Education
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
U.S. Urges Colleges to Rethink Questions About Criminal Records

U.S. Urges Colleges to Rethink Questions About Criminal Records

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The Obama administration is urging universities and colleges to re-evaluate how questions about an applicant’s criminal history are used in the admissions process, part of an effort to remove barriers to education, employment and housing for those with past convictions, in many cases for minor crimes.
Education Secretary John B. King Jr. released a “Dear Colleague” letter to universities and colleges on Monday along with a guide, “Beyond the Box: Increasing Access to Higher Education for Justice Involved Individuals.” Among the guide’s recommendations is a suggestion that colleges consider delaying questions about criminal records until after admissions decisions to avoid a “chilling effect” on potential applicants.
Noting that an estimated 70 million Americans have some form of criminal record, Mr. King said people who have been involved with the criminal justice system “continue to face significant hurdles in obtaining access to higher education or career training.”
Most universities ask questions about an applicant’s criminal record as part of the admissions process. Requests for this information have increased in the past decade or so after several high-profile instances of campus violence.
The Department of Education’s announcement, in a telephone news conference with reporters on Monday, came amid growing concerns that admissions questions marginalize black applicants. A body of statistical evidence has emerged showing that black teenagers are singled out for disciplinary action in school, and stopped and arrested by the police at higher rates than other ethnic groups.
In a separate announcement on Monday, representatives from the Common Application, used by more than 600 colleges, announced that the fall 2016 application would include a revised question about criminal history. Previously, the Common Application asked students whether they had been convicted of a felony, misdemeanor or “other crimes.” The reference to “other crimes,” deemed ambiguous, will be omitted.
The Common Application has also begun a review to determine whether additional revisions of its questions about criminal history and past school discipline questions should be made for the 2017 application, said Aba Blankson, its senior director.
The State University of New York said Monday that its 64-campus system was already reviewing its practice of asking about criminal histories. A resolution by the SUNY student assembly, adopted in March, called for removal of such questions, citing research indicating that they discouraged prospective students from applying, and that there was no evidence that admitting those with criminal histories improves campus safety.
Mr. King also said Monday that there was no evidence that such application questions deterred campus violence.
Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California system, said in the news conference with Mr. King that the university’s 10 campuses did not include such questions because they are “not relevant to the evaluation of an individuals’ qualifications for study.”
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an advocacy group, said this year that it was conducting an inquiry of colleges and universities that asked what it considered particularly intrusive questions on their applications, including questions about arrests without convictions.
The “Beyond the Box” guide also recommends:
• Clearly informing potential students as early as possible in the application process about how to respond to questions about their criminal pasts.
• Ensuring that such questions are narrowly focused, avoiding overly broad requests about criminal history.
• Giving all prospective students an opportunity to explain criminal justice involvement and their preparedness for postsecondary study.
• Providing training for admissions officers and counselors on the effective use of criminal history data.



The Education Department’s initiative follows other Obama administration efforts aimed at reversing policies that limit the opportunities available to people with criminal records. The administration warned landlords this year that they cannot impose blanket bans on tenants with criminal convictions.
t’s a Tough Job Market for the Young Without College Degrees

t’s a Tough Job Market for the Young Without College Degrees

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For seniors graduating from the University of Michigan this month, employers have been lining up since the fall to offer interviews and boast of their companies’ benefits. Recruiters would ask when their competitors were coming, said Geni Harclerode, the university’s assistant director of employer development, and then they’d say: “Well, we want to come the week before.”
“This has been one of our largest seasons of hiring,” she said. “The job market has been very good.”
The outlook for many high school graduates is more challenging, as Vynny Brown can attest. Now 20, he graduated two years ago from Waller High School in Texas, and has been working for nearly a year at Pappasito’sCantina in Houston, part of a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants. He earns $7.25 an hour filling takeout orders or $2.13 an hour plus tips as a server, which rarely adds up to more than the minimum, he said. He would like to apply to be a manager, but those jobs require some college experience.
“That is something I don’t have,” said Mr. Brown, who says he cannot afford to go to college now. “It’s the biggest struggle I’ve had.”
Most young workers have the same problem as Mr. Brown. Only 10 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds have a college or advanced degree, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute, although many more of them will eventually graduate.
And for young high school graduates, the unemployment rate is disturbingly high: 17.8 percent. Add in those who are underemployed, either because they would like a full-time job but can only find part-time work, or they are so discouraged that they’ve given up actively searching, and the share jumps to more than 33 percent.
Younger workers have always had a tougher time finding a job than their older, more experienced counterparts. Even so, the economic recovery has progressed more slowly for young high school graduates than for those coming out of college.

