'After a great deal of deliberation and in recognition of our obligations to the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Board of Visitors of the University of Mary Washington has decided that it is in the best interests of the University and the University community that this Board terminate Dr. William J. Frawley from his employment with the University, for cause, effective immediately.'

The point is that if anyone still is looking at this in the context of college sports, they hopelessly are blind to reality. [Come again? The context is college sports, surely? Given that this is about college sports? And that lame hopelessly is out of place: If you're going to use it, which you shouldn't, but if you are, put it in front of blind. And blind to reality is a cliche.]


The reality is that college sports is an increasingly gargantuan business. [Whitley's overfond of adverbs. The sentence has no need of increasingly. I mean, think about it, David: If something's already gargantuan, is it particularly impressive for it to be increasingly so? I'm impressed already with gargantuan, see? ... And yeah, that's the reality; but there's nothing wrong with disliking a reality and wanting it changed.] The economics require coaches to be paid as much as backup NBA point guards. But if we condone that, we basically admit that we value entertainment more than education. [Note that the writer has done nothing to convince us that the economics require a certain level of salary. Again, he has merely told us what the current situation is. Ask the president of Vanderbilt if he feels compelled by this economics lesson.]

Call me shallow, but I'll admit that.

Who wouldn't rather sit through a football game than a geology lecture? The fact we'll pay to watch Gators quarterback Tim Tebow does not signal the decline of civilization. It signals we are human, and humans always have yearned to be entertained. [Hm. How shall SOS go about SOSing this flaccid little paragraph? Should she explain that limp rhetorical questions do not turn her on? That a not very well-endowed writer offering UD enlightenment about her human essence makes her giggle rather than say yes I will Yes...]

Yes, academics and athletics often make an awkward fit. It can lead to bad publicity. There's the perpetual pay-for-play debate.

But aren't those reasonable prices to pay? [No.]

Florida's athletic teams (read: football) generated $82 million last year. What's a university supposed to do, walk away from that kind of business opportunity? [Yes.]

At $2 million a year, Florida State's Bobby Bowden makes 50 times more than when he arrived in Tallahassee. Heck, he still makes 15 times more than fellow state employee Charlie Crist.

But what has Bowden been worth to Florida State over the past three decades? In terms of donations, memories, prestige and pride, the school never will be able to repay him. [Yup. Florida State's in great shape.]

What has C. Vivian Stringer been worth to Rutgers in just the past two weeks? Her team's dignified reaction to the Don Imus controversy made it a national sweetheart. Now Stringer stands to make $900,000 a year with incentives.

Most of the big-salary money comes from outside sources. That will be worth remembering in a few weeks when Donovan and football coach Urban Meyer get their raises.

Lumped together, two coaches will be pulling down at least $5 million. It could be $8 million if Imus says Tebow has nappy hair. That would pay for approximately 12 anthropology professors, three microbiology labs and four more Starbucks in the student union.

So you think Florida should let Donovan and Meyer just walk away? [Have you got hold of this guy's argument in any way? I'm trying. My job depends on my ability to make sense of garbled writing and garbled argument. But I can't do it.]

Ask Gainesville's merchants, or at least those who depend on fans showing up on football weekends. If Jeremy Foley hadn't fired former football coach Ron Zook, the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce would have.

If Meyer gets a bump to the $3 million range, he'll still be a bargain. He'll also still be making less than Saban, whose contract triggered the latest round of wailing.

Then 92,138 people show up to cheer his first scrimmage.

The hard question of why coaches make so much has a very easy answer.

They're worth it.

'Students and faculty at De Anza College may have a new campus facility called the "peace room" to manage their stress.

"It is a room for meditation, contemplation, chanting and prayer," said Scott McDonough, supporter of the peace room and the president of the World Peace Buddhists Club.

McDonough said the peace room, ideally 20 by 20 square feet, would be used for religious and non-religious practice and for people to manage their stress. The room would be able to facilitate a group of people while, at the same time, accomodating individuals' personal space for their own meditation.

McDonough prefers to call the room a peace room, instead of prayer room as some students call it, because of the conflict with the separation of church and state.

"I don't want to single out praying as the only purpose for the peace room," he said. "I am a Buddhist, but I also do non-religious meditation and deep breathing."

The idea came to McDonough when he could not find a place to release his stress on campus. McDonough said that he needs to cope with stress everyday because he suffers from post-traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I spend a long day on campus and try to get an education; managing my stress and maintaining my focus is very important," he said.

McDonough would go to the conference room in the Hinson Campus Center, but construction forced him out.

The current Campus Center policy requires students to make reservations before using the conference rooms for any amount of time.

"Several times I was told to leave, and all I was doing in the room was chanting," he said.

The De Anza Associated Student Body Senate and the Inter-Club Council supported the idea of a peace room, and both parties signed the endorsements last spring.

However, the Council version of endorsement conflicts with the Senate's version.

ICC's definition of a peace room is "a room for meditation, contemplation, chanting and prayer," McDonough said.

