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Romney likely to use Liberty U. speech to woo evangelicals

USA Today

May 11, 2012

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who struggled to gain the support of evangelicals during the primaries, will deliver a commencement address Saturday at Liberty University, one of the largest Christian universities in the country. Disquiet about Romney among some evangelicals remains, and the speech could allow him to reassure them of his conservative credentials. Initial backlash from some students at the university prompted the Liberty Champion, the campus newspaper, to editorialize that the commencement speaker does not necessarily have to share their same faith doctrine. Romney is Mormon.

Women’s College with Outsized Impact to Host President Obama

Voice of America

May 11, 2012

Barnard College President Debora Spar said the White House has not said why President Obama asked to speak at this year's ceremony, but she speculated that he will use the occasion to talk about renewed political battles over women's issues, such as abortion and contraception. "I suspect that he and the White House are looking for an opportunity to really say something big about the current state of women in the United States," she said. Barnard, one of the elite "Seven Sisters" women's liberal arts colleges, was founded in 1889, to offer women a classical liberal arts education at a time when elite men's colleges of the Ivy League were closed to them.

Memphis College of Art, in financial straits, weighs personnel, program cuts

Memphis, Tenn., Commercial Appeal

May 11, 2012

Ron Jones, Memphis College of Art president, has issued a statement asking his board of trustees to grant him the power to eliminate programs and suspend contracts for the school's employees. Jones's statement "declared a state of financial exigency, signaling the need for program retrenchment in the coming year." The declaration, Jones wrote, "confirms the college's inability to meet current faculty salary obligations; and, if confirmed by the Board of Trustees, enables MCA to try to stabilize the operating budget by making faculty decisions without regard to seniority or contract status."

University of St. Thomas president announces retirement plans

Minnesota Public Radio

May 11, 2012

The president of the University of St. Thomas announced plans to retire on Thursday. Father Dennis Dease plans to retire at the end of June 2013. Dease has led St. Thomas for 21 years. He is the second-longest serving president of the university and the 14th priest to lead the school's 127-year history, which last year changed its by-laws to open leadership to Catholic lay-people as well.

Trustees of all-male college try to block admission of women

Los Angeles Times

May 10, 2012

Deep Springs College, the tiny but prestigious school and ranch north of Death Valley, plans to admit female students for the first time in its 95-year history. In legal paperwork filed Wednesday, two college trustees who want the 28-student campus to remain all-male asked a judge to stop the school from admitting women in fall 2013. Founded by a banker and electric power pioneer as a place where young men could study and work hard away from the distractions of women and drinking, Deep Springs is a tuition-free two-year college from which many graduates transfer to Ivy League universities.

Fairfield U. faces faculty pay crisis

Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

May 10, 2012

Fairfield University officials, faced with budget woes and shrinking enrollment, want to abandon an 18-year practice of paying professors as well, or better, than peers in comparable institutions. In the midst of finals week, about 100 faculty and students, carrying signs and chanting, trekked across the university's well-appointed lawns in the rain Wednesday to the university president's annual address to faculty. For nearly two decades, faculty salaries at Fairfield have been set at a level higher than 95 percent of faculty at similar comprehensive masters-granting universities.

The Religious Battle of Vanderbilt

Wall Street Journal - Opinion Piece

May 10, 2012

Last week, large majorities in both Tennessee houses passed a bill to prohibit the school from interfering in the ability of student groups to select their own leaders and members. The legislation follows Vanderbilt's decision to stop recognizing campus religious organizations that require their leaders to accept certain religious beliefs on which they are founded. Vanderbilt officials are restricting the liberty of the very sorts of religious folks who not only founded the school but whose followers led many of the nondiscrimination battles of 19th-century higher education.

Law School Plans to Offer Web Courses for Master’s

New York Times

May 9, 2012

The law school of Washington University announced Tuesday that it would offer, entirely online, a master's degree in United States law intended for lawyers practicing overseas, in partnership with 2tor, an education technology company. Legal education has been slow to move to online classes, and the new master's program is perhaps the earliest partnership between a top-tier law school and a commercial enterprise.

What's in a Name? For Yale in Singapore, a Whole Lot

Chronicle of Higher Education

May 9, 2012

It was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in January 2009, that Richard C. Levin, president of Yale University, and Tan Chorh Chuan, president of the National University of Singapore, began discussing what has become a deep-seated collaboration between the two institutions to create the first liberal-arts college in the island nation. But three years after that first handshake, Mr. Levin faces vocal campus resistance to the project, which is known as Yale-NUS College.

A Presbyterian Presidency?

Inside Higher Ed

May 9, 2012

Davidson requires its president to be an active member of a Presbyterian church - and recently hired a new president who is. During that search, the college agreed to study that requirement, appointing a committee of trustees to make recommendations.  But if the requirement for presidents does change, aligning Davidson's requirements with most other Presbyterian colleges, the college will confront a challenge common to church-affiliated but largely secular Protestant institutions: how to honor historical ties to a denomination, even if the denomination has little to do with the college's day-to-day functions.