The University of Connecticut is switching to Google as the host for its students’ school email.
An announcement on the school’s website Monday said the switch was prompted by student complaints about its HuskyMail system.
The university is now transitioning its 30,000 students to the Google email service as well as other applications including a web-based document sharing program and instant messaging service.
Student inbox space is expected to increase from 50 megabytes to 7 gigabytes with the change.
School officials say the new system will be ready by the beginning of the coming school year.
Google Inc. is based in Mountain View, Calif.
The author is a professor of economics at Ohio University.
An Open Letter to John Kline and Virginia Foxx
May 2, 2011, 11:41 am
By Richard Vedder
John Kline and Virginia Foxx chair the House of Representatives’ Education and Workforce committee and its higher-education subcommittee, respectively. They have expressed a desire to look at some issues of importance to the higher-education community. Along with some other researchers and heads of higher-education-related organizations, I met with staffers for these members of Congress recently and suggested some ideas for hearings. I have heard no followup, so have decided to take the issue public, by suggesting one modest but specific reform that could provide enormously valuable information affecting how we spend billions of dollars of federal higher-education money.
Here is my idea: Require the U.S. D
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Earlier this year, Inside Higher Ed published an essay by Joshua Wolff in which he described his experiences as a homosexual at Biola University, a Christ-centered institution of higher education.
In his essay, Wolff declares that he chose to attend Biola in the hope that his time there would help him overcome his sexual attraction to other men. It did not. Instead, he eventually embraced what he perceived to be his sexual orientation and identity. Wolff writes that he began to fear that Biola would expel him. That fear was apparently rooted entirely in the existence of Biolas Code of Conduct, under which students at Biola commit to refrain from practices that Scripture forbids, such as sexual relations outside of marriage, homosexual behavior, theft and dishonesty. Wolff does not reveal whether he actually engaged in homosexual behavior, as opposed to simply experiencing same-sex sexual attraction, which Biolas Code does not address. In the main, Wolff points to a sort of undifferentiated fear, pain, confusion, sadness as the principal alleged harms he suffered as a consequence of Biolas Code.
Apparently so that others will not have to experience these unpleasant sensations, Wolff first urges Christ-centered colleges with policies like Biolas to change those policies. In other words, he wants them to jettison millennia of church teaching on sexual ethics teaching that institutions like Biola (correctly, in my view) believe are derived from the Bible, which, in turn, is a revelation of God Himself. If colleges dont change their policies voluntarily, Wolff advocates the use of coercion:
Additionally, accrediting bodies that govern colleges and programs must step in and say “enough” when schools use religion to hide from accountability for policies and programs that can cause psychological harm.
He blithely opines that the institutions interest in religious freedom must be subordinated. To be sure, the mere invocation of religious freedom is not talismanic. Religious freedom does not immunize a human sacrificer from liability for murder. But religious freedom certainly means that the mere experience of fear, sadness, confusion, and psychological pain does not justify forcing religious institutions to abandon positions and practices through which they define and maintain their voluntary associations, particularly when the vast majority of colleges and universities not only lack policies like Biolas but indeed actively celebrate homosexuality.
Insider Higher Ed published a thoughtful response to Wolffs essay by Stan Jones, the provost of Wheaton College. I encourage you to read it; it is quite excellent.
Join the conversation: facebook.com/SpeakUpU
The UW Board of Regents will make its decision about changes in resident undergraduate tuition later this month after looking at multiple options, including 16, 20 and 22 percent increases in tuition.
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Percentage increase of tuition (by academic year).
The passage of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (E2SHB 1795) in the state Legislature on May 9 gives the Board of Regents comprehensive tuition-setting authority for a four-year period starting in the 2011-12 academic school year, and then tuition-setting authority with caps, or limits on increases, until 2017-18.
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The University of the Pacific Board of Regents has added two new members. Armando Flores, director of Community Relations and Administration for the Arizona State Baseball Program, and Noël Ferris, a partner in the Sacramento law firm of Noël M. Ferris, are both Pacific graduates. Flores graduated from Pacific’s Stockton campus in 1971, while Ferris graduated from Pacific McGeorge in Sacramento in 1979.
Both were elected during the spring 2011 Regents meeting, held in Sacramento April 20 -22. They will join the board July 1 along with Fawzi Al-Saleh and Kevin Huber, who were elected in January.
“Both Armando and Noël are great additions to the Regents and will bring unique and valuable perspectives to Pacific’s governing board,” said Tom Zuckerman, chair of the Board of Regents. “B
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