Daily IU News Round-up
IU study finds media's role in stock trends is minor
The Bloomington Herald-Times, April 1 -- After years of work and reading through thousands upon thousands of news articles, Indiana University researchers are saying the media have only a small role in creating and deflating stock market surges. The study in question, forthcoming in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, is by Kelley School of Business
professors Utpal Bhattacharya and Xiaoyun Yu and (now graduated) doctoral students Neal Galpin and Rina Ray. The group examined print media coverage of the dot-com stock bubble from 1996 to 2000. They found that publications gave more positive attention to Internet initial public offering stocks than to those of other companies. Full story.
IU defends tougher admissions standards
Wishtv8.com, March 31 --
Indiana University Vice Provost Roger Thompson said in 2005, a local magazine put IU on its cover and questioned whether it was providing a quality education. Now, he said admission standards are much tougher and the university is still taking heat. Thompson doesn't dispute figures showing that, in 10 years, IU-Bloomington and Purdue-West Lafayette have reduced the number of in-state students they've accepted by about 10 percentage points."In the last four years, our percentage of Indiana applicants has grown by 20 percent. So, naturally it's going to be more competitive," said Thompson. Full story.
Indiana residents seen to trust nonprofits
Philanthropyjournal.org, March 31 -- Three in four Indiana residents say they trust local nonprofits to do what is right "most or just about all the time," says a study by the Center on Philanthropy and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. Nearly six in 10 say they trust Indiana businesses and corporations, and almost half say they have faith in local government, says the study, "Are Nonprofits Trustworthy?" Full story.
IU police investigating fires set in stairwells
Chicagotribune.com, March 31 --
Indiana University police are searching for whoever set fire to rolls of toilet paper or paper towels inside student residential buildings three times in three days on the Bloomington campus. The fires -- two in Tulip Tree Apartments and one in Forest Residence Center -- were all in stairwells and caused little damage. University police say the fires happened Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Full story.
Portrait
Persistent Systems and Indiana University Open Life Sciences Informatics R&D Center
Uk.sys.con.com, March 31 -- Persistent Systems, the leading outsourced product development (OPD) services company, and Indiana University, which boasts the first and largest School of Informatics in the United States, have partnered to create a research and development (R&D) center. Located in the soon-to-be completed incubator on the university's Bloomington, Ind., campus, the Persistent Indiana Research Center will further the development of informatics, specifically life sciences product lifecycle services, medical research, chemistry, bio informatics and computer science. Full story.
Second dean candidate to visit IU today
Indiana Daily Student, April 1 --The second candidate for the dean of students position will attend an open forum to introduce himself to the IU family. IU alumnus Pete Goldsmith currently works as the vice president for enrollment management and student affairs at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, a position he has held since 2003. Students can meet Goldsmith at 5 p.m. today in the Wells-Metz Theatre. Full story.
Trends
Plan Would Boost Income Tax to Pay Michigan Tuition
AP via The Detroit News, April 1 -- Two Michigan lawmakers want to provide free public university tuition for Michigan's high school graduates by raising the state income tax to create reimbursable tax credits. The proposal, to be detailed Tuesday, also would provide money to boost Michigan's preschool programs. The proposal would cost a household earning $50,000 a year more than $500 in additional annual income taxes before deductions. Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith of Washtenaw County's Salem Township and Rep. Rebekah Warren of Ann Arbor are scheduled to detail the proposal at the state Capitol. Both are Democrats. The lawmakers want the Legislature to put the proposal before state voters, who also would have to OK the plan. Full story.
College Applications Now an Open (Face)book
The Los Angeles Times, April 4 -- High school seniors learn a downside to social networking: lack of privacy over acceptance or rejection by universities. For a generation of students who share every detail of their personal lives in text messages, MySpace pages and other online postings, the college admissions chase is offering a lesson that some things are best kept private. Last December, when Brown University's early admission decisions were released online, students in one classroom at North Hollywood High's highly gifted magnet program could be heard applauding. In another, there was silence, followed by the sound of someone crying. So today when many Ivy League colleges are expected to render their decisions, magnet students will be rushing home to absorb the news, seniors Kelsey Collins and Joseph Wang said. "That's D-day for everybody," said Joseph, 17. "No one wants to check in public." With 33 National Merit Scholarship finalists and a rigorous program of advanced courses, most of the North Hollywood magnet student body is choosing between fabulous and more fabulous college offers. But for every member of the Facebook nation, even a successful admissions season poses challenges: Should you post your good fortune on your home page before learning whether your best friend got in? Or check your iPhone for online decisions, with everyone watching? If you put your college wish list online, will you be humiliated if the rejections come thick and fast? Full story.
