July 26, 2006China's lure
Courtesy of Emily Flora Anyway, over time the destinations have strayed farther away from Western Europe, the traditional hotspot for American students. Thirty-nine percent of American students go somewhere besides Europe, based on a recent study. (For more numbers, see the latest figures from the Institute of International Education.) China is fast becoming popular among students, because of its economic weight and the opportunities it offers for future career advancement -- even though the language can be a daunting challenge. Recently, 17 Radford University students traveled to China for a month with faculty members on a fellowship that a university benefactor has helped to fund. One of our college writers, Emily Flora, wrote about her experiences in this week's CRAM section. She has a great couple of lines about the difference between the way Americans approach people from different countries and the way others approach us. I wrote about the trip in May, and the students wrote about their experiences on Live Journal, where you can find more photographs from the trip. Follow up on my earlier comment: The Stanford-in-Moscow program I attended (and adored) was discontinued because of lack of interest and high overhead costs. At the same time, a Beijing program opened, with much more interest. After doing a search to verify the above, I happily found that the Moscow program reopened in fall 2005. July 25, 2006New Virginia Tech web site set to debut
A sneak peak at Virginia Tech's web site Dame's office built the new site from scratch. With the tangled mass of links that was the university's web site, the project, which took over six months to complete, was more like building 13 different, interconnected web sites. "If I had to estimate the number of hours put into it, it would have to be in the thousands," Dame said. Continue reading "New Virginia Tech web site set to debut" » July 24, 2006Parents, get out your credit cards...
When I went to the Target Web site to see what the new products are this year, I found much more than just the things the company wants to sell. The marketing wizards at Target came up with a fun quiz for students to take to figure out what species they are and a list of tips for parents sending their children off to school. Of course, these time-wasting (but possibly useful) extras include suggestions to buy this thingamabob or that doohickey, especially in the parents' tip section. But generally, the information is pretty helpful. Which leads me to a random listing of things all students should have to survive the first year (and beyond) of college. This list is by no means complete (or in any particular order) and only represents the things I can remember from my college days, oh so long ago.
Please write in and add to the list. July 20, 2006Orange and Maroon effect shirts on sale
The 2006 Orange Effect shirt In addition to the SGA, shirts will be sold by local businesses. The goal is to sell 75,000 shirts this year, an increase of 20,000 from last year. Continue reading "Orange and Maroon effect shirts on sale" » July 19, 2006Summer heat and musings
Students and professors and administrators out there: Are you suffering from the summer blues as well? In my fit of summer stagnation, I have been searching around for stories about higher education to inspire me. Here are a couple I've found of interest: --College students are seeking housing options with a religious focus. This story from the Milwaukee Journel Sentinel looks at one new religious residence hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. --A transgendered professor of neurobiology at Stanford University is speaking out for female scientists. Ben Barres, who was once known as Barbara Barres, wrote an article in the July 12 issue of Nature criticizing what he terms the "Larry Summers hypothesis" of why more women aren't in scientific fields. The article is subscription-only, but Barres commentary sparked others to write about the issue, including this piece in Science Daily. --A new study from the American Council on Education came out recently that showed that more than 50 percent of college students have at least one credit card billed directly to them. Of those, a quarter pay tuition with the cards. You can read a summary of the findings in an Associated Press story printed in the Houston Chronicle. --The Commission on the Future of Higher Education issued its second draft report. I blogged a little bit about the first report on July 3. Anybody out there want to put a pitch forward of some other good, recent higher education stories? Maybe it will keep my mind from melting. July 18, 2006Does the Internet make cheating easier?Albert Raboteau, a fellow Roanoke Times reporter, is delving into the effects of the Internet and other technology on cheating in today's college classrooms. He's been talking to some professors and others in administration but hasn't had any luck with reaching out to students. He's looking specifically for students who would be willing to talk about a time when they cheated, using some kind of technology. It's clearly a touchy subject, but he would at least like to understand the student piece of this story. So, if you're an area student willing to talk about your experience bending the classroom rules -- or maybe if you've watched it happen but didn't say anything -- please contact him at albert.raboteau@roanoke.com or 540-381-1663. July 17, 2006The military, college and sexual assaultFairly or not, the above three terms are becoming almost inextricably linked to one another. If you doubt that, just submit the terms to the Google test. While not exactly a scientific measurement, a quick search on the popular web site reveals 13.8 million hits that include the terms "military" and "sexual assault." If you google "college" and "sexual assault" you get 15.1 million hits. For comparison, if you type in "rape" and "sexual assault" you get 14.4 million hits. So it should come as no surprise that two institutions that combine military and college life - young people in a male-dominated environment - have been in the news lately for allegations of sexual assault.
