College Shorts

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Faculty, students voice protest to Bush library

Plans to build a George W. Bush presidential library at Southern Methodist University (SMU) have been met by opposition from students and professors critical of the Bush administration. According to the Associated Press, some faculty members are protesting the library's construction, citing disagreements with Bush's policies concerning foreign policy, civil liberties and education. Professors in opposition to Bush's foreign policy fear that in building the library, SMU will be celebrating a president who unnecessarily took the country to war, while others fear that the school could become a target for terrorists.

SMU President R. Gerald Turner said that only a minority of faculty members are opposed to the Bush library, and that plans will not be derailed. The majority of students and alumni support the project and hope it will bring increased value and prestige to the university. The library will be funded by a private drive aimed at raising $200 million.

The Bush administration has deep connections to SMU. Alumni include First Lady Laura Bush, Presidential adviser Karen Hughes and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. Vice President Dick Cheney previously served on the board of trustees.

-CNN.com


CU president to step down after battling scandals

President of the University of Colorado Hank Brown, who helped restore the school's image after a series of controversies, announced his resignation on Thursday. He plans to leave the post on Feb. 1, 2008, just 30 months after taking over the position, as reported by The Associated Press. Brown says that by the time he leaves office, all of the reforms and reorganizations he wanted to implement will be in place or well on their way.

Brown took over leadership at the university in June 2005 after a series of embarrassing scandals devastated the school, including sexual assault in the football program and a professor who likened some Sept. 11 victims to Nazis.

Brown was brought in as president on a temporary basis, but was then hired to the position permanently. Among many reforms, Brown banned the use of state money to buy alcohol for CU functions and formed a commission to improve ethnic diversity among the university's students.

Brown said that he hopes to teach political science at CU after he leaves office.

-CNN.com and Denver Business Journal


Design professor claims gender discrimination

A design professor who accused Harvard University of gender discrimination has withdrawn her resignation but said Thursday that the school's landscape architecture department remains a bastion of sexism, as reported by the Associated Press. Martha Schwartz, 56, complained that the department has never had a tenured female professor in its 106 years of existence.

Schwartz, who submitted her letter of resignation on Friday, said that the president, the dean of the Graduate School of Design and other fellow faculty members persuaded her to change her mind. The dean said all three senior appointments he has made since taking over in 2004 have been women.

Schwartz said that she joined the faculty at the same time as two of the tenured male professors. She said that tenure would be largely symbolic for her and other women.

The landscape architecture department has six tenured professors and 11 non-visiting adjunct faculty members, four of whom are women. Roughly 70 percent of the program's students are women.

-Boston.com and CNN.com