Member News

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine (NY) will now be tuition-free for all students, thanks to a historic $1 billion gift from a former faculty member and board chair. The donation comes from Ruth Gottesman, who after joining the faculty at the Bronx, N.Y.-based Einstein in 1968 developed widely used tools to screen children for learning problems and launched an adult literacy program. Gottesman, 93 years old, and her husband, the late billionaire-investor David “Sandy” Gottesman, were longtime donors to the medical school, and Ruth Gottesman serves as chair of its board of trustees. 

Bay Path University, in western Massachusetts, has agreed to acquire Boston-based Cambridge College, the two institutions announced Tuesday. The two private nonprofit institutions share a focus on career education, and they are comparably sized: Bay Path enrolls about 2,500 students, split between women-only undergraduate programs and coeducational graduate programs, while Cambridge offers programs in Boston and in Puerto Rico that serve more than 2,000 mostly adult learners. Officials said the acquisition has been in the works since last summer.

Struggling Saint Augustine’s University (FL) has lost an appeal to maintain its accreditation and now plans to file an injunction to ask the courts to weigh in, SAU officials announced Tuesday. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges stripped the university of accreditation in December over financial and governance issues. However, SAU remained accredited until the appeal process played out. Now litigation is SAU’s only lifeline.

In her new book, Leading From the Margins: College Leadership From Unexpected Places (Johns Hopkins University Press), Hollins University (VA)  president Mary Dana Hinton recounts with warmth and candor how her experience growing up far outside America’s traditional power centers gave her the strength and vision to develop her own inclusive, expansive style of leadership. The child of a poor single mother in rural North Carolina, Hinton was marginalized by race, gender, socioeconomic status and geography. She credits her mother’s drive, courage and commitment to education with inspiring her to attend Williams College and ultimately pursue a Ph.D. and a career in higher education focused on promoting equity. 

It was a lighthearted story that seemed as consequential as a lawn game. Last week Winthrop University announced that it was giving two high-school seniors what are probably the first athletic scholarships to play cornhole in college. The novel news made headlines at NPR, The Washington Post, and CBS News.
The students, whose scholarships will reportedly cover about half their tuition, will be enrolling at Winthrop at a time when cornhole, a game that involves tossing bean bags into a hole, often at bars or summer parties, is becoming more high-profile and competitive. Big tournaments are aired on ESPN.