July 2, 2009

Sonoma State U. Foundation May Lose $350,000 on Loan to Former Board Member

A Sonoma State University foundation that provides scholarships to students stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars because it lent $1.25-million to a financier and former board member who is facing bankruptcy, a newspaper reported.

The Sonoma State University Academic Foundation issued more than two dozen loans to individuals and businesses during the 1990s and earlier this decade, according to the newspaper, The Press Democrat, in Santa Rosa, Calif. One of the recipients, Clem Carinalli, told the nonprofit foundation that he would stop making interest payments on his loan because the real-estate crash had ruined his financial position. He said he might be able to repay the principal in three to four years. That means the foundation stands to lose up to $350,000 in interest payments, and more if Mr. Carinalli is unable to repay the principal in full.

In addition to being a former board member of the foundation and the largest landowner in Sonoma County, Mr. Carinalli leads a business that arranged more than two-thirds of the foundation’s loans, the newspaper reported. The organization will be forced to issue fewer scholarships in the 2010-11 academic year because of a diminished endowment, said Patricia McNeill, Sonoma State’s vice president for development.

News of the loan prompted the leader of Cal State’s systemwide faculty association to call for clamping down on auxiliary organizations, which she said hold 20 percent of the university’s budget and operate largely outside of public view. Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association, urged passage of legislation that would apply state public-record laws to university foundations.

“The irony is not lost on the CSU faculty that in the same week Bernie Madoff is sentenced to jail, we learn that money meant to help students get a college education is being lost to an insider scheme, supported by executives who hold the public trust,” Ms. Taiz said in a written statement. —Josh Keller

July 1, 2009

Georgia State U. Accused of Retaliating Against Professor Who Alleged Anti-Muslim Bias

A professor at Georgia State University has resigned as director of its Middle East Institute and filed a federal discrimination complaint because, she alleges, the university failed to adequately deal with incidents of anti-Muslim bias and retaliated against her and a student for pressing it to act.

Dona J. Stewart, a professor of geosciences, and her lawyer announced in a news release issued today that she had left her post as the institute’s director to protest the university’s handling of her discrimination complaint and retaliatory actions that have “impaired her ability to fulfill federal grant commitments and harmed her career.”

A spokeswoman for Georgia State, Andrea Jones, issued a statement today saying the university treats complaints of discrimination “very seriously” and took appropriate action last year in response to Ms. Stewart’s discrimination complaint. “Due to federal privacy guidelines, the university cannot address the details of the complaint and its resolution,” the statement says. But, it says, “in no way” were retaliatory actions taken against the student or Ms. Stewart, who, it notes, had recently been promoted from associate professor to full professor.

Both Ms. Stewart’s news release and her complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, filed in January, allege that she came into conflict with the university’s administration last year, after alleging discrimination on behalf of a Muslim-American doctoral student who had been repeatedly asked by another faculty member whether she was “carrying any bombs” under her head scarf.

When Ms. Stewart and the student pressed administrators to deal with the incidents, the dean’s office at the college of arts and science demanded that Ms. Stewart remove the student from a visiting-instructor position at the Middle East Institute, canceled the student’s registration for her doctoral courses, and declared the student ineligible to lead a study-abroad program in Egypt that had already been approved, the EEOC complaint alleges.

Administrators subsequently withdrew their support for Ms. Stewart’s plan to use a federal grant to establish a bachelor-of-arts program in Middle Eastern studies, and otherwise undermined her and her institute, the complaint alleges.

Ms. Stewart remains a member of the university’s faculty, but has taken unpaid leave for the coming year. The university’s statement says it is “fully cooperating with the EEOC on this investigation and looks forward to resolving this matter.” —Peter Schmidt

Lawmaker Wrote His Own Job Description for Florida College

Exchanging e-mail messages about sensitive, politically connected hires is a big risk, as college chiefs at North Carolina State University and now Northwest Florida State College have learned the hard way.

James R. Richburg was fired in April as president of the two-year college over an alleged $6-million political boondoggle. He and a former state lawmaker, Rep. Ray Sansom, are accused of falsely securing state money to build an aircraft hangar for a friend and major political donor. They both face felony misconduct charges.

While in the Legislature, Mr. Sansom helped steer $35-million in state money to the college. In what critics call a quid pro quo, Northwest Florida State last year hired him as vice president for external affairs, a part-time job with a $110,000 annual salary.

Mr. Sansom had an unusually hands-on role in his job’s creation: He drafted his own contract. In an e-mail exchange released by state investigators, which was published by the St. Petersburg Times, he sent Mr. Richburg a three-page draft description of the position, including the salary and various job tasks. Other messages between the two surfaced as part of a lengthy report released by the investigators.

