| Rowan U. endowment growing by the millions
GLASSBORO Nearly 15 years after a $100 million gift from businessman Henry Rowan ushered in a new era for a college now bearing his name, the endowment and the subsequent benefits being reaped from the historic donation and the dozens of gifts that have followed are continuing to grow. In a recent survey of the top 765 higher education endowments in the country published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Rowan University's Foundation ranked 286th with a June 30, 2006 market value of $147 million, a 7.7 percent increase from the previous year. That number has already grown considerably 12 percent in the months since the figures calculated in the annual survey were compiled. When the board of the Rowan University Foundation prepares to make its annual transfer of funds to the university from the endowment next month, it will be considering withdrawing somewhere between $6 and $7 million from a $167.7 million pot, according to Philip Tumminia, executive director of the foundation.
Govt promises adult education programme roll-out
The national education department has promised a huge roll-out in adult education programmes next year. The undertaking has been given to the National Council of Provinces by Duncan Hindle, the department's director general.
Hindle was responding to concerns about provinces' under spending of grants given to them for Adult Basic Education and Training programmes. Hindle says treasury has given them R20 million to undertake the planning and preparatory exercise so that the huge literacy roll-out can commence next year when they do have everything in place.
There is an urgent need to build new schools but a skills shortage and other priorities such as building stadia for the FIFA World Cup is holding up the process. A parliamentary hearing has also revealed a lack of integrated planning between departments.
Oklahoma continues to lead the nation in early childhood education
"Tulsa and Oklahoma have the leadership and the means to get in front of the parade in early-age education. It is a matter of will. National leadership in education in Tulsa, Oklahoma? Why not?" -- Tulsa World editorial, Jan. 6, 1991 Very few of our editorial challenges are met. This one was. Sixteen years after that editorial appeared, Oklahoma leads the nation in early childhood education, largely because of Tulsa. Jack Shonkoff, professor of child health and development and founding director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, recently came to Tulsa to deliver that message. He told several hundred Tulsans attending a "Seed Sower" lecture at the University of Oklahoma here that Oklahoma educates more 4-year-old children than any other state.
Searching for our lost libido
Mating in Captivity - Sex, Lies and Domestic Bliss is part sociological study, part voyeurism, and elegantly, if not erotically, written. It hit the bestseller lists in the winner-takes-all self-improvement US last year and sold out in a week in curtain-twitching England. It's doing well in tactile Brazil and hits Australian shores in March. Perel, 48, married for 25 years and a mother of two, lives in New York but grew up in Belgium. She's a heady combination of liberal European views, who speaks eight languages and has a 20-year casebook of clients with every possible permutation on the modern marriage. Her book has already been translated into 14 languages, which shows the professional classes, at least across the West, are identifying with a modern conundrum she lays bare.
Paul Donnelly wins international professor award for architecture
Paul J. Donnelly, the Rebecca and John Voyles Chair in Architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has received the Distinguished Professor Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). Donnelly is one of only five professors to receive the annual honor, which recognizes sustained creative achievement in architectural education through teaching, design, scholarship, research and service. An awards ceremony will be held March 9 during the 95th ACSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. .
‘Reduce government control in education’
But even as he spoke of less government control in education, Baswan said that government assistance in terms of finance should continue. To attract best-quality faculty, we should devise performance-based incentives for them, said Baswan. He also highlighted the importance of humanities and social sciences and how it forms the basis of a knowledge society. In this respect, Baswan asked the government to strongly encourage research and recruitment of good faculty in this sector. To encourage pure science, a proposal to open Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER) at Thiruvanantapuram and Mohali is in the pipeline. Currently the two IISERs, which are autonomous institutes under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, are located in Kolkata and Pune. He advised that the fee structure should be considerably raised in higher education and spoke of incentives and fellowships for needy students to facilitate their growth in higher education.
Board of Education makes redistricting decision
Pittsboro, NC - Chatham County Schools has been in the process of redistricting the elementary attendance zones for the Siler City and Silk Hope areas in preparation for the opening of Virginia Cross Elementary School this fall. A redistricting committee, comprised of parent representatives from Silk Hope and Siler City Elementary, principals of the two schools, Board of Education members, central office staff, and Superintendent Ann Hart, worked from December through early February to supply suggested zones for attendance at Siler City Elementary, Silk Hope, and the new Virginia Cross Elementary. The OR/Ed. Lab in Raleigh had created optimal scenarios from which the committee worked. During its meeting on Monday, February 26, the Chatham County Board of Education voted to use scenario D in redistricting.
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