Higher Education News

World & Nation
The senior year of high school and the first year of college should have greater cohesion, according to a report released by the Institute for Educational Leadership and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

"Overcoming the High School Senior Slump," charges that the college admissions process provides few incentives for high school students to work hard their final year. College admissions are typically based on academic work prior to the senior year.

The report recommends that colleges and universities set standards for senior year performances with the possibility of canceling an acceptance if the student fails to meet these standards.

The report also recommends that high schools and colleges link senior year requirements with the first-year college curriculum in order to counter the need for remedial courses.

Five American universities have received highest marks for the physical sciences in rankings of the research quality of universities and institutions around the world. The rankings, by the British newspaper The Guardian, were based on the "research impact" of the institution. Criteria included the number of papers faculty members have published and how often those papers were cited in other publications.

The rankings focused on journal articles, rather than the publication of academic books. Research impact was defined as the average number of citations per paper.

The study focused on Britain, Canada, Germany, and the United States because scholars in these countries were the top producers of research papers.

The universities in the physical science: The Scripps Research University in La Jolla, California, the University of California at Santa Cruz, Rockefeller University, Harvard, and Brandeis.

The Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the British Medical Research Council and the Max Planck Institute in Germany won high marks in other areas of scientific research.

Visit www.guardian.co.uk/ for more.

Faculty & Staff
Minority groups, especially African Americans, are underrepresented in the nation's top 50 chemistry departments, according to a recent study reported by the Association for Women in Science.

Out of 1,637 tenured or tenure-track faculty members at the leading institutions, 22 were Hispanic, 18 were African American, and 3 were American Indian, the Association's newspaper, AWIS Magazine, reported.

The research, conducted by the University of Oklahoma, found that since 1991, not a single Black scholar was hired for a tenure-track position at a top chemistry department.

New research has found that more women are teaching science at the undergraduate college level. The study, "Academic Excellence: The Sourcebook—A Study of the Role of Research in the Natural Sciences at the Undergraduate Institutions," reports that over the last decade, about 40 percent of new, tenure-track science professors were women.

Professional News
Effective October 2002, the Education Testing Service will change the format of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test to include a writing assessment. The writing test will measure the test-takers ability to logically argue a position on an issue and will replace the current multiple choice analytical section.

The new writing section will comprise two essays. In one essay, the student will argue a position on an issue. In the second essay, the test-taker will be asked to criticize an argument and its supporting evidence.

Thirteen communities across the country are forming partnerships between colleges and universities and the local community in an effort to increase the high school and college graduation rates of Hispanic students.

The partnerships are a part of the ENLACE Initiative and will focus on seven states with large Hispanic populations. Find out more at: www.wkkfweb.org/ENLACE/map.html.

Factors Influencing State Education Appropriations
Source: Where We Go From Here: State Legislative Views on Higher Education in the New Millennium