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breakingnewsalert1 · 4 years

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Turkish academics have sounded the alarm over government plans to introduce gender segregation at the university level and to scrap key gender equality commitments by the country’s Council of Higher Education (YÖK).

In its latest annual report on academic freedoms in Turkey -- where scholars perceived as critical of the government have already been dismissed and even jailed -- one of the country’s scientific academies says gender equality in higher education is increasingly threatened.

The government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has swung away from the country’s secular constitution and towards conservative Islam, for example by removing the theory of evolution from its school curriculum in 2017.

During a visit to Japan in July, Erdoğan alarmed women’s rights activists by praising the country’s women-only universities and arguing that they should be introduced into Turkey.

The proposal is part of a wider move against gender equality in Turkish higher education, says Bilim Akademisi, a scientific academy set up in 2011 after members feared that the established academy had lost its independence from the government.

The women’s university idea “segregates women at university level, constitutes a denial of egalitarian and secular education [and] is without foundation because female students are already more successful than males in university entrance exams,” the academy warns in its latest report.

Japanese women’s universities were created in the 19th century to bolster female access to higher education, but they are now falling out of favor in Japan and elsewhere, the academy argues. To adopt them in Turkey, it says, would be to follow “an example that the world is gradually leaving behind.”

But the government remains committed to establishing women’s universities, having examined Japan’s example, according to its latest development plan, which sets out goals for the next four years. The president of YÖK -- which is responsible for strategic planning in the sector -- has met Japan’s ambassador to Turkey three times this year to discuss higher education, according to the council’s website.

Although no concrete moves have been made to set up new institutions, “they can be established at any time with a presidential decree or statutory legislation without prior notification and consultation with the stakeholders,” said Bertil Emrah Oder, dean of Koç University Law School and one of the authors of the report.

Bilim Akademisi’s report also raises concerns about the removal from the YÖK website in February of a 2015 plan to promote gender equality in Turkish higher education, including adding courses to university curricula, introducing measures to prevent sexual assaults and funding research centers.

There has been no official explanation of why the plan was taken down, said Oder, but the removal followed criticism by Islamist and pro-government media of YÖK’s support for gender equality research centers.

Since the 1990s, YÖK has approved the establishment of 31 gender or women’s research centers, she explained. So far, their activities have remained unchanged, she said. However, since the document was taken down in February, no new centers focusing on gender have been approved; instead, new centers researching “women” or “family” have been given the green light, Oder continued.

YÖK did not reply to a request for comment from Times Higher Education.

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The commonwealth of Virginia will produce an additional 31,000 technology graduates over the next 20 years, Governor Ralph Northam announced yesterday.

That goal is an expansion of the state’s originally stated legislative target of graduating 25,000 additional students with technology degrees by 2039. Virginia's public universities currently award approximately 1,300 bachelor’s degrees and 400 master’s degrees in computer science per year, according to the governor’s office.

The push to boost the tech talent pipeline was driven by the imminent arrival of Amazon in Virginia. The Seattle-based company is building a second headquarters near Arlington, Va., and is expected to create thousands of jobs in the region for skilled workers, particularly those with cloud computing expertise.

To boost the number of computer science graduates produced by the state, 11 universities are expected to share a total of $961.5 million in state funding over the next two decades. The funding will be awarded on an annual basis and is subject to the universities meeting certain enrollment and fundraising targets set by the state. The agreements can be accessed here.

“This initiative is an investment in Virginians,” Northam said in a news release. “Virginia’s tech sector will continue booming only if we can train the workforce that those jobs require. With today’s announcement, we are educating a workforce that will fill jobs at hundreds of tech companies around the Commonwealth, including at Amazon.”

Northam approved $16.6 million for the Tech Talent Investment Program in the state budget earlier this year, however, the allocations to individual universities had not previously been announced. New details of this first round of funding allocations show Virginia Tech and George Mason University will receive the lion’s share of the funding. This reflects the fact that they are projected to enroll the most additional students.

Universities Participating in Tech Talent Investment Program (TTIP)

Total Additional Bachelor's Degrees by 2039

Total Additional Master's Degrees by 2039

TTIP Funding Allocated in Fiscal Year 2020*

Total Anticipated State Support to 2039

Virginia Tech

5,911

10,324

$5,476,345 for B.S.; $1,842,378 for M.S.

$295,000,000 for B.S.; $250,000,000 for M.S.

George Mason University

2,277

5,328

$2,301,844 for B.S.; $972,914 for M.S.

$110,400,000 for B.S.; $125,000,000 for M.S.

.University of Virginia

3,416

$463,889 for B.S.

$33,100,000 for B.S.

College of William & Mary

930

$781,842 for B.S.

$28,900,000 for B.S.

Old Dominion University

765

$836,472 for B.S.

$29,200,000 for B.S.

Virginia Commonwealth University

722

$759,772 for B.S.

$30,500,000 for B.S.

James Madison University

467

$387,126 for B.S.

$14,300,000 for B.S.

Radford University

394

$501,080 for B.S.

$17,400,000 for B.S.

Christopher Newport University

392

$424,587 for B.S.

$15,000,000 for B.S.

Virginia State University

186

$172,740 for B.S.

$7,300,000 for B.S.

