Tag: college

Fraternities Say Duke’s Latest Action Poses ‘Existential Threat’ to Greek Life

Minnesota Sun Staff

After Duke University decided to end recruitment of freshmen by Greek and non-Greek selective living groups, nine fraternities decided to disaffiliate from the Interfraternity Council, and thus from the university itself.

Duke University has made several changes to Greek life since the hiring of former Tufts University dean of student affairs Mary Pat McMahon. McMahon is now the vice president and vice provost for student affairs at Duke.

McMahon collaborated with the Office of Undergraduate Education to create a new committee called the Next Generation Living and Learning 2.0 Committee in 2020. The committee seeks to “build a joyful and intentional 4-year residential experience that promotes growth, meaningful inclusion, and health, and that is distinctly Duke.”

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Commentary: Can We Save Our College Students from the Woke Left?

Minnesota Sun Staff

Recent college graduate Davis Soderberg of St. Charles, MO is sounding the alarm about the extent to which the Left has a stranglehold on college campuses across the country.

“If you were to walk into a college classroom, you could quickly identify which students were the liberals and which students were the conservatives,” explained Soderberg, who recently graduated from a public university in Virginia. “The liberals are always the most outspoken because they know their viewpoint is protected and is always favored. It was favored by a majority of their classmates and the professors, which is really scary because students look to the professor as sort of an intellectual higher being.”

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Virginia Politician Pushes for Reparations Through Scholarships to Public Universities

Minnesota Sun Staff

Democratic Virginia Delegate David Reid has introduced legislation, passed by the House of Delegates, which would require some public universities to provide reparations to ancestors of slaves who worked at the universities.

The legislation, ”Enslaved Ancestors College Access Scholarship and Memorial Program,” now awaits a vote in the state senate.

It would require a number of universities to provide reparations. Those universities include Longwood University, the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Military Institute and the College of William and Mary.

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University of Wisconsin-Madison Student Government Votes to Double Ethnic Studies Graduation Requirement

Minnesota Sun Staff

Citing an increase in “bias” and “hate” on campus, the UW-Madison student government recently voted unanimously to double the ethnic studies requirement needed to graduate from three credits to six.

“UW-Madison is responsible for providing students with the knowledge to become more understanding and empathetic individuals,” Associated Students of Madison committee leaders said in a news release following the vote.

“Increasing the Ethnic Studies Requirement is a way to combat current systemic racism and encourage a dialogue around its history,” the group said.

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Academics Systemically Hostile Toward Conservatives, Study Finds

Minnesota Sun Staff

A study revealed that a sizable portion of professors discriminates against conservatives.

The Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology published a report entitled “Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship,” which found that a “significant portion of academics” discriminate against conservatives in hiring, promotion, grants, and publications.

The study evaluated data in the United States, Britain, and Canada to determine the extent of anti-conservative bias in academia.

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Website Tracks Which Colleges Embrace Training in Critical Race Theory

Minnesota Sun Staff

It takes only a few clicks to see that critical race theory is influencing hundreds of college campuses and universities across America.

A new website called Critical Race Training in Education allows users to quickly access information about more than 230 schools and the ways in which those schools are instituting critical race theory on campus.

Critical race theory holds that whites use their social status or their legal and economic advantages to create or maintain power over people of color.

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At Princeton, a Racial Reckoning and a Free Speech Battle

RealClearWire

In 2015, Princeton University became the second higher-education institution to sign the University of Chicago Statement supporting campus free speech. Yet, five years later, Princeton professor Keith E. Whittington wrote that the university stood “on the front lines” of the battle over speech. Those battle lines were drawn this summer by students and faculty demanding the adoption of “anti-racist” policies, which some on campus say run counter to free speech and open inquiry.

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St. Olaf Prof Echoes Call for School to ‘Repent’ of Systemic Racism

Minnesota Sun Staff

The director of St. Olaf College’s Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community echoed a call for the school to “repent” of systemic racism.

Deanna Thompson wrote an article for the Minnesota school’s blog entitled “Uncomfortable Grace: Drawing on St. Olaf’s Lutheran Identity to Guide Our Path to Anti-Racism,” in which she argued that “racism is embedded deep within institutions across the United States, including St. Olaf College.”

