This is one of the other big topics of discussion when Professor Greg Joseph and I meet for lunch. USC’s the worst (or at least we think so), although some of the other universities mentioned here are right up there. At New York Times , ” How Big-Time Sports Ate College Life “: IT was a great day to be a Buckeye. Josh Samuels, a junior from Cincinnati, dates his decision to attend Ohio State to Nov. 10, 2007, and the chill he felt when the band took the field during a football game against Illinois. “I looked over at my brother and I said, ‘I’m going here. There is nowhere else I’d rather be.’ ” (Even though Illinois won, 28-21.) Tim Collins, a junior who is president of Block O, the 2,500-member student fan organization, understands the rush. “It’s not something I usually admit to, that I applied to Ohio State 60 percent for the sports. But the more I do tell that to people, they’ll say it’s a big reason why they came, too.” Ohio State boasts 17 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, three Nobel laureates, eight Pulitzer Prize winners, 35 Guggenheim Fellows and a MacArthur winner. But sports rule. “It’s not, ‘Oh, yeah, Ohio State, that wonderful physics department.’ It’s football,” said Gordon Aubrecht, an Ohio State physics professor. Last month, Ohio State hired Urban Meyer to coach football for $4 million a year plus bonuses (playing in the B.C.S. National Championship game nets him an extra $250,000; a graduation rate over 80 percent would be worth $150,000). He has personal use of a private jet. Dr. Aubrecht says he doesn’t have enough money in his own budget to cover attendance at conferences. “From a business perspective,” he can see why Coach Meyer was hired, but he calls the package just more evidence that the “tail is wagging the dog.” Dr. Aubrecht is not just another cranky tenured professor. Hand-wringing seems to be universal these days over big-time sports, specifically football and men’s basketball. Sounding much like his colleague, James J. Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan and author of “Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University,” said this: “Nine of 10 people don’t understand what you are saying when you talk about research universities. But you say ‘Michigan’ and they understand those striped helmets running under the banner.” For good or ill, big-time sports has become the public face of the university, the brand that admissions offices sell, a public-relations machine thanks to ESPN exposure. At the same time, it has not been a good year for college athletics. Child abuse charges against a former Penn State assistant football coach brought down the program’s legendary head coach and the university’s president. Not long after, allegations of abuse came to light against an assistant basketball coach at Syracuse University. Combine that with the scandals over boosters showering players with cash and perks at Ohio State and, allegedly, the University of Miami and a glaring power gap becomes apparent between the programs and the institutions that house them. “There is certainly a national conversation going on now that I can’t ever recall taking place,” said William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University of Maryland system and co-director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. “We’ve reached a point where big-time intercollegiate athletics is undermining the integrity of our institutions, diverting presidents and institutions from their main purpose.” RTWT.
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Big-Time Sports Have Become the Public Face of American Universities
This isn’t just about cutting class offerings, which is discussed at the clip by Ann-Marie Gabel, LBCC Vice President for Administrative Services. The community college system will begin prioritizing enrollment, placing part-time, recreational, and self-enrichment students at the bottom of the priority list for registration. See the Sacramento Bee , ” California community colleges prepare to ration their offerings “: Faced with state budget cuts since the recession – annual funding is now 12 percent below its 2008-09 high-water mark – community colleges have pared back course offerings. Yet demand remains sky high as costs at four-year universities shoot upward and unemployed Californians seek retraining. Community college leaders say it has become necessary to ration classroom seats like water in a drought. They plan to impose statewide rules that prioritize students working toward a degree, certificate or basic academic skills. To meet that end, students who make little progress or take classes for enrichment purposes will move to the back of the line. The hope, says California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott, is that new students won’t get locked out. State leaders want to increase the percentage of students who graduate or transfer to universities, rates that suffer when students can’t register for classes. “It was never my wish to ration attendance at community colleges, but this was forced upon us by the very severe budget cuts,” Scott said. “The reality is, we just can’t offer everything to everybody.” Boy, it’s going to be a tough year. PREVIOUSLY : ” Dr. Gaither Loewenstein Appointed New Vice President of Academic Affairs at Long Beach City College .”
