kroll is a junior at Western
Michigan University and an NCAA Division I college soccer player]
http://www.campusprogress.org/features/1372/why-coach-should-fly-coach
DECEMBER 2006
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY'S BRAIN-WASHING
PROGRAM UNDER ATTACK
FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
IN EDUCAITON - Michigan State University's "student accountability
in community seminar" forces students whose speech or behavior
is deemed unacceptable to undergo ideological reeducation at
their own expense. FIRE is challenging Michigan State to dismantle
this unconstitutional program.
"Michigan State's SAC program
is simply one of the most invasive attempts at reeducation that
FIRE has ever seen, yet it has been allowed to exist at the university
for years," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "As
bad as it is to tell citizens in a free society what they can't
say, it is even worse to tell them what they must say. Michigan
State's program is an immoral and unconstitutional program of
compelled speech, blatant thought reform, and pseudo-psychology."
According to the program's materials,
SAC is an "early intervention" for students who use
such "power-and-control tactics" as "male-white
privilege" and "obfuscation," which the university
cryptically defines as "any action of obscuring, concealing,
or changing people's perceptions that result in your advantage
and/or another's disadvantage." Students can be required
to attend SAC if they demonstrate what a judicial administrator
arbitrarily deems aggressive behavior, past examples of which
have included slamming a door during an argument or playing a
practical joke. Students can also be required to attend SAC for
engaging in various types of constitutionally protected speech,
including "insulting instructors" or "m king sexist,
homophobic, or racist remarks at a meeting." When participation
in SAC is required, "non-compliance typically results in
a hold being placed on the student's account," an action
that leaves the student unable to register for classes and thus
effectively expelled from the university. Students are required
to pay the cost of the SAC sessions.
Once in the program, students
are instructed to answer a series of written questionnaires.
In their answers, students must specifically describe how they
are taking "full responsibility" for their offensive
behavior and must do so using language that the director of the
session deems acceptable. Most students will be asked to fill
out this questionnaire multiple times, slowly inching closer
to what administrators deem to be "correct" responses.
In a letter to Michigan State
President Lou Anna K. Simon, FIRE pointed out the stark contradiction
between the SAC program and the values of a free society: "At
the heart of all concepts relating to freedom of the mind is
a recognition of our own limitations - like us, those in power
are neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and therefore have no
right to dictate to others what their deepest personal beliefs
must be. Concern for free speech and freedom of conscience is
rooted in the wisdom of humility and restraint. The SAC program,
which presumes to show students the specific ideological assumptions
they need to be better people, crosses the boundary from punishment
into invasive and immoral thought reform. We can think of no
way in which the SAC program can be maintained consistent with
the ideals of a free society."
FIRE's letter to President Simon
also underscored Michigan State's legal obligation to abide by
the First Amendment. FIRE reminded her of the Supreme Court's
decision in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, a case
decided in the midst of World War II that remains the law of
the land. Justice Robert H. Jackson, writing for the Court, declared,
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,
it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall
be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters
of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their
faith therein."
http://thefire.org
NOVEMBER 2006
MORE COLLEGES ON THE TAKE FROM INTELLIGENCE
AGENCIES
RICHARD WILLING, USA TODAY - The U.S. intelligence community pours
millions into higher education, paying for hundreds of scholarships,
intelligence-related courses and fellowships at nearly a dozen
universities, public documents and interviews with officials
show. Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
more than doubled the number of schools in its program. The Department
of Homeland Security is also developing a program for nuclear
scientists.
The sponsoring agencies, including
the CIA, say the programs help ensure they get enough recruits
skilled to wage the war on terrorism. The programs began in 2004.
Agencies also pay for internships and summer "spy camps"
aimed at attracting high school students to study intelligence.
. .
The programs have revived a decades-old
debate about the proper relationship between intelligence agencies
and academia. They have also invited comparisons to the 1950s,
when the FBI sometimes encouraged students to report on professors'
political leanings, and the 1960s, when the CIA paid for the
National Student Association and tapped its members for intelligence
work.
One program, the Pat Roberts
Intelligence Scholars, keeps the identities of its participants
secret.
"Secrecy, in particular,
is a problem," says David Price, anthropology professor
at St. Martin's University in Spokane, Wash., and author of a
book on FBI surveillance of academics in the 1950s. "I've
looked at far too many old FBI documents to ever be comfortable
with the idea" of such agencies funding students, Price
says.
Academic and intelligence communities
share a complicated history. During World War II, the Office
of Strategic Services, the CIA's predecessor, recruited historians,
anthropologists and other specialists, according to historian
Robin Winks' book Cloak & Gown. In the 1950s and '60s, faculty
members at Yale, Harvard, MIT and other elite universities served
as talent spotters, steering promising students into intelligence
careers.
Intelligence recruiters also
liked small Catholic schools such as Trinity University in Washington,
D.C., says Robert Maguire, an international relations professor
who coordinates Trinity's intelligence studies program. . .
UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS MAKING
HUGE SALARIES
BOSTON GLOBE - About
112 of the 853 public and private university presidents surveyed
said they had pay and benefits packages of more than half a million
dollars, according to an annual report being published today
in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The jump was more prominent
among public university presidents: 42 presidents earned more
than half a million dollars in the current survey, rising from
23 in the previous one. The median pay package for those leaders
was $374,846, about 4 percent higher than the previous median
of $360,000.
Private school presidents continued to be paid more, however.
Seventy of those leaders earned more than $500,000. . .
John Curtis, director of research and public
policy at the American Association of University Professors,
was critical of the trend. "Our concern is that that's not
appropriate, when virtually all of the colleges and universities
we talk about are still not-for-profit organizations, and that
they also supposedly operate for the benefit of society, for
the common good," he told Bloomberg News.
SEPTEMBER 2006
BRITISH COLLEGE STUDENTS TOLD: TURN
UP OR FACE EXPULSION
JAMES MEIKLE, GUARDIAN - Thousands
of undergraduate students are being forced to sign good behaviour
contracts with their universities and warned they could be expelled
if they breach regulations, the Guardian has learned. The contracts
put the onus on students to attend lectures and tutorials, but
have been condemned by the National Union of Students. The NUS
claims the contracts are "one-sided", and do not spell
out what standard of teaching students should expect to get for
the L3,000-a-year top-up tuition fees they are being charged.
Oxford and Chester Universities
have introduced the contracts for students this year and legal
agreements are already in place at Bristol and Nottingham Trent.
The NUS believes it is the start of a disturbing trend that could
be adopted by other universities.
At Oxford, which already makes
such demands of its postgraduates, students must sign a document
saying any breach of regulations or codes of practice about their
conduct, studies and residences "may lead to your expulsion
from the university or other sanctions. . .
