Free Republic

A four-year college degree, seen for generations as a ticket to a better life, is no longer enough to guarantee a steadily rising paycheck.

THUWAL, SAUDI ARABIA -- Up the corniche, along a coast where boats carrying pilgrims bound for Mecca sailed for centuries, a thicket of cranes rises over whitewashed mosques along the Red Sea. Steel flashes and blowtorches glow as 20,000 workers build a $10-billion university ordered up by a king who hopes Western ingenuity will revive the economy of this ultraconservative Muslim nation. When finished next year, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology will offer coed classes, Western professors, a curriculum in English and other touches loathed as dangerous liberalism by Islamic fundamentalists. The West may be dependent on Saudi...

Academedia Bias by: Malcolm A. Kline, June 30, 2008 Too often we treat academic and media bias separately when their relationship is much more symbiotic. After all, not only are media elites trained in academia but they frequently return to school to teach and “give something back” to the educational system that spawned them. “I’m combining my journalism career with teaching because journalism is teaching,” George Washington University professor Frank Sesno told student journalist Amy D’Onofrio in an interview that was posted on June 13 in The GW Hatchet Online. “I’m enjoying working in the classroom, helping shape students going...

If one of the disadvantages of an elite education is the temptation it offers to mediocrity, another is the temptation it offers to security. When parents explain why they work so hard to give their children the best possible education, they invariably say it is because of the opportunities it opens up. But what of the opportunities it shuts down? An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which...

Leftist ideology may be gaining ground in Latin America. But it will never set foot on the manicured lawns of Francisco Marroquin University. For nearly 40 years, this private college has been a citadel of laissez-faire economics. Here, banners quoting "The Wealth of Nations" author Adam Smith -- he of the powdered wig and invisible hand -- flutter over the campus food court. Every undergraduate, regardless of major, must study market economics and the philosophy of individual rights embraced by the U.S. founding fathers, including "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." A sculpture commemorating Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is...

America continues to grow in stature as the most-favoured destination for Indian students with the last seven months showing a 38% increase in the number of candidates going there. What's more, Chennai seems to be one of the largest exporters in the country. Sample this: 38,274 student visas were issued from across the country in fiscal year 2006-07 (October 2006 to September 2007), of which the Chennai consulate gave out 19,973. Correspondingly, between October 2007 and April 2008, 50,316 student visas were issued from across the country, of which the Chennai consulate alone accounted for 24,975. With a rising middle...

Governor Deval Patrick has decided against taking action to allow illegal immigrants to pay resident tuition and fees at state colleges and universities this fall, an administration official said yesterday, crushing advocates who were counting on the governor to deliver on a pledge to support the students. Earlier this year, Patrick said he was considering ways to offer illegal immigrants in-state rates, such as issuing a regulation, adding that it would be "the right thing to do." The governor declined to comment yesterday, but an administration source who spoke on condition of anonymity said Patrick decided that there were "significant...

Affirmative Action for Conservatives by: Deborah Lambert, May 19, 2008 Does it bother most students at the University of Colorado-Boulder, that their school is known as a den of left-wing lunacy? Probably not. In fact, “sophomore Marissa Malouff” views her campus as a sort of re-education camp,” said the Wall Street Journal. Although “sheltered rich kids from out-of-state might come for the snow-boarding, . . .while they’re here they get dunked in a simmering pot of left-wing idealism. And that, in her view, is how it should be.” But “Bud Peterson,” the school’s Republican Chancellor, thinks that campus diversity should...

Washington University's decision to bestow an honorary degree on conservative political activist and author Phyllis Schlafly has stirred outrage among some students and faculty. Opponents of Schlafly's honorary doctorate formed a group on the social-networking website Facebook and had 1,023 members as of Monday evening. ... [Senior Kevin] Hess ... said the outrage is not over Schlafly's politics but over comments she has made that he called "unquestionably inflammatory and unfounded." ... Schlafly already has a bachelor's degree and a law degree from the university. Mary Ann Dzuback, the director of the women and gender studies department at Washington University...

