August 29, 2008

Judge Overturns Florida's Ban on Academic Travel to Cuba

A federal judge has struck down a Florida law that restricts students, faculty members, and researchers at the state’s public colleges and universities from traveling to Cuba and four other countries that the U.S. government considers terrorist states.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida had challenged the law in court on behalf of the Faculty Senate at Florida International University, arguing that the statute violated faculty members’ First Amendment rights and impinged on the federal government’s ability to regulate foreign commerce.

The two-year-old law prevents students, professors, and researchers at public universities and community colleges in Florida from using state or federal funds, or private foundation grants administered by their institutions, to travel to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. Those at private colleges in Florida are forbidden to use state funds for that purpose.

The decision, issued Thursday by the U.S. District Court in Miami, reversed an earlier ruling upholding the ban. In her order, Judge Patricia Seitz upheld one aspect of the law: State funds may not be used for travel to those countries. But nearly all such trips rely on private funds.

Judge Seitz agreed with the ACLU’s argument that the state should not be allowed to regulate travel financed with private funds and that the Florida Legislature could not interfere with federal foreign-relations powers.

“It’s a blow for academic freedom,” Thomas Breslin, a professor of international relations and chairman of Florida International University’s Faculty Senate, said of the decision during a news conference this afternoon.

The law was passed in 2006 after a Florida International professor and his wife, a university employee, were accused of spying for Cuba. —Karin Fischer

August 27, 2008

University in India Takes Steps to Set Up Shop in the United States

While many American universities are eagerly eyeing India and other parts of Asia as potential markets for new students, one India-based institution has set its sights on the United States.

The institution, Vinayaka Missions America University Inc., has just bought the former headquarters of an energy company in western Maryland for $8.5-million and says it plans to begin operations as early as this fall by offering noncredit courses.

Eventually, according to the Herald-Mail, a local newspaper, leaders of the 27-year-old institution said they hoped to offer degree programs, including some in nursing.

The university, which carries approval from the Indian government, according to its Web site, celebrated its purchase of the Allegheny Energy Company’s former headquarters building and 45 acres of land on Tuesday at a news conference, where leaders of the institution offered traditional Indian-print shawls to local officials.

University officials said that the institution now operated 27 educational institutions with 20,000 full-time students and 40,000 distance-education students. —Goldie Blumenstyk

Iraqi University President Is Accused of Ties to Al Qaeda

An Iraqi university president who was arrested last week and led from his home with a hood over his head is suspected of aiding Al Qaeda terrorists by providing them with weapons, the Associated Press reported today.

The accusations against the president of Diyala University, Nazar al-Khafaji, and another high-profile detainee are outlined in documents that were leaked today. “According to excerpts from the arrest reports by the anti-terrorism squad involved in the case, the two are suspected of aiding Al Qaeda insurgents involved in sectarian killings,” the AP reported.

The province of Diyala, north of Baghdad, remains one of Iraq’s most volatile and is riven by sectarian violence. Mr. Al-Khafaji and Hussein al-Zubaidi, the provincial council’s security head who was arrested on the same day, are both Sunnis. Sunni leaders say their arrests by Shiite-led forces were politically motivated.

The provincial council suspended work in response to the arrests, and the council’s chief, Ibrahim Bajilan, said today that “council members would not return to work until the detainees are released,” the AP reported. —Aisha Labi

Bomb Explodes at University in Gaza Strip

Jerusalem — A bomb exploded on Tuesday at Al-Azhar University, in the Gaza Strip, causing damage but no casualties.

The blast occurred in a classroom on the first floor of the humanities building. The room had just been vacated by students who were taking an examination, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, an independent organization known as PCHR.

Al-Azhar is a secular university politically affiliated with the Fatah movement headed by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. The human-rights organization described the attack as part of the continuing “security chaos” in Gaza that involves sporadic and sometimes deadly clashes between rival supporters of Fatah and Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip last year.

“It is worth noting that acts of violence were reported on Sunday, 24 August 2008, between supporters of Hamas and Fatah blocs at the university, in which a number of students and administrative staff members were attacked,” the group said in a statement.

“PCHR is gravely concerned over this latest attack, which is part of the state of security chaos prevailing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the group said. “PCHR calls for respecting university life and academic freedoms.” —Matthew Kalman

August 26, 2008

Indian Engineering Colleges Are Warned Not to Accept Bribes

India’s technical-education regulator has warned the country’s engineering and professional colleges against taking bribes for admissions, The Indian Express reported.

The regulator, the All India Council for Technical Education, sent a note to the colleges saying they were forbidden to take donations or charge “any more or additional fees under any circumstances other than the fees prescribed” by a fee-regulation committee from any student for any course in the 2008-9 academic year.

Bribery is common at India’s almost 1,200 private engineering colleges, and a lack of government oversight has allowed engineering education to become largely driven by profits.

Hundreds of engineering schools sell admission to students who can pay “capitation fees,” and the regulator has been criticized for not cracking down on the practice.

The regulator said it would take “serious action” against colleges found to have accepted additional fees and would report them to the relevant state governments, according to the newspaper. —Shailaja Neelakantan

August 25, 2008

Christian College in Indonesia Will Relocate After Violent Attacks

Attacks on their campus have forced students at a Christian college in Indonesia’s capital to take refuge in tents and in the lobby of the parliament building for nearly a month, while the theology school has agreed to relocate out of a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, the Associated Press reported.

