FLOSS In School - Open Source Software in the Education System

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation has announced that it will conduct an audit of its scholarship program, following reports of repeated violations of its rules by one member, The Dallas Morning News reported. The Morning News revealed recently that Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat, gave 23 scholarships to four of her relatives and two children of a top aide -- violating the foundation's anti-nepotism rules and requirements that scholarship recipients live in the districts of the members awarding the funds.

As publishers and analysts again wonder if e-books are about to take off, the growing popularity of rental options may play as important a role as technology.

Let's stop using the term "faculty-driven," especially for things that aren't in fact driven by the faculty, writes Laurence Musgrove.

The University of California system's retirement fund faces a shortfall of $20 billion, according to a study released Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported. A committee that produced the study offered a number of recommendations for closing the gap, including raising the retirement age for new employees, increasing the contributions made by both the university and its employees, and reducing benefits. Faculty members worry that some of the changes could make employment at the university less attractive for some of the academic talent they would like to recruit. Mark G. Yudof, the system president, recently sent a letter to all employees in which he said some changes are essential. "If we do nothing, in four years, the university will be spending more on retirement programs each year than we do on classroom instruction," he said.

The White House said Monday that the Obama administration would revamp and simplify its system of export controls -- a set of procedures and regulations that are designed to limit the sharing of certain technological information with foreign parties, but that research administrators and scholars complain often impair their work. University research officials were quick to praise the proposed reforms, which are expected to limit the number and type of technologies with which companies and universities need licenses if they wish to involve foreign nationals in the work.

"The export controls regulations that served the United States well 40 years ago no longer meet the country‟s needs. In fact, many current requirements actually impede our national security and thwart our ability to compete," John Hennessy, Stanford University's president, said in a statement from the Association of American Universities. "[I]n a world of globalized science and technology, our security will come from our ability to 'run faster' than our competitors, not from building walls around our nation. A more agile and responsive system of controls will allow us to focus our energies on serious security risks, make informed decisions, and make them more quickly."

Two senior administrators at Kansas university gave regents information about the president -- who they say then fired them for doing so.

The U.S. Justice Department has sued Maricopa County Community College District, charging it with illegal discrimination by requiring non-citizens to produce more work authorization documents than are required, the Associated Press reported. U.S. citizens have not faced the additional requirements. A district spokesman declined to comment on the suit.

Judge blocks attempt by state attorney general to get records on a scientist's work at U. of Virginia; further court battles are likely.

New Jersey's low-income students will see their state grants for higher education cut by 8 percent this year, even as they face higher tuition rates, The Star-Ledger reported. The state increased funding for the grants program by 18 percent, but the number of eligible students surged, so the additional funds were not enough to keep the grant size even with last year's level.

Editor of new book discusses how a group of leading economists dissects the international higher ed universe and the U.S. place in it.

A judge in British Columbia has lifted an injunction that blocked the University of Victoria from moving ahead with its rabbit control plan, but the rabbits may be safe from being killed, The Globe and Mail reported. The judge ruled that the animal rights activists who won the injunction earlier, lacked standing to sue the university over its plan to deal with some 2,000 wild rabbits on the campus by trapping and relocating some of them, killing some of them, and sterilizing others. The controversy has prompted so many offers to take some of the rabbits, university officials said, that if everyone who has offered to do so follows through, no bunnies will be killed.

• Jonathan Dela Cruz, account executive at Access Group, Inc., has been appointed regional director for the North Central United States at the National Student Clearinghouse, in Virginia.
• Teri Duda, senior vice president at external affairs at Berkeley College, in New York, has been named senior vice president for government affairs there.
• Scheherazade Forman, coordinator of articulation and transfer at Baltimore City Community College, in Maryland, has been appointed as dean of student development services at Prince George's Community College, also in Maryland.
• Richard Glejzer, professor and chair of English at North Central College, in Illinois, has been chosen as dean of faculty and graduate education at Marlboro College, in Vermont.
• Nan Yancey, director of the graduate nursing program at Lewis University, in Illinois, has been promoted to dean of the office of graduate studies there.
• Joselyn Zivin, senior vice president and group director of brand strategy and planning at Lipman Hearne, has been named vice president of marketing and communications at National-Louis University, in Illinois.

The appointments above are drawn from The Lists on Inside Higher Ed, which also includes a comprehensive catalog of upcoming events in higher education. To submit job changes or calendar items, please click here.