But the senate does not include the word "prayer."


... Students with different religious backgrounds have said they are concerned about possible religious conflicts if the peace room is created.

Ruth Rabin, a TV and Film student, said religion does not belong on campus.

"Education and religion should not mix," she said. "If you want to pray, go to an appropriate venue."'

'I really believe that in the long run this will serve our state well and will serve our university even better. To me, this was not just about revenues and support of our athletics programs. This was about bringing back the citizens of this state, connecting them more deeply with the University of Minnesota, making this a more festive part of our celebration of what's really important about the university. You don't get that feeling when you go to a professional stadium that's off campus.'

'...[I]sn't this a good time to drop football at Minnesota?

Gophers football is ground zero for those who point to an over-emphasis and distortion of college football. It provides a platform for Bruininks to make history and a bold unilateral statement...

Bruininks lobbied for an on-campus football stadium. Now, he faces soaring costs for the $288.5 million facility, while the NFL Vikings are seeking a second stadium that will likely wind up about one mile from the Gophers'. Minnesotans will have the unique privilege of walking 15 minutes between two facilities that will play host to about 20 football games a year at a cost of more than $1 billion...

Bruininks finds himself paying more than $3 million to one coach, Glen Mason, to leave, while needing to pay another coach probably more than $1 million to direct a football program that has shown it can't succeed in the Big Ten.

Bruininks is fending off state legislators who wonder why he's paying millions for sports matters out of one pocket while seeking funding for academic programs for his other pocket. It's all the same pair of maroon-and-gold pants, of course.

Meanwhile, as the Star Tribune reported last fall, academics among the Gophers football team under Mason were at the bottom in the Big Ten, with more at-risk students admitted into the Minnesota program than just about any Big Ten school, and with graduation rates the lowest in the conference, especially among African-American athletes....'

'Lucy Wightman, who drew stares in the 1970s and '80s as the celebrated stripper Princess Cheyenne in Boston's Combat Zone, held the gaze of 16 jurors yesterday as a state prosecutor accused her of fraudulently posing as a licensed psychologist and treating children whose parents had no idea she lacked the proper credentials.

"This is a case about trust, broken trust, and breaking that trust to commit theft from parents and their children," Assistant Attorney General David Andrews said as Wightman went on trial in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of treating children with eating disorders and other serious problems without a license from 1998 to 2005.

Wightman, 47, of Hull, who had practices in two affluent Boston suburbs, faces 14 counts of felony larceny, five counts of filing false healthcare claims, five counts of insurance fraud, and one count of practicing psychology without a license. Andrews said she took nearly $40,000 from unsuspecting parents while posing as a licensed psychologist after buying a bogus doctorate online from a diploma mill.

But Wightman's lawyer, Katie Cook Rayburn , said her client has a master's degree in psychology and studied five years at the accredited Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology before withdrawing for reasons Wightman will explain when testifying in her own defense.

Feeling she had completed her academic training as well as thousands of hours of internship , Wightman bought a doctorate online from Dominica-based Concordia College & University, believing it was legitimate, Rayburn said. Nonetheless, Wightman denies telling people who sought treatment that she was licensed, Rayburn said.'

'The first impeachment hearings since 1985 got under way today at the state Capitol.

But even the sponsor of the resolution against University Regent James C. Hayes said what he's really hoping for is a voluntary resignation.

Sen. Tom Wagoner, R-Kenai, presented the resolution today to the Senate Health, Education and Social Services Committee, which did not have enough members present to do business.

The resolution said Hayes, who is under a multiple-count federal indictment involving alleged misuse of federal grant funds, should be impeached for unauthorized use of the university seal and for repeated absences from Board of Regents meetings.

Committee Chairwoman Bettye Davis noted that three committees would have to consider impeachment before a vote of the full Senate could be taken.

A two-thirds vote would set up a trial in the House of Representatives, which would be presided over by a Supreme Court justice.

Wagoner said he doesn't want that unprecedented event.

"Senate resolution 3 is not an indictment that the Legislature believes Mr. Hayes is guilty, only that he should step down and remove the appearance of unethical behavior from his public office and also take the time he needs to defend himself in this case," Wagoner said.'

'[T]he [history] blogs offer a new level of conversation and information about our beloved discipline. Taken together, moreover—and it's proper to do that, since they list and respond to one another, and the same posters and lurkers move from one to another—they have created something like a virtual café in cyberspace, one where the conversation is extremely lively and you can learn a great deal simply by listening in.

... Dozens of historians, from undergraduates to senior historians, now keep blogs. Some blog anonymously, some reveal their names; some concentrate on scholarly and professional subjects, but many discuss personal matters as well.

... As vice president of the AHA's Professional Division, I have a professional deformation of my own: I'm tasked to seek out areas where the institutions of history, and the universities that house them, don't work as well as they should, and look for modest, practical ways of improving matters. A number of blogs offer particularly incisive commentary on these matters. Tenured Radical, for example, has analyzed in depth, and with the freedom that this genre allows, the failings of the current tenure system (so has the English professor Margaret Soltan, whose University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it).'

