September 4, 2008

Cutthroat Competition for Textbook Sales Pits UMass Faculty Members Against Bookstore

A bitter battle for the textbook market in Amherst, Mass., is being waged by anything but the book, to judge from an article in today’s Daily Collegian, the student newspaper at the University of Massachusetts’ flagship campus.

The competitors for students’ textbook business are, on the one hand, several local independent booksellers, and on the other, the university bookstore, which is run under contract by the Follett Higher Education Group, the nation’s largest collegiate-bookstore chain.

It seems that a number of professors at the public university would prefer to give business to the local bookstores rather than to the Follett-run university store, so they provide their required reading lists — a prerequisite for ordering books ahead of time — only to the independent store owners. Students can buy their books wherever they want, but a store that has the books in stock has a clear advantage over a store that needs to order them.

To level the playing field, according to The Daily Collegian, the director of the university store, Ken Kahler, posed as the parent of a student and asked a professor of English what textbook she planned to assign. The professor grew suspicious, and very soon the store official was unmasked.

“When I confronted him, he admitted that he did not have a daughter in my class and that he had deliberately deceived me in effect to steal our orders from the bookstores with whom we had placed them,” the professor, Suzanne Daly, told the Collegian.

Mr. Kahler was reprimanded by a vice president at Follett, the newspaper reported, and the university official who oversees the contract with Follett has apologized to Ms. Daly and other faculty members who have complained of the store’s business practices. —Andrew Mytelka

Private Universities Expand Their Reach Worldwide, British Report Says

More than one in three students enrolled in higher education worldwide attends a private institution, and private universities are rapidly expanding their reach, according to a report released today.

The report, “Private Universities and Public Funding: Models and Business Plans,” is being published by Universities UK, the umbrella organization for vice chancellors in Britain.

“The most significant area of growth in the recent global expansion in higher education has been in privately provided higher education,” the report says. The expansion has not been limited to countries with a history of private higher education, and some of the most rapid growth has come in countries with no tradition of private-sector universities.

Only in Western Europe does the public sector remain “relatively unchallenged,” but even there it faces growing competition. For-profit companies, which the report notes owe much of their success to public as well as private funds, constitute “the fastest-growing element of the private sector.” American companies like Apollo, Kaplan, and Laureate now “have a worldwide presence, establishing campuses in other countries, purchasing existing foreign institutions, or marketing distance-education curricula for international delivery.”

Public education providers in Britain and elsewhere in Europe that attempt to expand the private dimension of their offerings run a risk of compromising their standards while trying to compete on costs, the report says, and government regulation will be “critical in determining the rate of growth of private higher-education provision.” —Aisha Labi

$400-Million Pledge for Biomedical-Research Institute at Harvard and MIT

Eli and Edythe L. Broad will announce this morning that they are pledging $400-million to endow the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, a biomedical-research center in Cambridge, Mass., that is jointly run by Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

The Broads, who have given more than $1.7-billion in their lifetimes, provided $100-million to start the institute, in 2003. Its goal is to bring researchers together from a wide range of disciplines to fight disease and focus on other topics.

Mr. Broad, who made his fortune in the home-building industry, said in an interview today that he and his wife were so impressed with the work that was completed that first year that they decided in 2005 to give an additional $100-million to the institute.

The donation to be announced today brings the total the couple has given to the institute to $600-million. That makes the Broad commitment one of the most-generous philanthropic gestures in higher-education history, according to a ranking by The Chronicle. —Maria Di Mento

August 31, 2008

Louisiana Universities Prepare to Weather Hurricane Gustav

Universities in and around New Orleans have closed their campuses — most of them as of Saturday — and told students and staff members to evacuate the area before Hurricane Gustav makes landfall on Monday.

• Tulane University’s president, Scott S. Cowan, posted a message on the university’s Web site saying that he was leaving New Orleans on Sunday morning to join senior staff members in Nashville and that he would take part in a live online chat Sunday afternoon.

• Delgado Community College has closed all of its campuses through at Tuesday.

• Xavier University of Louisiana has closed its campus through at least until Thursday morning.

• Loyola University New Orleans said that it would resume classes online Tuesday morning, and that, conditions permitting, it would resume on-campus classes Thursday.

• The University of New Orleans is also closed until at least Thursday morning.

In Baton Rouge, La., Southern University encouraged students to leave and canceled Tuesday classes. The university said it expected to put up students from Southern University at New Orleans. Louisiana State University said that it would remain closed through Wednesday, but that its residence halls would remain open. The university also posted a call for volunteers to help care for evacuees brought to the campus.

Elsewhere in the state, the University of Louisiana System reported that McNeese State University had closed and told students to leave Lake Charles; that Nicholls State University had closed and would evacuate any remaining students to Louisiana Tech University; that Southeastern State University had closed its campus; and that the University of Louisiana at Lafayette had canceled classes but would keep its residence halls open.

