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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Universities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Universities. Show all posts

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Ohio State places winning above morality by failing to fire Urban Meyer

Ryan Pawloski
The Daily Nebraskan
Originally published August 29, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

These off-field scandals were no secret back when Meyer was at Florida, and Ohio State showed that it was willing to look past them when it hired him a year after he left Gainesville.

It is evident that Ohio State kept Meyer because he wins, but the question still remains: Why did Ohio State fire Tressel after the 2011 tattoo scandal, but keep Meyer after knowing he kept a domestic abuser on his staff and lied about not knowing?

Tressel had a successful tenure as the Ohio State head coach from 2001-10 as he went 106-22 — 94-22 after NCAA sanctions — and won five Big Ten titles and one national title in 2002. Many would think that Ohio State would have kept Tressel just like it did with Meyer because he won, too.

The answer is simple. Meyer has been better for the Buckeyes than Tressel was. Tressel was one of the top coaches in the country at Columbus and any program would have taken him if he was on the market, but Meyer was better.

Meyer retired from coaching in 2010 because of health and family reasons. About six months later, Tressel was forced out by Ohio State because of NCAA violations. An explanation for Tressel’s termination was that Meyer was on the market and Ohio State knew it had a chance to get the coach it always wanted.

The info is here.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Quiet No Longer, Rape Survivors Put Pressure on Colleges

By Libby Sander
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published August 12, 2013

In February, writing on her blog, Tucker Reed identified a classmate at the University of Southern California as the man who raped her.

Ms. Reed, then a junior, included his name, three photos of him, and a detailed account of their troubled relationship.

The post went viral.

Within two weeks, Ms. Reed's apartment became a haven for fellow students who also identified as survivors of rape.

They baked cookies, killed zombies on Xbox, and began writing letters to the university, expressing their dissatisfaction with how it had treated them.

Before long they had formed a group, the Student Coalition Against Rape, or SCAR.

As the Southern California students were finding one another, so were survivors across the country.

Throughout the spring, they exchanged a hail of Facebook messages and tweets, swapping stories, giving advice, and, before long, mobilizing.

The entire story is here, behind a paywall.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this story.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

UNC Faces Federal Investigation Into Retaliation Complaint By Sexual Assault Survivor

By Tyler Kingkade
The Huffington Post
Originally published July 7, 2013

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is opening a new investigation into the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill over allegations that UNC-Chapel Hill sophomore Landen Gambill faced retaliation for filing a federal complaint against the university. Gambill's case gained national attention after she reported a sexual assault to the school and was later charged with a school honor code violation.

(cut)

Gambill filed an additional complaint in March after being charged with the honor code violation by the student-run honor court. The court charged that Gambill created an "intimidating" environment for her alleged abuser, an ex-boyfriend and fellow Chapel Hill student whom she has never named publicly. Gambill would have faced expulsion if she had been found guilty, but the charge was eventually dropped.

The entire story is here.

Prior stores about this case can be found here and here.

Editor's Note: When this story was discussed at a recent ethics education workshop, participants were stunned that there was no other civil rights actions convened against UNC-Chapel Hill.  Obviously, the story has changed.


Saturday, June 15, 2013

UNC-Chapel Hill drops honor court case against student

By Phil Gast
CNN
Originally posted June 7, 2013

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has dropped honor-court proceedings against a student who said the school retaliated against her for a sexual assault allegation.

In an e-mail to faculty and students on Thursday, Chancellor Holden Thorp said an outside review indicated no evidence of retaliation against Landen Gambill, who accused her ex-boyfriend of rape.

Gambill is one of several students who sparked a Department of Education investigation into how the university handles sex assault cases.

Thorp said a section of the honor code pertaining to "disruptive or intimidating behavior" would be suspended pending further review.

"This action is not a challenge to the important role of students in our Honor System, but is intended to protect the free speech rights of our students," the chancellor said in his e-mail. Thorp said the "important issue" will receive further discussion.

Gambill's attorney, Henry Clay Turner, had written a letter to Thorp, saying his client believed the university was retaliating against her because it let the student-run honor court charge her with intimidating her former boyfriend.

Gambill did not file a sexual assault report with police, and her former boyfriend -- who has not been identified publicly -- denied her accusation, according to his attorney.

The entire story is here.


Monday, May 27, 2013

Sexual Assaults Mishandled At Dartmouth, Swarthmore, USC, Complaints Say

By Tyler Kingkade
The Huffington Post
Originally published May 23, 2013

When University of Southern California student Tucker Reed was sexually assaulted in 2010, she turned to school officials. But instead of helping to bring her justice, she said, their "ignorance and indifference" further traumatized her. She said a USC official told her the goal was not to "punish" her assailant, but rather to offer an "educative" process.