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Commentary: Why Our Universities Have Failed

Minnesota Sun Staff

Where did Antifa youth rioting in the streets receive their intellectual and ethical bearings? Why are the First and Second Amendments no longer fully operative? How did the general population become nearly ignorant of their Constitution, history, and the hallmarks of their culture? Why do employers no longer equate a bachelor’s degree with competency in oral and written communications, basic computation, and reasoning? How in the 21st century did race and ethnicity come to define who we are rather than become incidental to our individual personas? In answering all these questions, we always seem to return to higher education – the font of much of our contemporary malaise.

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St. Olaf College Urges Students Not to Kiss While Having Sex Due to COVID-19

Minnesota Sun Staff

St. Olaf College encouraged students to “avoid kissing” while having sex to reduce spreading coronavirus, according to a photo provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Minnesota college’s flyer also urged students to “wear a mask,” “steer clear of partners with symptoms of COVID-19,” “reduce your number of sexual partners” and “use barrier protection like internal/external condoms, as well as dental dams,” according to the picture provided to the DCNF. The flyer also reportedly listed various “sex hygiene” recommendations.

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Report: U.S. Colleges Hid More Than $6.5 Billion in Foreign Funding

Minnesota Sun Staff

Many American colleges and universities failed to disclose more than $6.5 billion in funding and resources from foreign sources including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, The Washington Free Beacon reports.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos unveiled a report last week detailing the massive failure.

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No. 18 Michigan Tops No. 21 Minnesota 49-24 in Milton Debut

The Associated Press

After playing sparingly for Michigan as a backup his first two years and waiting for this virus-shortened season to start seven weeks late, Joe Milton’s time at quarterback had finally come.

The enormity of the moment hit him in the locker room, just before taking the field at Minnesota.

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UNC Asheville Locked Down After Email Threat Demands BLM Mural Be Painted Over

Minnesota Sun Staff

The University of North Carolina Asheville locked down after an email threat demanded a Black Lives Matter mural be painted over, according to a school alert.

The first alert was sent Friday at 7:30 a.m, according to the school alert. The email sent the night before to multiple school offices not only had sent a “threat to the safety of members of our UNC Asheville community”, but also demanded a Black Lives Matter mural from the campus be painted over, according to an alert update from the Office of the Chancellor.

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College Towns Growing Alarmed Over Outbreaks Among Students

The Associated Press

As waves of schools and businesses around the country are cleared to reopen, college towns are moving toward renewed shutdowns because of too many parties and too many COVID-19 infections among students.

With more than 300 students at the University of Missouri testing positive for the coronavirus and an alarming 44% positivity rate for the surrounding county, the local health director Friday ordered bars to stop serving alcohol at 9 p.m. and close by 10 p.m.

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More Than 20,000 Coronavirus Cases Have Been Counted at Colleges Since Late July: Report

Minnesota Sun Staff

Colleges across the United States have reported more than 20,000 coronavirus cases since late July, according to The New York Times.

At least 26,000 cases and 64 deaths have been reported from more than 1,500 colleges since the pandemic started, according to the Times survey of reported cases at U.S. universities.

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Two Colleges Suspend Students for Gatherings That Broke Coronavirus Restrictions

Minnesota Sun Staff

Syracuse University and Purdue University have suspended dozens of students for attending gatherings that violated coronavirus restrictions before classes have begun, the schools announced this week.

Both universities had policies and pledges implemented in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19, including face mask wearing, social distancing guidelines and restrictions on event sizes, according to statements from the schools.

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Players Unite in Push to Save College Season, Create Union

The Associated Press

Michigan defensive back Hunter Reynolds saw the tweets from Trevor Lawrence and other college football players pushing for the opportunity to play this season despite the pandemic.

Reynolds, one of the organizers behind a players’ rights movement in the Big Ten, didn’t like the way some on social media seemed to be pitting Lawrence’s message against the efforts of #BigTenUnited and #WeAreUnited.

“There was a lot of division,” Reynolds told AP early Monday morning.

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After Talk of Collaboration, College Football Conferences Go Their Own Way

The Associated Press

Plans for the 2020 college football season — if it is played — should start coming into focus this week.

