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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Campus Technology: Ramping Up E-Portfolios at U Cincinnati


Even with backers among the faculty, e-portfolio initiatives can be slow to take hold across university and college campuses. What does it take to encourage adoption? One professor who's championing a faculty-driven e-portfolio initiative at the University of Cincinnati shares some of his insights.

By Bridget McCrea04/20/11
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 Needed Now: A Re-Mediated Education Blueprint To Improve Retention and Employability



Higher education seems stuck in a tricky dilemma: how to move, en masse, to new learning models that seem, on the surface, to require a lower teacher-student ratio. But the dilemma is tricky only if the basic assumption about how students learn remains in the box of behaviorism. And it is tricky only if technology is seen as peripheral--handy but not transformative.
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University Business: UW System Split Not Likely To Move Forward, Lawmakers Say


Lawmakers expressed doubt this week that Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal to split UW-Madison from the University of Wisconsin System has the support to move forward.

Wisconsin State Journal

Lawmakers expressed doubt this week that Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal to split UW-Madison from the University of Wisconsin System has the support to move forward.

"I think its highly unlikely that the Legislature at this time is ready to grant that authority," said Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, co-chair of the state Legislature's powerful budget committee.

The governor's proposal would make UW-Madison into a public authority - separate from the UW System - with its own 21-member board of trustees and more autonomy on issues such as tuition, money management, purchasing and building.

"There's quite a bit of consensus, or there's quite a bit of interest, in keeping the System together at this time," said Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, also a member of the budget committee.
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The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Returns on an HBCU Education


April 19, 2011 By Marybeth Gasman

The Review of Black Political Economy just published a new article entitled “The Relative Returns to Graduating from a Historically Black College/University: Propensity Score Matching Estimates from the National Survey of Black Americans.” The authors include economists Gregory Price (Morehouse College), William Springs (Howard University), and Omari Swinton (Howard University). Relying on data from the National Survey of Black Americans, the paper adds to the growing literature on the labor market outcomes of higher education, specifically HBCU’s.

Price, Springs and Swinton found that HBCU’s afford their “graduates relatively superior long-run labor market outcomes.” This, they say, is in contrast to a recent study by Roland Fryer and Michael Greestone (2010), which found that the relative returns on graduating from an HBCU are negative. Unlike Fryer and Greenstone’s, this new study does not conclude that HBCU’s retard black students’ progress. In fact, Price, Springs, and Swinton found that HBCU graduates have higher earning potential relative to non-HBCU African American graduates. As a result, the authors claim that their research shows that HBCUs “continue to have a compelling educational justification.” The results of this new study also complement the recent research of Mykeresi and Mills (2008), who found that HBCU’s have a positive impact on the long-run labor market earnings of African-American males.

Price, Springs, and Swinton also found that HBCU’s have a “comparative advantage in nurturing the self-image, self-esteem, and identity of their graduates.” This finding complements previous longitudinal research conducted in the 1980s (Fleming, 1984) and 1990s (Allen, Epps, and Haniff, 1991). For decades, HBCUs have been found to enhance and build self-esteem. This is one reason why they produce so many students who pursue graduate and professional studies.

Price, Springs, and Swinton’s research contradicts the perspectives of some commentators, who have questioned the existence, mission, and impact of HBCU’s in recent months. Hopefully, these commentators will take the time to review this new research the next time they write about HBCU’s. Looking at all of the research on HBCU’s presents a richer and more complex picture of their impact on African-American students.
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Research Publication Tips Dr. Mona Lisa Saloy April 2011


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DIllard University Deep South Center HBCU Enviornmental Health and Safety Compliance Symposium

For Immediate Release
What: HBCU Environmental Health and Safety Compliance Symposium
When: April 25 – 27, 2011 @ Dillard University, Professional Schools Building, Room 135, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm
Who: Dillard University Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
504‐816‐4005

The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice is hosting the Environmental Health &
Safety Compliance Symposium April 25 – 27, 2011 in the Professional Schools Building,
Room 135 at Dillard University. The three day symposium will cover a variety of
environmental compliance topics and equip participants with the latest information on
environmental regulations. Dillard faculty, staff and students are invited to attend the
symposium free of charge. You must RSVP for the April 25th luncheon; available seating is
limited.

