Don't look for the perfect environment. Many students think if only they found the perfect place to study, studying would be easy. So they spend inordinate amounts of time scouting and trying out various locales-first their dorm room, then the coffee shop, then the library, then the grass, etc. Such elaborate "setup" time can be a major time waster, and even worse, can make you feel that you can't study unless you are in your ideal study spot. Better idea? Find a reasonably quiet place and just get started. You'll get more comfortable as you get going. 

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Education Agency Will Offer Grants for Innovative Ideas
The federal Department of Education sketched out a new nationwide competition on Tuesday under which some 2,700 school districts and nonprofit groups are expected to compete for pieces of a $650 million innovation fund.
The department already has the 50 states vying for chunks of a $5.4 billion education improvement fund that it calls Race to the Top; the innovation fund is a separate competition.

Federal officials said the Investing in Innovation Fund would be distributed in three categories. Small development grants of up to $5 million will support new, unproven ideas that seem worth exploring, they said. Validation grants of up to $30 million will support existing programs that have shown evidence that they can work. Scale-up grants of up to $50 million will go to programs that have developed a strong track record for improving student achievement, the officials said.

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When Your Dorm Goes Green and Local
Thoreau said education often made straight-cut ditches out of meandering brooks. But not at the EcoDorm, which houses 36 undergraduates and is the spiritual heart of Warren Wilson College, a liberal-arts school of fewer than 1,000 students in Swannanoa, N.C.
In recent years, colleges like Warren Wilson took a leading role in the sustainability movement, which seeks to foster a durable human relationship with the environment. More than 600 U.S. colleges and universities are signatories of a pledge to become carbon neutral. Ninety dorms are now LEED certified, the most widely accepted national standard for green design. The EcoDorm is one of only two student residences that have LEED's platinum rating, its highest.

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A New Path to a Career in Education
The Broad Residency program helps business executives get leadership jobs in public school districts

Before becoming an assistant to the superintendent in the Long Beach Unified School District in California, Robert Tagorda was a businessman. He enjoyed his work as a consultant, and the hefty salary that came with it, but Tagorda felt restless and unfulfilled in a world focused exclusively on profit. After receiving a graduate degree from Harvard University, Tagorda settled on a second career in urban education administration, a field he felt could benefit from the sharp, innovative business skills he had developed in the private sector.

"As I prepared to graduate from Harvard, I asked myself, 'What are the biggest issues of the day?' and I came up with two-national security, because of 9-11, and education," Tagorda says. "I looked at job opportunities in both fields and realized my heart was in serving the most disadvantaged youth in this country. I wanted to join the ranks of educators carrying out that noble mission."

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Education Expert Touts a Three-Year Degree
Robert Zemsky, chairman of the Learning Alliance for Higher Education, talks about his new book

Robert Zemsky is a unique scholar-he belongs to the same cohort he has studied with a critical eye for more than 40 years. Zemsky is the founding director of the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Research on Higher Education and current chair of the Learning Alliance for Higher Education. In these and other professional roles, Zemsky has examined the fine balance between a college or university's mission to educate and its business-minded need to stay financially afloat. Part adviser, part watchdog, Zemsky counsels individual schools on how to improve but also opines on what's wrong with higher education and how to fix it. Here, in a recent discussion with U.S. News, Zemsky speaks about his new book, Making Reform Work:

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College Officials Brace for Hit From Economy
BALTIMORE - The talk this week at an annual gathering of college admissions officers and high school counselors included the usual topics, like how to deal with "difficult" parents and the names of hot student prospects. But the conversations - in panel discussions, in hallways and over crab cakes - always seemed to circle around to one subject: the economy.
High school counselors said that some parents who in other years worried mostly about whether their children could get into a particular college were now concerned about whether they could afford the price tag.

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Study Finds High Rate of Imprisonment Among Dropouts
On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill workers is plunging.

The picture is even bleaker for African-Americans, with nearly one in four young black male dropouts incarcerated or otherwise institutionalized on an average day, the study said. That compares with about one in 14 young, male, white, Asian or Hispanic dropouts.

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The new  " iParticipate" Movement

The Entertainment Industry Foundation has mobilized the entertainment community around a groundbreaking initiative designed to inspire a new era of service and volunteerism. This multi-year campaign, called "iParticipate," hopes to make service a part of who we are as Americans and show what we can achieve when we all pull together.
As a centerpiece for this initiative, EIF has enlisted major broadcast networks including, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, for an unprecedented, week-long television event beginning Monday, October 19. Tune in to seven days and nights of television and watch how your favorite TV shows and personalities shine a light on the power of community service.
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 Exxon Mobile gives UT $190,000 grant to support array of programs

The Exxon Mobil Corp. awarded a $190,00 grant to the University of Texas to support its business, engineering, geosciences, law, natural sciences and public affairs programs.
The grant will allow the departments to spend the money to support a variety of educational programs, including scholarships, field trips, equipment, visiting speakers and student and faculty travel.