Norfolk State University

126

$136,464 for B.S.

$5,300,000 for B.S.

*$1,542,547 of the $16,600,00 TTIP funding for 2019 has not been allocated and is marked as "TBD."

Both Virginia Tech and George Mason pledged to significantly expand their tech degree programs and to build new facilities in response to Amazon’s HQ2 announcement in 2018. Inside Higher Ed reported earlier this year that George Mason’s ambitious target of more than doubling the size of its computer science degree programs by 2024 seemed unlikely given the relatively small amount of funding the university had so far secured from the state.

George Mason was awarded $7.5 million in the 2019 state budget to knock down an old building on the university’s campus in Arlington and make room for the construction of a new 400,000 square-foot Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA). Virginia Tech, by contrast, was allocated $168 million to put toward the university's planned Innovation Campus. The funding disparity prompted questions about Virginia Tech potentially receiving preferential treatment, which state representatives denied.

In this first round of Tech Talent Investment Program funding, George Mason has been allocated $2,301,844 to support the expansion of its bachelor’s degree programs and $972,914 to build up master’s degree programs. Over the next 20 years, the university anticipates receiving a total of $110 million to support its bachelor's degree programs and $125 million for master’s degree programs. Future funding will be subject to George Mason meeting the enrollment targets outlined in the tables below.

Both George Mason and Virginia Tech will be busy raising funds in the coming years, because state support for the expansion of their master’s degree programs is contingent on the universities matching the state funding. George Mason representatives reported in August that the university had already raised approximately $20 million.

Michael Sandler, interim vice president of communications at George Mason, said in an email that leaders of the university were pleased with the allocations. The university’s agreement with the state outlines a target of gradually growing enrollment in the university's computer science programs over the next 20 years.

Sandler said George Mason is still on track to grow its computer science enrollment to 15,000 students by 2024 if other technology-related degrees are included, such as computer game design or cybersecurity. Sandler said the university is anticipating significant enrollment gains in the coming years.

Anne Holton, interim president of George Mason, said in a news release that the state’s investment “confirms our standing as a significant producer of diverse tech talent in Virginia.”

“We’re grateful to state officials for their confidence in our ability to continue to deliver talent for decades to come,” she said.

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Sigma Phi Epsilon is leaving the North American Interfraternity Conference and calling on the large fraternity trade association to do more to emphasize student safety, personal development and working with professionals on campus.

The fraternity's announcement on Thursday exposed simmering tensions between different fraternities and the NIC as hazing, drinking and sexual assault scandals continue to rock chapters across the country. It immediately set off a war of words.

SigEp said the NIC is no longer moving toward a set of 2015 reform goals established under a reorganization known as NIC 2.0. The fraternity’s leaders also touted moves it has made to remove pledging from its chapters and implement substance-free housing by next August. The NIC responded by rejecting SigEp’s departure methods and questioning the way it announced its decision publicly.

“The original vision of NIC 2.0 was one that could have been transformational for fraternity communities, but the Conference is no longer proceeding toward those goals,” Brian Warren, SigEp’s chief executive officer, said in the fraternity's announcement. “It’s clear that SigEp’s vision for how to enhance health and safety in the fraternity experience and partner with our host institutions has diverged from the NIC’s current approach.”

In response, the NIC posted its own statement saying it is disappointed SigEp is leaving and “offended in the manner” the fraternity communicated about its departure.

“NIC understands Sigma Phi Epsilon’s right to make decisions they feel are in [the] best interest of their members,” the association’s statement said. “However, we question their method of departing the NIC and reject their assertion that the NIC and its members are not aggressively promoting a positive and safe fraternity experience.”

In 2015, the following NIC 2.0 priorities were established:

Create an effective grassroots program for all Interfraternity Councils (IFC) and provide exceptional support for “Focus Campuses” in an effort to strengthen and build healthier fraternity communities.

Develop consistent educational programming for all IFC officers, staff and volunteers.

Create a database that allows members to make data-driven decisions, share best practices and streamline operations.

Lead a sophisticated public relations effort to advance the fraternity brand.

Produce effective advocacy programs that strengthen higher education partnerships and utilize governmental and legal affairs.

Then in 2018, the NIC passed a policy prohibiting drinks with alcohol content of more than 15 percent at fraternity chapters and events unless served by a licensed third-party vendor. The policy was to go into effect this September, although several short-term exceptions were built into the ban.

SigEp called the hard alcohol ban a “step in the right direction” that doesn’t go far enough to address underage drinking, substance abuse and their links to hazing and assault.

“We had hoped this collective of fraternities with a renewed sense of purpose would take the necessary steps to challenge archaic thinking and antiquated practices,” Ed Hammond, a retired university president who served as SigEp’s NIC governing council delegate and who was chair of the NIC’s Commission on Alcohol Abuse, said in the fraternity’s announcement.

SigEp has taken action against its own for alcohol violations recently. Last month, it revoked a West Virginia University chapter’s charter because of alcohol and risk-management policy violations.

By leaving the NIC, the fraternity is trying to make the most of its limited resources, Warren, the CEO, said in an interview. SigEp has had a seat on the NIC’s governing council for four years but found its delegate was having to voice concerns about positions that were being taken. He had to try to negotiate to make positions more palatable to those working for colleges and universities.

