Archive for June, 2009

School dodged “Yale model” in favour of conservative investing and a secure cash flow

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the curious case of one U.S. university that has avoided the crushing losses to its endowment fund suffered by other schools like Harvard and Yale. (And Canadian universities, too.)

That school is the 150-year-old Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, which charges no tuition, and is headquartered in New York City’s East Village neighbourhood.

From the sounds of it, the recent financial meltdown hasn’t made much of a dent — the school has nearly finished construction on a new $150-million academic building, is hiring for a new biology program, is launching an environmental-design institute and will soon debut a master’s degree program in architecture.

More: Endowments for Dummies

Three years ago, particularly keeping in mind the tech bust and 9/11, the university’s administration decided to reduce the risks in their endowment fund. They renegotiated a property lease to ensure an steady income, sold some land, raised some money and hired some conservative investment managers. The school’s $600-million endowment has subsequently stayed about the same — and may even be up a bit at the end of the school’s fiscal year.

Those results are markedly different from schools that used what a Cooper spokesman calls the “Yale model,” in which schools eschew stocks in favour of alternative investments like private equity, commodities and timber.

In comparison, most Canadian and U.S. universities are dealing with endowment losses between 20 to 30 per cent.

For more on this story, including more information on Cooper’s high-profile land holdings, click here.

Five years after graduation, how much do you remember?

Five years after graduation, how much do you remember?

UPEI graduate program in education aims to train educators locally

Meeka Kakudluk is still struggling to relearn the Inuit culture she lost a half-century ago in schools where southern ways and the English language dominated.

This week, when she and her 20 classmates receive the first Master of Education degrees ever granted in Nunavut, she’ll do her part to ensure that in the future, Inuit schools – and students – are led by Inuit educators.

“The more they see Inuit leading, the more encouraged (students) will be to do the same,” said Kakudluk.

Kakudluk, 56, has been a teacher in Nunavut for 31 years, but that career will turn a whole page on Wednesday when she graduates with a brand-new Master of Education degree.

Offered through the University of Prince Edward Island, the program is designed to begin filling principal’s offices throughout the territory with educators who are members of the same community that they serve.

“There’s a need for Inuit leadership in the school system,” said Fiona Walton, the UPEI faculty member who set up and oversaw the three-year program.

Although there are more than 100 Inuit teachers with undergraduate degrees now teaching in Nunavut, the great majority of vice-principals and principals still come from the south. The UPEI program — the first graduate-level program of any kind offered in Nunavut – is intended to eventually change that.

It’s easier for an Inuk to understand community needs, said Dinah Kavik, who teaches in Sanikiluaq. As well, parents may feel more comfortable speaking with a principal in Inuktitut.

“The Inuit know their people,” said Kavik, a newly minted MEd.

The graduates enter the system at a crucial time for Nunavut.

Although Premier Eva Aariak has identified education as a top priority for her government, the territory’s graduation rate is dismal 25 per cent and a recent report concluded the system produces too many graduates fluent neither in English nor Inuktitut.

Plus, study finds that online learning beats face-to-face instruction

According to discussion drafts obtained by Inside Higher Ed, a program that would give community colleges and high schools federal funding to create free, online academic courses is currently being finalized by the Obama administration.

The plan would also “provide $9 billion over 10 years to help community colleges develop and improve programs related to preparing students for good jobs, and a $10 billion loan fund (at low or no interest) for community college facilities.”

Could allow foreign universities to expand into the world’s second-largest education market: are Canadian universities ready?

The Chronicle of Higher Education has written several stories in the past few weeks, covering plans to reform India’s moribund university sector, which has long been tied to (and tied down by) India’s notoriously inefficient bureaucracy. Among the proposed changes: opening the country to foreign university campuses.

Right now, it is difficult to impossible for foreign universities to get into the Indian market, and consequently the level of co-operation between India and Western universities is nothing compared to the growing higher education ties between Chinese and Western (especially American) universities. This despite the fact that India and the West –  and especially India and Canada — have so much in common: a common language, a common legal heritage, a common political system. What’s more, India exports tens of thousands of students and professionals to the West each year. And Canada has a large and growing population with roots in the subcontinent, with thousands of new immigrants arriving each year. The ties between the countries are strong; the field for cooperation is wide and fertile.

If the Indian educational market opens up, are Canadian universities ready?

Three years after shooting, 40 per cent of students, faculty suffer mental-health problems

A new study shows the psychological impacts of the 2006 Dawson College shooting in Montreal still run deep in students and staff affected by the deadly rampage.

Eighteen months after the assault that left one student dead and 16 other people wounded, researchers from the McGill University Health Centre and Montreal’s Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital surveyed 949 members of the Dawson community.

They found that 40 per cent of respondents suffered from mental-health problems.

The researchers also revealed that two per cent were in a state of post-traumatic stress due to the attack, while seven per cent were still experiencing post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Richard Boyer, a researcher with the Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital’s Fernand-Seguin Research Centre, said Monday that 12 per cent of respondents suffered from severe depression and close to seven per cent had seriously considered suicide.

“There was a heightened risk of major depression or suicidal thoughts if they developed post-traumatic stress during this (18-month) period,” Boyer said in a phone interview from New York, where the preliminary findings will be presented Tuesday at New York University.

“What’s surprising is that the post-traumatic stress problems and the other (psychological problems) persisted for so long after the event.”

On Sept. 13, 2006, gunman Kimveer Gill stormed the college, killing 18-year-old student Anastasia De Sousa and wounding 16 other people. Previous reports had said 20 people were injured.

During the wild, 20-minute shootout that sprayed more than 70 bullets inside the school, students and staff scrambled for cover.