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Budget Cuts Force ‘Rationing’ at California Community Colleges
Tebow-mania subsided substantially since Tom Brady and the New England Patriots crushed the Denver Broncos’ hopes for a fairytale trip to the Super Bowl. But that isn’t stopping Tim watchers. Now they’re turning their collective attention to the next-best obsession: A storybook ending in the quarterback’s personal life. As in…does he have a girlfriend? Tebow says no . The outspoken Christian and acknowledged virgin says he’s “too busy with football and life…I am blessed to have a close-knit [group] around me. I love meeting and talking with people, socializing and hanging out. But people can read it the wrong way.” Tebow notes that “leading girls on” is definitely not in his playbook. “I always want to be very careful about that,” he says. “That is one thing that’s a little frustrating.” So with the gossip mill linking him ad nauseum with newly single icons such as Olympic champion skier Lindsey Vonn and pop superstar Katy Perry , it’s refreshing to learn of Tebow’s real-life friendship with brain-tumor survivor Kelly Faughn. ”I just think he’s great, a really nice guy,” said Kelly, 22, of Clifton, Va., who still deals with hearing loss suffered at birth and a tremor that began when she was 12. “It’s just his faith. We are God-friends.” It all started in 2009 after Kelly’s surgery to remove a benign brain tumor and a much-needed trip to Disney World in Orlando with her family. The bonus was that Tebow, then with the University of Florida, was scheduled to attend ESPN’s College Football Awards at Disney. Since Kelly was a big Tim fan, she and her dad, Jim, hatched their plan. They grabbed a spot in the ESPN Zone restaurant the day before the awards, Kelly wearing her “I Love Timmy” button and hoping to catch a glimpse of Tebow as he walked by — and she did. “ Well , I thought, that’s it ,” Jim said. “We got a wave from Timmy and I thought that was the end of it. Then, somebody came to our table and asked if we wanted to meet Timmy.” Silly question. Kelly was whisked into a private banquet room where Kelly was seated at Tebow’s side, chatting with him during the entire dinner. Then Tebow had another surprise in store, Kelly remembered. “He said, ‘What are you doing tomorrow night? Why don’t you come to the awards dinner as my date?’” Kelly said. “I was shocked. I said yes. I felt like Cinderella.” Without much more than T-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops in her suitcase, Kelly spent the next day “power shopping” and getting her hair done. “I felt like I was in heaven,” Kelly said. Kelly and Tebow have stayed in touch since their whirlwind date, exchanging messages and gifts. Kelly sent him a box of nutrition bars, and Tebow sent her an engraved Bible for Christmas. The family has also attended two games, including one in Denver last month arranged by the Tim Tebow Foundation .
Kelly chats with Tebow before last December's game.
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This Is a ‘Who Is Tim Tebow Dating?’ Story That You Will Really Like
AP – On a day that combined two campaigns into one, President Barack Obama on Wednesday challenged Republicans to raise taxes on the rich as GOP rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich swiped at him on the economy and criticized each other over immigration.
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Obama and GOP candidates offer a campaign preview
(AP)
The world’s a scary place. Wars, famines, corrupt politicians, terrorism, imploding economies — the list goes on. There are plenty of issues worth fearing, which is why a subset of the nation is preparing for what they see as impending calamity. These individuals, dubbed “preppers,” are stocking up on food, guns, water and other items that they may need should the economy erupt or a massive natural disaster strike. With so many possibilities for problematic occurrences, these individuals want to ensure that they can live beyond any tragically defining moments. Most preppers are fearful of the prospects of no governmental structure — something that some see as a possibility amidst economic woes and political strife. Back in 2009, a Newsweek report described this phenomenon : In the late 1990s, Y2K fears brought survivalism to the mainstream, only to usher it back out again when disaster didn’t strike. (Suddenly, unused survival gear began showing up in classifieds and on eBay.) A decade later, “preppers” are what you might call survivalism’s Third Wave: regular people with jobs and homes whose are increasingly fearful about the future… Watch some preppers discuss their lifestyle, below: Reuters published a report this weekend, highlighting some of the preppers out there who are stockpiling and awaiting what they see as the inevitable. To begin, there’s Patty Tegeler, a 57-year-old who lives in Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains. “In an instant, anything can happen,” she said. “And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared.” Tegeler’s home has essentially been prepared for whatever may come. She has a large generator, water tanks, portable heaters and enough freeze-dried food to lock herself inside and to keep nourished for two years. Wondering how she secured these items? There’s an entire market that caters to these individuals (most vendors operate on the internet). These companies sell many of the items that Tegeler has in her own home, as they teach skills or sell the products needed to ensure individual and family survival pending disaster. The Reuters article even mentions Glenn Beck : Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck seems to preach preppers’ message when he tells listeners: “It’s never too late to prepare for the end of the world as we know it.” Additionally, it goes on to further explain the movement: “With our current dependence on things from the electric grid to the Internet, things that people have absolutely no control over, there is a feeling that a collapse scenario can easily emerge, with a belief that the end is coming, and it is all out of the individual’s control,” [Cathy Gutierrez, an expert on end-times beliefs at Sweet Briar College in Virginia] told Reuters. While many would dub survivalist behaviors as silly or a waste of time, preppers separate themselves from the likes of Harold Camping and other leaders who have set dates for what they promise to be apocalyptic conclusions to societal existence. Preppers like Tegeler claim that their items won’t go to waste regardless of whether there’s a collapse or not. For these individuals it’s all about being ready for anything that could unfold. And there’s plenty of media outlets for these individuals to consume, as they share tips and communicate with one another. Blogs like lawyer Michael T. Snider’s ” The Economic Collapse ” focus upon the themes surrounding the economy’s potential bust. “Most people have a gut feeling that something has gone terribly wrong, but that doesn’t mean that they understand what is happening,” Snider said. “A lot of Americans sense that a massive economic storm is coming and they want to be prepared for it.” Then there’s James Wesley Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, who is behind the ” Survival Blog ,” an online outlet that preppers regularly read. “We could see a cascade of higher interest rates, margin calls, stock market collapses, bank runs, currency revaluations, mass street protests, and riots,” he said in an interview with Reuters. “The worst-case end result would be a Third World War, mass inflation, currency collapses, and long term power grid failures.”