“There are a lot of people who have been asking for change, particularly our campus professionals,” Warren said. “We want to work with them to move faster, to think more creatively, to try new things, to move the needle.”

A sticking point between the fraternity and trade association was the NIC setting up what are known as independent interfraternity councils, which SigEp characterized as severing ties with host campuses. Warren said they operate outside of the reach of campus professionals. He called the approach antagonistic and not in the spirit of partnership with campuses.

Such arrangements have only been established at “approximately six campuses where there was a clear violation of students’ constitutional rights -- and only after other advocacy options were exhausted,” according to an email from an NIC spokesman. He did not name the instances but said they represent less than 1 percent of all campuses.

The NIC also pushed back on criticism of NIC decisions, saying SigEp “voted in all unanimously approved decisions” it is now criticizing, such as pursuing litigation to defend the fraternity experience at Harvard and Yale Universities, lobbying for the Collegiate Freedom of Association Act in Congress and developing protocols allowing for independent interfraternity councils to be created. NIC’s spokesman said the association has not reviewed all votes by SigEp’s representative, however.

Warren called the NIC’s hard alcohol ban a step in the right direction. But he called for more bold moves, noting that a large number of students living in fraternity houses aren’t of drinking age.

“We’re talking about hard alcohol,” Warren said. “We need to be talking about consumption in general and taking serious stands to provide a safer experience.”

All SigEp chapters are expected to operate without any pledging or reference to pledging, Warren said. Two years ago, the fraternity passed a substance-free facility policy scheduled to begin in August 2020. Currently, all common spaces at the fraternity’s houses are expected to be substance-free.

The fraternity wants to focus on new recruitment models and teaching young men skills such as sales, business development and communication, according to Warren.

In its public statement, the NIC pointed to efforts to implement industrywide health and safety guidelines, engage with student leaders and campus professionals, increase transparency, and eliminate hazing. It is also working to strengthen criminal hazing laws in Indiana, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Ohio and Colorado, its spokesman said.

“The issue of health and safety are not fraternity specific but critical issues being addressed across all campus communities,” the NIC’s statement said. All students, alumni and professionals have the NIC’s support in “advancing the fraternity experience” regardless of their membership in the organization, it said.

For his part, SigEp’s CEO is open to partnering with other fraternities.

“If there are like-minded fraternities that want to go down this path with us, we want to work with them,” Warren said. “And I know there are some out there that do.”

Fraternities have been under intense public and financial pressures for years as media scrutiny, legislation, lawsuits and campus suspensions mount in the wake of high-profile student deaths and sexual assault reports. Warren acknowledged financial pressures such as rising insurance costs but said SigEp’s decision was motivated by driving change.

“This is about making an impact,” he said. “It’s not about insurance. It’s about what we can do to advance student safety, student development and preparing young men for life after college.”

A lawyer who represents victims and survivors of school violence across the country called Thursday’s announcement a positive move.

“It’s a welcome sign that at least one fraternity is breaking from the pack to purportedly implement changes necessary to make its members and others safer,” the lawyer, Douglas E. Fierberg, said in an email. “Too bad the rest of the packs of brethren still embrace the status quo even though it has failed to prevent the unprecedented and documented numbers of injuries and deaths over the past several decades.”

From his perspective, Fierberg said the NIC’s main activities related to risk management are exchanging information and strategies for avoiding responsibility for tragedies.

“After every tragedy the public message coming out of the NIC and its membership is the same: We extend our sympathies, reiterate that we have a zero-tolerance policy for [fill in the blank], and promise to work with all stakeholders involved in the investigation,” he wrote.

This isn’t the first time a fraternity has broken ranks with the reorganized NIC for various reasons. Tau Kappa Epsilon resigned its membership in 2016, publicly stating that investing in the group “required sacrifices that would hinder vital services we are able to provide to our membership.” Lambda Chi Alpha resigned shortly before the NIC 2.0 changes were approved in 2015, saying the group’s new direction was counterproductive and didn’t support a co-curricular partnership with host institutions.

When the NIC passed its reforms in 2015, it reported a membership of 73 fraternities covering 375,000 undergraduates. Today, the group, which is based in Indianapolis, lists 66 fraternities with 380,000 undergraduates as members.

SigEp, headquartered in Richmond, Va., has over 13,000 undergraduate members at 210 campuses.

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Sigma Phi Epsilon said Thursday it is leaving the North American Interfraternity Conference. Members of the University of Kentucky's Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house are shown in 2005.

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breakingnewsalert1 · 4 years

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If one political party controls a state, people lose interest. In today's Academic Minute, part of Butler University Week, Greg Shufeldt discusses how healthy competition could benefit citizens. Shufeldt is an assistant professor of political science at Butler. A transcript of this podcast can be found here.

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Just Visiting

From 2003 to 2008, I served as editor of McSweeney's Internet Tendency, a daily humor website that had started in 1998. It was a very difficult and rewarding job, difficult in that it's a fair bit of pressure to make sure there's something funny to put into the universe on a daily basis while also teaching full-time (as I was), and rewarding in that it's enjoyable to work with writers to try to put funny stuff in the world. But as I realized that my energy to dedicate to the task as it had to be done was winding down, I looked for someone who could take up the reins and keep it going. That person was Chris Monks, who has been at the helm ever since and has taken the site to new levels of quality and readership. I often say that the best decision I ever made as editor was identifying Chris as my replacement. Keep Scrolling Till You Feel Something: Twenty-One Years of McSweeney's Internet Tendency was published this week, and Chris and I had a chance to chat about how a little corner of the internet had been able to keep going for so long.

