Media Watch (April 23 – 30, 2007)

"Media Watch" is a round-up of recent stories in the media about the University of Hartford, as well as significant stories about other local and peer institutions and news about trends and issues in higher education.

Otto Wahl, director of the University’s Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology (GIPP), wrote an opinion article that was published in the “Perspective” section of The Day of New London. The article reflected on the tragedy at Virginia Tech with Wahl cautiioning that “we need to be careful not to settle on a mental health explanation as the sole or even primary explanation for the disturbing events.” (The Day, April 29)

Warren Goldstein, chairman of the history department in the College of Arts and Sciences, wrote an opinion piece that was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Goldstein, also reacting to the horrific shootings at Virgina Tech, urged that when the warning signs are apparent for a troubled peer, students should talk to authority figures about the issue. He argued that speaking out is one of the precautions students and faculty can take to prevent such tragedies from happening again. (Chronicle of Higher Education, April 24)

Linda Greenhouse, New York Times Supreme Court reporter, will be a guest on WTIC-AM’s “Colin McEnroe Show” today (Tuesday, May 1) at about 3:35 p.m., in advance of her Rogow Lecture at the University's Lincoln Theater this evening.

The “Arts” section of the Hartford Courant featured a photograph by Hartford Art School (HAS) student Roger Castonguay as part of a story on a project by HAS photography students and Trinity College writing students to capture the lives of 50 residents of Hartford's Avery Heights elderly residence complex, now celebrating its 50th anniversary. Photographs taken by HAS students for the book, 50 Lives for 50 Years, are on display at Avery Heights through the end of August. (Hartford Courant, April 28)

Richard Freund, professor and director of the University’s Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies, and his recent archaeological expedition to what he believes is the true site of Mount Sinai, was the cover subject of the April 27 issue of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. The article outlined how Freund and his team, using ground-penetrating radar and other advanced technology, examined the desert site along Israel’s border with Egypt. The article also featured a number of photographs by Hartford Art School faculty member Christine Dalenta of the many petroglyphs on the rocks at the site. (Connecticut Jewish Ledger, April 27)

The hiring of U.S. Holocaust Museum Scholar Avinoam Patt as the University’s first Feltman Chair in Modern Jewish History was highlighted in the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. The article also noted that there will be a reception in Patt’s honor on Sunday, May 6, at 3:30 p.m. in the 1877 Club. (Connecticut Jewish Ledger, April 27)

David Pines, an assistant professor of civil, mechanical, and biomedical engineering at the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture, was a guest on WDRC-AM Radio’s “Dan Lovallo Show.” Pines spoke, from a civil engineering perspective, about issues involved in roadway flooding and ways to improve drainage and prevent roads from being closed or washed out. (WDRC-AM, April 24)

Wick Griswold, assistant professor of sociology in Hillyer College, who teaches a course on the Connecticut River, wrote a letter to the editor in praise of Riverfront Recapture’s decision not to charge admission to public parks and to ban the ChampBoat racing series from using the river. (Hartford Courant, April 30)

WFSB-TV Channel 3 did a story on a vigil organized by University of Hartford students to show their support for students at Virginia Tech, who returned to class one week after the tragedy there. (WFSB-TV Channel 3, April 23)

Jacob Komar and two other Connecticut students, who won BRICK Awards for helping to improve their communities, will have their faces and philanthropic stories splashed on bags of Doritos Chips, according to an item in the Hartford Courant’s “Java” column. Komar, a University High School of Science and Engineering student who is a junior at the University of Hartford majoring in computer engineering, runs Computers for Communities, which refurbishes discard computers and donates them to schools, prisons, and other places in need. (Hartford Courant, April 26)

A number of University of Hartford students, arrested for being underage and attending Temptations night club, faced Judge Curtissa Cofield. Instead of imposing fines and punishments, she assigned male offenders to read From Binge to Blackout: A Mother and Son Struggle with Teen Drinking and the females to read Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood and then write an essay and read it out loud in court. University Sophomore Leila Parisi said, “I procrastinated, but when I finally read it, I realized that perhaps my drinking was a problem, and what a dangerous path I was on. I had done some of the same things that the main character had done.” Judge Cofield thanked her for her honesty and gave her a hug, and then assigned her to 12 hours of community service. (The Herald, New Britain, April 27)

