Quick Takes

The governor of Nevada has asked the U.S. Education Department to exempt the state from a requirement that it restore several hundred million dollars in spending on higher education to claim its share of federal stimulus funds, the Las Vegas Sun reported. The economic stimulus law requires states to spend at least as much on higher education in 2008-9 and 2009-10 as they did in the 2006 fiscal year to get their share of the $54 billion state stabilization fund, which is designed primarily to stave off cuts to education and other essential social programs. But Gov. Jim Gibbons, who has been locked in a very public fight with Nevada's college chancellor over the governor's perceived lack of support for higher education, said the federal requirement would force the state to restore $268 million in cuts to higher education, which his aides told the Sun Nevada doesn't have. Gibbons said the requirement intrudes on states' authority.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed legislation that would more than triple the number of participants in the AmeriCorps national service program and create several new programs aimed at increasing the number of Americans engaged in community service, fulfilling a campaign pledge of President Obama's. The bill, a version of which the Senate's education committee also approved Wednesday, would increase the number of AmeriCorps participants to 250,000 from the current 75,000, increase the education reward they receive in exchange for their service to $5,350 for next year, and link increases in that payment to match future boosts in the Pell Grant maximum to keep up with rising college costs.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, on Wednesday issued a statement condemning efforts by a group of professors and others to organize an academic boycott of Israel. Weingarten noted in her statement that the AFT in 2002 came out against a push by British faculty members to boycott Israeli academe. "We believe academic boycotts were a bad idea in 2002 and are a bad idea now. Academic boycotts are inconsistent with the democratic values of academic freedom and free expression," the statement said. Weingarten added: "We want to make clear that this position does not in any way discourage an open discussion and debate of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or of ways to resolve it. However, we expect that such a discussion would not be one-sided and would consider the behavior of all the relevant actors. An academic boycott of Israel, or of any country, for that matter, would effectively suppress free speech without helping to resolve the conflict. An academic boycott is the complete antithesis of academic freedom; therefore, it should not be supported by any individual or institution that subscribes to this basic principle of higher education and, indeed, of democratic discourse."

College wrestling programs have become more and more rare in recent years, as many colleges and universities have abandoned them, usually citing flagging financial support. Money was a factor in Portland State University's decision Wednesday to drop its Division I wrestling team and turn it into a club program. But in announcing its decision, the university also cited the team's lack of competitiveness and a more unusual criterion: the fact that the team has consistently performed poorly on the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Academic Progress Rate, which the NCAA uses to gauge the classroom performance of a team's members. Under the NCAA's APR system, if a team performs poorly enough, it can threaten the status of a university's entire athletics program, and Portland State's news release suggests that that was the case there: "The program has not achieved an appropriate academic progress rate (APR) as mandated by the NCAA. In fact, two years of excellent APR scores by the wrestling program will still not be sufficient to avoid penalties severe enough to impact Portland State’s entire athletics program, including its Division I status."

Gary Goodyear, minister of science in Canada, raised more than a few scientists' eyebrows when he refused to answer a question from The Globe and Mail about whether he believes in evolution. So now he's confirmed that he does. In an interview this week, he appeared to link his refusal to answer the question to his religious beliefs. "I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,” he said. But as the newspaper reported, he responded to the concerns by telling a television show that "of course" he believes in evolution, but that the question was "irrelevant."

Add another item to the list of ways in which American higher education is the model for the rest of the world: the salaries of British university leaders is rising sharply, to the dismay of student and faculty groups, The Guardian reported. The average pay of vice chancellors (the British equivalent of president) rose to £194,000, nearly equaling that of the prime minister, and Times Higher Education's annual salary survey found that four university leaders earned more than £300,000. The news -- coming days after university leaders in Britain reported that they might have to double tuition fees -- set off a furor.