As Journalism Remakes Itself, Students Follow
The Baltimore Sun, April 1 -- The newsroom of The Diamondback, the student paper at the University of Maryland, College Park, retains the feel of an old-school city room. Framed front pages line the walls and bound volumes of yellowing issues collect dust on tables. Daily meetings are oriented toward producing the next morning's newspaper. The staff members know it might be the last newspaper they ever work for. As the industry sheds jobs by the thousands and papers close or go digital-only, there is a rethinking of journalism education. Still, a crush of students want to join in. "All of the kids in journalism school still have idealized visions of journalism," said Steven Overly, 20, a Maryland junior and editor in chief of The Diamondback. "We've all seen All the President's Men and that's the journalism we fell in love with -- the print paper, what we put out in high school, what we're doing now. And the idea that that might not be there is gut-wrenching." Readers and advertisers are migrating online, where competition for eyeballs and ad dollars is fierce. Almost 16,000 jobs were lost at U.S. newspapers last year, according to a tally maintained by Erica Smith of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on a blog called Paper Cuts. She estimates half those jobs were in newsrooms. As revenue has plummeted this year, 6,800 more jobs have been lost. Paradoxically, journalism schools are more popular than ever. Maryland received 25 percent more applications this year than last for its graduate journalism program. Columbia University's program saw a 40 percent increase; the school is planning to enroll more students than usual to meet demand. Full story.
Higher Education Takes a Hit
The Nation, April 1 -- When Jeremy Nienow started a Ph.D. program in anthropology at the University of Minnesota in 2003, he thought being a professor would offer him more time with his family than his travel-heavy job as an archaeologist. But academia turned out to be not as Nienow had imagined. Now graduated, Nienow teaches six courses as a part-time instructor at three different institutions. He spends much of his time on weekends grading papers instead of with his daughter. He jumps from one campus to another, has no office and does not receive either health or retirement benefits. Full story.
From the Chronicle
More Colleges Consider Adding 'Gift Tax' to New Donations
A growing number of colleges are considering fees on new donations, in an effort to make up for a decline in the revenue that helps pay for fund-raising operations. Gift fees, or a "gift tax," as they are sometimes called, are not a new idea, but institutional discussions about them are becoming more common because of the worsening economic situation, administrators and fund-raising consultants say. They predict that more colleges will chose to deduct gift fees from new donations in the near future. Full story.
As Appeal of Earlier Verdict Begins, Blackboard Sues Desire2Learn Again
A federal appeals court here heard oral arguments on Tuesday in the case of Blackboard v. Desire2Learn, in which the leading course-management company won a patent-infringement lawsuit against its largest rival.But even as the appeals process in that long-running dispute began, Blackboard filed a new patent-infringement lawsuit this month against Desire2Learn, guaranteeing that the battle between the two companies will not end anytime soon. Full story.
Report Describes Threats to American Dominance in Attracting Foreign Students
American colleges continue to dominate the increasingly competitive global market in foreign students, but the dominance is almost an accident, and, like British universities, those in America face growing competition from continental Europe, a British report contends."The U.S.A. competes in this market on the basis of sheer size," says the report, released on Tuesday by two subsidiaries of Universities UK, the lobbying group for British vice chancellors. "It receives the most international students in the world, but on a per-capita basis, its performance is modest—in spite of the fact that it has many of the best and certainly the richest universities in the world." Full story.
Peru v. Yale: A Battle Rages Over Machu Picchu
In early 1916, the legendary Yale University archaeologist Hiram Bingham III completed his third and final expedition in southern Peru. He shipped home 74 boxes of artifacts from Machu Picchu, a spectacular site in the Andes that is believed to have been the last major settlement of the Inca empire. Those boxes were supposed to be on temporary loan and sent back to Peru by July 1917, according to the government decree that authorized their export. Full story.
Point of View
Obama's Plans for Higher Education: a Good Beginning, but More Is Needed
President Obama's 2010 budget proposals include exciting news for those concerned with increasing educational opportunities. The urgency of the economic crisis and the clear commitment of the administration and Congress to make college more affordable provide the perfect opportunity for those of us in higher education to update our approach to promoting student aid. Full story.
Daily IU News Round-up is distributed to faculty and staff at IU, and it contains a short review of media coverage relating to IU administrative and student news, federal and state legislative policy, and trends and issues in higher education. Prepared by the IU Office of University Communications, the Daily IU News Round-up is not an all-inclusive gathering of news featuring IU faculty and staff. To subscribe to the Daily IU News Round-up list or to have your name removed, please contact Susan Williams, Office of University Communications, sulwilli@indiana.edu.