In the Hartford Courant’s “Java” column, the University of Hartford’s Community Day festivities were highlighted. The item mentioned the miniature golf tournament that President Walter Harrison and others competed in at Mortensen Library. Commenting on the wide range of activities, one spectator said, “It’s a wonderful combination, Hound Dog, Shakespeare and 70-degree weather. Ya gotta love it.” The West Hartford News also wrote about the marathon reading of Shakespeare’s sonnet and featured photographs of President Harrison and University President Emeritus Humphrey Tonkin, organizer of the sonnet marathon. The previous week, “Java” had called for readers to volunteer for the marathon in which 154 of the Bard’s sonnets were read (Hartford Courant, April 17; Hartford Courant, April 24; West Hartford News, April 27)

In a story previewing this year’s Connecticut Venture Group’s annual business plan competition, which is open to university and collegiate student teams throughout Connecticut, the Fairfield County Business Journal highlighted last fall’s winning entry – EarthGuard, a University of Hartford team that incorporated in February with plans to develop a biodegradable packaging product. (Fairfield County Business Journal, April 23)

Brittany Black, a student at the University, was featured in a story on NBC 30 about people who suffer from allergies at this time of year. “I play soccer at the University of Hartford and sometimes it’s really hard to breathe,” she told the reporter. (NBC 30, April 23)

Tony Leone, an alum of The Hartt School and a faculty member in the school’s McLean Institute of Jazz, was highlighted in Modern Drummer magazine for his work with the hot new musical group Ollabelle. Levon Helm, legendary drummer with The Band and father of Ollabelle’s lead singer, Amy Helm, said of Leone, “He always plays the perfect drum part, and he’s one of the strongest singers in the group.” (Modern Drummer magazine, April 20)

Erin Striff, assistant professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences and mother of twins, was featured in a Hartford Courant story reprinted in the Detroit News and the Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., about the guilt and anxiety many mothers have about whether they are spending enough time with their children. "The cultural message is always about what more could you be doing? It's how what we're doing can never be enough," said Striff. "There is always another class a child could take, another game they could play." (Detroit News, April 24; Morning Call, April 24)

Hartford President Walter Harrison will be succeeded by Michael Adams, president of the University of Georgia, as the chairman of the NCAA Executive Committee. NCAA President Myles Brand praised Harrison for his contributions. “The Executive Committee has had the good fortune to have had the leadership of Walt Harrison over the last two years. His voice will be missed,” Brand said. (NCAAsports.com, April 26)

Collegiate baseball will now be more focused on academics, because of changes adopted by the NCAA board of directors. The new changes mean that students will no longer be allowed to transfer from one school to another without sitting out a year, and teams that under-perform academically will have their playing schedules reduced. NCAA Executive Committee Chair Walter Harrison said, “I think this will be a sea change in the academic culture of baseball." (USA Today, April 27)

The NCAA Board of Directors has voted to ban text messaging as a tool to recruit players. “We thought this was sending a message about the abuse of the situation,” said Executive Committee Chairman Walter Harrison. (SportingNews.com April 27)

Other News

Goodwin College’s relocation to East Hartford’s riverfront got a big cash infusion last week as the state’s development arm approved a $3 million grant for the project, already under way. But before the college gets the grant, it must be approved by a budget referendum in the town expected next month. When completed, Goodwin will sit on roughly 30 acres of shoreline along the Connecticut River on a piece of land that was once home to a petroleum tank farm. The state money will be used to clean up contamination from spilled petroleum products that seeped into the soil. (Hartford Business Journal, April 30)

Trinity College’s community involvement in Hartford has long been a selling point for the private college, but Hartford won’t be a required piece of the curriculum. The faculty has agreed to bolster general education requirements, but turned down a proposal that would have required all students to take at least one course focusing on the city. The narrow defeat, by an 80-77 vote, surprised some students and faculty who had hoped the proposal would solidify Trinity’s urban focus. A Courant editorial said that Trinity College faculty members erred when they voted down the proposal. The editorial encouraged the faculty to reverse that decision and said the proposal's defeat suggests that the college's commitment to the city is temporary and shallower than it should be; it undermined a valuable recruitment tool. (Hartford Courant, April 24 and April 30)

Michael S. Roth, who will start work in July as the 16th president of Wesleyan University, was introduced to the campus community on Friday, April 27. Roth, who is 30 years distant from his own time as a Wesleyan undergrad, was a tenured professor at Scripps College at the age of 33, and president of the California College of the Arts at 43. Now, he is back at Wesleyan, the place that he calls home. (Hartford Courant, April 28)