'The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's dean of admissions, Marilee Jones, resigned today and admitted to the ultimate sin of her profession: lying on an application. [Not sure I'd call this the ultimate sin... ]

Jones, a 28-year veteran of the admissions office, listed degrees on her resume from three schools in upstate New York but did not earn any of them, an MIT spokeswoman said. [Ouch. That's a biggie. Often in these cases the person has all the degrees except for the final one... futzed with the Ph.D. too long and never quite earned it, but claims it on the cv... To have graduated from none of the schools you list -- that's a new one on UD.]


... In a prepared statement, Jones said she had "misled the Institute about my academic credentials" in applying for her first job at the school in 1979, and "did not have the courage to correct my resume when I applied for my current job or at any time since." [This is the sort of straightforward honesty UD missed in the last I Fucked Up statement she analyzed.] She was appointed to lead the admissions office in 1998. [This aspect of the story is all too typical: She rose too high. UD has said repeatedly on this blog that if you're going to fudge, go ahead and fudge, but lie low.]


... The resignation was announced at 11:00 a.m. in a brief e-mail to the MIT community. "This is a sad and unfortunate event," Daniel E. Hastings, the dean for undergraduate education, said in a statement. "But the integrity of the Institute is our highest priority, and we cannot tolerate this kind of behavior." [Again, well said. Short, simple, and stressing what needs to be stressed.]


[The Crimson reporter, Zachary M. Seward, ends with this bit of irony:]

Imparting advice to high-school students in her 2006 book [about college admissions], Jones warned against "making up information to present yourself as something you are not." She wrote, "You must always be completely honest about who you are." '

'A recent story implied that the UMW faculty supports the return of President Frawley to his duties ["UMW faculty leaders hope Frawley returns," April 17]. I do not presume to know what consensus, if any, exists among the faculty, but I want to state emphatically that this is not my sentiment, nor is it, from my observation, the feeling of numerous others.

While everyone of good will wishes President Frawley full recovery from his physical problems and refuses to prejudge his legal problems, it must be said that his recent actions have damaged his ability to lead the university.

I believe the damage is permanent and in no place more so than the realm of public opinion. His statement that "the events are highly unusual and totally out of character" does little to dispel concerns about his alleged behavior--"highly unusual" does not mean unprecedented.

A university president's reputation is inseparable from his ability to lead. The best possible interpretation one can put on these events is that they show a significant lapse in judgment and, as such, affect everyone's perceptions about the president's leadership. Equally important, they raise, in my mind, the potential of a future lapse of judgment.

It is within this framework of understanding that I raise these questions: What will be the image of UMW for prospective students? What about community attitudes? Will private benefactors be affected by these events?

Internally, what effect would the possible decline of respect have upon morale within staff and administration? Worse, what message do we send our students who are constantly discouraged from the use of alcohol and who are bound by the Honor System?

While I am confident that all members of the UMW community have only the sincerest wishes for our president's good health, the Board of Visitors must be concerned not only with matters of personal health, but institutional health as well.

I have spent a lifetime teaching at this university, and this is the most unhappy set of circumstances I have seen.'

Arthur L. Tracy, Fredericksburg. The writer is associate professor of history at UMW.

"... I traveled to many regions many times with the help of many different substances. I took peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, cannabis, MDMA, DMT, ketamine, nitrous oxide 5-MEO-DMT, but I kept coming back to LSD. Acid seemed my most spacious, most helpful ally. While on it, I explored my past, regressed to the womb, to my conception. I remembered, grieved, and mourned many painful events. I saw how my parents would have liked to love me, and how they didn't because they didn't know how. I learned, on acid, to endure troubling and frightening states of mind. This enabled me, as meditation has done, to identify with being the witness of the workings of my mind, observing whatever was going on, while knowing that I was simply captivated by the forms produced by my own psyche."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed entreaties from the University of Phoenix to throw out a massive suit charging the nation's largest accredited private university with defrauding the government of millions of dollars in federal education loan funds.

The suit was filed in 2003 under the False Claims Act by two former employees who alleged that the school, which offers degrees to midcareer workers, violated federal rules that bar giving incentives to employees to recruit students to enroll in the college.

The False Claims Act permits individuals with exclusive knowledge of a fraud perpetrated against the federal government to file suit on behalf of the government and share in any financial recovery. An individual or company violating the law must pay the U.S. civil penalties and triple damages.

The University of Phoenix's website describes the school as "the largest institution of higher learning in the U.S., serving approximately 300,000 students through its more than 250 campuses and learning centers across the country."

The vast majority of students at the university use federal loans and grants to pay their tuition. According to federal records, last year the chain obtained close to $2 billion in federal education funds.

Two years ago, after a probe by the U.S. Department of Education, the University of Phoenix paid the government $9.8 million in compensation. A report issued by the department said the company promoted an intense sales culture that rewarded recruiters who encouraged large numbers of students to enroll, even if they were not qualified.