The first assaults on the Arastamar Evangelical School of Theology, which is also known as Seta College, took place on July 25, when residents of the neighborhood in Jakarta entered the campus with machetes and Molotov cocktails. Eighteen students were injured in the clashes, and administrators evacuated the five dormitories after a second night of attacks.

Relations between the 1,400-student school and its neighbors have been tense since 2003, as local residents have complained about loud singing and prayers coming from the campus. This summer, tensions escalated over reports of petty thefts by students, including a pet bird. But some observers suspect that local property developers, who have been trying to buy the 20-year-old campus, are behind the attacks.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, has traditionally tolerated minority religions. But recently, radical groups have attacked churches and even mosques that oppose a hard-line doctrine.

The school’s administrators have agreed to move the campus to a small office building in another part of Jakarta. —Martha Ann Overland

August 24, 2008

India Plans New Accreditation Body for Colleges of Business and Engineering

India plans to create a separate accreditation body for engineering and business colleges in response to complaints that the current situation, in which the same panel serves as regulator and accreditor, is open to corruption and fails to ensure academic quality, the higher-education secretary told an industry lobbying group last week, according to the business newspaper Mint.

“As far as educational institutions are concerned, we have been saying that accreditation and regulation should be different,” a member of the lobbying group, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, told the newspaper. “Accreditation will then be made mandatory to ensure quality.”

Setting up an independent accrediting group will have to be approved by the Indian parliament. Accreditation is now handled by the All India Council for Technical Education. From 1991 to 2005, the number of private engineering colleges in India rose by about 900, to 1,116, with all of the new institutions approved by the council. Critics have alleged that the regulator accepts payoffs in exchange for approving poorly run colleges.

The industry group said in a report earlier this year that the existing regulatory framework constrains the supply of good institutions, excessively regulates existing institutions in the wrong places, and is not conducive to innovations or creativity in higher and technical education. —Shailaja Neelakantan

August 22, 2008

Saudi Arabia Opens Investigation Into Residents Who Used U.S.-Based Diploma Mill

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Higher Education is investigating whether people have used fake degrees purchased from an illegal diploma mill in the United States to obtain work in the Middle Eastern country.

The U.S. Department of Justice shut down the illegal operation in 2005, and earlier this year the diploma mill’s operators pleaded guilty to fraud. They were subsequently sentenced to prison terms for their roles in the scam, which took in $7.3-million from some 10,000 people. It was only last month that a list of those people was published by the local newspaper in Spokane, Wash., where the diploma mill was based.

The Arab News reported that Saudi authorities opened an investigation after 69 Saudi residents were among those listed by the Spokane newspaper.

A member of the Saudi Shura Council, a legislative body, criticized Saudi newspapers for having published advertisements for the illegitimate operation in the first place. The official, Abdullah Al-Tuwairqi, urged government officials to extend the investigation to newspapers that publish such ads without first conducting background checks on the institutions, the Arab News reported.

Similar questions are being asked in other Arab countries, as people in Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Sudan, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates were also listed as purchasers of the bogus certificates.

In Bahrain, the Gulf Daily News reported that the Higher Education Council, which is responsible for verifying foreign degrees, had not encountered any of the 10 Bahrainis who appear on the list of purchasers. —Andrew Mills

August 21, 2008

New Universities in India to Offer More Academic Freedom and Less Red Tape

The 14 new “world class” universities scheduled to be established in India over the next few years will be radically different from the country’s existing universities, with more academic freedom and less red tape to contend with, the Indian Express reported.

The new universities are expected to admit no more than 12,000 students each through a countrywide common entrance examination, the newspaper said. Unlike the existing universities, they will also have a semester system, a curricular revision every three years, private-sector financial support, deans with at least a decade of teaching experience, and the freedom to offer faculty incentives in addition to pay.

The institutions are expected to be without any affiliation and to offer a wide variety of subjects, including natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, engineering, technology, and medicine.

The blueprint for the new universities has been created by India’s university regulator, and it is expected that many of the changes will be incorporated into the existing universities as well as by the 16 new central universities also scheduled to be established.

“The view was that there should be no hierarchy or disparity in standards amongst universities, and the reforms and changes suggested for world-class universities should be applied to all universities,” an official told the newspaper. —Shailaja Neelakantan

Art Stolen From U. of British Columbia Is Recovered

Priceless artwork stolen from the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology has been recovered, according to the Canadian Press news agency. The missing pieces were found near Vancouver.

The on-campus museum was robbed three months ago, sparking an international search for the missing art — mostly gold pieces by the iconic Haida artist Bill Reid, along with three pieces of Mexican jewelry. Within weeks of the heist, the police recovered several of the gold items in suburban Vancouver. That news raised hopes that the pieces were still in the area and had not been melted down.

The university is “absolutely overjoyed” with the return of the stolen items. The only piece still missing is a two-inch fragment from an argillite pipe. The university offered a reward shortly after the theft, which was a factor in the return of the items, according to a report in the Globe and Mail newspaper.

The museum is closing at the end of August for major renovations, meaning the Reid items won’t be on display until the museum reopens, in March. —Karen Birchard