Universities Weblog

The Desert News had a feature this month on a college that could be mistaken for an extension campus of Brigham Young University: Southern Virginia University.

SVU is a relatively young college in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The student body is 97% Mormon. The college is in Buena Vista, Virginia – about 40 miles north of Lynchburg.

Religions News gives a brief synopsis of the school's history:

SVU began as a girl's finishing school in 1867 and became a junior college before a group of Mormons rescued it from financial peril 12 years ago. Since then, it has grown from 76 students to 700, and in early May graduated 129 students.

The school is accredited by the American Academy for Liberal Education.

© essygie

While I don't have room for all of them on my blogroll, there are dozens (maybe hundreds) of excellent blogs that focus on a single, specific university or college. If your interests are confined to ONE SCHOOL, you should look for a blog on that institution.

Here are a few examples:

• The Sam Jackson College Experience – Sam just finished his freshman year at Yale.
• The Daily Clog – Looks at college life in Berkeley, California. From U Cal Berkeley students.
• Rattler Nation – Focused on Florida A&M University.
• The Daily Skiff – From Texas Christian University.
• BlogVU – From the Vanderbilt News Service.
• EMUtalk – Focused on Eastern Michigan University.

Of course, there are plenty more. But you get the idea…

Alexa Harrington over at Education Nation has a nice piece online at the moment comparing the community college experience to life on a university campus.

The development of community colleges became an important trend in higher education in the 1950's and 1960's. There's probably a community college campus not far from you. Community colleges have their advantages – with affordability being one of their main attractions. Small class size and the availability of two-year technical degrees also make community college's attractive to many students.

On the other hand, if you're a college freshman at a community college, you probably live at home. That's not the typical university experience. And there are degree and majors you can never get at a community college.

Alexa looks a little more closely at the choice. Check out her post…

© Pat Hawks

Not sure how I've missed this blog until now, but yesterday I stumbled across the Guide to College Life…

The blog's current post is on How To Get In To College When You've Been Wait-Listed. The most obvious answer is one people don't often consider: communicate. Give the college's admission office a call and let them know you plan to wait and that if you can't simply be admitted, you want to be on the wait list. Then follow the phone call up with a note or letter thanking the admissions office for putting you on the wait list.

© [nati]

Twenty-nine percent of South Carolina's population is African-American, but only seven percent of the student body at Clemson is Black. So Clemson is looking for a way to increase the diversity of its student body, according to Greenville Online.

On July 14 Clemson will have its first chief diversity officer. That's when Leon E. Wiles starts his job in that post.

According to Greenville Online, "Wiles' agenda at Clemson is to increase the number of black and other minority students and employees on the campus and enhance support resources for those of different backgrounds and experiences."

The overall minority population at Clemson is 22% of the student body at the moment.

In a break with their usually practice of having a member of the senior class speak at Commencement, this year Furman University has slated an outside speaker for its graduation ceremony: U.S. President George W.Bush. As one anonymous Furman alum points out, the decision has become controversial.

Furman students and staff have started a petition drive to prevent President Bush from speaking at the ceremony on May 31.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported last week that one campus group is trying to get the University to force faculty to attend the Bush speech.

© gcsearcy

Naomi Rockler-Gladen over at Suite 101 has a nice list of common freshman mistakes to avoid online at the moment.

The freedom that comes with being away from home can lead to a lot of mistakes during your first year of college. Some come from a lack of maturity and the irresponsibility that characterizes the end of your teenage years. But many of the mistakes have their roots in the transition from high school to the more adult world of college life. Many freshmen don't really understand what college professors expect of them.

Attendance is a classic issue. My mother tells the story of her freshman biology class at Radford back in the day (I hope she forgives me for using this). The professor said that she didn't have to come to class; so she didn't. She tells the story as if she was unhappy with the outcome at the time.

© Betsssssy

Swapped with 20,000 applications to attend in the fall, the University of Washington has had to turn down a record eight thousand potential freshmen for the 2008-2009 academic year.

The Seattle Times is among the news sources reporting on the tidal wave of applications and rejections coming through the Huskie admissions office. The college admissions community is calling it "the baby boom echo." The babies of the baby boomers are starting college.

The wave isn't expected to crest until 2013. So get used to applying to six or eight colleges in order to ensure that you get at least one acceptance letter…

In one of those classically laughable moments of public stupidity likely to get you mentioned in Jay Leno's monologue, a tour guide at the University of Oregon made a group of middle school students touring the campus take off shirts and hats that had the logo of rival Oregon University on them before the students were allowed to enter the athletic facilities on campus, according to the Corvallis Gazette Times.

According to the Oregon paper, the incident took place last Friday. The paper interviewed eighth-grader Alex Owens, who went on a tour of U. of O. with his class from Jefferson Middle School. Owens describes himself as "hard-core Beaver fan." He says that a tour guide at the home of the Oregon Ducks told the group that "no one displaying the logo of any other Pac-10 school would be admitted to the Ducks' athletic facilities." Owens says half a dozen students in the class reluctantly removed their Beaver gear.

I read about this story first at the Chronicle of High Education's news blog. But the blogosphere is humming with the story. Cal State has fired an adjunct faculty member at cal state fullerton, Wendy Gonaver, because she refused to sign an oath to "defend" the constitutions of California and the United States "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

And here I though Joe McCarthy was dead.

The instructor in question, Wendy Gonaver, is "a Quaker and a lifelong pacifist," according to the Chronicle's story. In other words, her religious beliefs prevent her from signing the oath. Another faculty member was fired in February after altering the oath by adding the word "nonviolently" to it. That person was rehired because the media attention surrounding the issue. Too bad they weren't rehired just because the U.S. Constitution probably prevents them from being fired over their religious beliefs. Part of the irony is that Gonaver teaches in the school's American Studies program.

Some notes from the blogosphere…