On Campus Blog

Supreme Court sends affirmative action case back to lower court
We’ve got this posted on the MPR News site as well: Supreme Court sends race case back to Texas WASHINGTON (AP)– The Supreme Court has sent a Texas case on race-based college admissions back to a lower court for another look. The court’s 7-1 decision Monday leaves unsettled many of the basic questions about the…
How well colleges mix academics and athletics
Came across this BuzzFeed graphic earlier this morning. It attempts to look at how well colleges stack up both athletically and academically. (You can see the chart and its Top 10 schools here on BuzzFeed.com.) The academic rankings it uses come from Forbes, which uses the following mix of factors (as quoted from its site): The…
University Of Oregon Plans To Bar Wide Seat Cushions A university spokeswoman says there have been “a few complaints” about extra-wide cushions taking up too much space at venues with bench-style seating, such as Autzen Stadium and Hayward Field. The benches include seat numbers, but no lines to mark just how much room each spectator gets.…
MnSCU: Metropolitan State can’t handle demand for degrees all by itself
The state-run colleges and universities system says it needs to dramatically expand the number of four-year degrees it produces in the Twin Cities metro area, according to a report released at this week’s meeting of MnSCU trustees. St. Paul-based Metropolitan State University is the only MnSCU university in the Twin Cities. It has an enrollment…
How much the average MN private-college student pays after financial aid
You might recall that after I posted MnSCU‘s chart on how much it cost to take various paths toward a bachelor’s degree, I got a couple of comments about how little some private-college students pay after all the financial aid is factored in. I put in a call to the communications director of the Minnesota…
The graphic above is the University of Minnesota‘s response to “The Benson Chart,” which is an attempt by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system to show the net cost of tuition for students from various income levels. (I’d wondered in my post whether the U had a similar chart handy. ) I’m reposting…
What instructors wish they’d known
In light of the discussion over this week’s release of the National Council on Teacher Quality ratings of teacher preparation programs at U.S. colleges and universities, I was interested to catch this topic on this morning’s Daily Circuit: ‘Six things I wish I’d known when I started teaching’ It might reveal a bit about what…
NYU Faculty Say Executive Perks Such As Second-Home Loans Are Part Of Troubling Pattern Jim Uleman, a psychology professor and chair of the faculty senators from the College of Arts and Science, called the perks “fairly outrageous.” (The Huffington Post) Generation Dropout: Millennials Joining the Workforce Are Less Educated Than Retiring Boomers The U.S. is the only…
How will the Big Ten approach MOOCs?
University of Minnesota Provost Karen Hanson tells The New York Times how some in higher-education view the handling of Massive Open Online Courses: “Many of us feel more comfortable building our own infrastructure, rather than relying on a for-profit company. We think we want to remain in control of our own intellectual property.” The U…
Who pays what at MnSCU schools after financial aid is factored in
MnSCU officials have really been pushing the affordability issue, as you can see from my previous post. This little item became a topic of discussion during yesterday’s budget discussion at the monthly board meeting of trustees. (MnSCU officials jokingly call it “The Benson Chart,” because trustee Duane Benson asked for the information.) It shows, essentially,…