Four years ago, Mary Hendow and Julie Albertson, former enrollment counselors at the school, sued in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, alleging that the University of Phoenix paid recruiters solely based on how many students they enrolled. The suit, filed by attorneys Nancy G. Krop and Daniel R. Bartley, asserted that the university urged counselors "to enroll students without reviewing their transcripts to determine their academic qualifications to attend the university."

The plaintiffs alleged that the university rated counselors on the basis of how many recruits they signed up and that it gave the highest producers bigger salaries, benefits and incentives.

The university countered that it did not pay recruiters solely on the basis of numbers.

U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell dismissed the suit, ruling that the plaintiffs' allegations were beyond the scope of conduct regulated by the False Claims Act.

The plaintiffs appealed, with the support of the U.S. Department of Justice, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief. Justice Department lawyers said if Burrell's ruling was upheld it could impair enforcement of the act, which they said was the government's primary tool to deter fraud and recover monetary losses.

In September, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Burrell.

In a 3-0 decision written by Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall, the appeals court said the False Claims Act was intended to reach all types of fraud, without qualification, that might result in financial loss to the government.

Washington attorney Theodore B. Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general, filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to review the case. He asserted that the 9th Circuit decision conflicted with decisions from three other federal circuits and said if it was sustained it could put government contractors in education, healthcare and defense at risk of incurring considerable liability.

"The financial implications of the 9th Circuit's expansive notion" of False Claims Act liability "are staggering," he argued, adding that the suit could cost the firm billions.

But the Supreme Court, without comment, declined to hear the case.

Olson said he was disappointed because review was needed to ensure that the law was "not transformed into a tool for extracting extortionate and unjustified settlements from defendants unable to bear the risk of going to trial."

But plaintiffs' attorney Krop countered that "the Supreme Court decision is a terrific win, protecting the rights of students nationwide and America's taxpayers."

"We look forward to presenting our evidence to a jury."

Bartley, her co-counsel, said: "It is time for the University of Phoenix to bite the bullet, return these dollars to the taxpayer and change its business plan to conform to the law."

**University of Phoenix
Fight Song:

Enrollin' …rollin' …rollin' …

Keep movin', movin', movin',
Though they're disapprovin',
Keep them students movin', Phoenix!
Don't try to educate 'em,
Just rope and throw and bait 'em,
Soon we'll be living high and wide.

Boy, my head's calculatin'
My paycheck will be waitin',
Be waiting at the end of my pitch.

Move 'em on, head 'em up,
Head 'em up, move 'em out,
Move 'em on, head 'em out, Phoenix!
Set 'em out, ride 'em in
Ride 'em in, let 'em out,
Cut 'em out, ride 'em in, PHOENIX

Author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam was killed today in a fiery three-car accident in Menlo Park, authorities said.

Halberstam, 73, of New York, was a passenger in a car that was broadsided as it was making a left turn off the Bayfront Expressway, the approach road to the Dumbarton Bridge, onto Willow Road about 10:35 a.m., authorities said.

The car in which Halberstam was riding, a Toyota Camry driven by a UC Berkeley journalism graduate student, was hit by a late model Infiniti. When paramedics and fire crews arrived, they found Halberstam unresponsive and trapped in the front passenger seat, said Harold Schapelhouman, chief of the Menlo Park Fire District.

The engine compartment was on fire and the passenger side of the car had been crushed, Schapelhouman said.

One rescue crew was able to pull Halberstam from the car while another doused the flames, the chief said. The author had no pulse and was not breathing when he was freed, and efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, Schapelhouman said. Halberstam was pronounced dead at the scene.

A silver Nissan coupe suffered what appeared to be "collateral damage," and the female driver of that car was not seriously injured, the chief said.

The two other drivers were taken to the hospital with injuries, police said. The graduate student driving the Camry reportedly suffered a punctured lung. The extent of the Infiniti driver's injuries was unknown.

Halberstam had been in the Bay Area to deliver a speech at UC Berkeley titled, "Turning Journalism Into History," and had been on his way to do an interview for his next book, Orville Schell, the dean at Berkeley's graduate school of journalism, wrote in an e-mail.

Halberstam won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 at age 30 for his reporting from Vietnam. He later turned to long-form writing and wrote 21 books, including "The Best and the Brightest," about how the United States became involved in Vietnam. His other works covered a wide range of subjects, including civil rights, sports and the auto industry.

In my classes, I try to establish and maintain a student-centered classroom, a place where students' learning takes precedence over teacher's teaching. By 'students' learning' I mean their guided self-discovery; by 'teacher's teaching' I mean lecturing, testing, conferring judgment and other forms of authoritarian practice. My philosophy holds that self-motivated, self-directed learning is best, is 'liberal learning' in its best sense of liberating; that in the largest sense the most valuable "lesson" students may learn from literary study is not content but method, not information but process.