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TEXAS CAMPUS COMPACT
Civic engagement emphasized

ABC newsman John Quiñones will speak at a fundraising dinner Nov. 5 in Austin for the Texas Campus Compact, which promotes civic involvement among college students. The theme of the dinner, to be held at the Omni Austin Hotel, 700 San Jacinto Blvd., is "Live. Learn. Serve." Tickets are $100 for compact members and $150 for nonmembers.

The Texas compact is part of a national coalition of more than 1,300 colleges and universities dedicated to promoting community service, civic engagement and service learning in higher education.

"Studies show that students who are more civically engaged, particularly first-generation college students and students of color, are more apt to graduate from college," Executive Director Patricia Paredes.

African Americans and Hispanics are expected to make up 54 percent of the state's population by 2015. These groups accounted for 51 percent of 15- to 34-year-olds in 2002 but only 36 percent of college enrollment, Paredes said.

For more information on the compact and the dinner, visit www.texascampuscompact.org.

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2009 Carnegie Medals of Philanthropy Recipients Announced

The Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced the 2009 winners of the Andrew Carnegie Medals of Philanthropy, which are awarded every two years to families and individuals around the world who, like Andrew Carnegie, have dedicated their private wealth to the public good. This year's winners are New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty; former Citigroup chair and CEO Sanford Weill and his wife, Joan; and the Koç family of Turkey.

The 2009 medalists have helped establish and support nonprofit organizations in the United States and abroad that span the fields of medicine, education, culture, and science. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Bloomberg was the leading individual donor in the United States in 2008, giving some $235 million to nonprofit and charitable organizations and causes while continuing a decade-old pattern of steadily increasing his charitable contributions. Known for funding established institutions as well as taking risks on less proven programs and smaller organizations, he has brought resources and attention to causes that are both specific and solvable, including campaigns to reduce tobacco use, improve global road safety, and remove illegal guns from the streets of the nation's cities.

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009 Governor's Nonprofit Leadership Conference 

Annually, OneStar joins the Office of the Governor to host the Governor's Nonprofit Leadership Conference (GNLC).
The 32nd annual GNLC will be held from December 9 - 10, 2009 in Dallas, TX. GNLC is the state's largest nonprofit conference, gathering volunteer managers, nonprofit professionals, state agencies and faith-based and community organizations from across Texas. The conference provides invaluable training to organizations and businesses and this year will highlight the concept and practice of social innovation.
 
The conference will feature internationally-recognized social entrepreneurs Robert Egger of DC Central Kitchen and Andrew Wolk of Root Cause, as well as numerous special events, networking opportunities and an innovative roster of seminars.
Among the special events at GNLC will be the 2009 Governor's Volunteer Awards, at which Governor Rick Perry will recognize this year's awardees. These awards honor some of Texas' most dedicated volunteers-including individuals, organizations, corporations and public entities-whose community service embodies the power of volunteerism and civic engagement.

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WASHINGTON -- While the U.S. Congress is considering an unprecedented $9 billion in new funding to community colleges in exchange for improved graduation rates, colleges and higher education advocates are already working on a new accountability system that will enable colleges to improve their programs and graduate more students on time and at a lower cost. The project is being funded with $1 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumina Foundation for Education.

More than 11 million students attend 1,200 community colleges across the country, and enrollment rates have surged in the last year as the recession has forced many Americans to return for additional training and education. Yet many leaders are concerned about the success of those students and how many will actually go on to earn a degree or credential. Without an accepted accountability system that aligns with the multiple missions of community colleges, measuring progress is difficult. 

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Which High School Students Are Most Likely to Graduate From College?

A study finds surprising evidence about which students are really on the path to a college degree

Parents: Stop fretting so much about which high school your youngsters attend or how they score on the SATs. If you want your student to make it to a bachelor's degree, it's far more important for him or her to earn at least B's in high school and reach for the best possible college. Oh, and saving a few thousand bucks by sending your kid to a community college could turn out to be an expensive mistake.

Some of the nation's best-respected educational researchers are likely to reconsider much conventional wisdom today with the release of surprising findings from an analysis of educational records of more than 200,000 freshmen who started at public four-year colleges in 1999.

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Gaps Persist for Hispanics Nationwide