"Rape is not an educative experience," Reed said. "It is a crushing, life-altering, inhuman violence."

Feeling like she had no other options, Reed on Wednesday filed a formal complaint with U.S. Department of Education, claiming USC's administration failed to respond adequately to the assault. Students and alumni who were assault victims at three other prestigious schools -- University of California, Berkeley; Dartmouth College; and Swarthmore College -- filed similar claims alleging the schools failed to properly adjudicate campus sex crimes.

The filings were coordinated through a network of campus sexual assault survivors and advocates. The complainants from the four colleges received help filing the complaints from students and alumni at the University of North Carolina and Occidental College who filed similar complaints against their schools earlier this year. Some students at Occidental and USC have retained attorneys, including Gloria Allred, for potential lawsuits against the schools.

The entire article is here.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Is college football doing enough about head injuries to protect players?

By Jon Solomon | jsolomon@al.com
on January 03, 2013
Alabama.com

Some chilling images of head injuries loom over this college football season.

There was the huge hit USC wide receiver Robert Woods took against Utah while blocking for a teammate. Woods got up, staggered around and fell to the ground. He was checked on the sideline and returned after missing one play.

There were two hits to the head Arizona quarterback Matt Scott received on one play against USC. He vomited on the field as the television announcers almost pleaded for Scott to be taken out. Scott stayed in the game to throw the winning touchdown.

There was the hit Connecticut quarterback Chandler Whitmer sustained against Cincinnati that he would later describe as a "bullet to the head." Whitmer, who had suffered a concussion the previous week, missed one play. He soon took another hit, needed help getting to the Connecticut sideline, and this time his day was over.

As college football reaches its national championship game Monday night, a question is being asked publicly with more frequency: Is college football doing enough to keep players safe?

The entire article is here.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

State report blasts FAMU's effort to fight hazing before Champion's death

By Denise-Marie Ordway
Orlando Sentinel
Originally published December 28, 2012


FAMU lacked the internal controls needed to identify and fight hazing before the beating death of drum major Robert Champion in Orlando a year ago, according to a long-awaited investigative report released Friday afternoon.

The sharply critical report lays out a host of problems that the State University System found during its year-long investigation focusing on the university's failure to deter hazing in the years before Champion's death.

It comes just weeks after Florida A&M University's accrediting agency placed the school on probation for a year because of problems in areas such as student safety and school finances.

Derry Harper, the Inspector General for the university system's Board of Governors, reviewed hazing reports and FAMU's regulations between 2007 and 2011 to reach his conclusions. He discovered numerous failings, including poor communication between two key university departments and a lack of clear rules on how to handle hazing complaints.

Many of the hazing allegations investigated by campus police were never shared with the office that handles student discipline, even though some complaints might have prompted student disciplinary action. And nobody was tracking hazing on a campus that had been wrestling with the violent practice for decades.

The entire story is here.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

No Longer a Silent Minority

By Libby A. Nelson
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published December 17, 2012

The six-month lifespan of Queer at Patrick Henry College, a blog focusing on the struggles of gay students at the evangelical Christian college in Virginia, has been turbulent, to say the least.

First the chancellor and founder of the college threatened to sue the bloggers over their use of the Patrick Henry name, then withdrew the threat, all on Facebook. Then he claimed to a local newspaper that the blog had to be a hoax -- that the college’s honor code, which prohibits homosexuality, meant there were no gay students on campus.

The drama has attracted a glut of national media attention, far more than the blog’s founders expected. But their story is far less unusual than it would have seemed even a year ago. More than 50 such groups, blogs and activist alumni groups have sprung up at similar Christian colleges over the past year, making 2012 something of a watershed moment for gay students and alumni at evangelical colleges.

Just over a year ago, gay alumni of Wheaton College, the evangelical college in Illinois, formed a support group and held their own homecoming celebration. Since then, groups following their template (down to the naming conventions -- OneWheaton led to OneEastern, at Eastern University, and One George Fox, at George Fox College in Oregon) have formed even at Christian colleges that place an emphasis on Biblical inerrancy.

Now new organizations and campaigns have been formed to tie these groups together so that students can share their experiences and press for change. Their goals are often incremental; few expect that Christian colleges will follow the growing national trend of supporting gay marriage, but they hope that gay students will be treated with more sensitivity and respect.

The entire article is here.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Most Professors Say They've Considered Quitting Over Work-Life Conflicts

by Audrey Williams June
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published December 10, 2012


Work-life conflicts have caused roughly three out of every four assistant professors to think about leaving their institution, according to the results of a new survey.

For some assistant professors, leaving their institution isn't enough to solve their work-life problems.

Almost 45 percent of those surveyed said they could see themselves leaving academe altogether.

