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Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism will bestow its highest honor to Al Jazeera English, the university announced Wednesday. The Columbia Journalism Award is given annually during the school's commencement to recognize an individual or organization for "singular journalism in the public interest," according to a press release. It will mark only the second time that the award is being given to an organization. "Al Jazeera English has performed a great service in bringing the English-speaking world in-depth coverage of the turmoil in the Middle East," said Dean Nicholas Lemann. "We salute its determination to get to the heart of...

In a long-sought move, the University of Miami won a legislative victory on Wednesday when Florida lawmakers agreed to extend state lawsuit protection to university doctors working in public hospitals. Gov. Rick Scott will likely sign the bill into law. Scott is also expected to sign another lawsuit-limitation bill that passed Wednesday that changes the way people can sue automobile makers. The vote to give “sovereign immunity” to UM has been years in the making. The state protects government hospital employees, residents and interns — including those at Miami’s Jackson Health System — from major medical malpractice judgments. But UM...

The University of Kentucky has fired a graduate student and former anesthesia technician, Michael Mitchell, for keeping a gun in his car a mile away from the university hospital where he was employed. The university then proceeded to try to deny Mitchell unemployment compensation by claiming, unsuccessfully, that he was fired for misconduct. A hearing officer found against the University of Kentucky and in favor of Mitchell. All this, despite the fact that Mitchell had a Kentucky concealed carry permit, believed he had fully complied with Kentucky law governing concealed carry, and therefore cooperated fully with police and university authorities....

Students face a £50,000 bill for a three-year degree from next year because of increased tuition fees and the rising cost of living. Current undergraduates pay £31,373 at an elite Russell Group university, which will increase by 55 per cent to an average £48,503 in 2012. The most expensive courses – because of costly university accommodation – are those in London.

A Michigan State University professor accused of plagiarism by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy due to his published study on school consolidation has been found guilty of “research misconduct,” according to the Grand Rapids Press. The newspaper reports that an MSU research integrity committee found that Sharif Shakrani had committed plagiarism in a 2010 school consolidation study and also three other articles published in 2008 and 2009 in MSU’s magazine “New Educator.” The newspaper says that no decision has yet been made regarding any sanctions Shakrani will face. Michael Van Beek, the education policy director at the Mackinac Center...

For the past decade, conservative activist Joe Kaufman has suggested a Syrian-born professor at Florida Atlantic University may have terrorist connections. Bassem Al-halabi, an associate professor of engineering, has no criminal convictions, and he has supporters of all faiths at FAU who say his views are closer to pacifism than terrorism. But Kaufman, keeping his effort alive, organized a protest in front of FAU on Thursday, urging the university to fire him. "Al-halabi is a danger … and should not be around or be able to hold influence over any of our nation's youth, especially as a professor at a...

Wayne State University shut down the website for its Labor Studies Center shortly after Michigan Capitol Confidential managing editor Ken Braun cited specific pages and documents found on the Labor Studies Center’s website and publicly questioned whether it was acting like a political action committee for unions. The site is located at: http://www.clas.wayne.edu/lsc/. It contained numerous documents that Braun had linked to that he said appeared to show favoritism to union causes and even political campaigns. As of Wednesday, a notice on the site declared that it was under construction. Nearly all of the pages that Braun had referenced had...

(Editor’s note: The piece below contains hyperlinks to Web material and Web pages that were available on Wayne State University’s website on the morning of April 4, 2011. In two cases, this material became unavailable on the WSU website later in the day, and the remaining Web pages became unavailable the next morning. Hence, we have substituted hyperlinks to the Mackinac Center’s PDF copies of the original WSU Web content.) The Mackinac Center is a public policy research and education institute, and one of our regular activities is submitting requests to public institutions for public documents under Michigan’s Freedom of...

According to its mission statement, the Labor Studies Center at Wayne State University is a "labor education center committed to strengthening the capacity of organized labor to represent the needs and interests of workers, while at the same time strengthening the University's research and teaching on labor and workplace issues." But a closer examination reveals that this obscure corner of the taxpayer-supported university does a lot that resembles progressive political agitation rather than teaching and research. Critics have accused the LSC of crossing the line between education and politicking on the taxpayer dime. "Wayne State University's Labor Studies Center has...

Higher education is in a bubble situation—its price has risen sharply, fueled by cheap federal loan and grant money (sound familiar?) while the return on the investment has fallen. More and more college students are either not graduating or are taking jobs that do not require college-level skills and often pay mediocre amounts. In investor parlance, the price-earnings ratio on investing in higher education seems to be rising sharply. Where markets operate without external interference, there would be a correction. Sensing lower returns on their investment, the demand for higher education would fall and, with that, enrollments. Declining demand would...

