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Higher Education News
World & Nation
The Fair Labor Association (FLA), a coalition
of companies, universities, and others that seeks to promote
adherence to international labor standards and improve working conditions
worldwide, has publicized the results of a yearlong investigation of
seven international companies that produce apparel and footwear, including
items that bear college logos.
The report on companies such as Adidas-Saloman,
Eddie Bauer, Levi Strass, Liz Claiborne, Nike, Phillips-Van Heusen, and
Reebok International outlines areas in which the companies did not meet
the association’s standards, such as child labor, harassment of
workers, and the freedom to form unions. Universities that are FLA members
require companies producing their licensed products to join the group.
You can download a copy of the report
at www.fairlabor.org/all/transparency/Public%20Report%20Y1.pdf.
The nation’s
first state-wide universal health care plan was signed into
law in June by Maine’s Governor John Baldacci. Dirigo Health
will be offered to all uninsured residents of Maine, on a sliding scale
for those with incomes below 300 percent of the federal poverty level.
Expected to go into effect next year,
the plan will provide an estimated 180,000 uninsured persons with access
to comprehensive medical benefits. The plan’s name comes from the
state’s motto: Dirigo—Latin for “I lead.”
While the
400 wealthiest taxpayers accounted for more than 1 percent of
income in the United States in the year 2000—more than double
their share just eight years earlier—their tax burden has significantly
decreased over the same time period, according to figures from the
IRS.
In 2000, the top 400 paid on average
22.3 percent of their income in federal income tax, down from 29.9 percent
in 1995.
A married couple with two children earning
a combined income of $226,000 also paid 22.3 percent of their income
in federal income tax in 2000.
Faculty & Staff
Faculty leaders of the University of California
System's Academic Senate have voted to
revise the university’s academic freedom policy to allow greater
expression of political and personal opinions by professors in the
classroom.
Under the new policy, faculty members
will be allowed to reach definite conclusions with regard to politics,
but are cautioned that classroom discussion still “requires an
open mind” and that “responsible instruction precludes
coercing the judgment of a student, or the use of instruction as a
means to nonacademic ends.”
The change in the university’s
academic freedom policy has been brought in an effort to amend the
old policy, created during an anticommunist movement of the 1930s,
which instructed faculty members to “give play to intellect instead
of passion” and “stick to the logic of facts.”
The text of the new policy is available
at www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/assembly/jul2003/jul2003ii.pdf.
Professional News
The College Board reports that 48 percent
of this year’s 2.94 million high
school graduates took the SAT in 2003, the largest increase in more
than 15 years. Additionally, 38 percent of the SAT takers were first-generation
college students, and the proportion of minority students taking the
SAT hit 36 percent—up one percent from last year. Students are
better prepared for the test as well—average math scores (519)
are the highest they have been in 35 years, and average verbal scores
(507) are the highest they have been in 15 years.
A survey of undergraduates
by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John
F. Kennedy School of Government suggests that undergraduate students
will turn out in greater numbers in the 2004 elections than in recent
contests, and that they could become a key swing group. In the survey,
59 percent of students said they would “definitely be voting” in
next year's general election.
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