There are some "new names" in Binghamton University's hunt for a new president, reports George Basler at the Press & Sun-Bulletin. Earlier this month SUNY chancellor Nancy Zimpher nixed the candidates put forward by the school's search committee (the school claimed that some of the finalists had withdrawn, but wouldn't specify when). Zimpher has apparently hinted that getting a president in place at University at Buffalo will help ease BU's search:
"Candidates are surfacing. There are candidates who are aware of our search at the University at Buffalo which was an extraordinary search. Some of that may inform what we are doing now," the chancellor said during a press conference on the BU campus. "This is a situation where you reach out and talk. For instance, we've talked to the firm that helped us with the University at Buffalo. This person already has some candidates in mind." Zimpheris at Binghamton University for a two-day meeting of SUNY's Board of Trustees. The visit comes two weeks after she declined to recommend either finalist selected by a search committee and Binghamton University Council to be the next president.
SUNY tuition
SUNY's trustees are allegedly going to pass a five-year tuition plan today, reports Cara Matthews at the Democrat and Chronicle's Vote Up! blog. The measure would allow students and parents to plan for gradual tuition increases:
SUNY can set its own tuition, but it has to be approved the Legislature as part of the state budget process. The deadline for a new budget is the April 1 start of the new fiscal year. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget does not include SUNY tuition hikes, and the Senate and Assembly did not change that in their one-house budget resolutions. SUNY leadership has sought permission for a so-called “rational” tuition policy for a number of years. Chancellor Nancy Zimpher and the trustees are seeking permission to implement one, as well as a scaled-back state review process for the purchase of goods and services and the ability to enter into public-private partnerships. Current tuition is $4,970 a year.
Recent college grads and unemployment
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has released a report that postulates that unemployment is cyclical. The proof: the experiences of recent college grads, who theoretically could go anywhere for a job (but can't, when they can't find one). Michael Derby explains at the Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics:
“Similarities in the experiences of recent college graduates in the labor market during the two recessions and recoveries are evidence that high unemployment rates in the current downturn and recovery are also mainly cyclical,” bank economists Bart Hobijn, Colin Gardiner and Theodore Wiles wrote. “If structural constraints were at play, the wage growth of a labor-force subgroup with general skills and high mobility, such as recent college graduates, would outperform or be in line with wage growth in the overall labor market,” the paper said. But that’s not happening — a worrisome sign for the future earnings potential of these new college graduates. “Recent graduates with full-time positions are currently making about as much as workers who had just graduated from college at the end of 2007, when the recession began,” the economists observed. “In contrast, earnings for the average worker grew 7.3% over the same period.” That would not have happened if structural factors were the main factor driving high rates of joblessness.
Cornell
Researchers at Cornell and University of California Davis have published a paper recommending a "central command" communications strategy for treating the injured after a major disaster like the Japanese earthquake. Health News Digest has the release from Cornell:
The team's results, published in the Journal of Medical Systems, show that introducing telemedicine linkages between remote specialists and immediate responders in the aftermath of a widespread disaster like an earthquake could decrease both patient waiting times and hospitalization rates at nearby hospitals, while increasing the likelihood that patients with life-threatening injuries receive appropriate care -- as compared with standard emergency department-based triage and treatment. These findings demonstrate the power of interdisciplinary approaches to complex issues at the border between medicine, public health and logistics, says study lead author Dr. Wei Xiong, assistant professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College. "We applied engineering methods more commonly used to analyze queuing systems like telephone call centers and road traffic planning to look at how to effectively manage this new type of emergency medical care."
And a physics professor at Cornell has finally completed his novel about - what else - a scientist at Cornell. Rachel Stern reports at the Ithaca Journal:
But now the book "Spiral" is ready. The scientific thriller is available online and at American bookstores Tuesday through Dial Press. [Professor Paul] McEuen, director of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, started with two ideas: spider-sized robots and a human-made picture on a tree. Those ideas morphed into the basis of his thriller. The book is about a fungal organism that is the key to a biological weapon from World War II. The novel is set at Cornell and his main characters -- named after his dogs -- are scientists involved in a conspiracy involving biological warfare. He started writing during his sabbatical in 2004 and by 2007 was onto a second book because he thought the first would never materialize. But he found an agent and signed a book deal later that year, and "Spiral" is complete. He is even thinking about his next novel.
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