5/18
Penn in the News
A round-up of Penn mentions in local, national, and international media.
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Penn In the News
Another Leader Ousted
Is Dan Jones this year's Teresa Sullivan? On Friday, the state higher education board in Mississippi announced, without detail on why, that it would not renew the contract of Jones, who has been chancellor of the University of Mississippi since 2009. The news surprised Jones as well as faculty and student leaders at the university, where many think he has been highly successful -- on academic issues and finances.
Penn In the News
Another Leader Ousted
Is Dan Jones this year's Teresa Sullivan? On Friday, the state higher education board in Mississippi announced, without detail on why, that it would not renew the contract of Jones, who has been chancellor of the University of Mississippi since 2009. The news surprised Jones as well as faculty and student leaders at the university, where many think he has been highly successful -- on academic issues and finances.
Penn In the News
How U. of Oklahoma Treats American Indians
University of Oklahoma President David L. Boren drew praise last week when he swiftly moved to punish members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon caught singing a racist song -- much like he did when members of the same fraternity in 1996 stole a tepee and placed it on a sorority house lawn. But since the university’s scattered student services offices in the 1990's merged into a reorganized Center for Student Life, critics of Boren’s leadership say the communities for American Indian students that flourished during the late 80's and early 90's have “dwindled to almost nothing.”
Penn In the News
‘Cheated’
For 20 years, some employees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill knowingly steered about 1,500 athletes toward no-show courses that never met and were not taught by any faculty members, and in which the only work required was a single research paper that received a high grade no matter the content. After years of investigations, the scope of the scandal was finally detailed in a report by Kenneth Wainstein, a former official with the U.S.
Penn In the News
Questions on Money, Influence and Competence
Students at Brown University are raising questions about an investigation and hearings involving a reported drugging and sexual assault on campus last fall. Neither of the accused students -- one man accused of the drugging, and a different man accused of assault -- was found guilty. Supporters of the two women involved called the investigation “haphazard” and said the university’s hearing process was deeply flawed.
Penn In the News
Not a Tsunami, But…
In 2012, John L. Hennessy, president of Stanford University, famously told The New Yorker that technology was about to dramatically change higher education. "There's a tsunami coming," he said. The quote quickly was picked up by pundits arguing that massive open online courses were about to take over higher education.
Penn In the News
Economic Angst, Rose-Colored Views on Race: A Survey of Presidents
Fewer than 4 in 10 college presidents express confidence in the financial sustainability of their institutions over the next decade. Less than a third agree that sexual assault is prevalent on American college campuses, and just 6 percent say it is prevalent at their own institution.
Penn In the News
Gains for Grad Students
Graduate student workers at New York University called off a planned strike early Tuesday after they reached a last-minute union contract agreement with administrators. Members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee said the deal includes significant wins for the United Auto Workers-affiliated union, including a 4 percent raise this year for fully funded teaching assistants and a “landmark” family health care benefit.
Penn In the News
Deadliest and Most Racist
Two months before the Civil War began, Noble Leslie DeVotie was boarding a steamship when he slipped, fell into the waters of Mobile Bay and drowned. DeVotie was one of the founders of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the only national fraternity founded in the antebellum South. A chaplain at Alabama's Fort Morgan at the time of his death, he became the fraternity’s -- and some argue, the country's -- first Civil War casualty.
Penn In the News
Academic Fraud at Syracuse
In 2005, following a season of poor academic performance from his players, Syracuse University’s head basketball coach, Jim Boeheim, hired a new director of basketball operations and gave him an imperative: “fix” the academic problems of his athletes.