The executive of the National
Union of Students is challenging what it sees as a piecemeal,
university-by-university process. It will oppose any arrangements
not agreed with students and is calling for a debate over the
obligations on all sides in an era when most undergraduates in
England must use loans to fund their fees.
Three years ago, a Wolverhampton
University law student received £30,000 in an out-of-court
deal after claiming the course had not lived up to the prospectus.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1869544,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1
SAM SMITH, MULTITUDES - I drifted
into a schedule at Harvard that kept me up drinking - once a
whole fifth of bourbon before bed - and talking much of the night
while sleeping through classes. By the middle of freshman year
I received a postcard from my English instructor: "Mr. Coles
requests the pleasure of your attendance at the next regular
meeting of his course." . . . It has been part of my personal
myth that I never went to class, did most of my studying during
the two-week reading period before exams, and generally eschewed
all academic matters while interned in Harvard Square. While
there is some truth to this, it has been deeply exaggerated.
I did attend and pass a large number of courses, I must have
studied for them (my notes suggest at one point a goal of 20
hours a week, with the current week logging nine and a half),
I truly enjoyed some of my courses and Bart J. Bok scribbled
on one of my papers "Very good summary of the solar prominence
situation." At the same time, however, I recall an exceptional
amount of time spent on the banks of the Charles in the spring
trying to cram 600 pages of information into my head in 48 hours,
being unable to stay awake for more than 20 minutes in one of
the comfortable chairs in Lamont Library, and generally living
on the edge.
I think what finally almost did
me in can be best explained by the analogy of criminality. I
had started, much as the criminal life commences, with some mild
offense such as shoplifting or hubcap stealing. When I found
I could get through courses I didn't like by relying on native
wit and a long reading period, I began to take ever greater risks,
stealing, so to speak, cars and mugging little old ladies. Now
it was time to hit the bank. I don't know why I took "Darkness
at Noon," - as the slide laden Fine Arts 13 was called -
although perhaps it was out of a residual urge to pander to my
parents' cultural obsessions. But how I thought I could pass
a course whose substance consisted of hundreds of slides without
actually looking at them is now beyond any explanation other
than the pathological. I robbed the bank and was caught. I flunked
the first semester. I hold no grudge against the professor or
Harvard for this. Any student who identifies an architectural
drawing of Notre Dame's main floor as a Renaissance garden deserves
to flunk. (I sat in the back of the room and my hangover and
lack of sleep truly gave the columns a bush-like fuzziness).
http://prorev.com/harvard.htm
COLLEGE APPLICANT BUBBLE ABOUT TO BURST
JULIE STEINBERG, DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN
- For the past 10 years, a swell in the number of students applying
to college has made the admissions process extremely competitive.
All that is about to change. Most of the "baby boom letter"
generation -- those born in the 1980s and early 1990s -- will
have degrees by 2009. After that, the number of new high-school
graduates will start to decline.
And a shrinking applicant pool means that getting into many colleges
will get easier.
Though the number of new high-school
graduates is projected to drop 4 percent in 2009, Northeastern
states will experience an even steeper decline. The Department
of Education predicts a 10-percent decline in Pennsylvania. .
. Large numbers of students are still likely to apply to the
nation's top schools. . . Schools that will face challenges will
likely be smaller, private colleges. . .
Some education officials don't
expect the decline to pose a significant problem. . . The National
Center for Education Statistics, for example, projects that undergraduate
enrollment will continue to swell, according to Frank Balz, a
spokesman for the National Association for Independent Colleges
and Universities, an advocacy group. An influx of immigrants
to the U.S., he said, will constitute a "significant portion
of enrollment growth," but are not included in predictions
of the decline in graduating high school students.
http://www.uwire.com/content//topnews090806001.html
THE PRICE OF ADMISSIONS
Daniel Golden
 INSIDE
HIGHER ED - That American higher education is not a pure meritocracy
is, of course, hardly news. But Golden's book has a level of
detail about the degree to which he says some colleges favor
the privileged that will embarrass many an admissions officer.
Golden names names of students - and includes details about their
academic records before college and once there that raise questions
about the admissions decisions being made. For good measure,
he attacks Title IX (saying that the women's teams colleges create
favor wealthy, white applicants), preferences for faculty children
(ditto, although substitute middle class for wealthy), and accuses
colleges of making Asian applicants the "new Jews"
and holding them to much higher standards than other students.
. .
In an interview, Golden said
that he became interested in the issue of preferences for the
wealthy while he was covering the judicial battles over affirmative
action at the University of Michigan. "Everyone was writing
about the boosts [in the admissions process] for minority applicants,"
he said, but he started to realize that there were also explicit
boosts for the extremely wealthy and alumni children. He was
struck, Golden said, by how little attention such preferences
received. . .
Judging from those who have favorably
blurbed his book, Golden is reaching both sides in the affirmative
action debate. Support comes from strong supporters of affirmative
action like Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Lani Guinier, with the
latter saying that the book shows that "the already privileged
are the truly preferred." But the book also wins an endorsement
from Diane Ravitch, a critic of affirmative action, who writes
that while she "didn't want to believe" the book's
thesis, she found the evidence to be "overwhelming."
http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/05/admit
ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1400097967/progressiverevieA/
COLLEGE STUDENTS SEGREGATING THEMSELVES
IN THEMED HOUSING
SARAH SCHWEITZER, BOSTON GLOBE - At universities and colleges, students
with shared interests are increasingly funneling into shared
living spaces called thematic housing. The idea took root in
the 1970s but is expanding dramatically on campuses now as students
demand such niche housing, and schools eagerly supply it in a
hyper-competitive college market.
The move, schools say, also has
an academic aspect. By creating housing centered on a theme,
colleges can inject more structured learning into residence halls.
Faculty members are assigned to help students plan and organize
campus events that promote their interests -- be it social justice,
substance-free living, or cooking. . . The themes vary widely.
Some are broad, even amorphous. At Brandeis, for example, in
addition to social justice, the school offers living space centered
on global affairs, health and wellness, and the arts. The themes
were chosen based on focus group input gathered two years ago.
Other schools offer more narrowly
focused themes, often derived from individual student requests.
At Colgate University, students interested in foreign film can
live together; at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., students
interested in recycling and environmental issues share quarters,
and at Wesleyan University, which has 28 themed houses, students
interested in Buddhism have living space to themselves, as do
students who deem themselves "eclectic." Students say
a major draw of the housing is the sense of community it offers,
an element many say was lacking in their previous housing assignments.
. .
