Media Watch (Dec. 10 – 17, 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.

First-year students living in Hawk Hall were featured in the Hartford Courant’s “I am...” series. “I am…” appears every other Monday and explores the life and experiences of teenagers and young adults in their own words. University of Hartford students Lana Orin, Tayler Dube, and Megan Truax talked about their experience living in a triple. Truax said that the best part about living in a triple is that she meets more people. “It just helps to open up a lot more doors to different people,” she said. Read the Hartford Courant article.
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 17)

Tom Condon, editor of the “Place” section for the Hartford Courant’s “Commentary” pages, wrote about the progress on the Mort and Irma Handel Performing Arts Center, which is rising from the former Thomas Cadillac auto dealership on Albany Avenue. Condon took a tour of the project with John Carson, University vice president and Tyler Smith, the architect who designed the restoration. Read Tom Condon’s column.
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 16)

President Walter Harrison was quoted in an article about the release of the Mitchell Report, which detailed the result of a 20-month investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the baseball. He was also a guest on the WTIC-AM “Morning Show with Ray Dunaway and Diane Smith” to discuss the report. Harrison compared this scandal to the 1919 World Series gambling scandal involving the Chicago White Sox. “Everything in every sport rests on the premises that all the players have an equal chance to succeed,” he said. “Any time you do something that attacks that premises, you have significantly damaged the sport…”
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 14; WTIC-AM, Dec. 13)

Prior to the Mitchell Report being released, Warren Goldstein, chair of the history department in the College of Arts and Sciences, wrote a piece for The Huffington Post, a popular political blog, about how for many fans, home runs make up the game of baseball, and this is why performance enhancing drugs are used so frequently by professional players. “Until we unhook ourselves from our romance with home runs, players (and their chemists) will always be a step ahead of enforcement. We can’t both love homeruns as much as we do and expect performance enhancing drugs to go away,” he wrote. Goldstein also responded after the Mitchell Report was released in two different posts maintaining that “cheating” has always been a part sports.
(The Huffington Post, Dec. 12, 13, 14)

Karen Breda, associate professor in the Division of Nursing, ENHP, was highlighted in the Hartford Business Journal as a “Health Care Hero” in a special section recognizing outstanding achievements in the health care field. Breda was one of two who were honored with the 2007 Health Care Heroes Award for nursing. Through Project Horizon, she helps educate students about the realities of homelessness, poverty, and related health issues that affect the community.
(Hartford Business Journal, Dec. 10)

Rebecca Flannery, a harp teacher in The Hartt School, was quoted in an article about how the harp is a beautiful instrument, and requires a lot of time and energy. “People view it as a feminine instrument. It has a feminine shape and softer type of sound,” says Flannery. “But there’s nothing feminine about playing the harp.”
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 16)

Hartt School students Emily and Gretchen Taubl of New Haven will perform with their family in Worcester for the sixth year. The Taubl Family Christmas Concert, full of holiday favorites, has become a Worcester tradition, drawing people from all across New England. Emily recently won the grand prize at the eighth annual van Rooy Competition for Musical Excellence.
(Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Dec.16)

Alan Tompkins, who served as director of the Hartford Art School, designed the University seal, and exhibited his paintings this past summer to celebrate his 100th year, passed away on Nov. 22. Tompkins is remembered in a Hartford Courant editorial as leaving an indelible imprint on Hartford’s creative consciousness. Reviews of his work made note of his gift for using color, form and texture to communicate an abundance of life that is typically missed by the naked eye.
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 11)

Dan Leibovitz, Hartford Hawks men’s head basketball coach, was featured in a Philadelphia Daily News article about his young team and the aggressive schedule they have this season and how one tough loss inspired the team to work harder. (Philadelphia Daily News, Dec. 14)

Jennifer Rizzotti, Hartford Hawks women’s head basketball coach, was mentioned in the Waterbury Republican-American about one day possibly taking over the University of Connecticut women’s basketball program when Coach Auriemma decides to retire. “Right now I brush it off, because I feel like it would be such a long time in the future,” Rizzotti said. “I don’t need to focus on something that isn’t going to happen in the next couple of years.”
(Republican-American, Dec. 16)