John Warner: Why a 21-year anniversary book? That’s not a common milestone to honor.

Chris Monks: We didn't realize it was our 20th anniversary until like a month beforehand. We briefly considered throwing something together last minute, but soon figured out that that wouldn't be doable, so a big 21st celebration it would be. In legal terms, 21 is more of a milestone anyway.

JW: In terms of an internet publication focused on one thing, 21 years is a significant lifespan. The past is littered with other publications that haven’t been able to sustain themselves. What’s your first memory of McSweeney’s? What do you think explains the persistence of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency?

CM: The gracious/touchy-feely answer is that the Tendency has been fortunate to attract sharp, talented writers over the years, which has allowed us to maintain a high level of funniness. The no-nonsense/businessy answer is that the site has never been a moneymaking enterprise, so we’ve never had to rely on clicks to feed advertisers. You can say that us never being monetized has really paid off.

JW: There’s a lot of education-related humor in the book, including Mimi Evans's "An Honest College Rejection Letter" and Shannon Reed's “If People Talked to Other Professionals the Way They Talk to Teachers.” What do you think makes education material so tempting for you as the editor and something the audience responds to?

CM: I used to be an elementary school teacher, and I'm married to a public high school principal, so, unsurprisingly, I'm drawn to satire about education. Teachers, no matter the level of instruction, often get the short end of the stick, so humor that empathizes and/or champions them resonates with me. It strikes a chord with our readers, too, as we have a pretty substantial academic readership. Pieces like Alyse Knorr’s “Professor Minerva McGonagall's Letter to the Tenure Committee” or Stefani Boutelier's "Excuse Me While I Teach Your Child, But First I Must …" go viral because they get right to the heart of the trials of teaching in really funny ways.

JW: When I was at the Tendency helm in what seems like a previous life, I remember thinking that at any moment, the supply of submissions could simply dry up, but they never did, and I’m imagining over the 10 years of your stewardship, the number has only increased. I’ve written here in the past about my life as “the rejectionist.” What’s your relationship with the submissions inbox?

CM: Oh boy, that’s kind of a loaded question. The inbox is our lifeblood. Ninety-nine point nine percent of what we publish is unsolicited, so I am pretty much a slave to our submissions; I have to be, as we get anywhere from 200 to 300 of them a week, and if I don’t stay on top of them, they will grow out of control. Another thing that’s helped with our longevity is our relatively quick response time to submissions (a policy instituted by you, I might add -- thanks). So I respond to every submission and get back to folks within a week -- within a day if the piece is super timely. This creates goodwill with writers and also guarantees that submissions will keep coming in at a steady rate, as they can submit up to four to five times a month. And that’s all great, but what that means is that I have to be reading and replying throughout the day, every day. I’ve been doing this for 12 years now, and it’s to the point that I get a little anxious when I am away from my computer for an extended period of time, worrying about the pile of subs rising and rising. Thankfully, we get fewer of them over the weekend, so I can breathe a little, enjoy a sandwich, watch a game without having to do too much work. But it’s a pretty demanding job during weekdays. And I haven’t even detailed the actual writing/replying to submissions yet.

JW: I remember many an evening on the couch “watching TV” with my wife that was me reading and replying as fast as I could. One of the reasons I needed to find a replacement was I couldn’t imagine such a life as sustainable. How have you kept it going for so long?

CM: I should point out that most if not all of this professional strife is of my own making. I’m a writer, so I am very familiar with rejection. I know the adrenaline rush of clicking "send" and the sinking feeling of the “Thanks, but no thanks” reply. So I try to try lower the boom as kindly and quickly as I can to let writers know that I read their work and appreciate their considering us for publication. This, again, works towards the goodwill we have with our writers. They know someone is actually reading their work and will respond to them thoughtfully.

JW: Not everyone appreciates your quick and courteous replies, however.

CM: No, unfortunately not. Most writers are gracious and perseverant, but from time to time a few reply back and let me know how wrong I was to reject their work. They can get pretty nasty and personal, and it’s hard not to be bummed out by them. I mean, I understand needing to vent after being rejected, but what will telling your editor that he sucks get you? It’s not like I’m going to write back, “You’re absolutely right: I do suck. I would like to retract my rejection and publish your piece.” Other rejectees dig their holes even deeper and rag on the site as well, trashing pieces we’ve published. I get that not everything we run is going to land with every reader, but if you think our site is lousy, why bother submitting to us in the first place? Oof.

I’m getting riled up now just thinking about it. Anyway, I try not to engage with them -- it’s not worth the emotional energy. I am a lifelong Miami Dolphins fan -- I have very little emotional energy to spare. So instead, I save their responses and put them in a folder titled “JERKS.” Every so often I share screenshots of their jerky emails to my followers on Twitter. It’s very freeing.

JW: What’s next for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency? Twenty-one more years?

