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Higher-education board calls for investigation into FAMU hazing

Citing its "grave concern" over hazing activities at Florida A&M University, the state's Board of Governors has called for an investigation into whether administrators did enough to prevent hazing in the famed marching band and throughout the campus.

In a letter to FAMU's trustees, Board of Governors Chairwoman Ava Parker said she was prompted by Robert Champion's death to scrutinize school leaders' actions to prevent and punish hazing amid allegations from the band director that he received little disciplinary support.

The letter was dated Tuesday, a day before drum major Robert Champion was laid to rest in Decatur, Ga., where hundreds gathered to mourn his death following a suspected hazing attack Nov. 19 in Orlando.

Tico Perez, one of 17 board members that oversee the state's public universities, said he supported Parker's call for a probe. "Hazing is incredibly serious. There is no room for that in higher education," he said. "If there are questions left unanswered, we have to answer them."Efforts to reach FAMU officials, including board of trustees chairman Solomon Badger were unsuccessful.

Orange County Sheriff's detectives have not said what happened to Champion onboard a bus after the Florida Classic football game last month, but their investigation is ongoing. No arrests have been made. Champion's parents said this week they will sue the Tallahassee school, which their attorney Christopher Chestnut says suffers from a "culture of hazing."

A second hazing investigation surfaced this week involving 18-year-old marching band member Bria Hunter, who told Tallahassee Police 11 days before Champion died in Orlando that she had been a victim of hazing at an off-campus apartment.

FAMU President James Ammons fired the band's heralded director Julian White last week, saying his "time was up." But White is contesting his termination, saying he took exhaustive actions to end the violence.

White released hundreds of letters and memos showing he notified administration about the dozens of students he suspended and terminated for alleged hazing activities during his 13-year tenure.

White's attorney, Chuck Hobbs, said his client has been "a man on a solo mission" and was "met with reckless indifference" when he asked superiors for help prosecuting and expelling known hazers.

Before the Florida Classic, White suspended 26 members suspected of hazing and the administration's response was to send the school provost to lecture the students, Hobbs said.

"I was always thinking of what more I could do to stop it," White said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel Monday. "I felt more could've been done above me to demonstrate the effects of hazing and increase the intensity of the punishment."

Former band members said that White was a known anti-hazing crusader who employed strict measures, such as dismantling band-affiliated fraternities and changing band traditions that ostracized freshmen, to eradicate the practice.

"Dr. White had an eagle's eye watch on everything that was going on," said Lawrence Hilson, who marched with the band in 1990. "You couldn't even speak to a freshman the wrong way or you would be kicked out of the band."At times, White said he had to get out of bed in the middle of the night to stop hazing incidents in progress.

Ammons issued a statement Tuesday reiterating the school's anti-hazing policies. He said hazing persists at FAMU and other universities due to "a culture of secrecy and a conspiracy of silence."

Former band member and hazing victim Marcus Parker said in his 2001 lawsuit that the school was aware of hazings dating back a decade and "despite all of this, FAMU never has taken real action to stop the ritualistic assaults and batteries," according to court documents. He was awarded $1.8 million in a settlement.

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Scrutiny of online education puts Idaho reforms in national limelight

Posted in : News, Online Education

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The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and The Nation are among the major publications scrutinizing the boom in virtual education and Idaho is among the states winning attention for Superintendent Tom Luna's "Students Come First" plan. Lee Fang's story in The Nation, "How Online Learning Companies Bought America's Schools," follows the storyline pushed by the Idaho Education Association.

Fang's story includes several of the characters that appeared in my February account of the origins of the Luna plan, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and News Corp's Rupert Murdoch. Fang also highlights the role of Tom Vander Ark, who lobbied lawmakers on behalf of Luna's plan in a visit to Idaho in February.

Writes Fang: "From Idaho to Indiana to Florida, recently passed laws will radically reshape the face of education in America, shifting the responsibility of teaching generations of Americans to online education businesses, many of which have poor or nonexistent track records. The rush to privatize education will also turn tens of thousands of students into guinea pigs in a national experiment in virtual learning—a relatively new idea that allows for-profit companies to administer public schools completely online, with no brick-and-mortar classrooms or traditional teachers."