Officials at some colleges shy
away from creating themed residence halls, saying they promote
self-segregation and restrict the sort of whimsical learning
that happens in an ad hoc living environment. Williams College
, for one, states unequivocally on its website that the school
provides "no special interest housing.". . .
AUGUST 2006
BERKELEY TO HIRE VICE CHANCELLOR FOR
"EQUITY & INCLUSION" AT NEARLY $300K A YEAR
MATIER AND ROSS, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
- UC Berkeley Chancellor
Robert Birgeneau has just announced he's creating the new post
of vice chancellor for equity and inclusion -- a job that not
only has an impressive title, but an equally impressive salary
of between $182,000 and $282,000 a year. Plus an office budget
in excess of $4 million.
The goal isn't so much to recruit
more minorities but rather to ensure students, faculty and staff
are "fully respected for their individuality and what they
represent," Birgeneau said. Birgeneau said the aim is "to
prize our diversity and learn from it and to appreciate people
for being part of the whole but also for what they as individuals
bring to Berkeley.". . . As of last spring, minorities made
up 58 percent of UC Berkeley's support staff -- but only 6 percent
of the top campus ranks.
JULY 2006
DO STUDENTS WRITE WORSE NOW?
LAURENCE MUSGROVE, INSIDE HIGHER
ED - In a 1986 study described in College Composition and Communication
under the title "Frequency of Formal Errors in Current College
Writing, or Ma and Pa Kettle Do Research," Robert J. Connors
and Andrea A. Lunsford discovered that "college students
are not making more formal errors in writing than they used to."
They compared error patterns identified by researchers in 1917
and 1930 and found that though the length of paper assignments
had consistently increased over nearly 80 years, "the formal
skills of students have not declined precipitously."
Further they claim, "in
spite of open admissions, in spite of radical shifts in demographics
of college students, in spite of the huge escalation in population
percentage as well as in sheer numbers of people attending American
colleges, freshman are still committing approximately the same
number of formal errors per 100 words they were before World
War I.". . .
In another College Composition
and Communication article, published in 1990 and titled "Frequency
of Errors in Essays by College Freshmen and by Professional Writers,"
Gary Sloan both confirmed the Connors and Lunsford study and
discovered that even though professional writers are often served
up as models for student writers, their writing may contribute
to student confusion about correctness because their essays contain
almost as many errors as first-year themes. Sloan selected 20
published essays from a college composition reader and 20 student
essays composed during the last week of an introductory writing
course. He then analyzed these two samples using an error analysis
technique derived from a grammar handbook commonly used in college
writing courses.
His conclusion? "Connors
and Lunsford found 9.53 errors per essay or 2.26 errors per 100
words; my figures for the same are 9.60 and 2.04. The professionals
have 8.55 errors per writer and 1.82 per 100 words." Further,
given the fact that misspelling was the most common error in
student writing, but absent in professional writing, the student
error count would have actually been less than the professional
average if students had only spellchecked their essays - again
an editing technology not available to many students in 1990.
JUNE 2006
YOUTH DRINKING LAWS: UNCONSTITUTIONAL
AND DON'T WORK
THE WASHINGTON POST RECENTLY
ran a complementary article about efforts by the George Mason
University police to harass and arrest student drinkers. As we
have pointed out from time to time, the prohibition against drinking
by citizens 18-20 years old is unconstitutional although no court
will admit the fact. It also doesn't make sense as the study
below points out.
STUDY BY THOMAS S. DEE AND WILLIAM
N. EVANS - Behavioral policies such as seat-belt-use laws, minimum
legal drinking ages, and some policies designed to limit drunk
driving have improved teen traffic safety over the past 20 years.
However, these policies appear to explain only a modest fraction
of the enormous gains in teen traffic safety. . . [The evidence]
suggests that experiential learning may be an important component
of teens' maturation through a variety of risky driving behaviors.
The relevance of such learning by doing implies that the new
graduated licensing systems may be an effective policy for generating
further gains in teen traffic safety. Such licensing regulations
require that new drivers acquire experience in low-risk settings
before moving into more complex driving environments.
http://www.youthrights.org/docs/DeeEvansDrinkingAgeStudy.pdf
YOUTH DRINKING FAQ
[From the National Youth Rights
Association]
How many countries have a drinking
age of 21?
Only four on the entire planet.
Ukraine, South Korea, Malaysia, and the United States. All other
countries(out of like 200) have lower drinking ages, and many
don't have any drinking age at all.
Did raising the drinking age
save 20,000 lives?
No. This is one of the most misguided
and over used statistics circulated by the youth prohibitionist
movement. The truth is, as researchers Peter Asch and David Levy
put it, the "minimum legal drinking age is not a significant-or
even a perceptible-factor in the fatality experience of all drivers
or of young drivers." In an in-depth and unrefuted study
Asch and Levy prove that raising the drinking age merely transferred
lost lives from the 18-20 bracket to the 21-24 age group. The
problem with the 20,000 lives saved statistic is that it looks
only at deaths for people aged 18-20. This is like rating the
safety of a car by looking only at the seat belt and ignoring
the fact that the car frequently tips over while driving. Raising
the drinking age may have reduced deaths 18-20 but resulted in
more deaths among people 21-24. . .
People aren't mature enough to
handle alcohol till you turn 21. Right?
When you are 18 you are judged
mature enough to vote, hold public office, serve on juries, serve
in the military, fly airplanes, sign contracts and so on. Why
is drinking a beer an act of greater responsibility and maturity
than flying an airplane or serving your country at war?
Doesn't your body develop up
till the age of 21?
Youth prohibition activists ignore
the fact that maturity is a gradual but uneven process that continues
throughout life and is not complete on one's twenty-first birthday.
Moreover, they ignore the proven medical fact that the moderate
consumption of alcohol is associated with better health and greater
longevity than is either abstaining or abusing alcohol. The simplest
way to prove this argument is for you to look in your medicine
cabinet or go to the drug store. Every single over the counter
medication defines an adult dose for ages 12 and up. Not 21,
but 12. If the FDA can determine that a 12 year old is developed
enough to have an equal dose of Tylenol, or Sudafed, or Dramamine,
or Zantac 75, then an 18 year old is developed enough to have
a glass of wine with dinner.
NYRA argues that a strict no-use
policy towards alcohol causes many problems. How will simply
lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 change this?
The National Youth Rights Association
doesn't just feel we should lower the age from 21 to 18 and change
nothing else. We feel larger change must occur for people under
18 as well. Alcohol must be introduced gradually and at younger
ages (12 perhaps) as they do in Europe. Young people must be
allowed to get their feet wet through the introduction of alcohol
in small amounts in safe environments like the home. Any permanent
change to alcohol policy must stress this above all. NYRA feels
this period of gradual introduction to alcohol may take a few
years, but in no way should it last until 21. If an ending year
for introduction is to be named, 18 is far more reasonable.