A screen shot from the American Preppers Network
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Meet the ‘Preppers’ — The Americans Stockpiling Food & Water for a Possible Collapse
I guess they’ve got nothing else.
Newt Gingrich is just ahead of Mitt Romney for first place in Real Clear Politics’ average of polling data in South Carolina. Even so, Gingrich couldn’t get a enough people to show up in support of him at an event in Charleston. He had to cancel the event. From the AP: There were just a few dozen people in the audience at the College of Charleston’s arena, where the event was taking place. The conference has suffered from low attendance all week but Gingrich rival Rick Santorum went ahead and addressed the group on Thursday. Gingrich’s spokesman said skipping the stop would give the former House speaker more time at his next scheduled event, a tour of a children’s hospital. South Carolina’s primary is held Saturday.
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Gingrich fails to draw crowd, cancels event
It may seem that a different politician tarnishes his career almost every other week thanks to social media, but rarely do you hear about schools punishing students for opinions made on their personal Facebook pages. Syracuse University’s School of Education has now effectively expelled a graduate student from its teaching program after he expressed resentment in his Facebook status for a community leader’s complaint that student teachers were coming from Syracuse rather than historically black colleges. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reports: “On July 20, 2011, Werenczak was student teaching with Danforth Middle School when he was introduced to a member of the city’s Concerned Citizens Action Program (CCAP). Shortly afterward, in the presence of Werenczak and one other white student teacher, the CCAP member, who is black, said that he thought that the city schools should hire more teachers from historically black colleges. Werenczak later discussed the remark on Facebook , saying, ‘Just making sure we’re okay with racism. It’s not enough I’m … tutoring in the worst school in the city, I suppose I oughta be black or stay in my own side of town.’ Werenczak further wrote that ‘it kind of offends me that I’m basically volunteering the summer at Danforth, getting up at 630, with no AC, to help tutor kids and that’s not enough.’ While Werenczak was summoned to a meeting with administrators shortly before the school year began, he was not charged with any infraction of Syracuse’s rules and never received a disciplinary hearing. On September 7, however, Social Studies Education Coordinator Jeffery A. Mangram sent Werenczak a letter stating that the School of Education (SOE) was effectively expelling Werenczak because he had ‘posted on [his] Facebook page comments the SOE finds unprofessional, offensive, and insensitive not only to the Danforth School but also to the SOE and Syracuse University.’” For his actions, Werenczak would be expelled, had the option to voluntarily withdraw, or could gain a chance of “ad-admittance” by taking part in a special course of diversity training, attend counseling for “anger management,” and write a “a reflective paper that demonstrates the progress and growth you have made in relation to issues regarding cultural diversity as well as your own personal growth.” To stay in school, Werenczak complied with all three conditions by December 14. However, FIRE reports that on January 3 the School of Education(SOE) had not even yet formed a committee to review the case. On January 4, Werenczak was warned that if he took action to push SOE to act, it would “further delay the process.” “FIRE wrote Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor on January 10, pointing out that SOE’s action ‘profoundly violates Syracuse’s express promises of freedom of speech.’ Syracuse promises in its Student Handbook that ‘[s]tudents have the right to express themselves freely on any subject’ and that ‘Syracuse University … welcomes and encourages the expression of dissent.’ Syracuse has failed to respond, leaving Werenczak’s future in limbo.” The nonprofit educational foundation notes that this is not the first time Syracuse has punished a student for online speech: “In the fall of 2010, Syracuse University College of Law student Len Audaer was threatened with expulsion and faced a months-long investigation for his role in a fake-news parody blog about life in law school. In January 2011, FIRE named Syracuse one of the worst universities in the nation for free speech in The Huffington Post . Syracuse dropped all charges against Audaer in February 2011.” Syracuse responded in January 2011 to the article by FIRE in regards to the fake-news blog parody and the Huffington Post list. “The content of the website was not as harmless and carefree as some public commentators have suggested,” writes Syracuse University Vice Chancellor Eric F. Spina. “In fact, the blog contained false, mean spirited attacks, by name, against uninvolved, innocent, private individuals. ” “Syracuse University places a high value on free speech and due process, but also places a high value on the rights of all of its students to study and learn in an environment free from harassment, intimidation and ridicule,” Spina concluded. Between what happened at the law school last year and Werenczak’s current case, FIRE Vice President of Programs Adam Kissel does not take much stock in the university’s assurances. “Syracuse’s promises of free speech and due process are rapidly becoming some of the biggest jokes in higher education,” said Kissel. “I can see why Werenczak might be disturbed about his job prospects after hearing a remark that implicated his race. But it’s impossible to see how any reasonable person in the School of Education could use such a mild, off-campus expression of offense to destroy a student’s career.”