CM: Twenty-one more years would be great, although I shiver at the thought of what the jerk folder would look like in 2040. I just hope we continue to be a go-to place for new and established comedy writers to share their work. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our Patreon campaign. Thanks to our patrons, we're able to pay contributors while remaining ad-, paywall- and pyramid-scheme-free. As long as that keeps on keeping on, I don’t see us going anywhere for a long time.

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Confessions of a Community College Dean

I’ll admit being impressed by the creative dysfunction of the Board in the Chronicle’s story about Wayne State. Among other things, it can’t agree on whether it fired its president or not.

That’s remarkable. I’ve seen dysfunctional Board behavior, but that’s next-level.

Naturally, the president in question is digging in, refusing to settle the issue by resigning. I don’t know the merits on either side, but emotionally, I understand what he’s doing.

Assuming he leaves sooner rather than later, though, this is one hell of a red flag to the next candidates. Good luck attracting anybody with options.

The obvious answer here is that the Board needs to go. I don’t know how that would happen under Michigan law, but until there’s a group that’s capable of doing the most fundamental function of a Board, nothing good will happen.

—

This week I attended the viewing of a 21 year old who died.

Hug your people. There are no guarantees.

—

Heidi Moore, one of the most consistently interesting folks on Twitter, asked people to name the most romantic song they could think of.

I struggled with it, partially because many of my nominees are cover versions. For instance, Cassandra Wilson’s version of “Tupelo Honey” leaves Van Morrison’s in the dust, as far as I’m concerned, and her version of “Last Train to Clarksville” puts the Monkees to shame. Holly Cole’s version of “I Want You” beats Tom Waits’, and her version of “God Only Knows” slays me in a way that the Beach Boys’ version just doesn’t. Diana Krall’s cover of “A Case of You,” live in Paris, hits me in a way that Joni Mitchell’s original can’t: the vinegar in her “darling” near the end always elicits a slightly pained, but affectionate, smile. Shirley Horn’s version of “It Had to Be You” is a master class is elegant restraint, and it really lets the lyrics shine. “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” works, though I’ll admit preferring the Barenaked Ladies’ version to Bruce Cockburn’s. (“You’ve got to kick at the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight” is perfect.)

Some originals work, though. Betty Carter’s “I’m Yours, You’re Mine” is a slowly-unfolding masterpiece; when she finally shifts from vocalese to lyrics, the jolt of familiarity and the sudden “gee, but it’s nice/to see you again” works better than it has any right to. Jim Croce’s “I Have to Say I Love You In a Song” may be corny, but its earnestness is winning. The Replacements’ “Answering Machine” may be a little dated, but it still stops me in my tracks. Tom Waits’ “Better Off Without a Wife” is slyly poignant, a drunken and unreliable narrator betrayed by his own piano. “Driving,” by Everything But the Girl, captures ambivalence and distance and the feeling of not wanting to admit something you sort of know. And by New Jersey state law, I have to mention Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” if only for the lyric “you ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re alright.” His version on the Live 1975/85 compilation may be the best thing he ever recorded.

I lost touch with popular culture when TB was born, so I don’t have much that’s more recent. The Civil Wars’ “Poison and Wine” distills longing, and its video does it justice. Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Your Type” is a devastating lyric and story over an asinine beep-beep-boop-boop arrangement; it’s an acoustic cover version away from greatness. (If Lake Street Dive slowed it down, it would be a showstopper.) For sheer poppiness, and to break the doom and gloom, I’d go with Taylor Swift’s “Paper Rings.” It’s goofy, catchy, and sweet, in the way that the best pop songs can be.

Most of them aren’t “love songs” in the usual sense. The best ones combine emotions, mixing sweet, salty, and sad in varying proportions to capture the slightly off-balance feeling of relationships.

The whole exercise struck me as an excellent use of Twitter. Wise and worldly readers, what would you pick?

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A controversy over a social media post at the University of Missouri should encourage other institutions to reconsider how they and their own departments are operating, writes Courtney N. Wright.

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Critics question whether a program at American University that celebrates Russian culture paints too rosy a view of Russia, The New York Times reported.

The idea for the American University program was conceived over breakfast at the residence of the former ambassador to the U.S. Sergey I. Kislyak, according to notes of a conversation between Kislyak and Maria Butina, a former graduate student at American who was arrested in 2017 on charges of acting as a foreign agent. (The notes, which were kept by Butina, were found by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.)

American University has defended the program, the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History, and its focus on cultural appreciation to the exclusion of contemporary politics.

“The worse the relationship is in politics, the more important it is to see the other side of the enemy,” Eric Lohr, a history professor who directs the institute, told the Times.

Lohr said, “We are not screening documentaries about Pussy Riot,” the Russian feminist punk rock group that is critical of President Vladimir Putin. “But we are not screening encomiums to Putin.”

The person who created the program, Susan Carmel, previously acknowledged that she was inspired to create the program following discussions with Kislyak, a former honorary co-chairman for the institute. Asked by the Times to comment on Butina's account, she said the program "was formed following multiple meetings at American University."

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breakingnewsalert1 · 4 years

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Google said on Friday it has appointed Sanjay Gupta, a former top executive with Disney India and Star, as the manager and vice president of sales and operations for its India business.