Louisiana Tech University, Northwestern State University, and the University of Louisiana at Monroe were all preparing to offer emergency services to people from elsewhere in the state, the university system said. —Lawrence Biemiller

August 28, 2008

U. of Central Arkansas President Resigns Amid Furor Over Secret Bonus

Lu Hardin, president of the University of Central Arkansas, resigned today in an attempt to end months of controversy over his bonus pay. More anger seems likely, however, as Mr. Hardin will receive a buyout package worth more than $700,000, according to the Associated Press.

Mr. Hardin, a former state senator, was under pressure for receiving a $300,000 bonus in May after a secret vote by the university’s Board of Trustees. The flames were fanned when news broke that a memorandum justifying his compensation had been written by Mr. Hardin himself. The memo was initially attributed to three university administrators.

A trustee, Rush F. Harding III, told The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that Mr. Hardin had put the interests of the university first by resigning. “He wants this to go away,” Mr. Harding said.

The university’s president since 2002, Mr. Hardin recently had surgery for a malignant tumor behind an eye.

Bad feelings over Mr. Hardin’s bonus have led to scrutiny of other college presidents in Arkansas, with newspapers and state lawmakers making public the compensation received by public university chiefs. —Paul Fain

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

Missing Painting at Wellesley College May Have Been Tossed Out

A 1921 painting by the French cubist Fernand Leger is missing from the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College, and the painting might have been stolen or accidentally thrown out with some crates, The Boston Globe reports today.

The museum lent the painting, “Woman and Child,” to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art for an exhibit there through April 2007, the newspaper reports. After the Oklahoma museum shipped it back in a crate along with other paintings, it was stored in a vault at the Davis museum during renovations. Museum officials noticed the painting was missing last fall.

The officials don’t know what happened to the painting, but it has been reported as missing to the Art Loss Register, and an insurance company has already paid the college’s claim. The Globe reports that the average price of a Leger painting is in the neighborhood of $2.8-million.

Wellesley College art historians are saddened over the loss of the painting.

“We’ve all wondered about it,” Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, an associate professor of art, told the Globe. “It’s a tremendous loss for the college, but, beyond that, we just don’t have a lot of information.” —Kate Moser

August 26, 2008

Stanford to Restrict Industry Sponsorship of Continuing Medical Education

In an effort to avoid conflicts of interest, Stanford University will severely restrict industry support for continuing medical education, the medical school’s dean, Phillip A. Pizzo, announced today on its Web site.

For years, drug and medical-device companies have paid for refresher courses that doctors must take to maintain their licenses. The companies say they just want to keep doctors current on the latest medical information, but critics charge that the sponsors use the courses to promote their products.

Under Stanford’s new policy, which will take effect on Monday, the medical school will pool contributions from drug companies rather than allow a company to specify which specific courses it wants to underwrite. “I want to be able to honor the public trust,” Dr. Pizzo said. “We want CME to be unbiased and science-driven, and we don’t want it to be influenced by marketing.”

Five other major medical schools have adopted the pooled approach, The New York Times reported today, citing information from a watchdog group called the Prescription Project. The others are the medical schools at the Universities of Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, and California at Davis. The move comes two years after Stanford banned industry gifts, including free meals, at its medical center.

The issue of conflict of interest in medical education has sparked heated debate in recent years. Last month, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa told The Chronicle that the National Institutes of Health should revoke grants to university scientists who failed to report conflicts of interest. And last year, the Republican senator issued a report describing how he says pharmaceutical companies use continuing medical education to bolster sales of their products. —Katherine Mangan

Nevada Governor Fires Back at University Chancellor in Budget Dispute

The pugnacious chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, James E. Rogers, has for months waged a public campaign attacking the state’s governor for his proposed budget cuts of up to 16 percent for the system. Last week Gov. James Gibbons fired back with an angry letter of his own, in which he singled out university salaries for criticism.

“The system of higher education currently employs 1,328 people who are paid $100,000 or more annually,” Mr. Gibbons, a Republican, wrote, according to the Las Vegas Sun. “I cannot help but wonder how many Nevadans would support an income tax, or any increased taxes for that matter, to sustain those salary levels in the face of significant government spending reductions in other areas.”

Mr. Rogers is hardly backing down. In a terse reply, he said that the governor’s letter “confirmed every one of my fears and concerns” and that it was clear that Mr. Gibbons had “no problem in sacrificing education.”

And today Mr. Rogers released a public memorandum, under the heading “Hope, hope. There is hope,” in which he says the state’s Legislature will find a financial solution that “at least will prevent the dismantling of the Nevada System of Higher Education.” —Paul Fain

August 25, 2008

A Mysterious Silence Emanates From Warren National U.

Warren National University appears to be in trouble.

A note on its Web site says the institution has “suspended, until further notice, the admission or reactivation of students into our degree programs.” What this means for current students is unclear.

Warren National, which is unaccredited, has an interesting history. Previously known as Kennedy-Western University, it has moved from Idaho to California to its current home, Wyoming. It received some unwelcome publicity in 2004, when it and several other unaccredited institutions were the subjects of an investigation by the General Accounting Office. It later changed its name to Warren National.

For the past few days, the university’s Web site has been down. The note blames the decision on “economic uncertainty.” Multiple calls to the university today went to employees’ voice-mail. Even the campus operator failed to answer. —Thomas Bartlett