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Syracuse May Expel Student for Complaining on Facebook About Community Leader’s Controversial Race Comment
With each dramatic, down-to-the-wire win, the unlikely legend of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow increases. Last Sunday’s playoff victory over the heavily favored, defending AFC Champion Pittsburgh Steelers was Tebow’s latest Mile-High Miracle, as he tossed a stunning, game-winning 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime. No one, it seems, is immune from Tebow-Mania, whether poking fun (e.g., Late Night host Jimmy Fallon as “Tebowie” ) or heaping praise (the ESPN poll naming him the country’s most popular athlete ). Who won’t be tuning in tonight when the 13.5-point underdog Broncos challenge the Goliath-like New England Patriots in Foxborough, Ma., itching to see if Denver’s “David” can put the pigskin in his slingshot and slay all-time-great Tom Brady? But amid the media hype over his on-field successes—and press-conference declarations of faith—Tebow’s charitable work and plain ol’ expressions of kindness don’t grab nearly as many headlines. Like his pregame meeting last Sunday with Bailey Knaub, a Loveland, Co. high schooler who was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when she was 7 and has since undergone 73 surgeries, including the removal of one of her lungs. “[Tebow] just came over and said ‘Hi Bailey. It’s such a great opportunity to meet you.’ And he gave me the ball, and I was so excited,” she told CBS Denver . Knaub, whose disease is called Wegener’s granulomatosis, has been a Tebow fan since his college days and was thrilled when Denver drafted the Heisman Trophy winner. After Knaub’s cousin wrote to the Tim Tebow Foundation about what Bailey had endured, the foundation’s Wish 15 program—which allows children with life-threatening illnesses to meet Tebow—came through big time. Knaub got primo tickets to the Steelers-Broncos game for her and her family, who all got to spend some time at the game with Tebow’s family and discuss their common faith. “We believe in prayer and we give all the glory to God,” Knaub’s father Rob said. “He saved her life three different times.” Then during pregame warmups, Tebow met with Bailey. “He was so generous and kind and so amazing,” she told CBS Denver, adding that he gave her a signed football and a signed rookie card to boot. “It was so unreal. I was walking on air,” she said. “I couldn’t stop smiling.” The grins grew even wider after Bailey’s new friend led the Broncos to the next playoff round in thrilling fashion, extending the squad’s storybook run. “I had a little jump session with my sister and did a little Tebow dance. I was on cloud nine,” Bailey said. “I couldn’t just stop jumping up and down and screaming ‘We’re going to New England!’” Tebow even mentioned meeting with Bailey when talking to reporters after the huge upset. “I couldn’t believe it that he would take time after such a big win to mention me,” Bailey exclaimed. Her mother, Kathy, told ESPN’s Rick Reilly that Tewbow’s postgame surprises were far from finished. “Here he’d just played the game of his life, and the first thing he does after his press conference is come find Bailey and ask, ‘Did you get anything to eat?’ He acted like what he’d just done wasn’t anything, like it was all about Bailey.” Tebow even added extra star power, calling over receiver Demaryius Thomas (who caught the game-winning touchdown) and uber-iconic John Elway to meet the enthralled 16 year old. “It was the best day of my life,” Bailey said. “Tim Tebow gave me the greatest gift I could ever imagine…the strength for the future. I know now that I can face any obstacle placed in front of me. Tim taught me to never give up because…today might seem bleak but it can’t rain forever and tomorrow is a new day, with new promises.” (h/t: CBS Denver , ESPN )
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Amid Tebow-Mania, a Quiet, Dream-Come-True Gesture Reveals Another Side of Quarterback’s Impact