I'm over 21, do I have a reason
to care about the Drinking Age?
Yes. The strict and blind enforcement
of the drinking age creates many victims over and under 21. Problems
for people over 21 include the hassle of being carded at bars
and restaurants, and the problem of social segregation. When
going out with friends the drinking age drives a wedge between
friends over and under 21. Often they are unable to hang out
at the same places. Most troubling is what happens to parents
who recognize the inevitability of underage drinking will try
to provide safe, supervised places for high school students to
have parties. These parents can be punished to ridiculous lengths
for their attempts to allow safe drinking. In February 2003 Elsa
and George Robinson were sentenced to 8 years in prison for providing
alcohol at their son's birthday party. That's right, 8 years.
The harsh drinking age ruins more lives than it helps.
http://www.youthrights.org/dafaq.shtml
STUDENTS PREFER INTERNET TO LIBRARIES
JAMIE VANGEEST, MINNESOTA DAILY
- College students use libraries more than most people, but according
to a new report, the Internet still comes first when looking
for information. The findings evaluated 396 college students'
views about libraries and information resources. The report found
that college students use library resources more than the general
population, but the Internet is the first place students go for
information. . .
Eighty-nine percent of students
use Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo, while 2
percent start an information search with a library Web site,
according to the report released this month. . . Eighteen percent
of college students use a public library weekly while only 13
percent of the respondents overall do, according to the report.
. . The numbers for library use were consistent across the six
countries in the study.
http://www.uwire.com/content//topnews061406002.html
LIFE COACHES FOR 20-SOMETHINGS
PATRIK JONSSON, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
MONITOR - Life coaches are the upbeat advice-givers known for
helping harried CEOs acquire work-life balance. But today, more
of them are playing Dr. Phil for 20-somethings. In some ways,
it's a natural tactic for a generation that grew up watching
their parents pay people to solve their problems. But critics
wonder whether such shortcuts undermine the value of real, sometimes
bitter, experiences in building character. . .
It's a growing industry, featuring
numerous book titles, Internet discussion boards, life coaches,
and workshops. Television networks are getting hip, too. "How
To Get The Guy," a new ABC reality show that premieres June
12, employs life coaches to help young women score the perfect
mate. . .
Experts say today's college graduates
- the front end of Generation Y - differ from their baby-boomer
parents, who developed a reputation for navel-gazing. Neither
do they have the same independent, sometimes cynical streak that
defined their Generation X predecessors. The current crop, observers
say, is coddled, accustomed to their parents hiring tutors or
college-application consultants.
"This group isn't about
hard knocks; they're an overscheduled generation that had piano
lessons and tutors and very little free time to make mistakes,"
says Ms. Sopp. "It doesn't surprise me that they would seek
advice, because they don't have a lot of experience.". .
.
There's another factor in the
rush toward life consultants, experts say: parents. Human resources
managers are increasingly noticing that parents are accompanying
their children to job interviews, according to a COE survey.
Indeed, several attendees at the Atlanta sessions were there
at the behest of mom and dad.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0605/p01s04-ussc.html?s=hns
MARCH 2006
HOW HARVARD HELPED TO KILL AMERICA'S
ENJOYMENT OF SOCCER
MARK SALISBURY, AMERICAN SOCCER
HISTORY ARCHIVES - Many have suggested that baseball and football
are solely American inventions. Yet soccer, football, and baseball
evolved in virtually the same way. Just as baseball developed
out of modifications made to the British game of rounders (the
Abner Doubleday myth has been proven thoroughly unfounded), and
football evolved from an unorganized version of English rugby,
so soccer grew out of informalized versions of a game that had
been played for centuries on both sides of the Atlantic. The
same precursor to soccer played in England was recorded in Boston
in 1657. The first recorded soccer club formed in the U.S. was
the Oneida Football Club, which played on Boston Common from
1862-1865. This predates the formation of the English Football
Association in 1863. The idea that soccer is originally less
American than baseball and football was invented much later,
with little basis in historical fact.
Though soccer made a brief appearance
as an intercollegiate sport in the Ivy League between 1869 and
1875, Harvard had refused to compete under the soccer rules,
proclaimed the rugby rules more "manly." Harvard had
been the center of the Muscular Christianity movement since the
1850s, and their inclination toward more physical games had long
been demonstrated in the annual "Bloody Monday" - a
free-for all brawl between sophomores and freshmen. In a powerful
display of Harvard's prestige, Princeton, Columbia, and Yale
coalesced and switched from soccer to rugby at the 1876 formation
of the Intercollegiate Football Association in order to compete
with Harvard. By 1900, Ivy League rugby had metamorphosed into
American football, which Walter Camp, the father of American
football, hailed in Harper's Weekly as a great scientific advancement
over the unorganized kicking game that was football's predecessor.
The popular press was quick to
glamorize American football as the crowning portrayal of America's
cultural and intellectual superiority over the rest of the world
- particularly its English forbearers. Newspaper and magazine
articles regularly compare American football and English football
- and invariably found the American game more manly and more
progressive. They took incredible license in concocting tales
to prove football the ultimate American game. The New York World
claimed in 1885, just nine years after rugby rules had been adopted
by the Intercollegiate Football Association, that "when
George Washington's father was a boy learning his ABC's the lads
of Yale College used to play foot-ball. Long before the blue
stars of the American flag were born the boys of Princeton played
the same game." In 1889, the New York Evening World even
published an illustration of what it claimed to be "The
Original Football Game, 4-11-44 B.C.," complete with the
markings of aged parchment. Football games were turned into fashionable
spectacles for the trendy social elites, and anyone wanting themselves
identified as truly American was strongly encouraged to cheer
on their favorite Ivy League team.
Such outlandish attempts to prove
football's supreme destiny served to relegate soccer to insignificance.
While coverage of six or seven college football games every fall
averaged 3-4 full pages each including illustrations by 1895,
the hundreds of amateur soccer teams throughout the northeast
garnered no more than 2-3 column inches in the local paper.
But just because soccer had vanished
from the college campuses did not mean it did not exist. On the
contrary, soccer continued to be passionately played and followed
by millions of first or second generation Americans, sponsored
by social clubs and industries scattered throughout the major
industrial centers. Even in San Francisco in 1909, senior league
matches drew crowds between six and seven thousand. Teams like
the Brooklyn Wanders, Fall River Rovers, and Bethlehem Steel
Football Club regularly produced great teams and great players
from both American and foreign-born stock. Fall River beat the
legendary Corinthians of England 3-0 in front of 8000 fans in
1906. An American player who starred on one of these teams often
found a professional career waiting for him in England or Scotland.