'The University of North Dakota Student Senate has tabled its discussion on the switch to NCAA Division I athletics.

The Senate passed a resolution on Sunday that says it won’t support an increase in student fees to help pay for the school’s transition to Division I, until it’s known how big the hike will be.

A consultant’s report recommends student fees increase $35 per semester next year and then a total of $72 per semester in succeeding years.

A vote on the move will be delayed until April 29, when UND President Charles Kupchella and Athletic Director Tom Buning are scheduled to address the Senate.'

Over the past few days we [The opinion piece writers are a former president of Texas Southern University -- a criminally mismanaged school about to have a conservator assigned to it -- and a local politician. They're going to argue against the governor's plan to appoint the conservator.] have been asked by many of our friends why we fight so hard to preserve an institution that most people in this state believe to be dysfunctional. [Here's their first problem: It is indeed dysfunctional. Very few students graduate. Its president and financial officers were thieves. It's no longer a question of belief. Rational people know the place needs radical overhaul. I doubt even the authors of this opinion piece believe differently. It's their feelings that are leading them astray.]

They ask whether it's because of Mickey Leland, Barbara Jordan or Harold Dutton. Our answer is always no. We fight for Clifford Varner, Thomas Jones and Betty Berry.

You see, Mickey, Barbara and Harold could probably have gone to a number of other universities. But the same is not true for Cliff, Thomas and Betty. [Cliff, Thomas, and Betty are unlikely to be able to perform in college. Their going to TSU, drifting for years, and then flunking out, makes no sense financially, morally, or intellectually.]

Texas Southern University stands as a beacon for excellence and opportunity. [Resounding cliche. And, for most of TSU's students, not really true.] We have some of the brightest students in the state, who could have attended another university but who chose to attend Texas Southern. [TSU has very few of the state's brightest students.] But unlike other Texas universities, we also open our doors to those students who could not gain admission to any other university. We believe that is a laudable mission and we fight to retain it. [It's not laudable when the leadership of the school is ripping off those students.]

That fight is different from the one against gross fiscal mismanagement at the university. [No, actually it's the same.]

For years, there have been charges of shoddy recordkeeping and poor bookkeeping at Texas Southern. But in 1999 the state auditors, after careful review, found that the university had resolved those accounting system problems. Since that time they have found no significant accounting system problems at TSU.

It was in part the strength of the university's accounting system that provided such clear paper trails that lead to the indictment of the school's former president and chief financial officer. The judicial system will determine whether these managers are guilty of any criminal wrongdoing. But even if they are guilty, they are gone. [This is confused reasoning. Exposure of the criminality at the school had much more to do with a trio of intrepid students than it did with any systemic strengths. And those strengths couldn't have amounted to much if it was so easy for the president and her money people to loot the school.]

Moreover, the board of regents that was obligated to provide oversight also may have been derelict. They, too, are gone. What remains is an accounting system that works and vacancies in the presidency and board offices. These should be filled immediately with competent professionals. [This overlooks the reputational damage the school has suffered. The authors want to target a couple of people as the cause of the school's downfall, but there are indeed scandalous systematic problems at TSU, and it will have lost all credibility with the world if they aren't fixed.]

Conservatorship is not the answer. First, it is not the governance structure at TSU that is broken; it is the system of selecting the board of regents. For the past 60 years, it has been the governor, with the advice and consent of the Texas Senate, that [who would be better] has appointed the regents who hire the president. Thus, the problem of university governance lies on the doorsteps of the Texas governor and Senate. If they are dissatisfied with the caliber of their appointments, then perhaps it is time that they establish better criteria for filling these positions. [Sure, but this is about the distant future. It's the present the governor's dealing with.]

Second, if the same criteria that the appointing bodies used in the past are used to select a conservator, then Texas Southern would again be ineffectively led by someone who likely would lack the necessary knowledge and experience to lead an institution of higher education, let alone one in such dire need of strong leadership.

Third and most important, conservatorship would result in the destruction of the university. According to the school's accrediting agency, conservatorship would destroy the university's accreditation and eliminate all federal financial aid programs. These programs provide necessary funding that more than 70 percent of the TSU student body relies on to fund their education. [This would be temporary, if it happens at all. A school can survive losing and regaining accreditation. As for federal funding, the American taxpayer shouldn't be asked to subsidize ill-run schools that don't graduate their students.]

The effect is obvious. The Barbaras and Mickeys and Harolds would simply go to another university. But for the Cliffords, the Thomases and the Bettys, their opportunities for a college education may be irretrievably lost. [As it stands, Clifford, Thomas, and Betty are likely to get at TSU a simulacral education. It will end up costing them and other Americans a good deal of money.]


... We applaud Gov. Perry's commitment to decisive leadership at Texas Southern University but fervently disagree that the path he has chosen is a wise one for Texas Southern, its students and the state of Texas, generally. [Not bad writing, but it has its share of cliches, and it has ended this particular sentence awkwardly, on a weak word.]

