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Higher Education News

World & Nation
Nearly 1.4 billion of the world’s workers are living in extreme poverty—under $2 a day, according to a report by the International Labor Organization, an affiliate of the United Nations.

The ILO World Employment Report calls for global economic policies to focus on creating decent jobs to lift workers out of poverty. For more information, visit www.ilo.org.

The number of college students who are clinically depressed is on the rise, according to the American College Health Association. Just over 10 percent of students reported having a diagnosis of depression in 2000; in 2004, that number rose to 14.9 percent. Thirty-eight percent reported taking medication and 25.2 percent are in therapy. Ten percent of all students surveyed in 2004 reported seriously considering taking their own lives at least once during the year.

More information on this mental health crisis can be found at the association’s Web site at www.acha.org.

The City University of New York (CUNY) is planning to open three “early-college” high schools on CUNY campuses next September with part of a total of $6.75 million in grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The hybrid schools, to be run jointly by the city Department of Education and CUNY, will allow students to earn a high school diploma and two free years of college credits by the time they graduate. The first early-college high school in the city opened in 2003 at CUNY’s Hostos Community College in the Bronx.

The American Medical Association has passed a resolution calling for the elimination from research contracts of the confidentiality clauses that prevent medical scientists from communicating their findings in clinical trials. The measure calls on the medical association to work to eliminate the use of clauses “that interfere with scientific communication in agreements between pharmaceutical companies or manufacturers of medical instruments, equipment, and devices, and physician-researchers.”

Faculty & Staff
In Albania, university professors ended a three-week-long walkout that was in response to the government’s failure to keep their promise to increase salaries, school budgets, and campus autonomy. After extended negotiations, the government finally agreed to increase salaries by one-third, which took effect January 1. If the government fails again to keep its pact to respect institutional autonomy and increase total expenditures on universities, professors have vowed to strike again.

Discussions on the role of the public intellectual have been banned by the Communist Party of China in response to a list of 50 notable intellectuals published last fall by Southern People’s Weekly.

The list sparked a widespread online discussion that called on the scholars, artists, editors, and writers to take a more outspoken stance on critical public issues.

The Party imposed the ban on the Internet and in the news media.

Professional News
College seniors can look forward to a better job outlook this spring, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. American employers expect to hire 13.1 percent more new graduates in 2004–05, and students who should have the best chance on the job market will be those earning degrees in accounting, business administration, computer science, economics, electrical engineering, finance, and mechanical engineering. The Job Outlook survey is online at www.naceweb.org.

Foreign student enrollments saw a 2.4 percent decrease in 2003–04, the first absolute decline in foreign enrollments since 1971–72, according to Open Doors 2004, the annual report on international academic mobility, published by the Institute of International Education (IIE). The report points to the need to do more to reduce barriers for foreign students and to offset perceptions that the United States no longer welcomes students from abroad. Visit http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/ for more.

Community College Students Who Never Participate in College-Sponsored Activities
(organizations, campus publications, student government, intercollegiate, or intramural sports, etc.)