IEA Communications Director Julie Fanselow alerted reporters Tuesday to a blog post in Education Week by Julie Ravitch that links to the Nation, Post and Journal stories and other material. "Of course, Idaho is in the forefront of this movement," writes Fanselow. "Thank you for continuing to follow this story."

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Swedish University to Improve Medical Education with Sectra's Visualization Table

Posted in : Medical Education

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The Faculty of Health Sciences at Linköping University in Sweden has invested in Sectra Visualization Table. The faculty will use the table for training and instruction purposes in all of its seven education programs.

The Sectra Visualization Table is a large medical multi-touch display, allowing students and medical professionals to interact collaboratively with the life-size 3D images generated by CT and MRI scanners. The possibility to work with a virtual body allows for deeper understanding and insight into the anatomy, and functions and processes inside the body. In this manner, Sectra Visualization Table improves medical education, surgery planning, clinical conferences and virtual autopsies. The table is powered by a tailored Sectra PACS workstation (Picture Archiving and Communication System).

Linköping University is renowned as an innovator in medical education. "With Sectra's Visualization Table, we will have new opportunities to use medical images in our education and teaching," says Pia Tingström, Head of the Centre for Educational Development and Research at Linköping University. "Integrating advanced clinical imaging technology into our education provides students with a learning tool that will contribute to improved patient safety." Sectra Visualization Table will be demonstrated at Sectra's booth 9117 at RSNA.

About Sectra
Sectra develops and sells IT systems and services for radiology, women's health, orthopaedics and rheumatology. More than 1,100 hospitals, clinics and imaging centers worldwide use the systems daily, together performing over 55 million radiology examinations annually. This makes Sectra one of the world-leading companies within systems for handling digital radiology images. In Scandinavia, Sectra is the market leader with more than 50% of all film-free installations. Sectra's systems have been installed in North America, Scandinavia and most major countries in Europe and the Far East.

Sectra was founded in 1978 and has its roots in Linköping University in Sweden. The company's business operations include cutting-edge products and services within the niche segments of medical systems and secure communication systems. Sectra has offices in 12 countries and operates through partners worldwide. Sales in the 2010/2011 fiscal year totaled SEK 784 million.

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Kitzhaber says ousting of UO president would be 'fully justified' due to eroded trust

Posted in : Higher Education

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Gov. John Kitzhaber said Saturday that University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere has shown little regard for Oregon's other universities and the State Board of Higher Education would be "fully justified" to oust him.

A number of incidents involving Lariviere have eroded the board's trust in the president, Kitzhaber said, including Lariviere's decision to lobby the Legislature this year for increased independence for the UO even after the board voted not to support his proposal.

Kitzhaber also pointed to pay raises that Lariviere approved for some faculty and administrators. They came, according to the governor, after an agreement with other university presidents not to hike pay during the current two-year budget cycle.

"His decision not only undermined the board, it undermined my own directive and the credibility of my administration with the other campuses that complied with the agreement," Kitzhaber said in a feisty, 750-word statement released by his office.

Kitzhaber said Lariviere's decision has created difficulty for other schools and has been a barrier to completing contract negotiations with faculty at Portland State University. Lariviere told students and faculty on Tuesday that he'd been informed his contract will not be renewed when it expires at the end of June. He blamed an "ongoing difference of opinion over the future of the UO." Kitzhaber said the situation had nothing to do with a difference of opinion but was driven by Lariviere's conduct.

The higher education board has scheduled a meeting for Monday afternoon to vote on Lariviere's future. Julie Brown, a UO spokeswoman, declined to comment Saturday. Lariviere sees the UO as Oregon's flagship university, and he has lobbied for the school to be governed and funded independently of the state's other six public schools governed by the Oregon University System. Kitzhaber said he personally supports considering some of Lariviere's ideas but there's not currently enough support in state government to enact them. And he said an "orchestrated media blitz" from the UO community in response to Lariviere's apparent ouster has made some people even more resistant to Larivere's ideas.