Continue reading "The military, college and sexual assault" » July 14, 2006A $100 laptop
Prototype of a $100 laptop, credited to One Laptop Per Child The San Diego Union-Tribune noted that professors, politicians and others in this country think the idea would also work closer to home for young Americans from poor families with limited access to the Internet. (One feature of the laptops is that they would have wireless capabilities.) Negroponte's group is searching for comments from educators at all levels about the hardware, software, educational content and other details of the project on the wiki part of its site. I'm wondering what teachers and professors of education and information technology think of this idea as well. Would you want to see something like this available here, too? July 13, 2006Gaming in college
Now, I certainly remember some of my friends who spent days on end trying to beat games, with little thought to food or drink or sleep. But I wonder if it's happening even more now, especially since more students have access to more bandwidth and can play games on the Internet without having to own an Xbox or Playstation. Side note: A high school I reported on in Northern Jersey recently started a gaming club, as a way to engage students (mostly boys) who spent lots of time alone playing games. In its first meetings last year, it had about 80 people attending. Anyway, in searching around for an answer to my question, I came across a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project from 2003. It notes that 70 percent of college students reported playing video, computer or online games at least once in a while. The most quoted part of the study was that games actually enhance social life in college rather than detract from it. It also found that more women play online and computer games than men. Unfortunately, the study didn't provide comparisons with the past. So my question wasn't exactly answered. But I wonder if anyone out there has any words of wisdom on this topic. Are more college students playing online, computer and video games now? July 12, 2006Tech response to Mumbai bombings
My charge was to get some reaction from local people with ties to India in the wake of yesterday's attacks in Mumbai. For those of you confused about the name of the Indian city, Bombay is its colonial name, recently changed to the regional name of Mumbai. We ran a short story on local reaction, but there simply wasn't enough space to even scratch the surface of the local reaction. I sent out my request for responses at 2:20 p.m. Tuesday and the emails and phone calls of Indians concerned, saddened and angered about what was going on in their country began to pour in around 5 p.m. I received about 20 responses and I'll share a few with you below. If you'd still like to comment on the attacks, please respond to this blog to share your thoughts and feelings. July 11, 2006College networks under surveillanceLast month I attended a four-day conference for higher education reporters at the University of Maryland. My time there was well spent and I think most of the 25 or so reporters who came from all over the country got something out of it as we shared story ideas and listened to experts in higher education talk about issues facing the industry. And while I heard some interesting opinions on everything from college athletics to demographic trends among college students I wouldn't describe any of it as shocking news. Until Montgomery College President Charlene Nunley mentioned, almost offhandedly, how next year's budget might have to absorb millions of dollars in costs because of CALEA. The response from the crowd of reporters - who cover higher education for a living, mind you - was a collective, "huh?" College and marriage
It got me thinking about what it's like to be a married student. With so many students spending time in college socializing with friends, is it harder to be married in that environment? In looking around for more information on this topic, I came across this Xanga group and an interesting study on married students. A 2003 article in the Journal of College Student Development found that married students have a harder time adjusting to college than do their unmarried classmates. That adjustment was not affected if a student was married to another student. Married students also experience more stress on their marriage. The report encouraged college counselors to be aware of these problems so as to help students with issues specific to their marital status. One of the most surprising things I read: The report notes that about 7 percent of undergraduate students are married. (Using 2004 Census figures, that would mean about 121,700 college students nationwide are married.) That seems much higher than I thought it would be. So, for all you married students out there, what do you think? Do you feel that you have adjusted well to the college environment? Do you seek out other married (or maybe engaged) couples to hang out with? Any administrators or faculty members want to share what they have seen of married students on their campuses? July 10, 2006The New Gender Divide?I've been paying a lot of attention to the reports about the "boy crisis" in education lately. Whether it was a January Newsweek cover story or countless newspaper accounts of gaps in scores between girls and boys in primary and secondary school or the op-eds sounding the bells and asking whether focusing on girls' education has hurt American boys. Full disclosure here: When I was at the Herald News in West Paterson, N.J., I did my own story about test scores of boys and girls. But the analysis we used was crude, and most people with experience in hard data that I spoke to said the boy-girl gaps are not as large as those between whites and blacks or Hispanics. (Fortunately, I can't find the link to that -- insert sarcasm here -- wonderful piece of prose.) Anyway, the New York Times just did two pieces on this issue in the college context. One ran on Sunday and the other today. (Registration may be required to read these.) I'm glad to see Tamar Lewin noted that "the gender gap is smaller than the gap between whites and blacks or Hispanics" in earning bachelor's degrees. But does her article end up just glossing over that point to the hot topic of the day? Is there a way to talk about these issues without making it seem that there is a crisis? Better yet, why