Welcome to Tuesday, January 14. Today, get the backstory on last fall’s book burning at Georgia Southern, a new report shows that liberal-arts graduates have a higher return on investment than graduates of trade or business schools, and the leader of California’s virtual community college has resigned.
Today’s Briefing was written by Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz, with contributions from Julia Piper and Megan Zahneis. Write us: fernanda@chronicle.com.
Students burned books last year at Georgia Southern University. But there’s more to the story.
Higher education’s eyes turned to Georgia Southern University in October, when videos of students burning copies of a novel — whose author had just spoken on campus about white privilege — went viral. It was a chilling display: a terror associated with Nazi Germany, unfolding on an American college campus.
As footage of the students’ actions spread, criticism centered on campus culture at Georgia Southern, a predominantly — and, in the past, exclusively — white campus. But in the incident’s aftermath, beyond the public eye, faculty members have put much of the blame elsewhere. A lack of preparation, budget cuts, and insufficient foresight may have kindled the outrage. Our Lindsay Ellis takes a look.
Liberal-arts graduates get the last laugh.
Students who attend liberal-arts college earn more than their counterparts who attend trade or business schools, according to a new report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. Liberal-arts graduates’ return on investment, also known as ROI, climbs more steeply as their careers progress, according to the report, “ROI of Liberal Arts Colleges: Value Adds Up Over Time.”
How much is the liberal-arts advantage worth? Forty years after enrolling, a graduate of one of the 210 liberal-arts colleges studied for this report will earn a median ROI nearly $200,000 above that of a student from all U.S. colleges. The only drawback: Students have to wait for the big payoff. Ten years after enrollment, the median liberal-arts ROI is only $62,000 compared with $107,000 for all institutions. And a huge caveat: The data don’t tell the entire story. Even the report’s primary author acknowledges that elite colleges tend to draw students from elite backgrounds. Our Bennett Leckrone has the story.
Quick hits.
- Heather Hiles, president and chief executive of Calbright College, California’s first-ever statewide online community college, announced her resignation on Monday. Hiles was selected for the position less than a year ago and had a four-year contract with the college. She will be on leave until she departs at the end of March. (The Chronicle)
- The president of Franklin College, in Indiana, was fired after being arrested in Wisconsin for sex crimes involving children. (Fox 59)
- Caldwell University will pay $4.8 million to the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of New Jersey for its role in defrauding a veterans program. (NJBiz.com)
- A New York Post opinions editor, Sohrab Ahmari, called out a University of Southern California assistant professor for referring to him as “Sohrab Calamari.” The entire exchange occurred on Twitter, and in a later-deleted tweet directed to USC’s Twitter account, Ahmari asked, “Does a USC professor’s mocking my Persian name comport with your diversity and civility codes?” (Mediaite)
- Iowa Wesleyan University abandoned plans to partner with Saint Leo University, in Florida, to curtail its financial woes, saying it now has enough funding to seek a partnership that’s a better fit. (The Gazette)
- The Detroit News published an in-depth look at the sexual-assault scandal that roiled Michigan State University’s football program. (The Detroit News)
- After shooting at two unarmed New Haven residents in April, a Yale University police officer has been reassigned to a position that does not require a uniform or gun. (Yale Daily News)
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Students’ tinseltown dreams turn into Hollywood nightmares.
In 2013 the U.S. Education Department ordered Video Symphony EnterTraining, a for-profit college, to close after an investigation found that the California college had changed its records and was missing thousands of dollars in financial aid. After its closure, the college transformed into a debt-holding company.
Since then, more than 500 lawsuits have been filed against the institution’s former students by Michael Flanagan, who owned Video Symphony. In the lawsuits, Flanagan argues that students signed contracts with the institution and must pay for the time that they attended. Former students say that the college did not give them the education it advertised, that it allowed them to believe they were receiving federal aid when they weren’t, and that the college did not keep accurate records. But there’s an even bigger problem with the defunct college: It’s unclear what agency or what individual has oversight over failed for-profit colleges. The Los Angeles Times has the story here.
Princeton took a stand against grade inflation. Now it’s awarding more A’s than ever.
Princeton University has long staked a claim as the Ivy League’s fiercest opponent of grade inflation. So a Daily Princetonian columnist’s analysis of the past three years of grading data, showing that the institution awards more A’s now than ever, is bound to turn some heads.
As far back as 2004, Princeton adopted a policy recommending that academic departments award students A’s no more than 35 percent of the time. Our Beckie Supiano wrote in 2014 about a faculty report detailing how that plan played out. And just last summer, Beckie dove deep into what happens when professors ditch grading altogether.
Comings and goings.
- David B. Fithian, executive vice president at the University of Chicago, will become president of Clark University on July 1. He will succeed David P. Angel, who plans to retire.
- Monica Adya, chair of the management department in the College of Business Administration at Marquette University, will become the first female dean of the School of Business at Rutgers University at Camden on March 30.
- A. Scott Weber, interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University at Buffalo since September, has been named to the post permanently.
Footnote.
You needn’t be an agriculture major, or even deeply interested in agriculture, to take an online beekeeping course at the University of Florida at Gainesville. The only requirement is having an interest in learning more about bees and beekeeping practices. This semester the university is offering two courses, one for graduates and another for undergraduates, in which students will get a foundational knowledge of beekeeping.
One student taking the course told The Independent Florida Alligator that although most people are afraid of bees, they’re actually good to work with. Not to mention bees are great for the environment.
Now that’s the bee’s knees.
