Universities Weblog

United

Beloved singer aretha franklin has become the first female artist to receive the United Negro College Fund's Award of Excellence.

Ms. Franklin is certainly deserving of this honor. You certainly knew she is a talented performer, but did you know she is also a fierce advocate for a variety of worthy causes, including bringing about improvements in higher education?

The 64-year-old singer will receive the honor at the college fund's "An Evening of Stars," to be taped Sept. 8-9 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. The annual TV special will air nationwide in late January 2007.

Michael L. Lomax, UNCF president and CEO, said in a statement that Franklin's career "has established a standard of excellence that exemplifies the educational distinction to which our member colleges are dedicated and to which they hold their students."

Congratulations!

With the massive amounts of information colleges now require–and store–from students, identity theft has become an unfortunately common occurrence.

Eugene Spafford, executive director of CERIAS, said people in this age group are targets for identity theft because they don't have much of an established record.

"Some people don't think about it a whole lot, but it's getting more common that people at that age are starting to realize they need to be more careful," he said.

What do you do to prevent identity theft? Do you believe you have the right to refuse when your college requests sensitive information?

For tips on how to prevent identity theft, please visit here and here.

If you've ever helped freshmen cart their crap into dorms when they first arrive on campus with their parents (as I have many times), then you know how much junk they bring. Boxes, bins and milk Crates filled with CDs, TVs, DVD players, clothes, posters and computer paraphernalia. Tons of it.

My imagination? Hardly. Read this bit from the Washington Post:

Each year, the National Retail Federation asks incoming college students how much they and their families plan to spend on college. Last year, students estimated they would spend $34.4 billion on college merchandise, up one-third from the year before. Freshmen planned on spending the most-an average of almost $1,200 per student.

Retailers' pitches are not subtle. Exhibit A: a 59-page brochure from Target that presumably was mailed to millions of homes. Titled "U.need.want.love.rock.," it offers, among approximately 600 other items, rubber cubes that fit over a bed's legs and raise the bed so a student can "store more."

When I left for college, I managed to fit everything I needed into a VW Rabbit. Now I suppose I'd need a minivan.

Ouch: wages are getting tighter, and college grads are feeling the pinch. Workers with college degrees are facing the largest wage slump in thirty years. Some blame President Bush for mismanaging the economy, some blame the glut of college-educated workers entering the career force, and some don't know where to place blame. But one thing is for sure: although a bachelor's degree greatly increases earning potential, it certainly doesn't guarantee a lavish salary.

That was troubling for someone facing the rising costs of rent, food, gasoline, and raising a newborn daughter. But Lewis, 36, found it especially troubling because he had done what has traditionally helped Americans share in a growing economy: He had earned a four-year college degree.

Off-shoring, which has shifted manufacturing and call-center jobs to Mexico and India, is increasingly affecting the white-collar sectors of engineering and software design. Companies have continued their long effort to replace salaried positions with low-paid, nonsalaried jobs, including part-time and freelance positions without benefits.

What do you think? Is there one place to focus the blame? Should college graduates be guaranteed a high-paying job? Are you at all worried about the job market waiting for you after graduation?

(Source: SUNY-Stony brook)

Journalism programs, it seems, aren't just for budding journalists anymore. As papers scale back operations and reduce staff, fewer jobs are available for new J-school grads. But several colleges, as this InsideHigherEd.com article describes, are introducing journalism concentrations for students who want a writing-intensive major and who seek a deeper understanding of mass media.

Here's a snippet:

"Declining circulation." "Weaker ad revenue." "Fewer jobs." "Dinosaur."

Schneider said that part of his school's mission will be to educate news consumers. To that end, the school will have a news literacy course required of all students, and open to any student at the university. "We want to educate the next generation of journalists, but we want to educate the next generation of consumers too," Schneider said. He added that, with the historically unprecedented amount of information now available at the click of a mouse, the only way credible news outlets can thrive is if readers are trained to separate the wheat from the chafe.

You can find the article here.

Let's see. I have $31 billion just lying around, and I think it's time to unload it. What to do….

I could give most of it to charity, perhaps refurbish some inner-city schools or try to cure some disease. Or, I don't know, maybe I could give it to Bill Gates. Yeah, that's it. That's what I'll do. I'm sure he needs it.

Just kidding? Nope. Warren Buffet, the second-richest man in the U.S., is giving the bulk of his fortune to the richest man, Bill Gates. More specifically, he's giving it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is already the world's largest with about $29 billion in assets. When all the dust settles, the Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, will have roughly $60 billion and will give away $3 billion per year. Not many foundations have $3 billion period.