My friend who works at the University says they are in lockdown mode because there is a gunman on the loose in the library. Anyone have more info?

NORFOLK At the end of this semester, Steven Aird will lose his job as an associate professor of biology at Norfolk State University for giving out too many F's. He is not going quietly. Aird says his termination is part of a dumbing-down of academic standards at NSU - a move by administrators to intimidate faculty members into passing undeserving students and rewarding inferior work. Other faculty members in NSU's School of Science and Technology say they, too, have experienced pressure to bend their standards to pass more students, and more than a dozen current and former students in the...

A starkly realistic approach to university management is now being applied by Dongguk University, which recently decided to cut down the number of students in less popular departments while letting popular departments to expand. Based on departmental evaluation under such criteria as students’ grades and employment rate of graduates, Dongguk University decided to reduce the number of students entering the departments in the bottom eight. If the accumulated score does not meet a certain level, the university will either close the department down or merge it with another. Other private universities are expected to follow suit, carrying out a rigorous...

Five years into the war in Iraq, military history seems to be experiencing a golden age. Hollywood has been cranking out war movies. Publishers have been lining bookstore shelves with new battle tomes, which consumers are eagerly lapping up. Even the critics have been enjoying themselves. Two of the last five Pulitzer Prizes in history were awarded to books about the American military. Four of the five Oscar nominees for best documentary this year were about warfare. Business, for military historians, is good.

NYU president John Sexton has been promised a blank check to duplicate his university on a desert island in Abu Dhabi. The expansion will leave both campuses flush with petrodollars. But to many faculty, the deal amounts to a sellout. John Sexton’s office, which sits on the top floor of NYU’s Bobst Library and boasts an impressive view north to Washington Square Park, has recently begun to resemble a shrine to Abu Dhabi. The university president has installed a massive Oriental rug, a gift from the crown prince, on one entire wall. On another hangs a framed portrait of the...

Cambridge University has been given £8 million by a Saudi Arabian prince to establish an Islamic studies centre. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, ranked in the top 20 richest men in the world, with a fortune of about £10 billion, has donated the cash to the university to fund a centre in his name for the study of the role of Islam in the Middle East and globally. The gift has been recommended by the university's general board and is expected to be announced in June. advertisement The grandson of King Ibn Saud and nephew of King Abudllah, the prince counts...

College students want credit card companies to market themselves more fairly, according to a nationwide survey taken by a credit card watchdog group. 1500 students from 40 different colleges were polled and 80% of the students felt they were lured into bad credit card deals and have been racking up big bills before they graduate. Second year student Carol Castillo feels the credit card companies tricked her and that hidden interest rates and other fees not made clear by credit card companies put her in a bind. "Well, now I am in trouble and now I owe over $3000 in...

Scandal: 96 Catholic Universities Have Pro-Homosexual ClubsHelp stop this scandal by signing the TFP’s urgent appeal to the presidents of Catholic universities Here is a list Catholic universities with pro-homosexual clubs Historically, Catholic universities have been beacons of truth. They have set a standard of intellectual progress and moral excellence. They have elevated culture, formed the minds of great men, and paved the way for abundant scientific breakthroughs. However, these beacons of truth are now failing. Moral values are being undermined on many Catholic campuses and the principles that once guided souls in the noble task of higher learning are...

Two injured after shooting in dorm parking lot in Tyler © 2008 The Associated Press TYLER, Texas — Two people were injured early Thursday morning after being shot in a parking lot outside a Texas College dorm in Tyler, police say. Tyler Police Lt. Derreck Wagoner tells Tyler television station KLTV that one person was shot in the abdomen and the other was shot in the hand. Wagoner says the abdomen wound victim is hospitalized in serious

Punch & Judy by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 26, 2008 A century-old university in the Old Dominion cashiered the last DUI suspect—William J. Frawley, not the one from I Love Lucy—to serve as president and replaced him with the first woman to hold that post. “Less than a year after firing their president for his arrest on two drunken driving charges, members of the governing board at the University of Mary Washington have named his replacement,” Eugene McCormack reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education this month. “Judy G. Hample, a longtime higher-education administrator who is chancellor of the Pennsylvania...