But despite the number of American-born
soccer players and youths who had learned the game in the states,
soccer was continually tagged as an ethnic sport. As early as
1915, a New York Times article quoted the physical director at
Northwestern (IL) saying, "We do not believe in its [soccer's]
success in the ordinary college community. It takes a leaven
of good Scotch, English, and Scandinavian boys to make it a success."
The derisive "ethnic" tag continues to be a stumbling
block to the success of soccer in the mainstream. . .
While football was portrayed
as a manly, virile game representing all that was good about
capitalist America, soccer was reintroduced as a return to the
gentlemanly ideal of amateur sportsmanship. Football was often
called "a moral agent" or "a training for life."
In a 1905 editorial in The Independent, the author proclaimed
football to be the very "epitome of our commonwealth, the
real national game, the symbol of our civilization." . .
.
However, football was never a
participation sport. It was a battle for survival, weeding out
the lesser men through a contest that demanded stature, strength,
character, and the ability to play with pain. Soccer was all-inclusive;
a game where everybody could enjoy the benefits of outdoor, physical
exercise. Though it was a good argument for a gym class, it stripped
soccer of its ability to create collegiate heroes like the football
gods worshipped weekly in the popular press. Soccer could not
embody the essential American character traits because it was
either ethnic or exercise. Had soccer been presented as a fiercely
contested game that taught the fastest, strongest, most intelligent
team how to win through determination and teamwork, the history
of soccer in this country might have been much different.
http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/hist1.html
FEBRUARY 2006
WAR ON THE YOUNG: STATES CHARGE YOUTHS
FOR ALCOHOL CONTENT EVEN WITHOUT DRINK IN HAND
DAVID A. FAHRENTHOLD WASHINGTON
POST - In New Hampshire. . . minors can be arrested for what
is colloquially called "internal possession" of alcohol,
to the point of being intoxicated. In a break with legal tradition,
an underage person with drinks in his or her system often faces
the same charge as one with a drink in hand. Similar statutes
are now on the books in a handful of other states. Together,
they've taken the campaign against underage drinking to a place
it has rarely been before: down the gullet and into the bloodstream
of teenage imbibers. But they have also spawned criticism from
some legal scholars, who say the laws are pushing the definition
of a real possession charge.
"When the law makes the
offense simply a biological fact, of simply having a certain
chemical in one's body, that steps over a line in the law that
has been traditionally accepted," said Richard J. Bonnie,
a law professor at the University of Virginia who has studied
underage drinking. Under the new law, police didn't have to establish
when and how a minor had become intoxicated. They needed only
to determine that the minor was intoxicated, with the alcohol
inside them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/04/AR2006020400821.html
COLLEGE STUDENTS FORM THINK TANK
STUDENTS AROUND the country are
forming chapters of something called the Roosevelt Institution
(after Franklin, Eleanor and Teddy), campus think tanks staffed
by the young to compete with the hallowed halls of academic anachronism
already sprinkled across this land and in your nation's capital
According to the group, "We're
hopeful, passionate, pragmatic, and bright. We don't have ideological
or political debts. The future is ours and we get it. We write
theses about how to reduce carbon emissions, volunteer to help
improve public education for low-income youth, and raise money
to fight AIDS in Africa. We have access to our faculties, to
the world's best research tools, to unique interdisciplinary
programs on each campus -- and to each other.
"But our intellectual capital
is an underutilized asset -- we don't have access to the policy
process. The Roosevelt Institution is a national network of student
think tanks that provide the organizational infrastructure to
get student ideas into the public discourse. We have standing
relationships with politicians and policymakers, media outlets,
foundations, and other think tanks, and are building more by
the day."
So they certainly have the unabashed
self esteem of a think typical tanker, but we confess to some
concern that it is not the absence of ideas that has the country
in such a mess, but a lack of action of their behalf. The idea
of college students setting out to change the world by just doing
more thinking is actually quite depressing, especially when you
consider some of the very Washington and unstudent-like language
they're using: "Giving fellows access to a group and a discussion
forum can allow us to see niches in the policy discourse that
we can fill.. . . In the demand-driven third research model,
fellows turn to outside experts for advice on policy papers that
will be effective and will find a market in the outside world.
Advocacy organizations, policymakers, and fellows at other think
tanks will have a strong sense of high-salience issues that are
not being addressed."
Perhaps the students should consider
what Teddy Roosevelt said at the Sorbonne in 1910, "It is
not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done
better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the
arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who
strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again,
because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but
who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends
himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end,
the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he
fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither
victory nor defeat."
http://rooseveltinstitution.org/
ADVISORY BOARD
http://rooseveltinstitution.org/advisoryboard
JANUARY 2006
PENTAGON SAYS BERKELEY, NYU AND UNIVERSITY
OF WISCONSIN POSSIBLE THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY
MEG RAFFERTY, BOSTON UNIV DAILY
FREE PRESS - According to the Pentagon, several universities
in the U.S. may pose a danger to national security.
On-campus protests against military recruitment landed eight
national universities, including New York University and University
of California-Berkeley, on a Pentagon watch list for being threats
to national security. . .
According to the document, all
of the campus protests were aimed at campus recruiters and were
held at the New York University, the State University of New
York at Albany, Southern Connecticut State University, City College
of the City University of New York, UC-Berkeley and UC-Santa
Cruz, an unspecified campus of the University of Wisconsin and
"a New Jersey university."
"We were surprised, to say
the least, that our university was on the list," said Josh
Taylor, a New York University spokesperson. "We were a bit
concerned, understandably, because we are not entirely clear
how we wound up on it.". . .
After Sept. 11th, 2001, the Department
of Defense developed a database of "unfiltered" threat
information called the Threat and Local Observation Notice, or
TALON. . . According to an unclassified Pentagon document, the
TALON report is a web-based entry form that lists reportable
events, or "non-specific threats to DOD interests."
These threats include: suspected surveillance of DoD facilities
and personnel, threats of security, bomb threats and unusual
repetitive activity. The only university to be deemed as a "credible"
threat in the expansive DOD document was the UCSC.
The targeted event, a non-violent
Students Against War protest at UCSC, was held on April 5 and
drew more than 250 students and some faculty who were opposed
to military recruiting at an on-campus college career fair.
http://www.uwire.com/content//topnews012406001.html
TEXTBOOK COSTS RISING BEYOND STUDENTS'
REACH
SUSAN KINZIE WASHINGTON POST - Textbook prices have been rising at
double the rate of inflation for the past two decades, according
to a Government Accountability Office study. In Virginia, more
than 40 percent of students surveyed by the State Council of
Higher Education for Virginia said they sometimes just do without.