Texas Southern continues its proud tradition of welcoming students the Texas public schools have failed. And while these nontraditional students tend not to graduate within the traditional four or even six years, there is a strong indication they eventually do graduate, have increased earning capacity and contribute largely to the Texas economy. [Tend... strong indication... Here the writers must weasel their way around the profound fact of wretched graduation rates at TSU.] ...

former director of financial aid ... persuaded the school to award major contracts to student loan giant Sallie Mae while she successfully lobbied the company to hire her, the New York attorney general's office said yesterday.

The official, Desiree Cilmi, was negotiating for a job with the Reston lender in 2004 as she urged the university to sell graduate student loans to Sallie Mae and hire the company to operate a call center, aides to Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo said. The lender got both contracts and Cilmi left soon after to work at Sallie Mae. ... Pace entered into a contract with Sallie Mae from 2004 to 2007 for the lender to operate a call center where company employees answered: "Pace University Financial Aid Office."

"You don't usually see music faculty hanging around the admissions office, and saying, 'You know, there's this great tenor from Illinois. And he hasn't passed a course at his high school in three years. And he's actually in jail now.'"

'Trustees Question New Deals

[University of South Carolina] board says athletics department made pacts without required approval


University of South Carolina trustees sought Friday to rein in an athletics department that several trustees said was making large financial deals without required board approval.

The board, meeting on campus Friday, received several items for approval by the full board, including two contracts that had already been in force for months, and plans for a ticket price increase that had already been announced.

“This is a violation of the policy of the university. This is symptomatic of the behavior of the athletics department, and it needs to stop,” said trustee Mack Whittle, who is chairman of The South Financial Group of Greenville.

Despite the financial items on the board’s agenda, neither athletics director Eric Hyman nor any representative of the department was at the meeting to explain the details.

Hyman was at an annual Gamecock Club golf tournament in Myrtle Beach on Friday along with other members of the athletics department.

“As athletics director, I assume all responsibility for contracts and all issues related to them,” Hyman said. “If there are issues on these contracts, I will deal with them.”

The university’s board rules require that any expense less than $250,000 can be approved by president Andrew Sorensen, but deals in excess of $250,000 must be approved by the board.



... Some board members mounted a defense of the department and Hyman.

“We have had input, there’s no question,” said board chairman Herbert Adams of Laurens.


... Trustee Eddie Floyd was upset over the ticket price increase, for which alumni are already writing checks.

“We need to vote to reprimand the athletics department,” said Floyd, a Florence resident. “I’ve been hearing about this back home. This is too important for any trustee to be left out. We need to send an unequivocal message we are not going to tolerate it.”'

In January, the school's accreditation was revoked by the Virgin Islands' new governor, less than two months after it was granted by the territory's acting commissioner of education. [It's unusual for a Caribbean island to deny accreditation to anything.]

Published reports in the Virgin Islands have accused Knisley and officials of the International Graduate Center of running a diploma mill – institutions of higher education that provide degrees for few credit hours and at higher-than-usual tuition.

In 2003, the same year Knisley was hired in Rutland City, he was asked to join the International Graduate Center by the school's president David Gibson of Stowe. The two had worked together at Berne University, a postsecondary school based in St. Kitts in the British Virgin Islands that has since closed. [My man is a veteran diploma mill administrator.]

Berne University was denied recertification by the U.S. Department of Education Federal Student Aid in 2003 because it lacked a physical campus in St. Kitts, the school's courses did not require enough hours to warrant a graduate degree, and there was no state or territory accreditation, according to a letter to the school's president.

[Okay, so far so good... Aside from the odd fact that this man is also an intermediate school principal -- setting high ethical standards for the kids and all -- this is a pretty routine story. But listen to him talk! This is what I'm getting at!]

"The Berne University that I worked for was never a diploma mill," said Knisley who earned a doctorate from the University of Vermont. "I can't explain what happened with Berne University. I can say I left because I was not philosophically aligned with what was going on." [Knisley's philosophy was out of alignment. This is a fantasic locution.]

Knisley defends his role as vice president of the International Graduate Center. [On to the next diploma mill.]

"I'm proud of what I do here in Rutland. I'm proud of what I've been able to do with the International Graduate Center," said Knisley who has been an employee and officer of the school since 2003. "I've been an advocate for non-traditional students." [Non-traditional! cries Tevye. Leave us alone! We are simple people!]


... "We had the accreditation for 30 to 45 days before the government decided it didn't count," said Knisley. "We don't really know, at this point, who really does do accreditation on the island." [Yes, this is most confusing, since we chose the island in the first place because of its willingness to accredit anything that moves...]

... "We really thought we'd done everything right," said Knisley. "In Vermont you'd never have that happen." [But unfortunately we couldn't go to Vermont, since they have accreditation standards.]


... "To me this whole thing is about a transition of government," he said. "And possibly some other pieces of politics that are going on that are beyond our control." [Dark forces, including a possible new interest in stemming corruption, are conspiring against us.]

