Member News

Harvard (MA) pulled in $9.6 billion in its latest fund-raising campaign, making it the most lucrative university capital campaign in history.  Harvard University concluded a five-year capital campaign on Thursday that shattered higher-education fund-raising records, according to The Harvard Crimson, by bringing in more than $9.6 billion. The total was well above the university’s original goal, $6.5 billion.

Brian Wansink will retire from Cornell University (NY), where he is director of the Food and Brand Lab, after a university investigation found that he had committed academic misconduct. The news, announced on Thursday, occurred a day after the JAMA Network, a group of journals published by the American Medical Association, retracted six of his papers.

Under pressure to deliver new revenues for promised education and transportation investments, Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez is proposing a 1.6 percent tax on certain private higher education endowments, which he estimates would generate $1 billion. 

The retractions keep stacking up for Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell University (NY) Food and Brand Lab, whose high-profile research on the psychology of diet has turned out to be riddled with errors. The latest blow fell on Wednesday, when the JAMA Network, a group of journals published by the American Medical Association, announced that six of Wansink’s papers, appearing in three journals, had been retracted.

Faculty members at Saint Louis University are raising questions about whether a recent $50 million gift to create a research institute gave inappropriate control over hiring to the donors.