Gupta will be replacing Rajan Anandan, who left the company to serve VC fund Sequoia Capital India as a managing director in April this year.

Gupta served as a managing director at Disney India and Star (which now Disney owns) before joining the Android-maker. He helped Star make a major push in the digital consumers business through Hotstar, where he aggressively worked on partnerships and licensing for cricket rights and other content.

Hotstar, which is now owned by Disney, has cashed in on the popularity of cricket and reported 300 million users earlier this year. (Facebook roped in Ajit Mohan, the former chief executive of Hotstar, to head its India operations late last year.) Gupta also held top executive roles at other companies including Bharti Airtel telecom network.

Sanjay Gupta, a former top executive at Disney and Star, is now the head of Google’s India business

In a statement, Gupta said, “it’s an exciting opportunity to leverage the power of technology to solve some of India’s unique challenges and make Internet an engine of economic growth for people and communities. I am happy to join the passionate teams across Google and look forward to contributing to India’s digital journey as it becomes an innovation hub for the world.”

When Anandan, a long-time influential and widely respected Google executive, left the company earlier this year, Google said Vikas Agnihotri, who is the director of sales for the firm’s India operations, would be taking over. For Google, this was the latest high profile departure in Asia. Karim Temsamani, head of Asia Pacific (APAC) at Google, also left the company earlier this year.

Even as India contributes little to Google’s bottom line, the company has grown increasingly focused on India and other Asian markets to develop products and services that solve local problems and address barriers that are hindering growth in these markets.

In a statement, Scott Beaumont, President of Google APAC, said company’s operation in India “is important and strategic for its own sake but also for the innovation which then feeds breakthroughs elsewhere in Google.”

Gupta will also have to oversee some major challenges, including the fast growth of Facebook’s advertising business in India and an antitrust issue with the local regulator.

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breakingnewsalert1 · 4 years

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Bon Jovi released a new single called “Unbroken” on the 1st of November, and the song is also featured in the documentary, “To Be Of Service.” The film looks at the relationships between veterans from the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam wars and their service dogs. After its theatrical release in New York last Friday, the film will be out in theatres in Los Angeles on November 8th, and on Netflix on the 11th of November, in time for Veterans Day.

The song will also be in his upcoming album, “Bon Jovi: 2020” – due out this spring. The power ballad sings about US soldiers suffering from PTSD, and the impact their service dogs have on their lives.

Bon Jovi said, “This song is meant to honor America’s veterans and their service, but I also wanted to take an unflinching look at the reality of their daily lives and struggles.”

The singer also added, “This song Unbroken I wrote for a film called To Be Of Service. It’s about soldiers returning from war and dealing with PTSD. It’ll also be featured on our forthcoming record, Bon Jovi 2020, which is coming in the spring. Hope you like it.”

Photo: Youtube / Bon Jovi

All of the proceeds from the song’s downloads will be given to the Patriotic Service Dog Foundation for the coming 12 months.

The music video is below:

Proper greatergood_ctg_abovevideo

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breakingnewsalert1 · 4 years

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In the UK this time of year can be extremely distressing for pets since there is usually a constant bombardment of fireworks going off.

One dog owner has taken to social media to express her frustrations after her dog went blind having her eyes “pop” during a display of fireworks.

Margaret Adams, states that her Labrador-cross named Suzy became so anxious and frightened due to the loud bangs of the fireworks that she ended up losing her vision.

During an interview with British tabloid newspaper The Metro, she said, “We were just sitting and watching television when somebody started letting off fireworks. ‘She always gets very stressed when they start and she tried to climb the walls and go into a dark corner.”

Photo: Facebook/Margaret Adams

Adams added, “I didn’t notice anything until the next day when her eyes looked different. So I took her to the vet and she had actually popped a lens in her eye. They had to remove the lens from her eye and she now has glaucoma in both of her eyes. She can’t see a thing … She does knock into things and I’ve got to be careful with her.”

“Suzy was given to me by my daughter after my husband died. She was a rock for me. She boosted me something terrible, she was my companion. She still is but in a different kind of way. I’m looking after her more than she’s looking after me now,” she continued.

Photo: Facebook/Margaret Adams

This incident has come just a couple days after another dog ended up suffering a heart attack and dying due to fireworks. Owner Susan Paterson posted on the public Facebook group Wombwell Wise in order to share a picture of her black Labrador puppy Molly who got so frightened that she went into cardiac arrest and died.

Paterson stated in her post, “Due to the enormous amount of fireworks with loud bangs going off around Wombwell and lower Darfield last night, we lost a young terrier with a heart attack. Please think of the animals. Molly was only 18 weeks old and died of FRIGHT caused by fireworks. ”

A petition on Change.org has since been signed by more than half a million people, asking for tougher legislation in order to prevent loud fireworks from further scaring pets and wildlife in the future.

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breakingnewsalert1 · 4 years

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Rescue dogs sometimes stay at the pound for far too long. If a local brewery in Fargo, North Dakota has their way, however, that will change. They are now using their beer cans to feature dogs up for adoption to help them find forever homes.

Fargo Brewing Company, in a partnership with a local rescue group, 4 Luv of Dog Rescue are making it happen. They are naming those animals ‘One-der’.