They will trickle down from the top of major college football, with Power Five conferences putting in place revised schedules they hope will make it easier to manage potential disruptions brought on by COVID-19.

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New Senate Legislation Targets Foreign Theft of US Research

Minnesota Sun Staff

A new bill looks to grant the government additional oversight on foreign access to U.S. research and intellectual property.

The legislation comes as a response to recent incidents of high-security concern which concern China’s relationship with the US, including Chinese programs that seek to recruit American scientists, and the widespread failure of U.S. universities to report foreign funding.

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Students Sue Harvard Citing ‘Subpar Online Learning Options’ During Coronavirus Pandemic

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Wednesday, students sued Harvard University for not refunding tuition and fees after the coronavirus pandemic forced classes online.

This makes Harvard at least the fourth Ivy League school to be targeted for failing to reimburse educational costs, following Brown, Columbia, and Cornell. The school is facing a $5 million federal class-action lawsuit.  Students chose to pursue legal action as a result of not having “received the benefit of in-person instruction or equivalent access to university facilities and services.” 

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Nationwide, Feds Find Cozy Connections Between China and University Professors

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Chinese Virus began infiltrating the United States in early 2020, but the communist country already had a foot in the door well before then.

In the last year, Campus Reform has covered multiple instances of U.S. law enforcement officials charging professors and students with lying about their ties to China while conducting U.S.-funded research and even attempting to smuggle U.S.-funded researched to China.

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Ole Miss Students Required to Complete ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ Training

Admin
college students

The University of Mississippi has introduced a new diversity and inclusion course requirement for students.

The main catalyst for Ole Miss implementing this course was an incident in which several students were photographed holding guns near a memorial for Emmett Till, resulting in an FBI investigation.

The online course, which is 45 minutes long, was due on April 1. The Daily Mississippian reports that it followed the same structure and method as alcohol and sexual assault online courses used at Ole Miss and schools across the country.

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Commentary: Pandemic Waste in Higher Education

Minnesota Sun Staff

Life has been very strange for millions of American college students this past month. Many packed their bags and moved back home to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. Universities scrambled to provide virtual classes to their students to help them comply with recommendations for social distancing. Our bustling campuses quickly turned into ghost towns, and university administrators redirected their full attention towards student instruction.

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Commentary: Rethinking University Dependence on Foreign Students

Minnesota Sun Staff

Were all of the foreign students returning to America’s campuses in January vectors of infection for coronavirus? Especially the students from China? There’s no evidence yet to prove the point, although the odds are that at least some coronavirus infection came to the United States from foreign students.

If we’ve been spared a campus plague, it’s owing to the grace of God, and not to any actions by our colleges and universities.

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Mike Rowe on Rising College Tuition as Classes Move Online: ‘What Are We Paying For?’

Minnesota Sun Staff

Mike Rowe took a swipe at the rising cost of college tuition during an interview Tuesday with Fox News, asking, “what are we paying for?”

Calling what students are paying to attend college courses “somewhere between egregious and obscene,” the host of “Dirty Jobs” said that he predicts “one of the silver linings” from the coronavirus pandemic will be Americans’ commitments “truly to learning” and that the crisis could “completely redefine” how people learn moving forward.

Rowe told viewers that just the week before, he watched an online lecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Wall Street Exec. Jamie Dimon Launches an Anti-Socialist Crusade as Students Increasingly Gravitate Toward It

Minnesota Sun Staff

Young Americans, including college students, are increasingly gravitating toward socialism, but one Wall Street executive is pushing back, warning of the system’s potentially irreversible effects. 

A recently published analysis by the top finance school in the United States, University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Finance, has found that Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan would shrink the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 24 percent by 2060. Meanwhile, the majority of Democrat and Democrat-leaning college students nationwide overwhelmingly favor Sanders as the Democrat presidential nominee over any of the other candidates.

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George Mason University Professor Calls College a ‘Racket,’ Blasts Diversity Hires

Minnesota Sun Staff

An economics professor at George Mason University is speaking out about the “racket” that he says is college, and blaming it on the “diversity people” who he says have flooded the university system with unnecessary and perpetually increasing expenses tied to a seemingly endless need for more and more diversity initiatives and faculty.

