October 6, 2008

State Law on Political Activities Doesn't Trample Basic Freedoms, U. of Illinois Leader Says

Graduate students and professors at the University of Illinois no longer need worry that a bumper sticker supporting John McCain — or Barack Obama or Ralph Nader or anyone else, for that matter — puts them in violation of the state’s ethics law, the university system’s president, B. Joseph White, said in an e-mail message to faculty and staff members this afternoon. The university will “preserve, protect, and defend” the constitutional freedoms of speech and assembly of every employee, as well as academic freedom, he wrote.

The e-mail message followed recent statements by university and state officials that had raised concerns about whether professors — and maybe even students — could legally attend a political rally or wear a campaign button on a university campus. Mr. White clarified today that employees could attend rallies so long as they did so on their own time, and could wear partisan gear while neither on duty nor “in the workplace.” He added that previous statements by university officials were not setting out official policies of the university, but just familiarizing employees with the state law. —Charles Huckabee

U. of Illinois and Conservative Group Agree to Keep Their Money Separate

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a group of conservative donors are separating their financial interests, The News-Gazette, a local newspaper, reported.

The donors founded the Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government Fund within the university’s foundation in 2006 to support teaching and research on free-market capitalism and related topics. After the fund went public last year, some professors questioned whether it had been established with enough faculty input.

Under the agreement announced today, the donors will continue their scholarly objectives while managing the fund as an independent nonprofit foundation, The News-Gazette said. It quoted the university’s chancellor, Richard H. Herman, as saying that “despite the good intentions of the donors and the university, there were structural incompatibilities between the fund’s operational mode and that of the university.”

In recent years, several universities have established centers financed by alumni and donor groups that seek to foster scholarship on topics like Western civilization and American history. Some of the groups specifically seek to counter what they see as liberal bias in academe, while others are more concerned with bolstering a traditional curriculum that they believe has been lost on their campuses. —Charles Huckabee

Chief Financial Officer Is Leaving U.S. Education Department

Washington — The Education Department’s chief financial officer, Lawrence A. Warder, is getting a little head-start on the rush of Bush-administration appointees returning home to Texas.

With a little more than three months remaining in the administration’s term, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced today that Mr. Warder would leave the department on Friday. Mr. Warder has served since July 2006 as the department’s chief financial officer and since June 2007 as acting chief operating officer of its division of Federal Student Aid.

Mr. Warder had a 36-year career in the private sector, most of that with Deloitte Consulting. He took charge of the Education Department’s student-aid unit after the resignation of Theresa S. Shaw during a period of heavy criticism led by the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, of the financial links between lenders and administrators at colleges who recommended those lenders to their students.

Ms. Shaw began serving this past August as chief operating officer at the Educational Credit Management Corporation, which has a contract to handle electronic-records management for the student-loan unit she previously headed at the Education Department.

In a letter today to the staff of the student-aid division, Mr. Warder thanked his colleagues for helping the department “to successfully navigate a number of challenging situations,” including the economic troubles facing student-loan companies and the use by lenders of a loophole in federal law to extract an estimated $1.2-billion in disputed government subsidies.

James F. Manning, a career federal employee serving as deputy chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid, will become the new acting chief operating officer, Ms. Spellings announced. Thomas P. Skelly, director of budget service, will assume the authority of the position of the department’s chief financial officer, and Danny A. Harris, deputy chief financial officer, will serve as chief information officer, Ms. Spellings said. —Paul Basken

Philanthropist Donates $42-Million to Stem-Cell Research

Lorry I. Lokey, the founder of Business Wire, a San Francisco company that distributes press releases, has pledged $42-million to the Stanford University School of Medicine for a new center on stem-cell research. That comes on top of a $33-million commitment Mr. Lokey made to support the center last year.

Mr. Lokey, who is 82, graduated from Stanford in 1949 and over the past 10 years has become one of the county’s most prolific philanthropists. He has landed on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of the 50 most generous donors every year for the past eight years. He ranked No. 23 on last year’s list.

The research center, which the university plans to name for Mr. Lokey, is scheduled to open in 2010, and Stanford officials estimate it will cost $200-million to build. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a state agency in San Francisco, has contributed $43.6-million to the center, and Stanford plans to use additional private donations and university funds to finance the rest.

Mr. Lokey said in a news release that he had decided to start supporting stem-cell research after the Bush administration restricted federal support for it, in 2001.

“I’m terribly disappointed in the current administration’s outlook,” said Mr. Lokey. “It’s very narrow-minded. This is about lives being saved.”

Not counting this latest pledge, Mr. Lokey has given Stanford a total of about $80-million since he graduated and has given away a total of at least $390-million to charity over his lifetime.

In an interview with The Chronicle of Philanthropy last year, Mr. Lokey said he wished other wealthy Americans would donate more money to charity than they currently do.

“I’m doing it because I earn far out of proportion than what I’m worth to this world. But there are people that are of more worth to this world who donate not one-tenth of what I give away,” said Mr. Lokey. “Giving away a couple million is wonderful, but these rich people need to do better.” —Maria Di Mento

U. of Washington Settles Lawsuit With Bank

The University of Washington has settled a lawsuit with Northern Trust over a dispute involving the university’s loss of $7.5-million in the bank’s $750-million securities-lending program.

“We are pleased to have reached a reasonable settlement with the University of Washington,” said John O’Connell, a spokesman for the Illinois-based bank.