"His responsibility to the Board of Higher Education and his contribution to the larger issues and success of the entire system fall short," Kitzhaber said. "Indeed, Dr. Lariviere's actions have done damage to our vision for higher education and other institutions of higher learning and, ironically, have served the undercut his own aspirations for the University of Oregon."

Lariviere's ouster has angered many UO faculty members, who say the president has done a lot to improve the institution since arriving from the University of Kansas in 2009. Critics have also said the UO community should have been more involved in a decision about his future.

The public portion of the higher education board's Monday meeting begins at 3 p.m. on the Portland State University campus, and it will be streamed on the Internet. The board will meet in private beginning an hour earlier.

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Higher-education cuts hit harder in Pullman

Posted in : Higher Education

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There is no escaping the influence of Washington State University in this remote college town.Big signs for the school stand at the entrances to Pullman. A major bridge has Cougar mascot statues on both ends. The university is perched on a hill and dominates the town like a medieval fortress.

But the connections run even deeper, to the extent that massive cuts to the university's budget by the cash-strapped state reverberate through the whole economy here. "Any time there are financial difficulties with the area's largest employer, there is cause for concern," said Jack McGrath, who owns The Quilted Heart fabric store downtown.

The land-grant university's 20,000 students and more than 4,000 employees make it almost a monoculture in the town of 29,000 residents. Pullman's motto is "High tech, higher education, highest quality of life."The university's brick towers, dormitories and sports facilities rise out of rolling hills covered with wheat fields, and seem like an academic island in a vast sea of grain. Pullman is 75 miles south of Spokane, connected by a two-lane highway through the sparsely-populated countryside.

So the state's reduction of a whopping 60 percent of its support for WSU in the past four years, prompting more than 500 layoffs at the university — about 12 percent of its workforce — is a big deal. Many fear even bigger cuts are coming.

Real-estate sales and construction in Pullman are down, while unemployment is up. That's unusual for a local economy that historically has been immune to big swings. Whitman County for years enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate in the state, in part because half the jobs are government jobs. Unemployment stood at 4 percent as late as 2008, before starting a steady upward march. The rate reached 7.5 percent in July, still lower than the state average of 9 percent.

The local unemployment rate would be even higher if not for hiring at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, a Pullman-based company that makes equipment for the electric-power industry and has some 1,500 local employees. The opening of a new Wal-Mart store also produced jobs, while big tuition increases and research grants saved some WSU jobs.

But as the state continues to impose budget cuts in the face of lingering economic woes, the unemployment rate is likely to get worse as more WSU jobs disappear. "We are not a very diverse economy," said Arum Kone, an analyst for the state Department of Employment Security who covers Whitman County. "If (WSU) is not hiring, it will be a drag on the economy."

Many of those who are laid off leave the area because other jobs are difficult to find, said Chuck Pezeshki, a mechanical-engineering professor.

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KP govt to introduce reforms in higher education

Posted in : Higher Education

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The government has initiated steps for introducing reforms in the higher education for which educational experts and heads of government colleges will be consulted. In this regard a regional conference was held here on Wednesday. Officials of the provincial Higher Education Department, principals of government colleges and academicians participated in the conference.

Speaking on the occasion, Additional Secretary Education Dr Khalid Khan said that a provincial higher education council would be established after holding such conferences at local levels. He said the provincial higher education council would ensure implementation of reforms in the higher education. “The conferences are aimed at pointing out flaws in the existing examination system, benefits of semester system and improving teaching and administrative process in the government colleges across the province,” he added.

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Free online education service for secondary schools

Posted in : Online Education

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The service aims at enriching the learning experience through encouraging different learning styles. Its content is based on the official education curriculum. The free online education service is currently available in 30 schools. Maxis will work closely with MoE to implement the next phase in 70 other schools. Eventually, it intends to extend the service to 2,300 schools nationwide later.