aren't we discussing the big zebra in the room of the racial/ethnic and class achievement gaps? More intriguing than Lewin's first-day story was Bill Pennington's piece on football programs that are enticing young men to come to predominantly female colleges -- or at least places where the population skews female. (One of the featured colleges was Shenandoah University in Winchester.) I found it interesting how little academics was discussed in the story. July 7, 2006Update on library policyCheck out today's update on Wytheville Community College library's possible change of heart about publishing the names of patrons with overdue books. For background on the policy, see my first blog entry about the issue, where there's a link to the original story by The Roanoke Times' very own Albert Raboteau. July 6, 2006New grants for college availableNew federal grants of $750 to $4,000 are available for qualified students eligible for Pell Grants, Gov. Timothy Kaine announced yesterday. The two grants, Academic Competitiveness grants and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) grants, are designed to encourage students to take more challenging high school courses and to major in disciplines such as science, math, technology, engineering and certain foreign languages. Students who want to find out if they are qualified to receive the grants can call 1-800-4FEDAID or go online. Upward Bound faces another threatI recently wrote a story about Upward Bound, a federal program that has worked with low-income and potential first-generation college students while they're in high school to help them get into college. Funding for the program, which has an annual budget of $311 million, has been threatened recently. President Bush's budget has called for its elimination two years in a row. Last year it was saved by Congress and it looks to have enough support again this year to survive. But the Council for Opportunity in Education announced another threat to the program Wednesday. College librarians get tough
Have you returned your library books on time? It all started when Albert was searching the Wytheville Community College Web site. The college had posted in their online newsletter the names of people who owed less than $2, going back to at least 1998. A quick check of the college's Web site this morning reveals that the link to the archived issues of the newsletter is now broken. (Only the current edition and one back edition appear as of this morning, without any trace of the "obligations" section.) The older issues had been up there as late as 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 5. Perhaps the college was swayed by the comments of the president of the American Library Association, who said publishing the names "seems a little extreme to me." What do you think? Should the college have stuck to their method? And, has anyone out there ever been egregiously late in returning an overdue book? Did you only return it when a librarian or collections agent came after you or did realize your error on your own? Come on, fess up. July 5, 2006Virginia Tech professor researches cars run on waterThe Earth and Sky radio series, a non-profit organization that describes itself as "committed to describing humanity's work to understand itself and its relationship to the Earth," mentioned work being done by Virginia Tech chemist Karen Brewer today. Brewer recently developed a chemical molecule that splits water. Her hope is that this would bring the idea of hydrogen powered cars and electric power plants closer to reality by separating the hydrogen and oxygen in a clean, efficient manner. Building a museum
I thought that was an interesting comment, and I wonder if other professors or teachers out there have big dreams of creating a museum in their field. What kind of museum -- or exhibits -- would you want to create, if money were not an issue? July 3, 2006No College Student Left Behind?Recently, the U.S. secretary of education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education released a preliminary report of its findings. The commission, formed in September 2005, was "charged with developing a comprehensive national strategy for postsecondary education that will meet the needs of America's diverse population and also address the economic and workforce needs of the country's future," according to a press release issued by the U.S. Department of Education. Some in higher education worry that this commission will come out with a final report that would call for a No Child Left Behind-type law for higher education -- including the standardized testing that many educators are uneasy about. But many issues the panel has highlighted are cause for some alarm about how prepared students are for college and what they in turn learn at the undergraduate level. The draft report released in June spells out four specific areas of concern in higher education: access, affordability, quality and innovation and accountability. Some of the more intriguing findings:
What do you all think of these stats? I'm particularly interested to see whether educators -- teachers in K-12 or professors in higher ed -- would share their experiences on the preparedness issues. Student loan changes - what they meanWe recently published a story on the changes to student loan rates that went into effect July 1. Now that it's too late for students to consolidate their loans and save, the task of measuring the impact on students has already begun. The Campaign for America's Future has come out with a state-by-state breakdown of what the increase in student loan rates - from 5.3 percent to 7.14 percent on old loans and to 6.8 percent on new loans - will mean in real dollars. Their answer, for the average Virginia college student, is $2,290. |
About this blog
Rhode Island native and Virginia Tech reporter Greg Esposito posts on everyday college life, trends and issues affecting the 35,000-plus students in the New River Valley and beyond.
Tim Thornton, who is old enough to have children attending college, is still taking classes and is still fascinated by colleges, the students who populate them and the bureaucrats who operate them. His reporting beat is Radford University.
West Virginia native Anna Mallory blogs on student life topics at Virginia Tech, Radford University, New River Valley Community College -- and beyond.
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