He declined to comment on the terms of the settlement. A representative of the university acknowledged that the deal had been completed over the weekend but said the university had agreed not to comment on the details.

After learning on September 17 that it had suddenly lost nearly $750,000 — a figure that would grow to $7.5-million — as part of the securities-lending program that began in April, the university filed the suit charging that its written requests to end the lending agreement had been denied by the bank. The university’s contract with Northern Trust had stipulated that university officials could end the lending agreement “at any time by written notice.”

Securities-lending programs are common among large investors, including college endowment funds, as a way of earning extra money. Banks that hold securities for investors — like the university — lend them to other investors, most of whom then “bet,” in effect, that they can sell the securities and snap them up later at a lower price.

Northern Trust had acted as custodian for about $1.4-billion of the university’s money, nearly half of its estimated $3-billion endowment. —Reeves Wiedeman

Band Director Files Sexual-Harassment Complaint Against Marching Band

A former band director at the University of California at Davis has filed a sexual-harassment complaint against members of the Cal Aggie Marching Band, citing several incidents of crude and unruly behavior during his first year as director, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The director, Tom Slabaugh, filed the complaint last May after failed attempts to bring order to the band, known to be loud and rowdy, created a “hostile work environment,” according to a memorandum obtained by the newspaper. During his year as the band’s director, Mr. Slabaugh said he witnessed a string of “ridiculous, disturbing, and offensive” incidents, including a “naked van,” in whcih male and female band members stripped down to their underwear during road trips.

The memo says that the university would not back initial complaints from Mr. Slabaugh, and that a report to the campus police about a band member breaking a security gate ended up with no arrests and fueled animosity between the director and the band. After the police report, Mr. Slabaugh said, a band member directed obscene hand gestures at him and rammed into him during an encounter in a hallway. The director also received a crude Christmas card signed by the trombone players.

According to Lisa Brodkey, a university sexual-harassment officer, band members have now received sexual-harassment training, and obscene posters and items in the band room were removed. Mr. Slabaugh, a longtime band director who is working on his doctorate in musical arts from the University of Washington, left Davis on stress leave in September. —David DeBolt

India's Faculty Shortage Worsens, With 50% of Positions Vacant

New Delhi — Even as India proceeds with plans to open dozens of new higher-education institutions, its faculty shortage seems to have worsened. A new government report says that about 50 percent of positions at federal and state-financed universities are vacant, The Statesman reported on Sunday.

Earlier unofficial estimates had put the vacancy rate at around 35 percent.

“The house of higher education is not in good shape, at the moment,” says the report, which was issued by the pay-review committee of the University Grants Commission, the country’s university regulator.

The report warns that the faculty shortage may prevent the government from meeting its goal of setting up 80 new universities, engineering schools, management schools, and research institutes, along with more than 350 undergraduate colleges.

G.K. Chadha, the committee’s chairman, said in the report that “attractive pay packages and better serving conditions” for professors should be the first step so that the faculty shortage does not become what he called the “Achilles’ heel” of India’s education system.

The committee recommended a 70- to 90-percent salary increase for professors. It also recommended raising the retirement age for professors. —Shailaja Neelakantan

3 Virus Researchers to Share Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Three scientists will share the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of deadly viruses, Sweden’s Karolinska Institute announced this morning.

The winners are Harald zur Hausen, of the German Cancer Research Center, in Heidelberg, Germany; Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, of the Pasteur Institute, in Paris; and Luc Montagnier, of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, also in Paris.

Dr. zur Hausen, who is being recognized for his discovery that human papilloma viruses cause cervical cancer, will receive one-half of the prize, which is worth about $1.4-million this year. Ms. Barré-Sinoussi and Mr. Montagnier are being honored for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus, the microbe that causes AIDS. They will share the other half of the prize.

The award, along with other Nobel Prizes to be announced this week, will be presented in December. —Andrew Mytelka

October 5, 2008

Classes to Resume After 17-Day Strike at Canada's U. of Windsor

Faculty members and librarians at the University of Windsor, in Ontario, voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to accept a new three-year contract. Classes will resume on Monday, according to a university statement. The university canceled classes for 16,000 students after more than 1,000 professors and librarians went on strike on September 17. The semester will be lengthened and the university has canceled the midterm break so coursework can be completed.

Over the three years of the new contract, professors and librarians will get a 9-percent increase, according to The Windsor Star, a local newspaper. Part-time lecturers will get a 20-percent raise over that period. —Karen Birchard

October 4, 2008

U. of Iowa Urges Against Sale of Pollock Painting

University of Iowa officials have decided that the university museum should not sell its prized Jackson Pollock painting to pay for flood-recovery costs, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Selling the painting, “Mural,” would endanger the university museum’s accreditation, making it extremely difficult to borrow works from other museums, finance programs, or attract future donations, officials found.

In August, Michael G. Gartner, a member of the Iowa Board of Regents, caused a hue and cry in the art world and around the state with his suggestion that proceeds from the painting — appraised last year by Sotheby’s at at least $150-million — could be used to pay for flood recovery on the Iowa City campus. Damages there are estimated to be at least $232-million.

Mr. Gartner asked the board’s office to prepare a report to evaluate the pros and cons of selling the Pollock painting. The report was delivered to the regents on October 3. —Jennifer Ruark