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Higher Education Needs Market Discipline

Posted in : Higher Education

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Here’s a trivia question for the holiday cocktail parties: what major service industry in the U.S. has raised prices twice as fast as health care? The answer is higher education. See the chart below. Universities have amazing pricing power, because your alma mater is part of your public image for life. They use it. What other institution (beyond the IRS) is able to require each customer to submit a detailed financial statement, and then tailor a discount from a very high base price that extracts the maximum each customer can pay? I’m describing the “financial aid” system.

A few more observations: The debt accumulated by post-high-school students in the U.S. is approaching $1 trillion, more than total credit card debt (more). But, many post-high-school programs seem to offer very low return on investment (example below).

Another dinner-party download: what percent of college students graduate in four years? Less than half (more). And, despite the studies showing that, on average, people with college education and above enjoy much higher employment rates, a large number of recent graduates have not found jobs.

I’m not an expert in education, but I know something about markets, and this looks to me like a market that is way out of balance: massive spending for a product that does not serve many customers well. For example, The Economist recently published an analysis of the economics of MBA programs that concludes, for students at mid-ranking schools, return on investment has declined to near-zero due to slow-growing salaries and fast-rising fees (more).

My personal sample of recent college graduates (~10 family members) shows a strong pattern: those with degrees that align with market demand (e.g., nursing, computer science, or engineering) are finding “real” jobs. Many who followed their muse into arts and letters are struggling and in some cases protesting that they were misled: told by educators to do what they loved. One of my nieces, however, has a degree in musical performance. She told me she knew she would not get a real job, so she has assembled a portfolio of six part-time gigs and is doing well from them. This girl understands her market.

These conditions cry out for market discipline, specifically transparency, rationality, and innovation. Transparency makes clear what is happening: who graduates, who gets jobs, and who earns what. Rationality allocates resources based on productivity: what about making college loans more available to students pursuing degrees that give them skills which are in-demand and pay well enough to service the debt? And innovation creates lower-cost options. In our venture investing business, we see entrepreneurs with promising proposals to use new business models and modern technology to offer good educational value at much lower cost. I’m not against higher education. I think it’s a vital national resource, one that we need to manage well.

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US: Online education growth dwarfs overall enrolment

Posted in : Online Education

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I am co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group which, for the last nine years, has published a survey of online education in the United States. It has yet to see any clear indication of an overall slowdown in the growth of online education but there are changes in the differential growth of programmes and in the belief that, in some areas, online education is superior for students.

The rate of growth of online enrolments was slower over the last year, but it continues to outpace the rate of growth of the total higher education student population in the US. Every year since the first report in this series in 2003, the number of students taking at least one online course has increased at a rate far in excess of the growth of the overall student body.

The most recent estimate, for the autumn of 2010, shows an increase of 10% over autumn 2009 to a total of 6.1 million students taking at least one course online for that semester.

This is an almost four-fold increase in students taking courses online since our first survey in 2002, and represents a compound annual growth rate of 18.3% over the nine-year period. By comparison, the overall higher education student body in the US has grown at an annual rate of just over 2% during this same period. Thirty-one per cent of all higher education students now take at least one course online.

There has been wide variability in the year-to-year growth of online education, with large increases through to 2005, smaller rates in 2006 and 2007, and jumps in 2008 and 2009 which are believed to be due to the economic recession sending many people back to school to finish degrees and improve their marketability for jobs.

There has also been a shift in the types of online programmes that are growing, shrinking or maintaining steady enrolment. Engineering, which saw some decreased enrolment in earlier surveys, is now showing steady enrolment and growth areas are health professions and related sciences and the liberal arts.

How academics rate online courses

The view that online education is 'just as good as' face-to-face instruction is by no means universally held. There has been a slow but steady increase in the proportion of academic leaders who have a positive view of the relative quality of the learning outcomes for online courses against comparable face-to-face courses, but there remains a consistent and sizable minority who see online classes as inferior.

