Indiana Blog Review

Wabashing

Ruth Holladay divines what led to the Indianapolis Star's latest hit piece on Wabash College.

You'll Need a Big Plug

Bil Browning takes a look at State Senate District 31 Candidate Russell Brown's proposal to stem Indiana's Brain Drain.

Positive Externalities

Casey Cox, "As economic development conversations grow louder, look for policy makers to turn to IPFW as the economic savior of the city. "

Smoke- Tobacco-free IUPUI

Shawn Plew takes on IUPUI's new Tobacco-Free policy:

The new IUPUI campus tobacco policy doesn’t stop at protecting innocent non-smokers from the evil tobacco-sucking monsters formerly lurking 30 feet away from building entrances, it also prohibits the use of smokless tobacco products on campus. That’s right: a product that doesn’t harm others in any way and does not physically impair the user has been banned from use at IUPUI . . .

Here’s an idea: why not focus on EDUCATION and not REGULATION?

Amen, brother.  When administrators are spending their time dealing with trivial inconveniences, we shouldn't wonder at IU's flagging reputation.

A Decade Away

IU Student Trustee Casey B. Cox:

Fellow trustee Bill Cast and I have begun a project aimed at what IU will look like in 2016 . . .

we’re in the process of compiling articles, raw data, contact lists, topics, and themes that will be narrowed down to ten questions that could range from IU's role in the State's economic development efforts to the appropriate size of Bloomington's freshmen class.

And fantastically, the effort has a blog:

• IU in Ten Years

Speaking of Which

Over In The Agora, I point out the election results in the recent IU Alumni Trustee election.

Lower Education

Prof. Eisenstein:

Indiana's brain drain and lack of economic development can be laid directly at the feet of the Commission of Higher Education, its Commissioner Stan Jones, and the overall structure of higher education in the Hoosier State.

Brain drain result of favoring whites?

Northwest Indiana Comical Politics raises the specter of racism in Indiana's higher educational system.

To make it clear, I do not have any reason to believe that any trustee of Purdue or IU is a racist individually. On the other hand, for forty plus years, the system has been so structured to favor the higher education of Hoosier whites, out-of-state whites, and foreign students over Hoosier Hispanics and African-Americans. Although this may not be strictly speaking racist, the system also favors white children of college graduates over first generation whites attending universities. an important discrimination against NWI and Fort Wayne.

The consequence to the State is continuous economic depression, loss of population, brain drain, and loss of national political clout.

...

The institutional racism is an indisbutable fact because the main centers for educating Hoosier minorities, NWI, receives annually about $4,000 less per student than Indianapolis and about $7,000 less than Bloomington and West Lafayette. The reason for this is the historical funding structure created 40 years ago; and when you add a fixed % to everyone the differences do not change.

Year in and year out, Blacks and Hispanics are provided less money for their higher education in Indiana by the system that is set up to fund these institutions. Only the Trustees can change this. But the push must come for the people, the minorities who are affected.

'Less than confident' about IU

Advance Indiana writes about concerned Indiana University alumni.

Many IU alumni are less than confident in the direction Indiana University is going. That unease has escalated considerably with IU President Adam Herbert announcing his departure at the end of his 5-year contract in 2008, only two and a half years into his initial contract with the school.

While many may fault Herbert's leadership style, many of the problems the university is experiencing are institutional and made more evident by his seemlingly weak, low-key style of management.

Paul Musgrave has more on other IU officials who have left the university.

Human race

Joshua Claybourn at In the Agora covers the trend of students marking "other" as their race on their college admissions forms.

Anecdotal evidence suggests a great many people answer "human" when asked about their race. As Martin Luther King Jr. day approaches, the study reminds us that our government and education institutions continue to be race-crazy, with no signs of letting up. But perhaps we are building a nation of race rebels, refusing to play along.