FLOSS In School - Open Source Software in the Education System

A large California community college district has gotten rid of all of its emergency notification boxes to save money -- a move not yet commonplace despite boom in cell phone usage.

Susquehanna U. Press is placed "on hiatus." Move follows decisions at Rice, Scranton and SMU.

Scholar reflects on a career trying to teach and enforce "the Queen's English." Bonus: a double limerick.

Drake University on Wednesday announced that its football team will play a game on May 21, 2011 in Tanzania -- in what the university believes will be the first American football game in Africa. Drake will play an all-star team from the CONADEIP conference in Mexico in what is being called the Global Kilimanjaro Bowl. After the game, members of both teams will participate in service activities in the area and they plan to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

For-profit college turns to events co-branded with media outlets to change minds and critics wonder about the journalistic ethics of providing positive PR.

Once, the e-book reader was a futuristic fantasy. Scott McLemee faces the ambivalence of living it out.

GMP offers suggestions for female graduate students in science and technology fields.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the legality of a Florida law that bars state employees from using state funds to travel to countries on the U.S. government's list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit rejected a challenge by faculty members from several public universities in Florida, who argued that the state statute conflicts with federal law and intrudes on the federal government's power to control foreign affairs. But the appeals panel, in partially overturning a lower court's split ruling, backed the state's right to determine how its own funds for education (and non-state funds administered at state expense) are spent, including on academic travel.

AAUP calls for colleges to formalize policies and to avoid situations where couples are helped at the expense of adjuncts.

A Brooklyn College alumnus has ended plans for a bequest because of his anger over a reading assignment for first-year students, The New York Daily News reported. The book in question is How Does It Feel to Be a Problem, by Moustafa Bayoumi, who teaches at the college. The book looks at the experiences of Arab-Americans, post 9/11. Bruce Kesler, the alumnus, told the Daily News: ""That book was a poor and insulting choice. I'm sure Brooklyn College is still a great avenue for education, but I don't think that I should send it any more money." The National Association of Scholars, which has drawn attention to what it considers politicized reading assignments for freshman orientation programs, recently wrote critically about the book. A statement from the college said it was "regrettable that Mr. Bruce Kesler misunderstands the intentions of the Common Reader experience and the broader context of this selection."

Football teams that can get prime billing on Saturday shy away from games during week, citing academic and logistical problems. But the financially vulnerable play them for national attention.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a key member of the Senate Democratic leadership, on Tuesday called for a number of reforms of federal laws that involve for-profit higher education, saying that they should share in the default risks of their students -- costs that are currently assumed by the taxpayers. “While responsible for-profit colleges offer a valuable alternative to students, there are too many schools taking advantage of students and making money hand over fist,” Durbin said at a forum he held in Chicago. “Some for-profit colleges are spending a quarter of their revenues on marketing and recruiting, and up to 90 percent of those revenues come from federal funding. We need to consider whether it is wise for companies to profit so handsomely on federal funding when the results don’t match the investment. And we need Congressional action to rein in abuses and ensure that taxpayer dollars are being wisely spent.” Durbin also proposed that accreditation rules be changed so that for-profit colleges can't obtain accreditation by purchasing accredited nonprofit colleges. And he said the for-profit colleges should be required to release more information about "real costs," job placement rates and other factors.

Rather than build a branch in the Gulf, Bard College’s approach to internationalization has been to develop “deep partnerships” in countries in transition or conflict.

The University of Southern Mississippi is planning to cut 29 faculty jobs -- including those of 14 tenured professors -- as various academic units are eliminated or reduced to deal with state budget cuts, The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss., reported. Anita Davis, president of the Faculty Senate, said: "It's sad. These are some of our most-respected people on campus."

A former postdoctoral researcher at Washington State University fabricated and falsified data in a journal article and has been barred from participation in federal research projects for three years, the Office of Research Integrity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday. The announcement in the Federal Register involved researcher Hung-Shu Chang, a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and an article in the journal Endocrinology.