Montreal police shot Gill in the elbow moments before he took his own life.

Three members of university basketball team will be tried together in court Nov. 26

Three members of a Nova Scotia university men’s basketball team will be tried together on all charges stemming from an altercation.

The charges against the players from St. Francis Xavier University were laid after an incident in Antigonish in February that sent a man to hospital.

In court Monday, Judge John Embree ordered that an additional charge against Tyler Richards, 23, of Dartmouth, N.S., will be heard at a trial tentatively scheduled for Nov. 26.

That’s the same date when all three players will be tried on one count each of assault causing bodily harm.

Richards’ second charge is one count of threatening to use a knife while committing an assault.

Also charged in the case are Eamon Morrissy, 19, of Halifax and William Dunkoh, 19, of Nepean, Ont.

The matter will come back to court July 13, when Morrissy will enter a plea to the charge and the trial date will be confirmed.

Dunkoh and Richards earlier pleaded not guilty to the charges.

- The Canadian Press

Leading U.S. universities call for number of research universities to be cut; dollars focussed on top schools

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports (subscription site) that the head of a group of leading U.S. universities is calling for government research funding to be focussed on a small, elite group of U.S. universities. Robert M. Berdahl, president of the Association of American Universities (AAU), said that “fewer but better” top research universities are needed.

Mr. Berdahl’s association represents 60 American universities that together award more than half of all U.S. doctoral degrees and 55 per cent of science and engineering degrees. Berndahl first raised the matter in a letter to sent last February to Sen. Lamar Alexandar, Republican from Tennessee and a former Secretary of Education. The letter was obtained by The Chronicle.

According to the weekly paper, Mr. Berdahl’s letter asked a series of questions that included: “How many research universities does the United States realistically require in order to maintain its agenda of innovation and advanced training?” The AAU has not made any recommendations as to how this policy could be put into effect or how many universities would have to be cut or downsized, but it has asked the National Academies to study the issue.

The Chronicle notes that “the recommendation to reduce the number of research universities may face some opposing forces on both the state and federal levels.” No doubt

Similar noises have been made by leading universities in the United Kingdom.

The questions raised by Berdahl’s letter are particularly relevant to the Canadian university system. When it comes to research funding, we have, even more than the Americans (or the British), tended to spread the wealth around: we have a smaller number of universities than the Americans, but a very high percentage of them are big players in the research game. Thanks to the imperatives of politics and regional development, we don’t have small number of top-tier research universities and a much larger group of less research-focussed institutions. Instead, we have a lot of universities with big stakes in the research game, including small institutions that, less than a generation ago, were traditional liberal arts colleges focussed on undergraduate teaching. Everyone gets a piece of the pie. For a small number of top Canadian universities that want to compete in the big leagues against Harvard and MIT, it’s an impediment. Is that merely a harm to their institutional egos, or a negative for the country’s education, innovation and economy?

College roommates rewrite Dante, Shakespeare and others ― 140 characters at a time

Did you ever feel that Hamlet was too wordy? Was Moby Dick too long?

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that someone has “found a solution” to your problems. That someone is a pair of first-year University of Chicago students who have signed a book deal with Penguin Books to rewrite 75 classic novels and plays as “Twitterature.”

Nineteen-year-old roommates Alex Aciman and Emmett Rensin will rewrite classics by Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Dante and other literary greats, and plan to do so in 20 or fewer 140-character tweets.

“Imagine if Achilles had a Twitter account and an iPhone, and he was telling his story in real time,” says Aciman, a comparative literature major from New York. “That’s what this book is going to be like.”

The students claim to have already read all the books they plan on tweeting. That is, except for the popular teen vampire novel Twilight. “A modern classic,” deadpans Rensin, a philosophy major from California.

University of Chicago literature professor W.J.T. Mitchell is backing the project. “This is exactly the kind of thing you’d expect University of Chicago students to come up with.”

What do you think? Are you horrified? Think it’s a great idea? Let us know.

Is the university looking to make more money? Hard to say, since they treat student borrowers better than most

The University of Prince Edward Island is the latest university in Canada to announce plans to disallow the use of credit cards for tuition payments.

The university expects to save $125,000 a year in transaction fees.

The undergraduate student union president Tim Cullen expressed concerns to CBC News that students may incur late fees university because of delays getting student loans. Under the current credit card payment system, it is possible for students to avoid late fees by charging to their credit cards and paying off the credit card balance with student loans.

While I normally agree with the concerns expressed by Cullen, the situation is not as black-and-white as it first seems.

UPEI is more reasonable than most universities (Not saying much, I know) in the country for student borrowers. Many universities punish students requiring student loans with “administrative fees” and high interest rates that probably make credit card companies blush. (See a chart of these fees at 27 selected universities here)

UPEI allows two weeks for student loans to arrive from the beginning of the semester. For most students, this is more than enough time to process and receive their loans. Many universities require payment prior to the beginning of the academic year and charge student loan recipients “late fees.”

While UPEI may be reasonable in this policy, it is clear that students unable to meet their deadline will be “SUBJECT TO LATE FEES AS SPECIFIED UNDER THE FEES SECTION OF THE UNIVERSITY CALENDAR” (emphasis is from university’s own form for students requesting permission for late payment.)

Instead of fighting against the university, the students’ union should be lobbying the university to use the $125,000 saved to waive late fees for students in financial need. Then, the new policy will be a win-win for the university and students. The university will save more money than it will use to “subsidize” students needing alternative payment agreements. Students needing extra time for payment will receive it without having to turn to credit cards to bridge them over.

While I commend the UPEISU for taking a stand on the issue, their energy may be better spent looking for a new solution for students who use credit cards instead of trying to hold onto the status quo.