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Commentary: Fixing Higher Education Begins with Reforming How It Is Financed

Minnesota Sun Staff
college students

Our educational industrial complex is broken, and swift reform is needed. College costs continue to rise much faster than inflation, and too many students are plowing themselves into debt and wasting years of their lives pursuing pointless degrees. Upon leaving college, these students are often surprised to discover that their degrees have little value. Of course, most colleges are liberal indoctrination centers, where conservative voices are few and often drowned out.

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Campus Conservatives Call Out Professor Rebecca Bell-Metereau for Quiz Comparing Trump’s ‘America First’ Slogan to KKK

Minnesota Sun Staff

A professor at Texas State University gave a quiz in film class asking students whether President Donald Trump’s “America First” platform is comparable to white supremacy and the KKK.

According to the student publication at Texas State, The University Star, English professor Rebecca Bell-Metereau asked students in an Introduction to Film course, “What is true about the ‘America First’ slogan in the film and present day?”

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Commentary: Loan Reform Requires Colleges With Skin in the Game

Minnesota Sun Staff

President Trump’s recent budget proposal calls for reforms to the federal student loan program, so that colleges that “accept taxpayer funds have skin in the game through a student loan risk-sharing program.” Certainly, a change in the student loan program is long overdue.

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Macalester College President Wants to Remove Name of ‘Racist’ Founder From Building

Anthony Gockowski

The president of Macalester College in St. Paul wants to remove the name of founder Edward Duffield Neill from an on-campus building because of racist views he expressed in his writings.

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Commentary: Academic Nonsense and Biases Have a Long History

Minnesota Sun Staff

The United States had a population of 1.5 million post-secondary faculty members in the fall of 2016.

This ivory tower army produces volumes of written material so lofty that it’s rarely read by anyone. The content that is read can be hard for everyday Americans to take seriously, for with 10.4 registered Democrats for every registered Republican, the political bias is strong amongst professors.

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Massive College Loan Scheme Bilks Taxpayers with Fake Enrollment Paperwork, Whistleblowers Say

Minnesota Sun Staff

Onetime employees of the University of Phoenix say the for-profit company conducted a potentially multi-billion dollar fraud on taxpayers by deliberately submitting false records to the federal government to enroll unqualified students and cash in on federal student loans.

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Professor Finds Lower College GPAs Among Conservatives Compared to Liberals

Minnesota Sun Staff

Research finds that conservatives on average earn higher GPAs and test scores in high school, but ultimately receive lower GPAs in college when compared to their liberal classmates, at least partly due to liberal ideological bias. This grade discrepancy is even more evident in the humanities and social sciences, as compared to the more objective STEM fields.

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Commentary: Once a Proud Tradition, College ‘Common Reading Programs’ Have Been Reduced to Political Fluff for Freshmen

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Chris West   Many colleges assign “common readings” to incoming students as an intellectual experience outside the classroom to set the bar for the academic rigor that professors expect of students. This tradition is most students’ first taste of the university. This well-meaning tradition, however, has become highly politicized…

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China Discontinues American and European History AP Tests for Chinese Students Seeking U.S. College Credits

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Ethan Cai   The Chinese government will completely suspend certain Advanced Placement (AP) history tests by 2020 in an attempt to hide “unfriendly” material. Chinese students seeking college credit for U.S. colleges will no longer be able to take the U.S. history, European history, world history, and human geography…

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Commentary: We Need a Higher Education Reformation

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Emina Melonic   American higher education, once the envy of the world, is suffering a crisis of confidence and a loss of purpose. “Once upon a time, universities were institutions dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the transmission of the highest values of our civilization,” writes New Criterion editor and publisher Roger…

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Commentary: The Astonishing Mess of Academic Publishing

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Phillip W. Magness   Scholarly publishing is a world of maddening inefficiencies. It’s also an unavoidable part of scientific discussion, and it remains one of the only features of academic life that offers some semblance of a meritocratic measure of a scholar’s contributions to the field. “Publish or perish,” as…

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How College Students Really Feel About Free Speech on Campus

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Kaylee Greenlee   A new survey finding that college students generally support free speech also shows what for some is a worrisome divide over what students value more: an “inclusive society” that “welcomes diverse groups” or protecting “the extremes of free speech.” The Knight Foundation’s “Free Expressions of College…

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