Anti-Mexican party lands Penn State sorority in hot water

A Penn State sorority is facing an investigation after posting an offensive picture to social media, Onward State reports. The photo of a “Mexican-themed” Chi Omega party that surfaced Monday shows a group of girls wearing sombreros, ponchos and fake moustaches and holding signs that say “will mow lawn for weed + beer” and “I don’t cut grass, I smoke it.” The girl’s identities were discovered because they were tagged on Facebook, Onward State reports. The offensive photo led the Penn State Penhellenic Council to investigate the Nu Gamma Chapter of Chi Omega, according to the online version of the school’s paper, The Daily Collegian…

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MOOC skepticism persists among university presidents

Millions of people signed up to take a free class from the top research universities and Ivy League schools in 2012, but some higher education leaders remain skeptical of these massive open online courses, the Huffington Post reports. MOOCs, as they’re known, have been around for a few years but really took off in 2012, as some of the most well-respected universities signed up to offer courses through several different startups. They were met by students from around the globe flocking to take the classes. edX, a non-profit MOOC operator from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, saw 370,000 students enroll this fall, the New York Times reported. Coursera, a for-profit venture started by Stanford University professor Andrew Ng, has reached more than 1.7 million students. At least 150,000 people have signed up with Udacity, another for-profit with ties to Stanford. Other MOOC startups include Udemy and Marginal Revolution University

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CCAC cuts adjuncts’ hours to avoid Obamacare requirements

Community College Of Allegheny County will cut the hours some instructors to avoid paying for their health insurance coverage under new Affordable Care Act rules, the Huffington Post reports. CCAC President Alex Johnson announced in an email to employees last week that the school would cut course loads and hours for some 200 adjunct faculty members and 200 additional employees.The Affordable Care Act — nicknamed Obamacare — classifies employees who work 30 hours or more per week as full-time, and CCAC would be required under the new law to provide employer-assisted health insurance to those employees. Instead, temporary part-time employees, such as clerical, computer, seasonal and other positions, will be limited to working 25 hours per week, and adjunct instructors will only be able to teach 10 credits per semester. Permanent part-time employees, already eligible for health care coverage, will be unaffected. The Pittsburgh-based college estimates the move will save it from spending an additional $6 million…

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The best business schools

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is solidly the best business school in the country, according to Bloomberg Businessweek‘s biennial ranking, the Huffington Post reports. This is the fourth consecutive time Booth has earned the spot. The top 30 U.S. schools and top 10 international programs were highlighted in the Nov. 19-25 print issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, and the complete ranking of full-time MBA programs is on Businessweek.com

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Scott Walker calls for tying higher ed dollars to completion rates

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) wants to overhaul public higher education funding in his state, but his proposed agenda has been criticized by Democratic opponents as “social engineering” that could prevent students from studying what they’re passionate about, the Huffington Post reports. In a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation in Simi Valley, Calif. on Friday, Walker announced plans to reform how Wisconsin colleges receive appropriations, tying the funding to college completion rates and pushing for more students to study certain high-demand majors, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

“We’re going to tie our funding in our technical colleges and our University of Wisconsin System into performance and say, if you want money, we need you to perform,” Walker said. “In higher education, that means not only degrees, but are young people getting degrees in jobs that are open and needed today — not just the jobs that the universities want to give us, or degrees that people want to give us.”

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Bureaucratic overspending at colleges draw ire of faculty

A 2010 study by University of Arkansas education professor Jay Greene found that spending on administration has been outpacing funds for instruction and research at 198 leading U.S. research universities, the Huffington Post reports. This trend of bureaucratic overspending has drawn the ire of college students and faculty alike, including Purdue University professor and faculty senate chairman J. Paul Robinson, who is speaking out against the practice of “administrative bloat.” Bloomberg News reports that Purdue boasts a $313,000-a-year acting provost and six vice and associate vice provosts, among them a $198,000 chief diversity officer. The public Indiana U=university also employs 16 deans and 11 vice presidents, including a $253,000 marketing officer and a $433,000 business school chief…

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Stanford prof: Humans are getting stupider

Have you ever felt like your fellow humans are just getting stupider and more emotional? You’re not mistaken, the Huffington Post reports. A Stanford University researcher (aptly named Gerald Crabtree) has furthered a similar theory — that we are now way less smart or “emotionally stable” than our cave-dwelling forebearers.

“I would be willing to wager that if an average citizen of Athens of 1,000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions,” Crabtree wrote in a study that appeared in Trends in Genetics. “I would also guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues.”

How come? Crabtree speculates that in our comfortable world, evolutionary pressures are far less intense, leading to a higher preponderance of dumber people. Even worse, Crabtree hypothesizes that in 3,000 years, humans will endure two or more harmful mutations to our DNA due to all this easy living……Read More

Cal State ‘Super Seniors’ targeted with hefty fees

They’re called super seniors, and they can be found on nearly every college campus in America, the Huffington Post reports. These veteran undergraduates have amassed many more units – and taken many more classes – than they need to earn a degree, with college careers that can stretch well beyond the traditional four years. At California State University, the nation’s largest four-year college system, school administrators say enough is enough. They say the 23-campus system can no longer afford to let students linger so long without collecting their diplomas. After gentler efforts to prod super seniors toward graduation, Cal State officials want to start charging hefty fees that could almost triple the cost for students who have completed five years of full-time undergraduate work. The CSU Board of Trustees is expected to vote on the “graduation incentive fee” when it meets in Long Beach on Tuesday. The board tabled the proposal in September after students complained and trustees raised questions…

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The smartest colleges

Sure, there are colleges that are difficult to get into. But which colleges actually have the smartest students? asks the Huffington Post. Lumosity, a cognitive training site, took it upon themselves to find out. They eventually named MIT the smartest school. How did they do it? By asking over 60,000 students at various colleges to play games testing various cognitive skills. The study also breaks down the college rankings by cognitive area. Dartmouth College performed the highest on attention, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology students had the best memory, Harvard University students performed the highest on speed of processing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology students were the best problem solvers, and Yale students performed the highest on flexibility…

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Google’s biggest advertiser is the University of Phoenix

One for-profit college is spending a lot of money to make sure that people see its ads, the Huffington Post reports. The University of Phoenix spent the most money on Google Adwords — roughly $170,000 per day — in the third quarter of 2012, according to a recent report by Wordstream, an online advertising consulting firm, cited by the Daily Mail. Ask.com, Amazon.com, Zappos.com and Hotels.com came in second, third, fourth and fifth, respectively. The for-profit college has faced some hard times recently. Officials announced earlier this month that the college plans to close 115 locations, since its parent company’s profits have plunged because of higher costs and falling enrollment at the for-profit college, according to the Associated Press. About 328,000 students are currently enrolled at the University of Phoenix, down from a high of 400,000 students. Enrollment at for-profit colleges has fallen across the country too…

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