Kara Satalin, 19, a University of Connecticut student charged in connection with the hit-and-run death of UConn freshman Carlee Wines, applied for a special form of probation that could allow her to avoid prosecution. Satalin, of Syracuse, N.Y., is charged with purchasing the alcohol consumed by Anthony P. Alvino, 18, of Lindenhurst, N.Y., who police say was driving the Nissan Armada SUV that struck Wines in January. (Hartford Courant, April 28)

As the number of graduating seniors has shot up over the last decade, the competition to get into college has grown more intense. It will remain tight as the pool of high school graduates in the U.S., after hitting a low point in 1994, is expected to peak at more than 3.3 million in 2009. In the Northeast, including Connecticut, the peak is expected in 2008. THis means that, as a deadline approaches for seniors to decide which college to attend, many students are learning to live with disappointment. (Hartford Courant, April 30)

A roundtable of campus leaders agreed that a proposed recreation center at the University of Connecticut is long overdue, but the big question is how to pay for it. Administrators said the project could be paid for via student fees, private donors, or special obligation bonds that would be repaid through fees paid by facility users. The meeting was the first step to build a new fitness center and add playing fields to keep up with UConn’s dramatic enrollment growth, meet a heightened interest in exercise and health, and compete with other universities with newer recreation facilities. (Hartford Courant, April 25)

Marilee Jones, dean of admissions at MIT, has resigned after acknowledging that she fabricated her academic credentials. She padded her resume 28 years ago when she applied for a position as an administrative assistant in admissions. On her resume, Jones said she had degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Union College, and Albany Medical College, all in New York State. She does not have a degree from any of them. (Boston Globe, April 26)

H. Patrick Swygert, 64, announced that he would retire from the presidency of Howard University at the end of June 2008, a decision that came weeks after faculty leaders called for his ouster, saying the university was in crisis. The president said he wanted to announce his decision now, he said, to give a proper farewell to the senior class, which graduates May 12. (Washington Post, April 30)

The US Department of Education is working with accrediting agencies to design new rules inspired by work of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, a bipartisan panel convened by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. The rules would require colleges to produce evidence that they're making progress with students and to require accreditors to compare the results of similar schools. By Nov. 1, new rules have to be approved, and by July 2008, accrediting agencies must begin implementing the changes. But the effect on colleges, which are accredited every 10 years, would be staggered over time. (Boston Globe, April 25)

After the Virginia Tech massacre, hundreds of colleges are considering a text-message emergency-alert system, and thousands of students have signed up for the cellphone service on campuses where it’s already in use. Since the shootings, more than 500 colleges have contacted Omnilert to ask about setting up text-message alerts. At the 34 campuses where Omnilert already operates, tens of thousands of students have signed up in recent days. (USA Today, April 24)

Allegations of stalking, like those against Virginia Tech gunman Seung Hui Cho, are common on college campuses, according to psychologists and police. The most widely cited national survey, published in 2000, found that 13 percent of college women said they had been stalked in the previous seven months. The problem has not diminished since that survey, says Mary Lou Leary, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime. (USA Today, April 27)

Colleges need better ways of spreading information in a crisis and improved means of dealing with students who are mentally ill, even as the schools balance the principles of academic openness with campus safety, witnesses told the Senate Homeland Security Committee. The hearing, held a week after a rampage at Virginia Tech that left 33 dead, was intended to find ways to prevent further campus violence, said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), the committee's chairman. (Washington Post, April 24)

Students with loans may soon benefit from the ongoing investigations of lenders and schools. The resulting policy changes are likely to lower interest rates and other financial aid costs. In March, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo uncovered deceptive practices in the loan industry, including examples of lenders giving schools and employees financial incentives for putting them on "preferred lender" lists. Cuomo has since announced that 16 schools, as well as the four largest lenders-Sallie Mae, Citibank, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase,-have agreed to codes of conduct that prohibit these kinds of exchanges. (US News and World Report, April 30)

Upcoming

Hartford Courant reporter Susan Campbell will be writing a column about Educational Main Street’s new “Community Initiators” program in Hartford’s North End beauty salons. The program teaches salon owners to discuss literacy with clients.

Eleta Jones, assistant director of the University’s Center for Professional Development, was interviewed by consumer reporter Debra Bogsti of NBC 30 for a story on the best and worst ways to ask for a raise. The story is scheduled to be broadcast this week.