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Report: Admissions Rules Bent for Athletes
Tweet Share on Facebook December 31, 2009 Comment (7)I'm trying to think of a more obvious result from a report than this one: Prospective college athletes have a better shot than nonathletes at sneaking through admissions without meeting all the requirements. Outside of a study finding that Americans don't like the BCS bowl system, I can't think of anything less shocking.
That's the cynical world we (or maybe just I) live in.
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Cognitively Disabled Student Wins Legal Battle Against Oakland University, Will Move In
Tweet Share on Facebook December 30, 2009 CommentA cognitively disabled student who has battled his Michigan college for campus housing for more than a year has finally gotten his wish. A federal court ruled that Oakland University in Rochester must allow Micah Fialka-Feldman, who has problems reading and writing, to live on campus even if he is not on the path toward graduation, the Oakland Post reports.
The case made national news, drawing the attention of disabled-rights advocates. The university denied Fialka-Feldman campus housing in 2007 because he wasn't in a degree-granting program, the Detroit News reports. Fialka-Feldman studies in Oakland's OPTIONS program, which allows students who normally wouldn't get into the school to take ungraded classes. The 25-year-old Michigan native still pays fees comparable to tuition.
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Texas Tech Fires Football Coach
Tweet Share on Facebook December 30, 2009 Comment (32)Mark Mangino resigned from his head football coaching job at the University of Kansas a few weeks ago after allegations of verbal and physical abuse of his players surfaced. And to keep the theme going this bowl season, Texas Tech's football coach, Mike Leach, is headed to the unemployment line behind Mangino for similar reasons.
Texas Tech fired Leach on Wednesday, several outlets have reported. Texas Tech's student newspaper, the Daily Toreador, which ceased publication for its winter break, hasn't confirmed the firing as of early Wednesday afternoon but did acknowledge the reports of Leach's dismissal on its Twitter page. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal had nothing about the firing on its website at the time of publishing this post.
Texas Tech officials reportedly handed Leach's lawyer a termination letter just before the two sides were set to meet in court to discuss Leach's suspension from coaching, ESPN.com reports. Leach had signed an extension through 2012.
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Texas Tech Suspends Football Coach for Alleged Player Abuse
Tweet Share on Facebook December 29, 2009 Comment (25)Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach is known for being a character. The 48-year-old gained national notoriety during the 2007 college football season when he criticized Big 12 officials and, in turn, received a whopping $10,000 fine for his comments. Leach also made headlines for his comments about Texas A&M quarterback Stephen McGee, who had entered the NFL draft, saying the Dallas Cowboys coaches liked McGee more than his coaches at Texas A&M did.
Obviously, none of those comments went over well. Leach's mouth and personality already have him on a short leash at Texas Tech. News of his suspension by Texas Tech for alleged player abuse only makes matters worse. As of now, Leach will not coach in the Alamo Bowl on Saturday, when Texas Tech faces Michigan State, reports the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
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Still Looking for Award Nominations
Tweet Share on Facebook December 29, 2009 Comment (1)OK, people. We are within six days of the deadline for all nominations for the Paper Trail end-of-year awards. We started the process last week, and this post serves as your reminder. If you don't make nominations, you won't be able to vote for that candidate.
We're looking for nominations and candidates for four awards: Story of the Year, Newsmaker of the Year, Nonstory of the Year, and Alternative Media Outlet of the Year. Last year was the year of Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, rising tuition, and blogs. Has 2009 been much different? Send us your picks, and we'll set up polls so that everyone can vote.
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Sustainability Majors on the Rise at Colleges
Tweet Share on Facebook December 28, 2009 Comment (4)It only makes sense that colleges are seeing a rise in the popularity of sustainability and green majors. Climate change, energy, and the environment are hot-button issues, and students are interested in studying them.
USA Today reports that colleges created more than 100 majors, minors, and certificates in energy and sustainability-related programs this year. Just three programs were added in 2005, the report says.
"There's a great perception that there's a sweet spot with energy to do good and do well, and it appears to be the place of job growth," Rob Melnick, executive dean of the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, tells USA Today.
Arizona State's program has more than 600 students who have declared sustainability a major. Illinois State University has 65 majors in renewable energy, the report says. MIT and the University of California–Berkeley, among many others, have also seen more students drawn to sustainability programs. And with issues like "Climategate" making waves nationally, the interest in environmental topics is likely to continue.
[See "green" careers that are among America's Best Careers 2010.]
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Drama at Florida Continues
Tweet Share on Facebook December 28, 2009 Comment (5)What is it with the University of Florida and coaches changing their minds? A few years ago, Florida's two-time national championship-winning head basketball coach Billy Donovan left Florida for an NBA job, only to return a few days later.
Now, Florida has another coach taking the Gainesville school on a roller-coaster ride: Urban Meyer. The highly accomplished, highly respected football coach resigned from his post on Saturday, citing serious health concerns. Speculation about who would replace Meyer and where the 45-year-old coach might end up in the future flew. Then, Meyer changed his mind.
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'Forbes': Texas Has College Football's Most Valuable Team
Tweet Share on Facebook December 24, 2009 Comment (4)The University of Texas has a big moneymaker coming in 2010. You know, the BCS National Championship game, which has an expected payout of more than $31 million. But it turns out that Texas making bank from the BCS title game is a lot like Bill Gates making money from a new skyrocketing stock.
Why? Well, the University of Texas program is the most valuable in college football, Forbes reports. The team generated $82 million last season. The biggest bits of the breakdown are astonishing: $33 million in ticket sales, $30 million from donations, $1 million from Nike, and close to $1 million in sponsorship payments from Coca-Cola and Gatorade. All those numbers add up to Texas being the most valuable team in college football, worth a whopping $119 million, the report says.
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Rights Group Writes Complaint Letter to Yale
Tweet Share on Facebook December 24, 2009 Comment (7)The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education says it defends and sustains "individual rights at American colleges and universities." Well, FIRE is taking up a new issue, and it could get sticky.
FIRE wrote a letter to Yale University that rebukes the school for a decision it made earlier this year, the Yale Daily News reports. Controversy swirled around T-shirts that the Freshman Class Council made before Yale's football game against Harvard. The shirts bore a quotation from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel: "I think of all Harvard men as sissies." Yale's LGBT Co-Op said the word "sissies" was a gay slur and asked for its removal from the T-shirt, and Yale and the Freshman Class Council agreed.
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New Jersey Investigates Stevens Institute President
Tweet Share on Facebook December 24, 2009 CommentStevens Institute of Technology and its president are in a heap of trouble with the state of New Jersey. New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram says the Hoboken school is in desperate need of reform.
New Jersey is suing Stevens President Harold J. Raveché, accusing him of plundering the school's endowment and receiving $1.8 million in illegal low-interest loans for vacation homes, the New York Times reports. Raveché's salary has tripled over a decade (he received $1.1 million last year), and the lawsuit says that the school hid its financial distress in multiple sets of books, the report says.
"We found extensive misconduct going back years, a pattern of misinformation to the board and misuse of the endowment," Milgram said in an interview with the Times this month.
The IRS is also conducting its own investigation, the Times says. The IRS says Stevens paid $750,000 in penalties and unpaid taxes last year for several of its spinoff technology companies, the report says. Meanwhile, the state's suit says Stevens has borrowed more than $40 million from its endowment since 2000.
Stevens officials and Raveché's lawyer declined comment.