Meanwhile, 65 percent of full professors surveyed said that they had considered leaving their university in the last year.

<snip>

The survey found that nearly 80 percent of faculty members would consider leaving their institution in search of a more-supportive work environment.

About 60 percent would consider leaving where they now work to spend more time with their families.

About 35 percent of respondents would think about leaving to deal with elder care, while about one-fourth would consider leaving their institution because of problems related to child care.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this information.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Sports in the Board Room

By Allie Grasgreen
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published October 10, 2012


The very morning that the man whose actions brought down top administrators at Pennsylvania State University was being condemned to at least 30 years in prison for child abuse, critics of big-time collegiate athletics gathered here were discussing the role -- or lack thereof -- of university governing boards in sports programs.

In documenting the many failings revealed by the abuse scandal at Penn State, the report by Louis J. Freeh documented the faults of the university's former president, Graham Spanier -- among them, neglecting to adequately alert the 32-member Board of Trustees about red flags regarding former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

But equally or even more so at fault, the report said, was the board itself, whose trustees failed to ask questions of Spanier or themselves, such as whether they should conduct an internal investigation. They lacked the necessary structures even to make sure they got the information they needed to properly assess and address potential risks, the report said.

And so officials from the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges recognized the “crisis” at Penn State and role the board played in it, as they presented the findings of a new survey and report on board responsibilities for intercollegiate athletics here Wednesday at a meeting of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

The entire story is here.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Preventing Suicide on Campus May Mean Fences and Nets as Well as Counseling


Chronicle of Higher Education
By Michael Stratford
Originally published March 25, 2012

The families of students who die by suicide often seek to hold colleges responsible.

Lawsuits typically claim that an institution failed to pick up on warning signs or to adequately protect a student whom campus officials knew to be suicidal.

Far less often does a legal action cite, say, the absence of fences on a bridge.

But a lawsuit now pending against Cornell University in federal court takes that approach: It argues that the institution didn't do enough to restrict access to a particular means of suicide.

Specifically, Howard I. Ginsburg alleges that Cornell was negligent for not having installed barriers on the campus bridge where, in February 2010, his son, Bradley, jumped to his death.

A judge this month rejected the university's effort to have the suit dismissed, ruling that the case could continue.

Limiting access to certain methods of suicide, a strategy known as means restriction, has been gaining traction among mental-health researchers.

Some suicides can be prevented, the logic goes, if it's more challenging for an impulsive individual to harm himself.

But on most campuses, that strategy has not taken hold.

 Instead, counseling and education tend to be the centerpiece of suicide-prevention efforts.

 Only at a few institutions, mainly where students' suicides have made headlines in recent years--like Cornell, New York University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology--have administrators acted, beyond locking doors to roofs, to significantly alter physical elements of the campus in the name of prevention.

<snip>

For not taking steps to block bridge suicides, the lawsuit says, both Cornell and the city were "negligent, careless, and reckless in failing to provide for safety and protection for vulnerable or impulsive individuals."

University and city officials, Mr. Ginsburg argues, knew that area bridges were a recurring site of suicides and therefore had an obligation to restrict access to them.

Cornell says it is "vigorously" fighting the suit, which Mr. Ginsburg filed in November.


A subscription to Chronicle of Higher Education is needed for the full article.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this information.


Saturday, July 9, 2011

More students are hospitalized for mental health problems

Print version: page 12

An increased awareness of mental health issues is leading to more college students being hospitalized for psychological reasons, according to new data from the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD).

More than 3,700 students were hospitalized for suicide threats and other mental health issues in 2010, a significant jump from the 2,069 hospitalizations reported in 2006, the first year the survey was conducted. The survey found a rate of 7.93 hospitalizations per 10,000 students last year, up from 5.39 hospitalizations per 10,000 students in 2008, a 47 percent increase.

Anxiety was the most commonly cited complaint bringing students in to counseling centers last year, edging out depression as the top reason for seeing a counselor.

One factor driving the increase is that more universities are establishing “students of concern committees,” which coordinate the treatment of students with mental health and behavioral issues who have come to the attention of professors, campus police and residence hall advisers, says Victor M. Barr, PhD, director of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville counseling center.

Compared with years past, most institutions now have specific written policies to help students get treatment and to monitor their progress, Barr says.

The survey also found that:
  • 75 percent of directors reported needing additional psychiatric services for students.
  • 25 percent of students seen in counseling centers were already taking psychotropic medications.
As a result of increased demand for services, campus counseling centers are getting budget approval from their institutions to hire more psychiatrists and bring on more case managers to track treatment referrals, says Dan Jones, PhD, AUCCCD president and counseling center director at Appalachian State University.

“It used to be that counseling centers would give clients a list of three therapists and leave it in the client’s hands to get treatment when referred out,” Jones says.