Badger Backlash by: Deborah Lambert, March 24, 2008 Wisconsin-based author/scholar/radio talker Charles Sykes reports that even at the liberal-left bastion known as the University of Wisconsin, students are refusing to be held hostage by the pc zealots. One major breakthrough: conservative students and their moderate allies now hold a voting majority in the Student Senate. Of course, hurdles still exist. Last year when conservative groups sponsored a visit by former terrorist Walid Shoebat to speak on “Why I Left Jihad,” the Muslim Student Association demanded that the event be cancelled. The administration eventually gave a green light to the event,...

Last week, Stanford University reported thousands of students for illegally downloading music, many of whom will now have to pay thousands of dollars for violating copyright laws. OK, so actually the university did no such thing - but thousands of students panicked nonetheless. On Monday, the Stanford Chaparral, the university's humor magazine, published in its annual "Fake Daily" an article warning students about a new campus policy on copyright infringements. The accompanying Web site received nearly 24,000 hits from students checking to see if they were in imminent danger of being sued, said co-editor and Stanford senior Anthony Scodary. "Under...

What happens to women who have shunned men and consequently shot themselves in the... not foot... well... let's just say they don't get any love. Man haters have cooked their own gooses. But they don't cook either. Oops. Hmmmm. Man haters have cleaned their own clocks. Oh Darn. They don't clean. Okay. Let's try again. Apparently the housekeeping analogies don't work with this subject. Man haters have shot their... nope. That doesn't work. Let's just say that man hating women are S. O. L. Does that work? Man hating women have created so much inner hated for the traditional and...

Shortly before the unexpected departure of Princeton’s top chief medical officer this summer, an investigation by the State of New Jersey revealed that since 2003, Princeton’s McCosh Health Center has failed to comply with state laws for reporting STDs. The state investigation, which involved a visit from a surveillance team and an official warning, was concealed from students and administrators. Vice President Janet Dickerson, who directly supervises the head of McCosh, did not learn of the state investigation until three months after it occurred. When a Tory reporter asked her to comment on the case she was caught unawares. “I’m...

What can a 19-year-old guy in jogging shorts do at Harvard that a rich Saudi sheik who sponsors terrorism can’t? Get banned from the building. Six times a week, Harvard kicks all the guys out of the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center at the request of the Harvard Islamic Society. This is to accommodate those female Muslim students whose faith won’t let them work out in front of men. In the old days, Harvard would have laughed if some Catholic or evangelical mother urged “girls-only” campus workouts in the name of modesty. Today, Harvard happily implements Sharia swim times in the...

An Andhra Pradesh doctor pursuing his post-graduation in internal medicine in Pennsylvania was found murdered over the week-end. Akkaldevi Srinivas is the fourth Indian student to meet a violent end in the US in the last three months. The body of Srinivas (29), hailing from Korutla in Karimnagar District, was found in a pool of blood with stab wounds under mysterious circumstances on Saturday last. An MBBS student of 1995 batch of Gandhi Medical College in Hyderabad, Srinivas had joined Scranton State University for an MD programme in 2005 after completing his MS. He went to the US in 2002....

MUSLIM university students want lectures to be rescheduled to fit in with prayer timetables and separate male and female eating and recreational areas established on Australian campuses. International Muslim students, predominantly from Saudi Arabia, have asked universities in Melbourne to change class times so they can attend congregational prayers. They also want a female-only area for Muslim students to eat and relax. But at least one institution has rejected their demands, arguing that the university is secular and it does not want to set a precedent for requests granted in the name of religious beliefs. La Trobe University International chief...