That's been increasing, said Jennifer Libertowski of the National
Association of College Stores; recently, the group found that
nearly 60 percent of students nationwide choose not to buy all
the course materials. . . Students at four-year schools spent,
on average, about $900 for books and supplies in 2003-04, more
than a quarter of the cost of tuition and fees. At community
colleges, the GAO study found, the books amounted to almost three-quarters
of the cost.
AP - Nearing a diploma, most
college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks,
from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per
ounce of food. Those are the sobering findings of a study of
literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills
of students as they approach the start of their careers. More
than 50% of students at four-year schools and more than 75% at
two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy
tasks. That means they could not interpret a table about exercise
and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials,
compare credit card offers with different interest rates and
annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement
in school.
THE DUMBING DOWN OF COLLEGE EDUCATION
MICHAEL KRYZANEK IN BOSTON GLOBE - A recent study by the National Center
for Education Statistics found that only 31 percent of college
graduates could read a ''complex book and extrapolate from it."
Furthermore, the study found that far fewer college graduates
are leaving school with ''the skills needed to comprehend routine
data, such as reading a table about the relationship between
blood pressure and physical activity." What's most disturbing,
according to Mark Schneider, the commissioner of education statistics,
is that, ''the assessment is not designed to test your ability
to understand Proust, but to test your ability to read labels."
I would be lying to you if I
said that I was surprised by the data. My more than 30 years
of teaching in higher education at Bridgewater State College
and elsewhere, and frequent discussions with colleagues from
a wide range of colleges and universities, both public and private,
tell me the findings are accurate. . .
Behind the dismal data on college
graduate literacy is the new reality of higher education in America.
Students today have little interest in what past generations
of college students accepted as an essential education. Reading
the literature of ''dead white guys," studying the relevancy
of a 400-year-old historical event, and thinking about the meaning
of life's mysteries are not of great interest to a growing number
of college students. . .
mkryzanek@bridgew.edu
DECEMBER 2005
MORE THAN HALF OF COLLEGE PRESIDENTS
WOULD TRASH TENURE
STEVE CALDERWOOD, CRESCENT (U.
EVANSVILLE) - More than half of college presidents want to see
tenure replaced by a system of long-term contracts, according
to a survey of about 750 presidents conducted by the Chronicle
for Higher Education. But University of Evansville President
Stephen Jennings, who participated in the survey, is among the
39 percent who support tenure. "Tenure is the bedrock of
education," he said. "You don't get great faculty and
academic freedom without tenure." . . .
Perhaps the most common complaint
about tenure and one highlighted by the Chronicle's survey is
that tenure makes faculty lazy. "There will always be people,
because they are protected from firing without cause, who'll
just coast," Underwood said.
http://www.uwire.com/content//topnews121605001.html
A TEACHING ASSISTANT EXPLAINS WHY SHE
IS ON STRIKE
MICHELLE FAWCETT, NYC INDYMEDIA
- When I moved to NYC to start a Ph.D. program at NYU in 2000,
my biggest concern was not the rigors of graduate study or the
challenge of moving to another new city alone. It was the fear
of being unable to survive economically. Sure, I was going to
work in addition to being a student: as a graduate assistant,
or GA, for my department. GAs work as research assistants or
teaching assistants .
The work of an RA might include
co-editing an article with a professor, but often it consists
of administrative duties such as making copies. I once moved
a professor's office furniture on a dolly down the middle of
Broadway. We also teach. Teaching assistants in my department
attend the course lecture (75% of more taught by adjuncts across
the university) and may teach several recitations, which are
sub-sections of the lecture. I have had as many as 80 students
across 3 recitations that met weekly, for which I would prepare
lectures, host discussions, hold office hours, and grade stacks
of papers throughout the semester.
Prior to the union contract,
I received $10,000 a year in the form of biweekly paychecks.
(Not sure where the rest of the approximately $3,000,000 that
my 80 students paid annually in tuition went.) As the recipient
of a wage income and therefore a worker according to the IRS,
I paid taxes on that $10,000.
Obviously, this was not enough
to live on in NYC, so I had to find other forms of support. .
. Being the first to attend college in my working class family,
I had no economic cushion to fall back on, so I applied for federal
student loans. Since NYU counted my free tuition as "income,"
however, I was eligible for only a small loan. . .
Why do we struggle so? Because,
unlike President John Sexton and the NYU brass, we truly are
passionately devoted to academic freedom and advanced intellectual
inquiry, and we think the university should be the place where
we can pursue that. But we need a living wage for our work, to
do so we need to be recognized as workers to get that wage, and
the union is our only voice to negotiate on equal terms with
a powerful and vastly wealthy institution. NYU cannot advocate
for us, nor can any form of "student government." It's
that simple.
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2005/12/61614.html
SEPTEMBER 2005
COLLEGE STUDENTS MAKE GOOD VOLUNTEER
FIREFIGHTERS
MAREK FUCHS, NY TIMES - When Mike Stahl was a high school
senior touring some of the best liberal arts colleges in the
nation, he also visited the firehouse here to ask if it accepted
college students as volunteers. At the Clinton Fire Department,
just down the hill from Hamilton College, he was told he would
be more than welcome. That was when Hamilton vaulted to the top
of his list of colleges.
Mr. Stahl, 21, now a senior at
Hamilton who can often be found doing his schoolwork in the firehouse,
was named the volunteer department's most dedicated member in
the spring. He answered more than 200 calls in his junior year,
including fires, car accidents and false alarms in Clinton, a
village that is a 15-minute drive from Utica. . .
College students can play an
important role in volunteer fire departments, which have been
depleted in many areas by full-time careers, strict entry requirements
and the shifting priorities of parental duties. College students
are on many levels the perfect solution. They tend to be young
and able-bodied and are around during the day, if not always
awake. They are also free of the family commitments that can
make responding to emergencies harder for older firefighters.
The lure of joining a volunteer
fire department can be considerable for undergraduates, who as
part of the 9/11 generation tend to hold firefighters in particularly
high esteem. They may also be seeking to take part in some real-world
action as a change of pace from the theories of classroom academics.
. .
Diann Lynch, a nurse who coordinates
the intensive class, said about a dozen students took it annually.
Graduates of the class have given the Clinton Fire Department
a new and steady supply of qualified E.M.T.'s, said Bill Roberts,
chief of the department.
SAM SMITH'S GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL
REPAIR MANUAL, 1997 - When fifty percent of a city's welfare
recipients have a high school diploma, there is a strong hint
that something is very wrong other than the educational system.