One of Mr. Sansom’s self-generated job duties was to work on the college’s transition to offering four-year degrees, part of a broad effort in Florida that has provoked a backlash among the state’s universities.

Mr. Sansom tried to land a post at Northwest Florida State two decades earlier, according to the newspaper. He was a finalist to be an assistant to Mr. Richburg, who had become president in 1987. That job eventually went to Bolley (Bo) Johnson, a state lawmaker, who left the post in 1992 and later went to prison for tax evasion. —Paul Fain

June 30, 2009

Nevada Chancellor Fires Off Parting Shots

James E. Rogers, the obstreperous chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, is spending his last day on the job after a sometimes stormy five-year tenure.

By 2006, for example, the presidents of the state’s two major institutions, Carol C. Harter of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and John M. Lilley of the University of Nevada at Reno, had resigned. Mr. Rogers later acknowledged that he had played a role in urging both to leave.

In 2007, Mr. Rogers himself resigned with a letter to the regents that said, simply, “I quit.” He retracted his resignation two days later.

Since threatening to run for governor in 2008, Mr. Rogers, a wealthy media mogul, has engaged in a nearly nonstop political battle with Gov. Jim Gibbons, a Republican and a former member of Congress.

True to form, the outspoken chancellor fired off a final message to the state’s residents and lawmakers, taking aim at both for their lack of support for higher education.

“Unless there is a substantial change in the attitude of most Nevadans so that the public will support a Legislature that believes it has the green light to adequately fund higher education, the future of the system will remain embedded in mediocrity,” Mr. Rogers wrote in the last of his weekly memos.

“But Nevada has always thought that because its residents could feed, house, and clothe themselves with an eighth-grade education, an eighth-grade education was the only ‘dream’ of Nevadans,” he added.

While Mr. Rogers was sometimes criticized for his take-no-prisoners attitude, Nevada’s higher-education system may be able to measure his accomplishments with some basic math.

Facing a vast budget shortfall, Governor Gibbons recommended a 36-percent cut in higher-education funds. But Mr. Rogers lobbied lawmakers, who ended up cutting less than half of that amount for the fiscal year that begins tomorrow.

With a rise in tuition and the inclusion of federal stimulus money, the state’s higher-education system could lose less than 5 percent of its state aid next year. —Eric Kelderman

Most States' College-Accountability Systems Are Found Wanting

States are under increasing pressure to improve their higher-education systems to prepare residents for the work force and to attract jobs, but only 10 states are collecting enough information to do so, according to a report released today by Education Sector, an independent think tank.

The survey grades the states in 21 categories related to the data they collect and how they use the information to hold colleges accountable. It does not assess the actual performance of the states’ higher-education systems.

The report, “Ready to Assemble,” follows up on Education Sector’s 2008 guidelines for creating model accountability systems. —Eric Kelderman

June 29, 2009

As Funds Shrink, Universities Must Emphasize Their Value, Says Official and Former Politician

Boston — At a time of diminishing state funds for higher education, there has been much discussion about how colleges can make the case that higher education is a public good deserving of government support, not a private good for which individuals should cover the majority of its cost.

Even before the recession, the percentage of state colleges’ budgets that came from public funds was slipping. As that trend continues, there seems to be a growing consensus among higher-education leaders that the discussion about public vs. private good has to happen, so that public colleges are able to provide a quality education at an affordable cost.

So how to start? Robert A. Weygand, vice president for administration and finance at the University of Rhode Island, can provide some insight. Before coming to the university, Mr. Weygand was a state representative, a lieutenant governor, and U.S. representative from Rhode Island.

The major engines of political change, said Mr. Weygand, who was here for the annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, are advocacy and publicity. Public colleges need to promote and publicize the work they do for the community and their contributions to economic development. Well-publicized proof that they make a difference to the state, and not just the earning potential of individual graduates, is meaningful to lawmakers, even in tough times.

Making that case is not just the job of the college’s president or lobbyists. Mr. Weygand suggested that deans, faculty members, and others should be talking to legislators, businesses, and local organizations about how important the university is to the economy of the state. And those conversations should be happening year-round, not just in budget season.

“Everyone has to be out talking about the value,” he said. “We need to renew the idea that economic development is based on a quality higher-education system.”

State support is a major issue for the University of Rhode Island, which has seen its appropriations shrink by 27 percent in the last three years. Mr. Weygand expects another 5-percent cut. The university is responding by slowing down hiring, doing some academic restructuring, outsourcing some administrative tasks, and raising the student-faculty ratio.