A study by two conservative researchers attempting to determine why conservatives are underrepresented on college and university faculties. The conclusion is while some portion of this imbalance can be traced to "bias" and "discrimination", a large part results from a decision by students with conservative values not to pursue a career with limited economic potential that also requires sacrifice of family commitments to achieve academic advancement. "Since conservatives place an especially high priority on financial security and raising a family, the academy needs to make efforts to adopt more family-friendly policies... "As graduate school is not financially lucrative and pre-tenure...

A committee of the Arizona Legislature is weighing arguments made today over a proposal to let people with permits to carry concealed weapons bring guns to K-12 schools, community colleges and universities. The Senate's Judiciary Committee listened to more than two hours of testimony about the proposal, but didn't take a vote. The testimony came four days after a gunman opened fire during a lecture at Northern Illinois University, killing five young people before turning a gun on himself. Supporters say the permit-holders should be allowed to carry guns at schools so they can defend themselves and others if a...

First, it should be noted that all the information in this article was gathered about an hour ago because it took a week before anyone from the University Police Department would concede to our requests and talk with us. And also, this paragraph is being written at 6 PM, and the article will be finished before class at 6:30. So if it seems kind of half assed, it definitely is. There were a couple aspects of our University's law enforcement and operations that Jamie and I, Anthony, wanted to address and question. These include among other things; the aggressive and...

The Battle for Belmont Abbey College and the Soul of Catholic Higher Education has been engaged.Let us support them in their battle and pray for the continued success of their vital mission.

DE KALB, Ill (CBS) ― A gunman opened fire on a geology class at Northern Illinois University Thursday afternoon, killing four people before killing himself on-stage in front of panicked students. Officials said the gunman opened fire in a lecture hall shortly after 3 p.m. and the campus was immediately placed on lockdown. The shooting happened at a geology lecture class in Cole Hall. Officials said the gunman emerged from behind a screen at the front of the lecture hall and opened fire with a shotgun. Police said the gunman, armed with a shotgun and two handguns, shot the professor...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Hundreds of students have been diagnosed with the flu in recent weeks at the University of Maryland College Park campus. Officials are calling it the most severe outbreak in 10 years, News4's Cheryl Butler reported. More than 400 students have been diagnosed with the flu on campus, and that number is rising. Students are lining up at the university's health center for diagnosis and relief. Junior music major Rachel Israel said the flu has made her miss clarinet rehearsals and classes. "It started with a really severe cough and then a fever. It got worse from...

Red Alert On Tolerance by: Malcolm A. Kline, February 12, 2008 Look out children: academics are now entranced by something called “Teaching Beyond Tolerance.” Since their emphasis on tolerance netted us about a couple of hundred restrictive speech codes at about as many colleges and universities, who knows what the new fad will yield on American campuses. Shana Agid and Erica Rand give a preview of coming attractions, sort of, in the latest issue of Radical Teacher. “We wanted to imagine another set of possibilities for educators and students alike, grounded in a different set of assumptions: that so-called ‘hate’...

William & Mary Uncensored by: Don Irvine, February 04, 2008 February 1, 2008— William and Mary school president Gene Nichol okayed students’ requests to hold the “Sex Workers’ Art Show” to be held on campus this week. The show which features prostitutes, strippers and other sex workers performing their work is part of a nationwide tour that will take them to Harvard and the University of Michigan. The show was scheduled to take place at Virginia Commonwealth University as well but according to Reuban Rodriguez no student requested campus space for the event and the performers violated their contract with...

Greening Title IX? by: Malcolm A. Kline, January 30, 2008 In their ongoing quest to see who can be most politically correct, Ohio university administrators have devised an intercollegiate competition that can literally qualify as a trash sport. “The eighth annual RecycleMania competition kicks off Jan. 28 through April 5, with an anticipated record number of colleges and universities participating this year,” the Ohio University press office informs us. “RecycleMania is the brainchild of Ohio University Recycling Manager Ed Newman and Stacy Edmonds Wheeler of Miami University in Cincinnati, who started a friendly recycling competition between their respective schools in...