America's most renowned public university system is sinking deeper into a scandal over its treatment of antisemitism and even terror groups. The Olive Tree Initiative (OTI) at the University of California Irvine (UCI) is a fig leaf, a token gesture,  used by the UC administration to cover up the shame of the existence of antisemitism at UCI and the administration's lack of resolve in identifying, condemning, and combatting it.  But now the cover is blown.  A letter, dated 10/08/2009, obtained recently under the Freedom of Information Act, reveals the moral confusion of the OTI ideology and its staff.  The...

How much should a college education cost? According to the College Board, the average cost of earning a degree at a private, 4-year university is now more than $100,000. If tuition prices continue to rise as quickly as they did during the past decade, a college degree will cost more than $200,000 by the time today’s third-graders are applying. That price tag is enough to cause most parents to break into a sweat. Is a college degree really worth this cost? Some bright minds think Americans are paying way too much. In fact, Bill Gates--one of the country's most famous...

President Bush and John Kerry duked it out at the University of Miami in 2004. John McCain and his Republican challengers debated at FAU in 2008. Could the 2012 election be Lynn University’s time to shine? The Commission on Presidential Debates is listing Lynn, a small Boca Raton university, as one of 12 possible sites to hold a presidential or vice presidential debate next year. It’s the only contender in Florida. President Kevin Ross said the university is “delighted and honored” to be in the running, adding it would be held at the Keith C. and Elaine Johnson World Performing...

A surge in Satanism fuelled by the internet has led to a sharp rise in the demand for exorcists, the Roman Catholic Church has warned. The web has made it easier than ever before to access information on Devil-worshipping and the occult, experts said. Exorcism is the subject of a six-day conference being held this week at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome, which is under the Vatican's authority. "The internet makes it much easier than in the past to find information about Satanism," said Carlo Climati, a member of the university who specialises in the dangers posed to...

Lisa Graas has covered politics and religion at her blog LisaGraas.com since 2008. She has served as a crisis pregnancy counselor, youth speaker, mental health advocate and legislative consultant This popular post was originally published March 22, 2011. I should have brought an M16…My blood is boiling…I want to shoot everyone in this room. These are some of the terroristic words of McGill University (MU) student Haaris Khan, tweeted in reference to Conservatives, Libertarians and Jews. The following day he tweeted, The jihad begins today. Despite university policy which prohibits threats of violence, and with a police investigation underway, MU...

Police at the University of Central Florida are looking into claims that members of a fraternity bragged about a game involving drugging random women at a fraternity function in February. University spokesman Chad Binette said Friday that UCF's Office of Student Conduct and the UCF Police Department "will be conducting reviews of the incident." "Our No. 1 priority is to provide a safe environment for the entire university community," including our Greek organizations," Binette said. The fraternity denied the allegations and said it welcomes the reviews. The controversy stems from a Feb. 10 event, in which documents released by UCF...

<p>MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Marquette University in Milwaukee will begin offering domestic partner benefits to its employees beginning next year.</p> <p>The move by the Catholic, Jesuit university comes about a year after the school rescinded a job offer to a lesbian and scholar at Seattle University. Marquette officials said at the time, rescinding the job offer to Jodi O'Brien had nothing to do with her sexual orientation. But, it triggered heated debate on campus over the issue.</p>

We'll always be able to trust the government with a monopoly on force. Cooperate when threatened, and you won't be hurt. The assumptions behind gun control laws are so blatantly and dangerously wrong that it must take some intellect to trick oneself into believing they're true. In December 2000, five friends in their twenties decided to cooperate when Jonathan and Reginald Carr barged into their Wichita home, demanding money. The victims offered no resistance, hoping that the pair would take their valuables and leave. Instead, the attackers ordered the three men into a closet and proceeded to rape the two...

A couple of weeks ago I did a story about the new provost-elect at Kennesaw State University in Marietta, Georgia. Timothy Chandler was slotted to take over the job this July but it had been discovered that he had done a paper the slanted towards Marxism and once exposed…..there was a rather large backlash from the public. Well…the people have spoken and Dr. Chandler has decided “not to take the job”. (AJC) Accusations of Marxism and being un-American proved too much for Kennesaw State University’s newly selected provost, who withdrew his acceptance of the position on Thursday. Timothy Chandler, tapped...

Montreal police are investigating a student who made threats against a conservative club at McGill University, even though university officials determined the student’s threats about jihad and wanting to “shoot everyone in the room” were harmless. A spokesman for the Montreal Police Service told the Toronto Star they take the threat allegedly made by Haaris Khan seriously. Khan attended a viewing of the documentary “Indoctrinate-U,” sponsored by Conservative McGill, a student organization affiliated with Canada’s Conservative Party. During the viewing, Khan is accused of making death treats using his Twitter account.