This year's results show a small increase among those who say online is at least as good as face-to-face classes. The proportion of academic leaders who now believe online education is as good as or better than face-to-face classes is now just over two thirds of all respondents, up from 57% in the first year of the study.

This does translate to a significant minority of one third of all academic leaders polled who continue to believe that the learning outcomes for online courses are inferior to those for face-to-face instruction. And this assessment shows a stronger dichotomy if we classify the institutions by whether they currently have any online offerings.

There are several areas of education where academic leaders rate online classes higher than face-to-face classes: student satisfaction, scheduling flexibility and the ability for students to learn at their own pace. At the other end of the spectrum, a majority believe that student-to-student interaction suffers in online courses and opinions are split on the quality of faculty-to-student communication.

Acceptance of online education

Faculty acceptance of online education has changed little since our first report. The perceived acceptance rate by academics varies widely between colleges and universities with online offerings and those without such offerings.

More than a quarter of chief academic officers at institutions with no online offerings report that their academics do not accept its value; which is, perhaps, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Institutions that offer only online courses and those that offer both online courses and full online programmes report that only 7% of their academics do not fully accept online education.

While the acceptance at institutions that are more engaged in online education is greater than at other institutions, there remains a level of concern among all academic leaders about the full acceptance of online instruction by their faculty.

Part of this observed pattern may be the result of hiring practices - institutions with extensive online offerings may be hiring teachers specifically for online education. In addition to this, fewer than one third of respondents reported that their academics receive any training for teaching face-to-face courses, but more than three quarters report training (internal or external programmes or mentoring) for faculty teaching online. This may also influence their belief in faculty acceptance of online education.

Use of open educational resources

Finally, new to the survey last year and asked again in 2011, was knowledge and use of an increasing number of open educational resources available for all courses (online or face-to-face).

Most surveyed academic leaders believe that open education resources will have value for their campus; 57% agree that they have value and fewer than 5% disagree.

These results are similar to those for the same question when asked two years ago, with one notable difference. The proportion of for-profit institutions agreeing with this statement has shown a large increase over the two-year period (moving from 49.8% in 2009 to 72.4% in 2011). Both private non-profit institutions and public institutions display smaller increases over this period.

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Growth in Higher Education Job Postings and Employment Slows as Use of Part-time Faculty Increases

Posted in : Higher Education

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Advertisements for job openings in higher education rose 16.5 percent in the third quarter of 2011, according to a new report from HigherEdJobs, the leading source for jobs and career information in academia. The number of actual jobs in higher education also grew in Q3, but at a slower pace than previous quarters.

The report also found that colleges and universities continued to increase their reliance on part-time faculty during the third quarter even though the actual number of full-time faculty postings was up. Postings for part-time faculty were up 18.1 percent, outpacing the 12.3 percent growth in postings for full-time faculty. As a result, the percentage of faculty postings for part-time employees increased to 20.3 percent, up from 19.5 percent in 2010.

The increase in higher education job openings in Q3 2011 is moderate compared to the 63.2 percent growth rate the year before. Job postings from colleges and universities surged during much of 2010 as institutions recovered from the steep decline in hiring that occurred during the recent recession.

In addition, analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data by HigherEdJobs found that the number of actual jobs in higher education rose 2.5 percent in Q3 2011 compared to growth of 3.8 percent a year earlier. Higher education jobs represented about 1.2 percent of all non-farm jobs in the U.S. economy during Q3 2011; up from about 1.1 percent in 2009.

The report examines job posting data from colleges and universities that have been continuously subscribed to the company's unlimited posting plan for four years or longer, a cohort of over 700 schools, as well as data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

HigherEdJobs is the leading source for jobs and career information in academia. During 2010, more than 4,250 colleges and universities posted over 79,000 faculty, administrative and executive job postings to the company's website. HigherEdJobs receives 1,000,000 unique visitors a month. HigherEdJobs is published by Internet Employment Linkage, Inc. and is headquartered in State College, PA.

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