The Choice Channel

“Academics say they are under increasing pressure to award undergraduates higher than deserved grades, a poll suggests. The survey of 500 dons by Times Higher Education magazine showed 77% had felt coerced to award higher marks. In June, the university watchdog — the Quality Assurance Agency — told BBC News Online that degree classifications were ‘arbitrary and unreliable.’ The government says the UK’s higher education sector has an international reputation for excellence. The poll found more than two-thirds (69%) of university academics did not think a rise in the number of first-class and upper-second degrees was evidence of improving standards.” (10/23/08)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7684800.stm

“Five visiting scholars from Afghanistan who disappeared from the University of Washington were found Wednesday morning in Canada after crossing the border separately over the past several days, a U.S. immigration official said. ‘We wanted to find them and we found them, so our investigation is now closed,’ said Lorie Dankers, a spokeswoman in Seattle for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” (10/15/08)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27204483/

“As flu season approaches, many New Jersey parents are furious over a first-in-the-nation requirement that small children must get a flu shot in order to attend preschools and day-care centers. The decision should be the parents’, not the state’s, they contend. Hundreds of parents and other activists rallied outside the New Jersey Statehouse on Thursday, decrying the policy and voicing support for a bill that would allow parents to opt out of mandatory vaccinations for their children.” (10/15/08)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27225500/

“Bandwidth and internet connection speeds on most U.S. college campuses increased significantly from 2006 to 2007, but the largest universities still have huge advantages in accessing high-performance networks, according to a study released this month. The Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2007 Report, conducted by the higher-education IT advocacy group EDUCAUSE, shows bandwidth gains at community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities with master’s and doctoral programs.” (10/16/08)

http://tinyurl.com/4z7z42

“When a faculty member feels wronged, there’s usually a system in place to turn to, whether or not it’s one that has broad support and trust. It’s that last part that makes the difference between grievance procedures that enjoy broad buy-in from faculty, as opposed to a perception that they are a tool of the administration. At the University of Missouri at Columbia, where the system has undergone several overhauls in recent years, faculty members are again voting for a new set of procedures that would streamline the process and, among other things, place an administrator on the grievance resolution panel along with members of the faculty.” (10/16/08)

http://tinyurl.com/3qf3eo

“In July the U.S. Congress debated the future of the DC Opportunity Scholarship program, the federal initiative helping 1,900 low-income students attend private schools in the nation’s capital. Despite efforts by opponents to cut the program’s funding, committees in the Senate and House of Representatives voted to appropriate money for the program for another year. On July 10 the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a District of Columbia budget that would continue funding for the program.” (10/08)

http://tinyurl.com/3lh3sd

“As the Internet replaces library databases as students’ primary research option, a new discussion is emerging in academic circles: Is the vast amount of information at students’ fingertips changing the way they gather and process information for the better–or for worse? In a recent Atlantic Monthly article titled ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid,’ author Nicholas Carr asserts that technology has changed the way we think, making our minds a ‘high-speed data-processing’ machine under the influence of internet search engines. But he questions whether this development has led to a focus on surface-level skimming at the expense of deeper reading.” (10/15/08)

http://tinyurl.com/4n99lj

“Ohio University’s Faculty Senate voted 23-18 with three abstentions Monday to endorse a movement toward unionization — calling on professors to ‘begin the process of organizing themselves into a collective bargaining unit for the purpose of negotiating a contractual agreement with the university, instituting meaningful shared governance, to which the university administration would be bound by law.’ Professors supporting unionization stress the three words ‘meaningful shared governance’ as being something a collective bargaining unit can achieve that, amid administrators’ disregard, the Faculty Senate has not” (10/15/08)

http://tinyurl.com/4b7glq

“Smaller school buses will have to be equipped with lap-and-shoulder seat belts for the first time under a government rule drafted after the deaths of four Alabama students on a school bus that nose-dived off an overpass. Larger buses also will have higher seat backs under the new policy, which was announced Wednesday. The design change is supposed to keep older, heavier students from being thrown over the seats in a collision.” (10/15/08)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27200604/

“With the presidential race between John McCain and Barack Obama the focus of national attention, political speech on our nation’s campuses has come under sharp attack. In recent weeks, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has investigated open and blatant attacks on political expression at colleges and universities across the country, from a previously unreported case at Oklahoma, to better-known cases at Illinois and Texas, to cases at smaller schools across the country. This alarming trend towards silencing political expression has prompted FIRE to release a Policy Statement on Political Activity on Campus today.” (10/15/08)

http://tinyurl.com/4z33xp