“Our One-der dogs are dogs that will live their best life in a home by themselves and there’s no other pets,” Jerad Ryan, volunteer at 4 Luv of Dog, told CNN affiliate KVRR. “So, they can be a little bit tougher to find homes for, foster homes, that type of thing.”

Shelters in the United States are struggling at near capacity levels. As a result, many animal shelters are taking drastic measures. This includes a reduction in adoption fees at two animal shelters in Atlanta, known as the LifeLine Animal Project.

“Just last week, 358 animals entered our Dekalb County Animal Services and Fulton County Animal Services shelters,” the group posted on Facebook on October 29. “This week, 123 animals have arrived so far.”

The animals in our shelters need your help. Just last week, 358 animals entered our Dekalb County Animal Services and…

Posted by LifeLine Animal Project on Tuesday, October 29, 2019

According to CNN, Ryan has volunteered with the North Dakota rescue group for more than four years. One-der dogs are near and dear to him, especially a dog that he fostered, Bizzy.

“I was always trying to think of ways to promote her and the other less fortunate dogs in our rescue,” Ryan said. “At my job at Northern Plains Label we produce labels for breweries, and I just had the light bulb style idea to feature the dogs on beer cans.”

Nyx, Bizzy, Jensen, Hobie, Moby, and Virginia are the names of the six puppies chosen to be featured on beer cans. A special event was held and the community was invited to the brewery where they could grab a six-pack of the Fargo Original Larger for $9. They would also be able to meet one of the dogs up for adoption.

The brewery social media and marketing manager, Tawny Hewitt told CNN that 40 cases were made with special labels and 25 were sold at the event. It is still possible to buy one of the six-packs through the end of the week and the rest are going to be donated to the rescue group. Some of the proceeds from the sales are also going to be provided to the rescue group.

“We hope that having these dogs featured on the cans will help raise awareness and shine a spotlight on them where they might normally have been overlooked,” Fargo Brewing Company told CNN in a statement.

Ryan said that the response from the community has been both heartwarming and amazing.

“This really has been great exposure for these harder to adopt dogs, and I would be surprised if this doesn’t lead to an adoption or two.”

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breakingnewsalert1 · 4 years

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Weekly Update Future of Learning Higher Education Mississippi Learning

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Not everyone who enrolls in college will leave with a certificate or degree, but the number of people who drop out or take a break is much higher than experts previously believed. In December 2013, there were 29 million people with some college education but no degree. That number jumped to 36 million by December of 2018, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

These data alarm the experts, considering all the messaging about the need for postsecondary education. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that between 2016 and 2026, employment will grow by 10 percent for jobs that require a bachelor’s degree – faster than the growth projected for all occupations. And even those with a certificate make more, on average, than those who have taken college classes but have not finished their education. College graduates are also more likely to share their wealth with charities and to volunteer, according to the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

There are many reasons why the number of people who started college but didn’t finish rose.

For one, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has better data now, said Mikyung Ryu, the center’s director of research publications. In the last five years, some institutions have gotten better at submitting student data, allowing the center to improve its ability to track students and analyze outcome measures.

Plus, the job market plays a role in the increase. “Economic motivation is a factor,” Ryu said. Between 2014 and 2018, the economy improved as it recovered from the Great Recession, and that could have pushed some students to leave school for a strong job market.

Related: Universities that are recruiting older students often leave them floundering

Even with strong job opportunities though, people want higher education. Over the last 10 to 15 years, “more people are coming in,” she said. But the problem is “more people are not finishing,” said Ryu.

“Barriers to completion disproportionately impact low-income students, students of color, students who are parents.”

Leanne Davis, assistant director of applied research at the Institute for Higher Education Policy

For many of these students, life gets in the way, higher education experts say. Insufficient housing or inadequate childcare can derail students who want to finish their education, and many of the institutions they attend my not be equipped to meet all of their needs.

“Community colleges really do serve the bulk of these students,” said Leanne Davis, an assistant director of applied research at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a nonprofit organization focused on increasing access to college. “Community colleges have a broad access mission, often with limited resources and funding.”

About two-thirds of students with some college but no degree started at a community college or were last enrolled at a community college, according to the National Student Clearinghouse report. The average time out of school for all former students was 10 years.

The report breaks down, state-by-state, the number of students who have yet to finish college, as well as those who did finish since the center’s last report.

Of the 29 million who had not finished as of December 2013, 940,000 had completed their credential or degree by December 2018. People who drop out and then return to school are usually written off when measuring completion rates, Ryu said.

“These are really an invisible group of students,” she said.

The report offers some insights into what might be done to improve this number. It outlines where returning students were likely to re-enroll, what kind of schools they were drawn to, what they studied, their race and their challenges, which include financial aid and the timing of classes.

“Barriers to completion disproportionately impact low-income students, students of color, students who are parents,” Davis said. “And it’s really important as we re-engage the students, to make sure that the path to completion is real for all students.”

Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Higher Education newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every Thursday. Subscribe today!

This story about college degrees was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

The post More students are leaving college without a degree appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

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breakingnewsalert1 · 4 years

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Sir Martin Sorrell is the kind of founder who people in Silicon Valley most prize. He has enjoyed huge success, having built the world’s biggest advertising conglomerate over 32 years, WPP. He’s also out for revenge. Soon after WPP’s board began investing an “allegation of misconduct” in the spring of last year– it later asked him to pay back $200,000 in personal expenses — Sorrell left the company in a huff, forming a new company, S4 Capital, six weeks later.

