Journal Inquirer - MCC feels budget ax (August 22, 2011) - Officials at Manchester Community College say they are weighing "draconian" cuts as they grapple with the potential loss of $5.5 million in state funding over the next two years. Officials say it is still too early to provide specifics on the possible cuts as union leaders consider bylaw changes to ratify a failed state employee labor deal, but college officials have hinted at staff layoffs, reductions to services, and limiting enrollment... 

Inside Higher Ed - A Faculty (Led) Search (August 25, 2011) - Everyone wants a seat at the table when a campus picks a new leader, and it's rare that groups say they have enough representation. With so many campus constituencies -- including faculty, staff, students, alumni, trustees, and community members -- finding enough seats is tough, and more often than not, faculty members say they're not given their fair share...

Inside Higher Ed - Caught in the Middle (August 23, 2011) - If Saad Anis doesn't finish his philosophy Ph.D. within four years he may never finish it at all. While many students at the University of Western Ontario do not complete their degrees within the standard four-year funding period, for international students like Anis the situation is especially stark...

CT Mirror - A new president reassures UConn Health staff (August 22, 2011) - Susan Herbst's opening line drew a laugh from UConn Health Center faculty and staff. "I'm the new president of UConn, and I do do other things besides athletics," she said Monday, three days after the high-profile exit of Athletic Director Jeff Hathaway... 

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Students' Characteristics Haven't Changed Much, but Attitudes Have (August 22, 2011) - For student demographics, 2010 seemed to be the year of holding steady. Despite dire predictions, enrollments remained strong. And reported graduation rates didn't budge. Most of the changes weren't headliners...

Inside Higher Ed - Who Applies (and Gets In)  (August 22, 2011) - The relatively small numbers of black and Latino students in many elite colleges (and in higher education as a whole) continue to worry many educators. A paper presented here Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association found that black and Latino students with academic credentials equal to those of white students are slightly more likely than their white counterparts to apply to and enroll at selective colleges...

CT Mirror  - Citing improprieties, Malloy removes community college board chair (August 19, 2011) - Calling recent actions by the leader of the community college board of trustees "improper" and "deeply troubling," Gov. Dannel P. Malloy Thursday removed Louise S. Berry as head of the board and named an outsider to replace her for the rest of this year...

Beliot College - The Mindset List (August 2011) -- This year's entering college class of 2015 was born just as the Internet took everyone onto the information highway and as Amazon began its relentless flow of books and everything else into their lives.  Members of this year's freshman class, most of them born in 1993, are the first generation to grow up taking the word "online" for granted and for whom crossing the digital divide has redefined research, original sources and access to information, changing the central experiences and methods in their lives...

CronkNews - Beloit College Faces Accusations that 'Mindset List' Really the Drunken Ravings of Old Man (August 23, 2011) - In a statement that surprised many higher education professionals across the country, Beloit College admitted that their popular "Mindset List," which documents the changing worldviews of entering college freshman each year, may actually be based on the drunken ravings of Marty McCommons, a well-known regular at Suds O' Hanahan's Irish Pub...

Inside Higher Ed - Same-Sex Couples and Financial Aid (August 24, 2011) - If you're the child of a same-sex couple and you apply for federal financial aid, you probably won't get what you deserve. You'll likely get too much...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - 7 in 10 Students Have Skipped Buying a Textbook Because of Its Cost, Survey Finds (August 23, 2011) - For many students and their families, scraping together the money to pay for college is a big enough hurdle on its own. But a new survey has found that, once on a campus, many students are unwilling or unable to come up with more money to buy books-one of the very things that helps turn tuition dollars into academic success...

West Hartford Patch - 'Fresh and Healthy' Are on the Menu at Black Bamboo Chinese Restaurant (August 19, 2011) - People love to stand behind a hometown boy and cheer him on to success. There's a sense of pride when one of their own has excelled. It is this kind of community devotion that Sonny Chen, owner of Black Bamboo Chinese...

CT Mirror - After the deal: Repairing relations between Malloy and labor (August 19, 2011) - With the ratification of a concessions deal, state employee union leaders now face the task of repairing frayed relations with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and many of their own members...

The Chronicle of Higher Ed - The 2011 Mind-Set of Faculty (Born Before 1980) (August 25, 2011) - As an antidote to Beloit College's annual Mindset List (the latest version is being released this week), designed to orient faculty and administrators to the cultural touchstones that have shaped the lives of incoming freshmen, I hereby offer, for the benefit of students and administrators, a similar list of characteristics of faculty members who were born before 1980 and who teach at public institutions. Are faculty members' mind-sets less important than students'? If you prick our mind-sets, do they not bleed... 

Inside Higher Ed - Fragments from Orientation Week (August 24, 2011) - Watching audiences from the back of the auditorium is always enlightening. For Liberal Arts orientations, I saw many tattoos and handheld electronics, and few strollers. For Teacher Ed orientation, I saw many strollers and few tattoos or electronics. Criminal Justice usually leads the pack in baseball caps per capita, using per capita in the most literal sense...

Inside Higher Ed - Two and Out (August 24, 2011) - I've been thinking a lot lately about the students who get their two-year degree here, and hope to get a job with it. It's just not as easy as it used to be. And I'm not just referring to the recession, though that certainly made a bad situation worse... 

Chronicle of Higher Ed - The Value of Humility in Academe (No Kidding) (August 21, 2011) - My academic star began to soar in high school, once I was freed from the rote inanities of multiplication tables, subject-verb agreements, and the other small-minded preoccupations of my middle-school teachers...

Inside Higher Ed - Get Out While You Can (August 19, 2011) - Tenure won't save us from a higher education collapse. Start making alternative career contingency plans now because this collapse could be sudden and catastrophic...