A Struggle to Get Ahead

Among 17- to 24-year-olds, just over 10 percent have completed college or achieved an advanced degree.

Highest degree earned, population ages 17 to 24
12-month moving average as of February 2016
Less than
high school
Bachelor’s
degree
Advanced
degree
High school only
Some college
24.9%
28.5%
36.5%
9.3%
0.8%
ALL
23.2
26.8
37.6
11.5
0.9
WHITE
25.7
33.1
34.9
5.8
0.4
BLACK
29.5
32.6
33.1
4.6
0.3
HISPANIC
Note: Race/ethnicity categories are mutually exclusive (i.e., white non-Hispanic, black non-Hispanic, and Hispanic any race).
Source: Economic Policy Institute
By The New York Times

“It’s improved since the recession, but it’s still pretty poor,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, who noted the average hourly wage for high school graduates had declined since 2000 despite increases in the minimum wage in some places.
Ms. Gould is part of a growing chorus of economists, employers and educators who argue more effort needs to be put into improving job prospects for people without college degrees.
“Without question we have failed to pay attention to and invest in opportunities for young people who are not on a path to go to four years of college,” said Chauncy Lennon, the head of work force initiatives at JPMorgan Chase, which has started a $75 million program to design and deliver career-focused education in high schools and community colleges.
For high school students, a four-year college education is frequently held out as the only viable option, precisely because job opportunities and wages are so much better upon graduation. But many who sign up never finish. “The most common reason they fail to complete is that they need to start earning a living to support their families,” Mr. Lennon said.
Vocational, career and technical high schools have often been stigmatized as a last resort for underachievers. At the same time, educators and administrators in some places have been criticized for steering minority students toward them in lieu of academic programs.
The initiative sponsored by Chase is aimed at repairing that reputation. Although some traditional middle-skills opportunities for construction and clerical workers are shrinking, Mr. Lennon said, others are growing. In health care, for instance, radiology and phlebotomy technicians are needed; in advanced manufacturing and aviation, mechanical maintenance workers are in demand.
He added that vocational schools should no longer be thought of as dead ends, since they can serve as steppingstones to associate degrees at community colleges or to enrollment at four-year institutions.
Issac Cordoso, who is graduating from Medford Vocational Technical High School in Massachusetts in June, already has a job lined up as an electrical apprentice, earning $12 an hour.


Issac Cordoso is studying electrical work at Medford Vocational Technical High School in Medford, Mass.Scott Eisen for The New York Times

“I went into vocational school with my heart set on the automotive program, but I fell in love with electrical and saw a bigger future for myself,” Mr. Cordoso, 17, said.
He is also applying for a coveted spot as an apprentice with the local electrical union, where the starting pay is $18.25 an hour. As an apprentice, he could work while training to become a journeyman, a position with an hourly wage of $28. Most of Mr. Cordoso’s classmates also have jobs waiting for them, he said.
Stefanie A. DeLuca, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, is the co-author of a study of low-income African-American millennials in Baltimore titled, “Coming of Age in the Other America.” She agrees there is a pressing need for more targeted, streamlined vocational programs in high schools and at community colleges.
“They’re looking for jobs,” Dr. DeLuca said of the youths she interviewed. “They want a quick launch.”
Still, low wages combined with rising housing costs make it tough to get ahead. “They’re juggling a job at Potbelly and a security job and working 60 hours a week and it’s still not enough,” she said.
Despite the improving job market, what particularly troubled Martha Ross, a researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington, were the 3.2 million disadvantaged youths between 16 and 24 who were not in school and did not have a job.
“The size of that population was bigger than I expected,” said Ms. Ross, who is the co-author of a paper on youth employment across the country. Although metropolitan areas can vary widely, the report found, in some communities, young blacks and Latinos are three to five times more likely than whites to fall into this group.
If things are tough for high school graduates, for those without a high school diploma, the job hunt can be grim. Adam McKinley, 18, said he dropped out of his high school in Baltimore last year because he needed to work full time. He worked briefly at Dunkin’ Donuts and has searched for jobs at coffee bars and restaurants, hotels and warehouses. Because many of the applications were online, Mr. McKinley said he did not know why he never heard back.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” he said. “You have no idea what’s going on.”
How scholars spend their time