Sorrell has a playbook that he knows works, too. Like London-based WPP, which he and a partner launched by buying a controlling stake in publicly traded company that made wire baskets and teapots — which it then used to launch a global shopping spree — S4 reverse-merged itself into Derriston Capital, a small shell company that went public on the London Stock Exchange in 2016 and rebranded as S4. Then it started bulking up.

Already S4 — which Sorrell funded himself with £40 million, and that has raised tens of millions more from other institutions for acquisitions — has successfully pursued nine companies, though Sorrell stresses these are mergers. “All half cash and half stock.” No long lock-ups, either, says Sorrell, who was bouncing around the U.S. this week before heading to the Web Summit event in Lisbon. “If you want to sell your company, if you want to make a quick kill and get out, we’re not interested. If you want to sign up to our vision” and help turn S4 is a powerhouse in its own right, that’s a different story, he suggests.

Silicon Valley is seemingly a big piece of the puzzle. Last month, S4 Capital finalized a deal to $150 million deal to merge with the largest digital agency in the region, nine-year-old Firewood, with S4 paying $112 million up front (half shares, half cash) and the balance coming if Firewood hits its targets for the year. It also late last year merged with the San Francisco-based digital media and programmatic consultancy MightyHive in a deal valued at $150 million.

Sticking it to WPP on occasion seems to be another part of Sorrell’s strategy. S4 Capital’s first acquisition, for example, of the Dutch digital production agency MediaMonks, came at the expense of WPP, which had also been trying to buy the company. The WSJ reported at the time that S4 agreed to pay roughly $350 million for the agency.

The broad idea, he says, is to focus S4 entirely on digital advertising and on media and marketing services specifically, where in 2019, for the first time, the world’s advertisers will spend more than half of their ad budgets. “The digital media industry is up 6 percent [for the year] and it’s down for traditional media, so we’re going where the growth is and pushing on an open door, unencumbered by legacy or analog businesses.”

Asked whether he doesn’t also have an axe to grind when it comes to WWP — which is steeped in both the digital and traditional ad worlds — Sorrell doesn’t hesitate. “I want to see this approach succeed. And if that’s an axe, that’s correct.”

Much of that approach centers on partnering with, rather than trying to compete, with the giants of ad tech, including Facebook and Google. Other current tech clients include Apple, Salesforce, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Uber, and ServiceNow, which, according to Sorrell, treat S4’s creative and strategic marketing professionals as extensions of their internal marketing teams.

Firewood, for example, will embed teams within companies like Google to “understand the client as well as possible,” Sorrell says, adding: “We don’t compete with [these companies]. We service them; we work with them. If we’re being crude about it, we’re resellers for each one of them. They don’t want to get into the service business.” (One assignment about which Sorrell seems especially proud centers on Netlix, for which MediaMonks put together 15-second video snippets from its third season of “Narcos” that catered to different audiences by using different tag lines and different edits. “Personalization at scale is critically important,” says Sorrell.)

Asked whether he thinks some of these tech clients should be broken up, given the lock on customer data they have, he insists that he does not, “as long as they’re transparent and they really exercise the power they have responsibly.”

Asked how S4 overcomes the growing number of people who don’t think companies are acting responsibly with their private information and might increasingly opt out of sharing it, Sorrell shrugs off the concern. “My view is that as long as the consumer knows what they’re letting themselves in for, it’s fine. If i know how my data will be used, in simple language, [I’m not going to opt out.] I think we’ll have differentiated models, [such as] ‘I want to control my data so [you’re going to pay me for it in some fractional way].’ The problem is caused by people not knowing what’s being done with their data.”

The real problem,” Sorrell continues, “is the size of these companies. When Apple was the first to become a trillion-dollar company, [former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein] was asked which would be the first $2 trillion company, and he said there won’t be one because no nation-stage would allow a company to get to $2 trillion. You see this in China, too. I’ve heard concerns expressed about the size of Alibaba, too. It’s not just a Western phenomenon.”

And what about political ads, we ask Sorrell. Should these platforms be running them, no matter their content? That one, he says is “very difficult. My view has always been that these are media companies that are responsible for the content flowing through their pipes. I think they are acknowledging it; Facebook has thousands of people monitoring content.

“But should we take political advertising or not? Well, in the U.K. You have to be truthful. If the ads aren’t truthful, we’ve got trouble.

“I think Zuckerberg made the argument that his people know what’s a fact or not, but arbitrating what’s the truth or not is quite difficult,” he concedes.

Sorrell is much less circumspect about traditional ad giants, like the one he himself built across three decades before leaving it abruptly last year. Perhaps it’s unsurprising, given his new endeavor, but he says those companies, with their tangle of properties, most of which are run like independent fiefdoms, should most definitely be dismantled. “I don’t think they have a chance of making it with the legacy assets they have.”

Sorrell recalls one “snotty comment” made by one of the established players, regarding his new venture: “Someone called us a spec in the mirror.”

Continues Sorrell, “When you’re in a car crash, that spec in the mirror catches up with you very quickly.”

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