Further, the word gets around. Politicians and the media may
have abstract fantasies about the value of education; kids tend
to be a bit more realistic.
So the most important first step
towards a better urban school system is a better urban economy.
The second step is to stop treating our young as an accident
or crime waiting to happen and to begin respecting, helping and
needing them. We could, for example, use older students more
as tutors and teachers of younger kids. We could use high schoolers
as community organizers.
We could even teach students
to become emergency medical technicians and community social
service aides. Imagine if every urban high school had an emergency
squad that was not only medically trained but was able to provide
assistance to the elderly and infirm of the community and help
staff clinics, schools, and recreation centers. With a classy
uniform, good training and equipment (along with a few perks
like being on call on a rotating basis during the class day),
schools and communities might find themselves with some impressive
new role models. Can't be done? Well, it has been. On one Indian
reservation, a high school developed its own search & rescue
squad, which has become a well-regarded part of the area's emergency
services.
ORDER THE REPAIR MANUAL
http://prorev.com/order3.htm
JUNE 2005. . .
CULTURE OF IMPUNITY AT COLORADO U NOT LIMITED
TO FOOTBALL PLAYERS
TODD HARTMAN AND KEVIN VAUGHAN, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS - Whenever
the University of Colorado regents held budget retreats in the
past six years, they holed up in some of Colorado's finest locales,
including Aspen's St. Regis Resort and the famous Stanley Hotel
in Estes Park. They spent at least $20,000 combined on five gatherings
to honor former regents: retirement and "emeritus"
parties that included past and present regents and a host of
top CU officials.
Even when they met in
Denver, some regents resided at the four-star Hotel Teatro, "Denver's
only luxury boutique hotel," according to its Web site.
In all, regents have spent more than $10,000 there since 2000,
records show. One regent has stayed there at least 30 times.
. .
That move came as the
university's leaders continued to grapple with cuts in state
funding from the legislature, declining out-of-state enrollment,
the lingering effects of 18 months of scandal surrounding the
football program and more recent debate about controversial professor
Ward Churchill.
Among the regents' purchases
in recent years:
- Tens of thousands of
dollars for regents and their spouses to attend CU football games
in Seattle; Southern California; Austin, Texas; and Tallahassee,
Fla. That doesn't include money spent to send regents and spouses
to bowl games.
- Nearly $3,000 annually
for memberships in CU's Fastbreak Clubroom at the CU Events Center,
where regents gather for food and a coaches' talk before men's
basketball games. . .
- Hundreds of dollars
for a variety of gifts, including crystal buffaloes, wine glasses,
watches and other items. In one case, the gifts went to retiring
regents and their spouses. In another case, the gift was for
a retiring university administrator.
BUSINESS SCHOOLS DUMPING ETHICS
COURSES
MARJORIE KELLY, BUSINESS ETHICS
- In the wake of recent ethics scandals, one might imagine that
business schools would be deepening their attention to business
ethics. But at many schools the reverse is happening. A slow,
drip-by-drip erosion of business ethics teaching has been going
on in MBA programs throughout the 1990s--and it seems to be getting
worse today. A case in point is the Katz Graduate School of Business
at the University of Pittsburgh, which has dropped a required
ethics course from its full-time MBA program beginning next year.
William Frederick, professor emeritus at the Katz School and
past president of the Society for Business Ethics, said via e-mail
that the ethics course "has been under pressure for either
elimination or downsizing almost from its inception in the early
1960s." . . .
The University of Pittsburgh
is not alone in its downgrading of ethics. At Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., a required
business ethics course was dropped from the MBA curriculum within
the last two years. The State University of New York at Albany
dropped the business ethics requirement from its MBA a number
of years ago, and now doesn't even offer it as an elective, said
associate professor Paul Miesing. At Marquette University in
Milwaukee, Wisc., a social issues in management course required
of MBA students was downgraded from three to one-and-a-half credits,
and students can opt to skip it entirely and take a law course
instead. . .
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
the business school has lost a series of business ethics faculty
since 1997 and no longer has an occupant for its endowed chair
in that area. Today its business ethics class is taught by a
professor trained in transportation economics.
MAY 2005. . .
ONE IN TEN COLLEGE STUDENTS SERIOUSLY
CONSIDERS SUICIDE
WASHINGTON POST - "The number one medication in college is
antidepressants," said Richard Kadison of Harvard University,
whose book about the growing mental health crisis at colleges
was published last year. . . "It's surpassed birth control
pills."
In the past 25 years or so, Kadison said, the likelihood of suffering
depression on campus has doubled, serious thoughts about committing
suicide have tripled and sexual assaults have quadrupled. Now,
one in 10 students seriously considers suicide in college. Nearly
half get so depressed that they can't function, according to
the American College Health Association, and every year, about
1,400 college students die from injuries related to drinking
alcohol.
RESEARCH: THE EFFECTS OF INAPPROPRIATE
HIGHLIGHTING OF TEXTBOOKS http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1469811,00.html
MARC ABRAHAMS, GUARDIAN - Vicki
Silvers and David Kreiner, of Central Missouri State University,
[have written a] study called The Effects of Pre-Existing Inappropriate
Highlighting on Reading Comprehension. "Textbook highlighting
is a common study strategy among college students," Silvers
and Kreiner wrote. Then they described their experiments.
First, they had students read
a passage of text. Some students had text that was highlighted
appropriately. Some had text that was highlighted inappropriately.
Others had spartan, un-highlighted text. Silvers and Kreiner
then tested how well the students comprehended the text. Those
with the inappropriate highlighting scored much lower than the
others. A second experiment showed that even when students were
warned about the inappropriate highlighting, they had trouble
ignoring it.
In 2002, Silvers and Kreiner
were awarded the Ig Nobel literature prize. At the awards ceremony,
they offered one piece of advice: "Don't buy a textbook
that was highlighted by an idiot."
APRIL 2005
STUDENT LIVING WAGE ACTIONS
FEBRUARY 2005
SCENES FROM THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION
[By Mike Rosen,
Rocky Mountain News]
In this great Cultural Revolution,
the phenomenon of our schools being dominated by bourgeois intellectuals
must be completely changed. -Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China Resolutions of the Eleventh Plenum August 1966
I have undertaken the task
of organizing conservative students myself and urging them to
protest a situation that has become intolerable. - David Horowitz
The Campus Blacklist April 18, 2003
Mao came forward with the new
slogan: "Rebellion is justified," which encouraged
[students] to assault officials and institutions indiscriminately."
- Stanley Karnow Mao and China 1972
It is refreshing that conservative
students are increasingly fighting back against academic intolerance.