How scholars spend their time

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These data show how scholars used their time at different types of university in the period 2012 to 2015
At the most research-intensive universities (defined as those in the top decile for total research funding received), academics spend more than half their time on research, double the proportion spent at younger universities.
Scholars at younger universities prioritise teaching, but also have a larger administrative burden than elsewhere (a quarter of academic time versus a fifth at older and research-intensive universities).
At all types of institution, knowledge exchange plays second fiddle to other tasks.
The data come from a survey of more than 18,000 academics by the National Centre for Universities and Business, entitled .
As reported in last week’s Times Higher Education, it found that a dwindling number of academics were commercialising their work.
Spending on UK higher education rises by 6%

Spending on UK higher education rises by 6%

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Tuition fee income increases sharply as funding council cash declines, latest sector-level data shows Spending on UK higher education providers increased by 6 per cent in 2014-15 to £31.2 billion, new figures show.
Details of the latest increase – worth around £1.8 billion in total – were released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which indicates the sector's total income grew even faster.
Some £33.2 billion in income was received by UK higher education in the last full academic year, up from £30.7 billion in 2013-14, an 8.1 per cent rise, the latest Hesa information published on 28 April shows.
That came despite a reduction in income from funding council grants, which accounted for £5.3 billion in 2014-15 (17.2 per cent of total income) compared with £6.1 billion (19.8 per cent of total income) in 2013-14.
Monies from tuition fees and education contracts (£15.6 billion) were significantly up on 2013-14 (£13.7 billion) – with just over a quarter of this (27 per cent) coming from international students (£4.2 billion).
International fee income accounted for 12.7 per cent of the sector’s income – the same proportion as in 2013-14, though the total income was 8 per cent higher in actual terms (£3.9 billion was raised in 2013-14).
Income from research grants and contracts (£5.9 billion) is now more than that awarded by funding councils (£5.3 billion), which just five years ago were the largest source of funding for higher education (handing out 33.7 per cent of all income in 2009-10).
The total amount of money received from European Union sources was £836 million (2.5 per cent of all higher education income) compared with £789 million in 2013-14 (2.6 per cent).
On expenditure, some 55 per cent of money went on staff costs (£17.1 billion) compared with £16.3 billion in 2013-14 (55 .4 per cent).
Some £3.6 billion was spent on university premises and £1.6 billion on residences and catering operations.
Hefce
Source: 
HESA: HE Finance Plus 2014/15, published on 28 April 2016
Grant winners – 28 April 2016

Grant winners – 28 April 2016

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Image result for grant winners

Medical Research Council

Research grants
An alcohol brief intervention (ABI) for male remand prisoners: an MRC complex intervention framework development and feasibility study
Supportive supervision of mid-level health workers in rural Nepal for improved job satisfaction, motivation and quality of care

Economic and Social Research Council

Research grants
Making philanthropy developmentally effective
Using “naturalistic dual-EEG” to measure mother-infant brain-to-brain (b2b) synchrony in socially mediated learning

National Environment Research Council

ICE-IMPACT: International consortium for the exploitation of infrared measurements of polar climate
Innovate UK HitClean high temperature inspection and cleaning by advanced ultrasonics for effective maintenance and management of oil and gas offshore

Leverhulme Trust

Research Project Grants
Sciences
Silicate mineral inclusions and the composition of new continental crust
Neural and cognitive mechanisms of multimodal working memory
Reduced complexity finite element methods
Santorini: high-resolution imaging of an active volcano with 3D full-waveform inversion

In detail

Humanities
Award winners: Robert Jones and Martyn Powell
Institutions: University of Leeds and Aberystwyth University
Value: £272,621
The political works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan
This project will investigate the dramatist, theatre-owner and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was more notoriously known as a spin doctor, drinker and debtor. Sheridan was a politician for nearly three decades. This study is a reappraisal of his career, exploring his national and international significance as a politician and orator, and his wider political activity – such as his journalistic writing. Sheridan, on account of his excellent oratorical skills, which made his speeches popular among newspaper editors, served as progenitor for the “spin doctor”. The project will culminate in the publication of a four-volume edition of his complete political works.
The week in higher education – 28 April 2016

