Penn part of new application coalition

After a series of problems with the Common Application, eighty-three schools are coming together to create a new joint college application portal that will serve as an alternative — but Penn is not taking part.  The new application portal, offered through the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, aims to attract a greater number of lower income and underrepresented and will allow students to upload projects they've worked on throughout their high school years to create an inventory of their work.

Harvard students protest Japanese Prime Minister visit

Students at Harvard protested Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the school on Monday.  Abe's visit to the school is part of a week-long tour of the United States.

Texas professor fails entire class via email

A Texas A&M University Galveston professor failed his class via email and stated he would no longer be teaching the course.  "None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie, as you do not in any way embody the honor that the university holds graduates should have within their personal character," management professor Irwin Horwitz wrote in the email to his students. The email comes after what he describes as a "semester of disrespect, backstabbing, lying and cheating." Hortwitz is known to he a challenging professor.

Slate sits in on controversial 'Wasting Time on the Internet' course

Slate reporter Katy Waldman sat in on Penn's controversial "Wasting Time on the Internet" course.  "Wasting Time," a creative writing course, is taught by Penn professor Kenny Goldsmith.

Alleged rapist in Sulkowicz case sues Columbia

Paul Nungesser, the alleged rapist of Emma Sulkowicz--who has been walking around Columbia with a mattress to protest the school's lack of action against Nungesser--is now suing Columbia for failing "to protect him from a 'harassment campaign' by Sulkowicz." Nungesser is suing the school's board of trustees, president and a professor that allowed Sulkowicz to write her thesis on the matress-carrying protest. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, reads, "Columbia University's effective sponsorship of the gender-based harassment and defamation of Paul resulted in an intimidating, hostile, demeaning...learning and living environment." The popularity of Sulkowicz's protest, which was picked up by The New York Times and New York Magazine, has also been damaging to Nungesser's and job prospects.  Columbia had no comment on the lawsuit.

Quartz: Fraternity groupthink might lead to their demise

Fraternities are having an identity crisis, according to Scott Ellman of Quartz.   Hazing practices and their "exclusionary nature" are the source of fraternities' problems.

Anti-Semitic sentiment stains UCSB divestment vote

A student at the University of California, Santa Barbara is speaking out against a meeting held by the student senate to vote on a resolution written by UCSB students that called for the school to divest from companies that assist the Israeli Defense Forces that turned into hours of UCSB students making derogatory comments about Jews.  "I am disturbed that half of my student representatives felt it right to pass a resolution that countless Jewish students vocalized as being offensive, threatening and blatantly anti-Semitic," Margaux Gundzik wrote in a letter to the editor.

Cornell announces alumna as Convocation speaker

Cornell's 2015 Convocation Committee has selected Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly to speak at the school's 150th Convocation ceremony.  Giffords, a Cornell alumna, served as an Arizona district representative from 2007 to 2012, during which time she was nearly killed during an assassination in 2011.

Athletic directors look to remake financial aid packages for athletes

A look at student spending on housing, food and commuting at Texas Christian University has led athletic directors to consider standardizing the allowances athletes are granted as part of their financial aid packages.  The study, which revealed that students spend an average of $4,000 throughout the year, has been concerning for athletic directors  that believe they will be "at a competitive disadvantage in recruiting players" if their schools are not able to offer athletes financial offers that will meet all of their expenses.

Facebook helps students transition to college

In his paper presented to the American Educational Research Association last Sunday, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Collin Ruud found that Facebook plays a crucial role in helping students get accustomed to college life.  Rudd reports in the paper, "Social Networking and Social Support: Does It Play a Role in College Social Integration?," that there exists a relationship "between social-media use and feelings of belonging to the broader campus community" and that those students that used Facebook to stay in contact with their friends from high school felt closer to their communities at college.

Major divestment protests taking place at Harvard and Yale

Major divestment protests have been taking place at Yale and Harvard. Earlier this month, the Hartford Courant reported that 19 Yale students were arrested and fined during a protest that demanded the school stop its investments in fossil fuel companies.

Schools work to help minorities complete dissertations on time

The Council of Graduate Schools has reported that from 1996 to 2005, the typical seven-year Ph.D completion rates in STEM fields for minority candidates has risen by five percent.  Though it is not clear exactly what is causing this to happening, the report, "The Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion," makes recommendations on ways to improve rates, including "providing interventions throughout the doctoral process, not just at the beginning, and building a culture of diversity and inclusion on campuses and within programs." Schools have been implementing programs like the ones recommended in the study.

Students should use finance jobs for social good

Harvard professor Sendhil Mullainathan is questioning whether students going into finance will make the best use of their talent.  In 2014, one in five Harvard students took a job in the financial sector and this number was bigger for economics majors--one in two students.  Mullainathan explains that "every profession produces both private return--the fruits of labor that a person enjoys--and social returns, those that society enjoys." While finance is usually an industry in which returns are private, he argues, people in the industry can use it for the solve social problems with financial roots, such as saving money for college to insure unemployment risk and going into debt from having to take out loans to support meager paychecks.  "So how should I feel about my students going into finance?

Ivy reject reflects on college admissions process

After being rejected from Brown, high school senior William Pang wrote a letter published in the Washington Post about what he proposed to do next.  "The college decision felt like a verdict on the past 18 years of my life, and a reminder that the accomplishments and awards I achieved were insignificant compared to other 18-year-olds," Pang wrote.  After speaking with friends, including one at Penn, Pang concluded that being rejected from the Ivy League did not mean he would not be successful.

Vassar awarded $1 million for promoting economic diversity

Vassar College has been awarded the Cooke Prize for Equity in Educational Excellence, which recognizes schools "making strides in enrolling low-income students and supporting them to successful graduation." Since 2006, Vassar has been taking steps to create a more socioeconomically diverse student body by increasing their financial aid budget, which is now $60 million.

The lives of low-income students at Ivies

The Boston Globe is taking a look into what life is like for low-income students at Ivy League schools.  In 2004, in an effort to create a more socioeconomically diverse student body, Harvard began offering low-income students full financial aid packages if they were admitted into the school.

Fake ID users caught regularly at Philadelphia bars

On an average night, 20 people are caught with fake IDs in Philadelphia, and they are becoming easier to identify. Smokey Joe's bartender and bouncer Mike Ryan says "it gets old" dealing with fake IDs.

UF students admitted under unknown condition of online courses

3,100 students were accepted to the University of Florida on the condition that their first year is spent taking online classes, a catch not made known to them at the time they were applying.  The online class requirement is part of a new program called Pathway to Campus Enrollment-also knows as PaCE- which he says allows the school "to offer admission to additional qualified applicants with academic potential and demonstrated success." As part of the program, students may move to on-campus courses after completing two semesters of classes online.   UF expects less than 10 percent of students to accept the offer and an even smaller amount to go on to become on-campus students.  Read more at the Washington Post. 

Drexel professor emails students link to porn

Drexel law professor Lisa McElroy is being investigated after sending her students a link that directed students to a pornographic video, Philly.com reports.  The email, sent on March 31, had the subject "great article on writing briefs" and included a link that led to a clip of "a woman engaging in a sexuality explicit act." Drexel released a statement in which it explained it was required to investigate reports of any behavior of sexual nature that could impacts members of its community. 

Student sentenced to jail for revising his grades

Brigham Young University-Idaho student Jacob Espinal was charged with felony computer fraud and grand theft after it was discovered he had changed his grades which resulted in him winning a scholarship.