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the Gates Foundation will be worth nearly as much as the eight other richest grant makers in the United States combined. "Indeed," it states, "if the Gates Foundation were a country, its assets would make it the 55th-largest economy in the world, larger than the gross domestic product of oil-rich Kuwait."

Unfortunately, the Gates Foundation doesn't support higher education very much. Let's hope colleges and universities will benefit in the future. We have needs too.

Some people fear the situation is headed in that

direction. Colleges and universities have hugely increased the personal data they collect from students, and a new DOE proposal may go beyond the boundaries of acceptable.

Bad ideas born in Federal office buildings resemble cats; both can have nine lives.

If the information is truly necessary, why is the data not anonymized to protect the identity of individuals? Why should the Federal Government want to track all individuals enrolled in a college or university, including those who are not collecting federal financial aid. Earlier, DOE had thought it necessary to obtain Social Security numbers of students. It's unclear whether SSNs are to be collected or some other form of identifier, perhaps a bar code, which also could be copied by identity thieves to obtain personal information.

Potentially scary stuff. Would you be comfortable sharing so much information about yourself?

Now here's a cool story. What does your homework consist of? A research paper, perhaps some math problems? What if you spent your time getting ready for space travel?

For students seeking higher education, you can't do much better than a classroom at the edge of space.

Thanks to Student Hands-on Training (SHOT) workshops, aspiring satellite researchers can trial-run payload ideas by getting a lift from skyward-soaring balloons. SHOT activities are on-going at the NASA-funded Colorado Space Grant Consortium at the University of Colorado.

Can you imagine building something, all by yourself, that will soon afterwards head into the infinite heavens? The mind. It boggles.

SHOT workshops have been underway for four years, with universities from around the country taking part, Koehler explained. Just last month, two balloon launches hauled 10 student packages high above Earth with all of them successfully recovered.

Not all the payloads worked as planned, Koehler added. "I told them-as I do other students-that you usually learn more from your failures than you do your successes."

You can read the rest of this amazing story
here.

I'll admit, I'm jealous. Flying around in a huge balloon seems so much more fun than analyzing the works of Goethe. I think I missed out.

(Photo Source: Space.com)

You've heard the jokes: an English major ends up scooping frozen yogurt for a living, or the Ph.D. recipient is stuck running a cashier at Wal-Mart. The scenarios are humorous in a ridiculous sort of way, but it's no laughing matter for students really going through experiences like these.

Perhaps the aforementioned jobs are a bit extreme, but many, many college grads are frustrated with the dearth of opportunities in their field of interest.

Lorraine Espiritu said she considers herself lucky for never having to take a waitressing or sales job after graduating from San Joaquin delta college.

Many recent graduates are faced with the decision of taking a job to pay their bills or searching for a career stepping stone that may not pay as much initially.

I see students of mine grapple with this very issue, and I none-too-fondly remember going through the same thing myself. Despite graduating with high honors and with several publications under my belt, it was a long time until I found a relevant job. I even had to experience the horrors of a temp agency. If there's one thing I want you to remember, it's this: Hang in there. It may seem impossible at first, but it does get better.

Julie Juarez, a recent San Jose State University graduate, is working full-time as a staffing coordinator at the downtown Lodi employment agency Hedy Holmes, while attending a combination master's degree and teaching credential program at National University in Stockton.

"You can work an office job and get paid comparably to starting out as a teacher," Juarez said. But she said she knows all her hard work will pay off in the end.

Have you experienced a similar situation, or are you worried about what you'll do when you graduate? Can those of you who've landed your 'dream job' share some tips with us?

Just how costly? Try $275 million.

Following Summers' departure from Harvard, three potential donors have declined to make significant gifts until a new (permanent) president is named. Assuming these donors approve of the new appointee, perhaps the gifts will be forthcoming after all. But you never know.

Read this from the Boston Globe:

Negotiations over three major donations to Harvard University, totaling $275 million, have stalled following Lawrence H. Summers's resignation as president, a new sign of how difficult it will be for Harvard to encourage large gifts without a permanent leader.

The potential gifts were first reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, which suggested they may have been scrapped because of Summers's departure two weeks ago. The university's interim president, Derek Bok, is expected to serve for one year.

Meanwhile, Harvard continues to make due with its trifling $26 billion.