Commencement Controversy at Notre Dame

Notre Dame’s 2009 commencement speaker is…President Barack Obama! But Notre Dame is a Catholic school. Obama has some, well, liberal views. He might be the most powerful man in the world, but some seniors are not pleased.
“I don’t think he belongs as a speaker at Notre Dame,” [senior Emily Toates] said. “I understand that […]

Study Finds Profs Don’t Impose Politics on Students

Six months ago, a UCLA study indicated that peers influence students’ political leanings much more than their professors. A new study, from the University of British Columbia, provides a reason: college professors tend to keep their politics out of the classroom — even when their beliefs are central to their academic research.
The study — […]

Want to Win a Trip to Africa?

STA Travel, a discount student travel agency, and Keep A Child Alive, a nonprofit that serves African children and families with HIV/AIDS, have partnered to offer you a contest. If you text “alive” to the number 90999, $5 are added to your phone bill as a donation to Keep a Child Alive. The contest […]

Gap Years are the new I-Banking

Just like their parents, many graduates-to-be are considering Plan B. The traditional route leads high school graduates straight to college, and college graduates straight to a 9-to-5. But more than in years past, high school and college seniors are warming to the idea of a gap year — a year in which they step […]

Stimulus Stimulates For-Profit Colleges

Mmm, yummy stimulus package! What a delicious gift for universities, which will get bundles of money. But wait — these universities include for-profit colleges. Aren’t they already benefiting from the financial crisis?
Why yes, they are. Since for-profit schools are much cheaper than non-profit universities, undergrads have been flocking to them in record numbers.
But […]

Tuition Hike Sparks Boos at SUNY

On Tuesday, State University of New York (SUNY) students congregated in Albany to protest Governor David Paterson’s plan to raise tuition as a budget-boosting measure. The $620 hike puts annual tuition at $4,970. (SUNY students, by the way, have done a 180: in October, they were asking for tuition increases.) Here, watch the protest.

School-Sponsored Concert to Benefit Meditation

The Maharishi University of Management, a small school in Iowa, is sponsoring a contest to win two free tickets to Paul McCartney’s “Change Begins Within” benefit concert. The concert’s proceeds will go toward the David Lynch Foundation, which advances the practice of Transcendental Meditation.
Maharishi University of Management (MUM) is committed to Transcendental Meditation […]

Debate Crosses Racial Divide

It’s the real-life version of a How Far We’ve Come movie: Wiley College (a HBC) and SMU (a “historically white college,” according to the Chron) held a debate this week. The punch line? The debate was first scheduled for 1935.
Ben Voth, SMU’s debate coach, provided the sappy summary line for me: “Just in having […]

Best THON in 37 Years

Every year since 1972, Penn State students have run THON, a dance marathon whose proceeds go toward The Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Children’s Hospital. This year’s THON was the most profitable yet: PSU students racked up $7,490,133.

The Act to Help Children Read Gooder

Here’s where education law gets fun.
No Child Left Behind has gotten a bad rap. Though Bush made it famous, it’s actually a reincarnation of a 1965 law, simply called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. So, suggested Education Secretary Arne Duncan, why not start fresh? The proposal: separate the decades-old law from Bush’s legacy […]

« go back — keep looking »