Another Token Dropped by: Malcolm A. Kline, January 25, 2008 Contributing to the political imbalance on university payrolls, the University of California just lowered its quota of Republicans. “David A. Kessler, a former head of the Food and Drug Administration, has been terminated as dean of the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine,” Susan Kinzie reported in the Washington Post last month. “After a long-running dispute over the school’s finances, in which he questioned accounting controls and an anonymous letter launched an audit of his spending, he was asked to resign this summer but...

Paced by Harvard University's staggering $34 billion stockpile, 76 colleges now boast endowments over $1 billion after robust returns on their investments over the past year, according to an annual study being released today. Harvard's endowment rose by nearly $6 billion over the past year, a nearly 20 percent increase. Yale University's endowment, the nation's second largest, rose to $22.5 billion, a 25 percent increase. Stanford University, Princeton University, and the University of Texas system rounded out the top five. Among colleges with endowments greater than $1 billion, the median one-year return was 21 percent. Nationally, the median return was...

By Bryan Roth, staff writer Brighton-Pittsford Post Thu Jan 17, 2008, 01:05 PM EST Brighton, N.Y. - To Pittsford resident Judy Braiman, remembering the Holocaust has always been an important part of her Jewish heritage. Despite the atrocities related with it, she believes it’s something nobody — Jewish or not — should ever forget. “Why should you give that up?” asked Braiman, who had family relatives who were killed in Germany during the Holcaust. “If we don’t remember the terrible things that happen, it will happen again. Everybody should remember terrible things to learn by it.” So, when she saw...

I’ve been studying higher education for a long time, but I’ve never seen anything quite as queer as a new course being taught at the University of Michigan. Section Two of English 317 is titled “How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation.” Taught by Instructor David Halperin (halperin@umich.edu), the course is worth three credit hours to Wolverine students interested in exploring learned gayness. For years, I’ve been hearing that gayness is a function of some sort of gay gene but, apparently, I’ve been over-simplifying the issue. Here’s what Halperin has to say: “Just because you happen to be a...

Assisted suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian – a convicted felon known as “Dr. Death” – is scheduled to speak at the University of Florida on January 15. According to news reports: * Dr. Kevorkian has killed 130 people * Dr. Kevorkian was convicted of first-degree murder and is currently on parole * Dr. Kevorkian will be given $50,000 to speak at the University of Florida Students of Pro-Life Alliance at the University of Florida are protesting. TFP Student Action applauds their effort and encourages its members to also call for the cancellation of Dr. Kevorkian’s speech by signing a petition...

Iranian students are not welcome at the Technical University Twente in the town of Enschede. At the request of the Education Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the university has agreed not to admit any Iranian students. The government fears that Iranian students and workers would steal sensitive nuclear information to help their government develop nuclear weapons. The university's decision is the direct result of a 2006 UN resolution calling on member states to prevent Iran from gaining access to nuclear knowledge. The UN has been concerned about the Iranian nuclear research programme for some time. The International Atomic Energy...

Former executive spooks some, but not all, faculty By ABRAHAM MAHSHIE of the Tribune’s staff Published Friday, December 21, 2007 Faculty reaction to the naming of Gary Forsee as the new University of Missouri System president yesterday ranged from fear and anger to satisfaction and confidence. "I’m alarmed," said John Kultgen, a retired MU professor of philosophy who wrote a letter to curators when Forsee’s name first surfaced asking to "please, please do not view the university as a corporation that turns out a standardized product or just another bureaucratic structure reaching for a larger share at the public trough."...