PGA Tour pro and former Hartford Hawk standout Jerry Kelly became the 76th member of the Wisconsin State Golf Association Hall of Fame. Kelly went pro in 1989, spent several years on the mini-tours before earning exempt status on what was then the Nike Tour in 1994. He then earned a promotion to the PGA Tour after winning the Nike Tour twice.
(Wisconsin State Journal, Dec. 17)

Other News

Former Trinity College President Evan Dobelle has been picked to lead Westfield State College in Westfield, Mass. Dobelle, a Massachusetts native who now serves as CEO of the New England Board of Higher Education, served as Trinity's president for seven years. During his tenure, Dobelle helped make Trinity a national model for urban liberal arts colleges, raising its profile by making the private college a key partner for an ambitious, $250 million neighborhood redevelopment project. Dobelle left Trinity in 2001 to become president of the University of Hawaii, but stepped down three years later. University regents fired him "for cause" without specifying reasons, but later rescinded the firing, agreeing in a mediated settlement to accept his resignation and clear him of wrongdoing.
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 14)

The University of Connecticut canceled its undergraduate commencement ceremony at Storrs on Sunday because of the bad weather. The event will not be rescheduled, but the 850 candidates have been invited to participate in the May graduation at Harry A. Gampel Pavilion at Storrs.
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 16)

Saint Joseph College in West Hartford has been awarded $481,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy to serve as a demonstration site for alternative sources of energy. As a model for other small colleges, Saint Joseph will install a solar thermal system on the roof of its O’Connell Athletic Center to heat the six-lane, 25-yard swimming pool in the Bruyette Natatorium and domestic hot water for the building. Visitors to the center will be able to observe the amount of energy produced by solar panels through a monitoring system set up in the lobby. The project expects to save 1,500 kilowatt hours per year of energy.
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 11)

Trinity College has been reaccredited for 10 years by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. The reaccredidation came after a self-evaluation performed by Trinity officials as well as a three-day visit by a nine-member evaluation team headed by Ronald D. Liebowitz, president of Middlebury College in Vermont.
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 11)

On Dec. 10, Harvard University announced that it would expand aid to students from middle- and upper-class families making up to $180,000 a year — eliminating the need for them to borrow money for college. The new policy will place the cost of a Harvard education on par with major state-run schools. The announcement stole the thunder from Yale University, which was waiting until next semester to unveil its own financial aid improvements, which were discussed at a trustee meeting last week. On Dec. 11, Yale declined to reveal details of its proposed program.
(Hartford Courant, Dec. 12)

It’s a cry increasingly heard among several Democrats in Iowa aspiring to the presidency: Community college should essentially be free. Republican candidates, however, are torn between wanting to reduce the federal government's role in education and looking for ways to expand access to college. Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden are among those who have rolled out plans that could pay for a portion, or all, of a person's community college tuition. Some plans also include money for fees and other costs. Most Republican candidates said they opposed plans for essentially free community college, and have instead emphasized ways the federal government could make it easier for families to save money to pay for college.
(USA Today, Dec. 14)

While students are paying more and more to attend college, many universities have built up multimillion-dollar stockpiles of endowment money. Now, some lawmakers say, it's time to use more of that money to reduce tuition increases. Nationwide, students are paying an average 6.6 percent increase in tuition at public four-year universities this academic year. Meanwhile, the number of schools with endowments larger than $1 billion has increased to 62 schools from 39 schools three years ago, according to the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
(Indianapolis Star, Dec. 13)

Thirteen nano-level university laboratories across the country are hiring themselves out to businesses eager to make their mark in the millennium of the minuscule. The National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, begun in 2004, is funded in part with $14 million a year from the National Science Foundation. Participating business owners say the network allows them to do much more research than they would have without access to its resources. Host universities can apply the fees they receive to anything they like, including beefing up their lab equipment. Those fees ranged in fiscal 2007 from a few hundred dollars to $100,000.
(Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 13)

Upcoming

Richard Freund, director of the Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies, will be taping an interview for WTIC-AM’s “Face Connecticut” show. The show will be broadcast on Sunday, Dec. 23, at 6 a.m.

President Walter Harrison will be a guest on Connecticut Public Radio’s (WNPR-FM) “Where We Live” show for a discussion of the efforts to reform college athletics and improve student-athletes’ graduation rates. The show will air live on Friday, Jan. 4, at 9 a.m.