Survey: IT college grads not ‘ready to go’

Fifty-nine percent say they plan to hire new IT workers soon.

Many companies and college IT departments are ready to hire as the economy thaws, but more than nine in 10 college graduates who majored in information technology (IT) aren’t prepared for life in the workforce, according to a national survey.

Eight percent of new IT hires are “well trained” and “ready to go,” while 44 percent are “well trained” but have “gaps” in their skill set, according to respondents to a survey conducted by SHARE, an association of IT industry professionals, including colleges and universities.

Three in 10 IT companies said new hires were “severely deficient” business skills and are often in need of remedial training from superiors.…Read More

Extracurricular sex toy lesson draws rebuke at Northwestern

The president of Northwestern University said Thursday that he was “troubled and disappointed” by a psychology professor’s decision to present his students last week with a demonstration outside class that featured a couple engaging in a live sex act using a prop, the New York Times reports. The demonstration had been arranged by J. Michael Bailey, whose Human Sexuality class has an enrollment of nearly 600. On Feb. 21, after concluding a lecture at a university auditorium about sexual arousal, Professor Bailey brought onto the stage a man whom he had invited to participate in a discussion of “kinky people,” according to an e-mail the professor later sent to his students that was reprinted by The Daily Northwestern…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Harvard reopens door to ROTC

Harvard University on Thursday became the most prominent college to welcome the Reserve Officer Training Corps back to campus in response to congressional repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the military, reports the Washington Post. Many universities, including some of the nation’s top institutions, have decades-long bans on ROTC because of the old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which their leaders deemed discriminatory…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

The top places to study video game design–for credit

Are you a high school student who dreams of inventing the next Wii or Kinect sensation, or the next “Call of Duty”? For the second year in a row, Princeton Review and GamePro Media, the publisher of GamePro magazine, a video-gamers’ bible, have joined forces to handicap what they consider the “Top 10” undergraduate and graduate programs in video game design, reports the Choice…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Ga. Tech to host disabled STEM students in Second Life

Students with disabilities "show a strong capacity for science and math," researchers say.

Colleges and universities have shown concern about the growing gender gap in science, technology, education, and math (STEM), and Georgia Tech has found another group often left out of STEM studies: students with disabilities.

The university announced Feb. 23 that it would create and oversee a STEM training program hosted in the Second Life virtual world where disabled students would create avatars and receive free help from educators and experts in every STEM field.

The project, known at the university as Georgia STEM Accessibility Alliance (GSAA), was launched with $3 million in funding over five years, and will be available to students in high school, college, and graduate school, according to the school.…Read More

More college graduates take public service jobs

If Alison Sadock had finished college before the financial crisis, she probably would have done something corporate, reports the New York Times. Maybe a job in retail, or finance, or brand management at a big company–the kind of work her oldest sister, who graduated in the economically effervescent year of 2005, does at PepsiCo.

 “You know, a normal job,” Ms. Sadock says.

But she graduated in a deep recession in the spring of 2009 when jobs were scarce. Instead of the merchandising career she had imagined, she landed in public service, working on behalf of America’s sickest children. Ms. Sadock is part of a cohort of young college graduates who ended up doing good because the economy did them wrong……Read More

Texas group launches scholarship exclusively for white males

The application for a $500 scholarship from the Former Majority Association for Equality looks pretty much like all the others out there. Well, except for this eligibility requirement: “Male – No less than 25% Caucasian,” the Washington Post reports. Yes, the Texas-based nonprofit organization has launched a scholarship for white men. Members of the group, which goes by FMAFE, say they aren’t racist and “have no hidden agenda to promote racial bigotry or segregation,” according to their web site. Instead, they say their goal is to provide financial aid to white men who might not qualify for other scholarships.

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Court to decide on ownership of university patents

The Supreme Court is questioning whether patents on inventions that arise from federally funded research must go to the university where the inventor worked, the Associated Press reports. The court heard arguments Monday from lawyers from Stanford University, which wants the patents to technology for detecting HIV levels in a patient’s blood. The university said it owns the technology because its discoverer worked at Stanford. The 1980 Bayh-Dole Act allows universities to retain the rights to research funded by federal grants…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Tech tool could take the guessing out of college fundraising

Alumni giving fell .4 percent in 2010, according to a recent report.

College and university fundraising officials might not have to wonder how alums feel about their alma mater thanks to a computer program that can tell just how much a former student likes or dislikes the institution.

Oregon State University (OSU) on Feb. 17 launched the Building Community Initiative (BCI), a program designed to “assesses the affinity and connection” between alumni donors and their college or university.

OSU announced that it will make the tool available to other campuses.…Read More

California headed for cuts for for-profit students

California’s student aid commission said on Friday that aid funds going to students at for-profit schools should be slashed first when the state cuts its education budget, Reuters reports. The U.S. Education Department has criticized some for-profit schools, which range from universities offering PhD’s to trade schools offering car-repair training, for low graduation rates and high loan default rates. The California Student Aid Commission, which administers financial aid programs, voted unanimously on Friday to put Cal Grant aid to for-profit schools’ students at the bottom of its priority list when the state is forced to make budget cuts relating to education financing…

Click here for the full story

…Read More