Some conservative students at the University of Texas have begun
compiling a "Professor Watch List" to warn students
about professors who use their classes for liberal indoctrination.
- Phyllis Schlafly Confronting The Campus Radicals January
12, 2004
MUCH MORE. . .
STUDENTS DON'T WANT WORDS
WITHOUT GRAPHICS
http://www.detnews.com/2005/metro/0501/30/B01-73841.htm
LAURA BERMAN, DETROIT NEWS -
The scene: A college classroom at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
The subject: Writing the newspaper column. The question: "Can
any of you name a columnist you read -- in a newspaper or magazine
or online -- on a regular basis?" In response: Dead silence.
Slowly, one hand rises. A sports
columnist is mentioned. . . "My generation is very visually
oriented," explains Ryan Schreiber, a U-M Dearborn junior
from Dearborn who -- like most in the class -- is majoring in
journalism but doesn't read much of it. "My generation grew
up watching MTV. We are used to short spurts of words, lots of
images...We're used to immediate gratification.". . .
In another journalism class down
the hall, the instructor annoyed his students. After asking how
many read a newspaper regularly -- four or five out of 35 said
they did -- he required them to bring a newspaper to class twice
a week. "The students don't like it," says Laura Hipshire,
one of the journalism students. . .
I envision a 12-Step Program
for the Non-Reading Generation, as its members fight to recover
from an addiction to color graphics and quick bursts of information.
But no one in this class -- or in others I've faced in recent
months -- seems to disagree: Words on a page are, like, kind
of hard to read when you have "a fast-paced lifestyle,"
as [one student] put it. Or when you have "four kids and
you're going to college," as Hipshire says. . .
What's intriguing is that these kids say they plan to write for
newspapers and magazines. They're planning journalism careers.
They're dreaming of careers creating products nobody they know
uses much.
ONE IN THREE STUDENTS SAY
PRESS SHOULD BE RESTRICTED
GREG TOPPO, USA TODAY - One in three U.S. high school students
say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say
the government should approve newspaper stories before readers
see them, according to a survey being released today.
The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers
should get "government approval" of stories before
publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13%
have no opinion.
Asked whether the press enjoys
"too much freedom," not enough or about the right amount,
32% say "too much," and 37% say it has the right amount.
Ten percent say it has too little.
JANUARY 2005
CIA PUTTING SPIES IN U.S.
COLLEGE CLASSROOMS
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/2/2005/1051
ALEXANDER COCKBURN, FREE PRESS
- After disclosure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's effort
to set a new and spectacularly unaccountable version of the CIA
in the Pentagon, the sprouting forest of secret intelligence
operations set up in the wake of 9/11 is at last coming under
some scrutiny. Here's a sinister one in the academic field that
until this week escaped scrutiny.
Dr. David Price, of St. Martins
College, in Olympia, Wash., is an anthropologist long interested
in the intersections of his discipline with the world of intelligence
and national security, both the CIA and the FBI. Now he's turned
the spotlight on a new test program, operating without detection
or protest, that is secretly placing CIA agents in American university
classrooms. With time these students who cannot admit to their
true intentions will inevitably pollute and discredit the universities
in which they are now enrolled.
Even before 9/11, government
money was being sluiced into the academies for covert subsidies
for students. The National Security Education Program siphoned
off students from traditional foreign language funding programs
and offered graduate students good money, sometimes $40,000 a
year and up, to study "in demand" languages, but with
payback stipulations mandating that recipients later work for
unspecified U.S. national security agencies.
When the NSEP got off the ground
in the early 1990s, there was some huff and puff from concerned
academics about this breaching of the supposed barrier between
the desires of academia and the state. But there wasn't even
a watch-pup's yap about Congressional approval for Section 318
of the 2004 Intelligence Authorization Act, which appropriated
$4 million to fund a pilot program known as the Pat Roberts Intelligence
Scholars Program, named after Senator Pat Roberts (R.-Kan., Chair,
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence).
PRISP is designed to train intelligence
operatives and analysts in American university classrooms for
careers in the CIA and other agencies. The program now operates
on an undisclosed number of American college and university campuses.
Dr. Price has discovered that if the pilot phase of the program
proves to be a useful means of recruiting and training members
of the intelligence community, then the program will expand to
more campuses across the country. . .
PRISP students receive financial
stipends ranging up to $25,000 per year, and they are required
to participate in closed meetings with other PRISP scholars and
individuals from their administering intelligence agency. Dr.
Price has determined from his inquiries that less than 150 students
a year are currently authorized to receive funding during the
pilot phase as PRISP evaluates the program's initial outcomes.
PRISP is apparently administered not just by the CIA, but also
through a variety of individual intelligence agencies like the
NSA, MID or Naval Intelligence. . .
Dr. Price says, "The CIA
makes sure we won't know which classrooms PRISP scholars attend,
this being rationalized as a requirement for protecting the identities
of intelligence personnel." But this secrecy shapes PRISP
as it takes on the form of a covert operation in which PRISP
students study chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology, anthropology
and foreign languages without their fellow classmates, professors,
advisors, department chairs or presumably even research subjects
knowing that they are working for the CIA, DIA, NSA or other
intelligence agencies.
DECEMBER 2004
U.S. NO LONGER ATTRACTING
WORLD'S BEST STUDENTS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/national/21global.html
SAM DILLON, NY TIMES - American
universities, which for half a century have attracted the world's
best and brightest students with little effort, are suddenly
facing intense competition as higher education undergoes rapid
globalization. The European Union, moving methodically to compete
with American universities, is streamlining the continent's higher
education system and offering American-style degree programs
taught in English. Britain, Australia and New Zealand are aggressively
recruiting foreign students, as are Asian centers like Taiwan
and Hong Kong. And China, which has declared that transforming
100 universities into world-class research institutions is a
national priority, is persuading top Chinese scholars to return
home from American universities. . .
Foreign students contribute $13
billion to the American economy annually. But this year brought
clear signs that the United States' overwhelming dominance of
international higher education may be ending. . . Foreign applications
to American graduate schools declined 28 percent this year. Actual
foreign graduate student enrollments dropped 6 percent. Enrollments
of all foreign students, in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral
programs, fell for the first time in three decades in an annual
census released this fall. Meanwhile, university enrollments
have been surging in England, Germany and other countries.
AUGUST 2004
PRINCETON REVIEW BEST COLLEGES
[Based on student responses]
Non-discrimination against
homosexuals
1 Eugene Lang College 2 New York
University 3 Sarah Lawrence College 4 New College of Florida
5 Brandeis University
How smoothly is your school
run?
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