“If you really want economic development in your state, don’t disinvest in the very engine that drives that economic development,” he said. —Kathryn Masterson

Oregon Set to Adopt Legislation That Helps Adjunct Faculty Members

The governor of Oregon is expected to sign a bill that includes principles of the American Federation of Teachers’ Faculty and College Excellence campaign. The legislature approved the bill over the weekend, as the State Senate voted unanimously to make Oregon the first state to enact such a law.

The union’s national campaign, which began in early 2007, urges colleges to hire more full-time faculty members, to give part-timers health benefits, and to adopt policies of “equal pay for equal work.”

Oregon’s bill would require colleges to document just who makes up a college faculty — many adjuncts fall between the cracks when it comes to official data — and would give part-timers access to the state health-care plan. —Audrey Williams June

June 27, 2009

In $42-Million Blow, 4 Pa. Universities Are Removed From Bid for Stimulus Money

Gov. Ed Rendell removed four state-related universities from Pennsylvania’s application for federal stimulus money to help public higher education, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

The preliminary federal-aid application had earmarked nearly $40-million for Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Lincoln University. But a revised application, made public Friday, would cost Penn State $20-million, Temple $11-million, Pitt $10-million, and Lincoln $870,000. The money would instead go to other state universities and community colleges.

Mr. Rendell has said previously that he does not regard the four affected institutions as “fully public universities.” The money for the four was to have offset a proposed 6-percent cut next year in state appropriations for each institution.

Geoff Rushton, a spokesman for Penn State, said he expected the Legislature to intervene. “That proposed amount would certainly be a catastrophic cut to the university,” he said. “But at the same time, we anticipate that this will be resolved … over the coming months.” —Don Troop

June 26, 2009

Paul Quinn College, a Historically Black Institution in Texas, Loses Accreditation

Paul Quinn College lost its accreditation on Thursday, one of several actions taken by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

The small, historically black Texas college had struggled for several years with financial and academic problems. The association’s Commission on Colleges had placed the institution on probation in 2007.

“They had made progress … but they ran out of time before they could come into compliance on everything,” Belle S. Wheelan, president of the commision, told The Dallas Morning News.

Paul Quinn had also failed the U.S. Department of Education’s test of financial strength, which examined financial statements from the college’s last fiscal year.

The college, which has 440 students, has said it would appeal. Without accreditation it could be forced to close, as students would be ineligible to receive federal financial aid.

In a column in The Dallas Morning News this month, the college’s president, Michael J. Sorrell, said the campus had made great strides.

“We have made tremendous progress in improving the financial condition of the college. Through strict budgeting practices and extreme fiscal accountability, for the first time in 10 years, our audit showed no findings of noncompliance,” he wrote.

In other actions, the Commission on Colleges took Texas Southern University, Dillard University, and the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg off of probation. Texas Southern had been placed on probation in December 2007 for financial problems.

Dillard University and the St. Petersburg campus had been put on probation last year for, respectively, financial reasons and problems related to tracking student achievement.

Also on Thursday, the commission placed Lambuth University on probation because of financial problems. —Beth McMurtrie

Update (6/27): This article originally stated erroneously that Texas Southern was placed on probation for failing to turn in curriculum data on time. The university’s probation was a result of financial problems.

June 24, 2009

Congress Approves Technical Amendments to Higher Education Act

Washington — Congress has approved a bill to patch holes in the Higher Education Act, including a glitch that would have forced thousands of veterans to return federal student aid they had been awarded for the coming academic year.

The glitch stemmed from a discrepancy between two pieces of legislation enacted last year: the Post-9/11 GI Bill and the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The House of Representatives passed legislation correcting the error in March, but the Senate did not vote on the measure until yesterday.

The House passed the measure for a second time yesterday because the Senate version of the bill added a scholarship program providing the maximum Pell Grant award to any student who had a parent die while on active military duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. Both the House and Senate approved the measure unanimously.

The legislation, which President Obama is expected to sign, would allow loan-guarantee agencies to sell rehabilitated student loans to the Education Department, a policy that had appeared in the version of the bill the House passed in March. The change would allow thousands of borrowers who have been stuck in default to escape from their debt and clear their credit histories.

The bill also would ensure that the Education Department’s “experimental site” program will continue for another year. The program allows participating financial-aid offices to use experimental approaches when awarding aid to students, with a goal of identifying innovative approaches that would work for the entire federal student-aid program.

The bill defines a successful experimental site as one that cuts administrative costs while providing more student services, without increasing government costs. —Austin Wright