Special Guest Dr. Benjamin Chavis will be the luncheon keynote speaker
Monday, April 25th from 12:15 – 1:15 pm. Dr. Chavis and Russell
Simmons co‐founded the Hip‐Hop Summit Action Network. Dr. Chavis is
also President of Education Online Services Corporation (EOServe, Corp),
the world’s leading provider of online higher education for HBCU’s
across America. He has authored several books and publications
including Toxic Waste and Race in the United States, A National Report
on the Racial and Socioeconomic Characteristics of Communities with
Hazardous Waste Sites, and The National Agenda: Public Policy Issues, Analyses, and
Programmatic Plans of Action.
The symposium will provide information sharing and professional development opportunities.
Symposium sessions will include topics on hazardous communication, blood‐borne pathogens,
indoor air quality, green construction, and interpretation of federal regulations to ensure a
safe working environment. For more information about the symposium call 504‐816‐4005.
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TLT Group TGIF 4.21.2011 - (twenty-second issue, volume four)


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Diverse Issues in Higher Education: UC Davis Law Professor Creates Cartoons to Teach Copyright Law


by Lydia Lum , April 15, 2011

Keith Aoki grew up devouring comics and TV cartoons. He spent countless hours drawing and creating his own stories, eventually becoming an artist in New York City struggling to eke out a living.

Now, having traded in a nomadic existence for life as a college professor, Aoki has carved a niche in which his comics explain and explore intellectual property law. He hopes his time-consuming labor teaches and empowers not only students but also the countless artists whose creativity can be stymied by trademark and copyright laws. Aoki’s comic book characters show readers how to more easily discern the difference between piracy and public domain. The cartoons suggest, for example, how a person could make an artistic parody of a Barbie doll without copyright infringement or how to legally include fragments of a TV program in the background shot of a videotaped documentary.

“Comics are more in-your-face than scholarly articles,” explains Aoki, a University of California, Davis law professor since 2007.

His drawing style is inspired by famous artists such as Steve Ditko (Spider-Man), the late Jack Kirby (Fantastic Four) and the late Chester Gould (Dick Tracy).

Despite devoting himself to producing comic strips for nearly a decade after earning a bachelor’s in fine arts from Wayne State University in 1978, Aoki didn’t illustrate a full-length comic book until becoming a University of Oregon law professor. For three years, until 2005, he and two Duke University law faculty brainstormed, wrote, drew, laughed, tore up and re-drew their way through a collaboration. It resulted in Bound by Law? — a 78-page book starring a filmmaker planning a documentary about daily life but confused about copyright law.

Aoki portrayed the heroine, Akiko, on a riff of the iconic Marvel Comics superhero Captain America, arming her with a shield bearing a giant “C” — as in “copyright.” Aoki sketched hundreds of copyrighted works — a Budweiser beer ad, SpongeBob SquarePants and Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” to name a few — into the book’s narrative, a living exercise in fair use because neither he nor his co-authors obtained permission to use those images. Yet at one point, protagonist Akiko bemoans her inability to purchase a copy of the civil rights documentary “Eyes on the Prize” because it went out of circulation once its producers were unable to afford licensing fees on copyrighted music and footage.

Co-author James Boyle recounts “long, hilarious Skype calls whenever they brainstormed. “Keith’s artistry is a wonderful mixture of allusions to classic comics. It’s a kind of inspired remix — appropriately, because remix is the subject of the comics we’ve worked on together,” says Boyle, referring to the artist’s use of everyday familiar-but-copyrighted images to construct an original narrative.

Aoki, Boyle and Duke senior lecturing fellow Jennifer Jenkins hope to publish their second comic book later this year. Bound by Law? was published in 2006 by Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

Three times longer than Bound by Law?, the trio’s second book traces the history of music borrowing, hoping to bring some perspective to today’s technology-infused music wars. Aoki has come a long way from drawing comic strips, mostly unpaid, for New York publications such as East Village Eye, an arts and culture paper. Aoki supported himself as a bike messenger, bartender and construction worker until getting married, and the desire for a stable income led him to enroll in law school. After two years of practicing technology law at a Boston firm, he moved into academia.

Aoki compartmentalizes his artistry into weekends and summers. Weekdays are confined to classroom teaching — “the Cartesian, rational, logical side of life,” he jokes. To download a free copy of Bound by Law? Visit http://www.thepublicdomain.org/comic/
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