... Many professors have run across more than their share of [disturbed students who scare them]. At least one Virginia Tech professor noticed that Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 people on campus on Monday, was potentially dangerous and did her best to warn the administration and the police. (So did at least two female students.) But there is only so much a teacher can do — “students have rights, too.” [This is what an administrator at Oakley's university told her when she complained about one such student.]

It’s a simple fact that, for every deranged murderer like Mr. Cho there are thousands more oddballs just below the breaking point. I know one quasi-psychopathic incompetent, for example, who remained on the campus payroll for over a dozen years simply because his supervisor was afraid of being killed if he was fired.

It’s long been in fashion to believe that people are innately good, and that upbringing and environment are responsible for nasty personalities. But research is beginning to show that mean, sometimes outright evil behavior has a strong genetic component. Some of us, in other words, are truly born bad.

Researchers at King’s College London have recently determined that if one identical twin shows psychopathic traits, the other twin, who coincidentally shares precisely the same set of genes, has a very high probability of having the same psychopathic traits. But among fraternal twins, who share only half their genes, the chance that both twins will show psychopathic traits is far smaller. In other words, there is something suspiciously psychopath-inducing in some people’s genes.

What could it be? Medical images of the brain give tantalizing clues — the amygdala, the “fight or flight” decision-making center of the brain, may be smaller than usual, or some areas of the brain may glow only dimly because of low serotonin levels. We may not know precisely what set Mr. Cho off, but we are beginning to home in on the unusual differences in certain neurochemistries that can make people act in bizarre and dysfunctional ways.

Still, the Virginia Tech shootings have already led to calls for all sorts of changes: gun control, more mental health coverage, stricter behavior rules on campuses. Yes, in a perfect world, there would be no guns, no mental illness and no Cho Seung-Huis. But the world is very imperfect. Consider that Britain’s national experiment with gun-free living is proving to be a disaster, with violent and gun crime rates soaring.

In other words, most of the broad social “lessons” we are being told we must learn from the Virginia Tech shootings have little to do with what allowed the horrors to occur. This is about evil, and about how our universities are able to deal with it as a literary subject but not as a fact of life...

On April 10 and 11, I was involved in two widely reported driving incidents. [Starts with simple narration. Good. We need to be reminded of the events. Yet where is the word arrested? Alcohol? Police? The word involved is no good at all. Involved could mean anything. And note the passive formulation: was involved. Direct statement is important right up front: On April 10 and 11, under the influence of alcohol, I drove erratically and was arrested as a result.] On Monday, I was released from the hospital, after five and a half days of examination for and treatment of possible injuries and for correction of a heretofore undetected, and potentially very serious, heart disorder. [Whoa Nellie. Not only have we leapt cleanly over the stupendous fact that this was about a two-day bender; we have -- in the second sentence -- made a play for sympathy by alluding to a heart thing. SOS is already prepared to say that it does not look good for this man.] It is only at the present time that I am able to return to other tasks and to communicate fully. [That's not because of your heart. It's because of the booze.]


My family and I want to express our gratitude to everyone in the Mary Washington community for their responsiveness at this trying time for UMW. We continue to be overwhelmed by the understanding and steadfastness of the people who comprise the larger UMW family.

I must stress that the events of April 10 and 11 are highly unusual and totally out of character for me. I deeply apologize for any difficulties caused for the institution, the Board of Visitors, or for the people and friends of UMW. [The apology is good, but he might again have made the statement more active: I deeply apologize for the difficulties I caused... We shouldn't have the sense, as we do throughout here, that the man is separating himself from his deeds -- that he is blaming them on medical conditions, or on a freaky break with the person he is. He is the person who did what he did.]

At this time, I am at home with my family, and I would ask that our privacy be respected, particularly for the sake of the children. I must concentrate on my doctors' treatment recommendations, and in that respect, I express great appreciation to the Mary Washington Hospital medical staff for their insights, skills, and personal approach to medicine. [Yick. This series of platitudes thanking the staff is totally out of place. The rhetoric is that of the university president of old, somewhat condescendingly promoting a community institution. This is a broken man whose future is seriously in doubt, not a grandee thanking the local folks for their personal approach to his heart condition. While he shouldn't sound outright pathetic in this statement, it's important that he be honest about the fact that he has, for some time at least, shattered his own life.] I again thank the University and the larger community of Fredericksburg for their kind and extensive support.

'Federal privacy and antidiscrimination laws restrict how universities can deal with students who have mental health problems.

For the most part, universities cannot tell parents about their children’s problems without the student’s consent. They cannot release any information in a student’s medical record without consent. And they cannot put students on involuntary medical leave, just because they develop a serious mental illness.

... Universities can find themselves in a double bind. On the one hand, they may be liable if they fail to prevent a suicide or murder.... On the other hand, universities may be held liable if they do take action to remove a potentially suicidal student.

... [S]ituations complicated enough to involve a university’s lawyers arise, on average, about twice a semester at large universities.