Being broke need not mean social death in Sweden - as long as you are well-educated. But for Americans and Russians having a good all-round education is no substitute for having cash, according to a new survey on status symbols in the three countries. The international survey by analysts United Minds asked 1,000 people in each country what values confer status. 'Bling' items such as expensive jewellery and designer clothes come well down the list for Swedes, while featuring more highly for Americans and, particularly, Russians. "Sweden is the only country where you can be penniless but well-read and still...

A Ku Klux Klan symbol and swastika were found Tuesday in separate locations at St. Cloud State University. A drawing of a Klan hood, including a burning cross symbol, was found late morning on a small card posted in a women's restroom on the main floor of Atwood Memorial Center, the school's public safety department said in an alert. In the afternoon, police were called to a swastika scratched on a stall's door in a men's restroom, main floor, Stewart Hall.

The Answer Is Diversity by: Malcolm A. Kline, December 07, 2007 When the higher education establishment and its enablers focus a hard self-critical lens on themselves, they see what they want to. Thus, the American Psychological Association publishes something called the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education that features articles such as: • “Are Engineering Schools masculine and Authoritarian? Their Mission Statements Say Yes.” • “Does Diversity at Undergraduate Institutions Influence Student Outcomes?” • “Everyday Discrimination in a National Sample of Incoming Law Students,” and • “Color-Blind Racial Attitudes, Social Dominance Orientation, Racial-Ethnic Group Membership, and College Students’ Perceptions of...

Adult Academic Book Store by: Malcolm A. Kline, December 07, 2007 Our academic elites love to point out to the rest of us how unenlightened we are. Perhaps they can explain the scholarly value of some of the books rolling off of their own university presses, such as the trio of tomes reviewed by Camille Paglia in the September 21, 2007 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education: • Images of Bliss: Ejaculation, Masculinity, Meaning, by Murat Aydemir (University of Minnesota Press, 2007). • Impotence: A Cultural History, by Angus McLaren (University of Chicago Press, 2007). • Sperm Counts: Overcome...

Since Southworth, student fees have remained a contentious issue. A new Pope Center study originated in an effort to find out whether student fees are fairly distributed between conservative and liberal campus organizations at UNC campuses. What the study found is that student governments at UNC schools seem to allocate funds fairly among political groups. Where fees are used for political groups, the distribution seems to reflect the preferences of the student body. Student government at UNC-Chapel Hill distributed $66,412 to liberal students groups in 2006-2007, and $45,993 to conservative groups. At N.C. State, during the first 2006-2007 semester, conservative...

Apathy U by: Emily Mullin, November 27, 2007 “Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” The quote was said by one of our most famous founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson. And although it was spoken over 200 years ago, the message is still applicable today. The world has changed slightly since the time of Thomas Jefferson, and so has the youth of America. Young people now live in a sort of bubble, a controlled environment called college. We permeate our brains with information five days a week and our livers with...

A new report reviews the domestic violence deaths of 48 people and holds recommendations aimed at preventing future tragedies. Findings on Risk Factors for Intimate Partner Homicide (Hamilton County, Ohio) Separated 77 percent Substance abuse 68 percent Increase in frequency of abuse 66 percent Gun involved 66 percent Criminal history 63 percent Stalking 53 percent Prior domestic violence charge 48 percent Threats to kill 46 percent Prior history child abuse 41 percent Threats of suicide 41 percent Perpetrator mental illness 33 percent Perpetrator bought a weapon 33 percent Property damage 33 percent Threats with weapons 32 percent Previous serious injury...

The title of this week's column was a student protest chant started by Jesse Jackson at Stanford University in the 80's. The idea was to throw out the university's required courses on Western Culture because they were filled with "European and Western male bias" and replace them with courses that teach non-Western cultures and "works by women, minorities, and persons of color." Jackson was successful - today almost all colleges and universities stress A.C.B.W. (Any Culture But Western) courses and ignore the classic teachings of Western civilization's "white men." Looking back now, over two decades later, we can see the...