The week in higher education – 28 April 2016

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Image result for phd
The good, the bad and the offbeat: the academy through the lens of the world's media History PhD student Hannah Woods was the winning captain in last week’s University Challengefinal, but attention has bizarrely focused not on her quizzing prowess but on her naturally arched left eyebrow. Woods’ so-called Roger Moore eyebrow spawned two parody Twitter accounts, a Valentine Day’s card and an online marriage proposal during Peterhouse College, Cambridge's run to the final, The Daily Telegraph reported  on 18 April. Ms Woods explained that her face was naturally asymmetric, saying that her left brow “tends to float ever-higher up [her] face”, giving the appearance that she was “rather wry and challenging”. But she added that she was "slightly baffled by the level of eyebrow attention – I’ve found it all quite funny, though I tend to agree with the people who have asked ‘is this news?’”.
Students from several universities have threatened to split from the National Union of Students after the election of Malia Bouattia as president. Harry Samuels, an NUS delegate from theUniversity of Oxford, told the BBC’s Newsnight on 21 April that Ms Bouattia’s appointment was undemocratic, as she was not elected under a system of “one member, one vote”. Ms Bouattia has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks – including calling the University of Birmingham “something of a Zionist outpost” in 2011. While the move to disaffiliate was “not just about Malia in particular…her election enshrines the fact that the NUS no longer represents all students”, said Mr Samuels. Ms Bouattia has said that she is "extremely uncomfortable with insinuations of anti-Semitism", adding: “For me to take issue with Zionist politics is not me taking issue with being Jewish." She said that it was "a political argument, not one of faith”, adding that she had a “long track record of opposing racism and discrimination in all its forms and actively campaigning against it”.
Students at an elite Paris university have been criticised for asking people to wear a Muslim headscarf for a day to help them understand Islamophobia. The event at Sciences Po follows comments by French prime minister Manuel Valls calling on universities to ban the hijab on campus, in line with France’s strict policy of state secularism, The Guardian reported on 20 April. Organisers of the Sciences Po initiative claimed that it would help “demystify” the headscarf, but the move was attacked by some staff and student groups as a “provocation”. “So when is there going to be a sharia day? Or stoning day? Or slavery day?”, tweeted Bernard-Henri Lévy, a writer and philosopher, while Bruno Le Maire, a former agriculture minister and Sciences Po professor, wrote of his disapproval at so-called Hijab Day. “In France, women are visible. No proselytising!” he said.
The potential for a PhD to massively increase earning power was at the heart of a shocking court case that left a couple “devastated” and financially ruined, BBC News reported on 20 April. Frank and Marilyn Boardman agreed to support their daughter, Nicola, through a PhD at the University of Oxford after she told them that she would make £3 million from her subsequent career and pay them back. But Boardman, from Truro, Cornwall, who had a history of battling heroin addiction, had not been accepted for any study and cheated her parents out of £250,000 over the course of four years, in which they paid for “university trips” to Greece and Mongolia. “This was all made up,” said Philip Lee, prosecuting, shortly before Boardman was jailed for three years and four months, after pleading guilty to one count of fraud at Truro Crown Court. Tragically, the couple sold their home to support their daughter’s supposed studies, leaving them with no funds for their retirement.
Jo Johnson, the universities and science minister, has warned that Brexit could create a “science and innovation crisis”. Mr Johnson, an enthusiastic advocate for the European Union in contrast to his brother Boris, spoke in London on 21 April to pose the question: “Are we going to preserve the factors that have created a great tech cluster, or succumb to fanciful Brexit bluster?” His speech added, with more bizarre rhymes: “Do we want to fuel our knowledge economy with science and innovation, or fill it up with piffle and ventilation?” The word “piffle” has an interesting Johnsonian heritage: Boris used it to criticise David Cameron’s “broken society” comments in 2008 and in his 2004 denial of allegations that he had an extramarital affair – a denial that eventually saw him sacked from the Conservative opposition front bench.
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