While shootings like the one at Virginia Tech are extremely rare, suicides, threats and serious mental-health problems are not. Last year, the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment, covering nearly 95,000 students at 117 campuses, found that 9 percent of students had seriously considered suicide in the previous year, and 1 in 100 had attempted it.

...We’re seeing more students in our service consistently every year,” said Alejandro Martinez, director for counseling and psychological services at Stanford University, which sees about 10 percent of the student body each year. “Certainly more students are experiencing mental illness, including depression.

“But there’s also been a cultural shift,” Mr. Martinez said, “in that more students are willing to get help.”

College officials say that a growing number of students arrive on campus with a history of mental-health problems and a prescription for psychotropic drugs. But screening for such problems would be illegal, admissions officers say.

“We’re restricted by the disabilities act from asking,” said Rick Shaw, Stanford’s admissions director. “We do ask a question, as most institutions do, about whether a student has been suspended or expelled from school, and if they have been, we ask them to write an explanation of it.”

Federal laws also restrict what universities can reveal. Generally, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, Ferpa, passed in 1974, makes it illegal to disclose a student’s records to family members without the student’s authorization.

“Colleges can disclose a student’s private records if they believe there’s a health and safety emergency, but that health and safety exception hasn’t been much tested in the courts, so it’s left to be figured out case by case,” [one administrator] said.

"He was passionate about life,” [Librescu's son] said. “He had no fear of death.”

He said that his father was born in Romania in 1930. After surviving the Holocaust, Mr. Librescu said, his father became a refusenik in Romania and lost his job as an aerospace engineer. But in 1976, Liviu Librescu secretly published a book in Norway that advanced a theory of aerospace technology that grabbed the attention of others in the field. In 1978, after lobbying by groups in Israel, he was permitted to leave Romania and settle there. He began teaching at Virginia Tech in 1985, university officials said.

Mr. Librescu said that the bucolic environs of Blacksburg provided a respite from the rigors of his father’s earlier life. His house was built on the edge of a forest and he took long walks daily, enjoying nature. He listened to classical music and settled into the calm, productive rhythms of his new existence.

The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as a English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service. ... [The department chair] said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when, or what the outcome was. [The chair] refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws.

About 2 a.m. one sleepless night, sophomore Jordan Nott checked himself into George Washington University Hospital.

He was depressed, he said, and thinking about suicide.

Within a day and a half of arriving there, he got a letter from a GWU administrator saying his "endangering behavior" violated the code of student conduct. He faced possible suspension and expulsion from school, the letter said, unless he withdrew and deferred the charges while he got treatment.

In the meantime, he was barred from campus.

"It was like a stab in the back," he said. He felt they were telling him, "We're going to wipe our hands clean of you."

His response has college administrators around the country taking notice: Nott sued the university and individuals involved. The school violated federal law protecting Americans with disabilities, the complaint argues. The law covers mental as well as physical impairments.

In essence, it says the school betrayed him by sharing confidential treatment information and suspending him just when he most needed help.

In court documents filed this week, the university's attorneys defended the actions taken, denied that Nott was disabled and suggested that his conduct might bar his recovery. And they asked that the charges be dismissed for the individuals named -- mostly administrators and counselors. The university policies might seem impersonal, spokeswoman Tracy Schario said, but they are designed to keep both individuals and the community safe.

Suicidal students have always forced tough calls. But with shifting legal ground, growing threats of lawsuits and increasing numbers of troubled teenagers entering colleges, many administrators are even more worried about how to handle them.

'A Case Western Reserve University professor who said she received threatening hate letters after claiming discrimination actually wrote the letters to herself, prosecutors said Monday.

Ramani Sri Pilla, 41, was charged in U.S. District Court with one count of making false statements.

Pilla "perpetuated a hoax on CWRU and the FBI" when she claimed that she was a victim of hate crimes because of her Indian heritage and her gender, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Rowland said in court documents.

Pilla, who has taught statistics at Case since 2002, has been suspended indefinitely with pay, a university spokesman said. If the suspension is upheld, she could be required to repay the money.

Pilla told the FBI in January that she received three threatening letters beginning in August 2006. She named three co-workers as possible suspects and said the letters were likely retaliation for complaints she had made claiming discrimination.

She then sued in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, seeking a temporary restraining order and accusing the school of not doing enough to protect her.

In February, Pilla told FBI agents she received a fourth hate letter at her office.

Pilla, of Cleveland Heights, later admitted that she wrote the letters and delivered the letters herself, according to court documents. ... '

Shootings in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech left at least one person dead and seven or eight more wounded Monday before police arrested the suspected gunman, officials told The Associated Press.

Police confirmed they had a suspect in custody, the university said on its Web site.

On the Web site, Tech reported the shootings at opposite ends of the 2,600-acre campus at West Ambler Johnston, a co-ed residence hall that houses 895 people, and said there were "multiple victims" at Norris Hall, an engineering building.

The university said there were multiple victims. Government officials with knowledge