college

25Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

MONEY, SPORTS

Should College Athletes Be Allowed To Use Their School Brand For Paid Endorsements

John Holden, Oklahoma State University Just days after the NCAA changed it rules in June 2021 to let college athletes seek endorsement deals, a college quarterback in the South announced a sponsorship deal with a beverage company. About the same time, another college football player, a wide receiver in the South, signed an endorsement deal with a national retailer. In both cases, the players wore clothes without university logos in the photographs they posted on their social media as they promoted the companies. Not so with another football player – a quarterback in the Southwest – who got use of a new car from a dealership for standing next to one of the dealership’s cars in a photograph on his social media page. Instead of plain clothes, he wore a polo shirt with his university logo ...

Pay College Students To Go To Bed – One Way To Help Students Get Enough Sleep

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

Pay College Students To Go To Bed – One Way To Help Students Get Enough Sleep

Small financial incentives can get college students to go to bed earlier and sleep significantly longer. That’s what my colleagues and I found through an experiment that involved 508 students at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Oxford. When the students were offered US$7.50 per night Monday through Thursday – a total of $30 per week – to sleep longer, they were 13% more likely than those who were not offered the incentive to sleep seven to nine hours. They were also 16% less likely to sleep fewer than six hours. We collected data from wearable activity trackers, surveys and time-use diaries. The people to whom the incentives were offered were chosen randomly from the group of people who agreed to be part of the study. The incentives were offered for three weeks, but th...

College Requirements For Police Forces Can Save Black Lives – At What Cost?

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

College Requirements For Police Forces Can Save Black Lives – At What Cost?

Police forces requiring at least a two-year college degree for employment are less likely to employ officers who engage in actions that cause the deaths of Black and unarmed citizens, according to our new peer-reviewed study of data on 235 U.S. city police departments from 2000 to 2016. Findings from our analysis conducted alongside colleagues professor William Sabol and David Snively, interim police chief in Morrow, Georgia, also revealed that Black citizens were no more likely than white citizens to die during police encounters in places where police are required to have more college education. With a few exceptions, most prior research shows officer education level and department college requirements do not significantly affect deadly police outcomes. That research is mostly limited b...

Among College Students Alcohol Is Becoming More Common In Sexual Assault

13Jun

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIETY, WOMENS ISSUES

Among College Students Alcohol Is Becoming More Common In Sexual Assault

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea One out of every three. That is the number of women in college who say they have been a victim of sexual assault either when they were in high school or college. That’s according to my new peer-reviewed research in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, which is based on survey data from 2015. That figure is significantly higher than it was in the mid-1980s when I conducted the first such national survey of college students at 32 institutions. Back then, the number was one out of every four. Of these incidents, 75% involved victims who admitted they were incapacitated by alcohol at the time of the assault. In the mid-1980s, that number stood at 50%. For the study, sexual assault was defined consistently wit...

During The Civil Rights Era Black College Presidents Had A Tough Balancing Act

30Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL JUSTICE

During The Civil Rights Era Black College Presidents Had A Tough Balancing Act

Historians have documented again and again how college students contributed to the civil rights movement. Less attention has been paid to the role college presidents played in the fight for equality. Here, Eddie R. Cole, author of the book “The Campus Color Line,” discusses various ways these leaders contributed. 1. What pressures did college leaders face in the civil rights era? College presidents between 1948 to 1968 had to deal with different segments of society that were at complete odds with one another. On the one hand, they oversaw schools where students were increasingly protesting segregation. But they also had to deal with segregationist politicians who controlled state funding for their institutions. Some of those politicians were not shy about their opposition to the civil rig...

Problems Must Be Overcome Before College Can Take Place In The Metaverse

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY

Problems Must Be Overcome Before College Can Take Place In The Metaverse

Higher education in the United States is in trouble. Spiraling tuition costs and a student debt crisis threaten to make college unaffordable to all but the wealthy. In an attempt to cut spending and control tuition hikes, American universities are relying more and more on temporary instructors who are underpaid, teach a heavy course load and often lack job security and health insurance. Many schools are also increasing class sizes and moving courses online in order to lower costs. And students are not happy: Online learning is less popular than in-person instruction, and dissatisfaction has only increased during the pandemic. On top of these problems, universities in the U.S. and other parts of the world are challenged by apprenticeship and boot-camp initiatives that question the relati...

Will The Future Of College Involve Fewer Professors?

20Oct

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

Will The Future Of College Involve Fewer Professors?

Patricia A. Young, University of Maryland, Baltimore County At a large private university in Northern California, a business professor uses an avatar to lecture on a virtual stage. Meanwhile, at a Southern university, graduate students in an artificial intelligence course discover that one of their nine teaching assistants is a virtual avatar, Jill Watson, also known as Watson, IBM’s question-answering computer system. Of the 10,000 messages posted to an online message board in one semester, Jill participated in student conversations and responded to all inquiries with 97% accuracy. At a private college on the East Coast, students interact with an AI chat agent in a virtual restaurant set in China to learn the Mandarin language. These examples provide a glimpse into the future of teach...

What LaMelo Ball Got Right – And Wrong About Why Star Athletes Who Want To Play For The NBA Don’t Really Need College

26Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SPORTS

What LaMelo Ball Got Right – And Wrong About Why Star Athletes Who Want To Play For The NBA Don’t Really Need College

SPORTS John Holden, Oklahoma State University In a recent interview published in GQ, NBA star LaMelo Ball downplayed the importance of college for athletes who aspire to play professional basketball. When asked about his decision to forgo college and play professional basketball overseas before entering the NBA draft, Ball said: “You wanna go to the league, so school’s not your priority.” The then-19-year-old Ball, now 20, quickly clarified his quotes in GQ via Instagram, stating that he was only referencing his own situation and that while school is “not for everybody,” it is for many people. LaMelo Ball’s GQ interview is only the most recent point in a long-standing debate over the necessity of college for superstar athletes. Here are four points to help put Ball’s comments into shar...

Can A National Student Database Cheapen The College Experience

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION, IN OTHER NEWS

Can A National Student Database Cheapen The College Experience

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has proposed that the federal government create a database that includes information on outcomes for individual college graduates, such as how much money they earn after they get a degree in a particular major. That’s according to a report that a commission sponsored by the foundation released in May 2021. I asked the U.S. Education Department if they plan to adopt the proposed database, but did not get a yes-or-no answer. “There are currently statutory prohibitions against the department developing a new national database on student information,” said Melanie Muenzer, chief of staff for the Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal. Muenzer said the department is reviewing the commission’s recommendations. “We anticipate more conversations with comm...

Is Your College Trans-Inclusive – Here’s How You Can Tell

30Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LGBTQ

Is Your College Trans-Inclusive – Here’s How You Can Tell

High school can be especially challenging for the 2%-3% of U.S. teens who identify as transgender, or trans. They disproportionately experience harassment and victimization by their peers and rejection by family members. Entering an affirming and inclusive college environment can help set trans youth on a path of personal, academic and professional success. A trans-affirming college can also be transformative for trans students who did not feel comfortable being out in high school, as well as those who do not begin to explore their gender identity until college. My research with 507 trans and gender-nonconforming students – 75% undergraduate, 25% graduate – examined which college policies and supports trans students most valued. I also looked at how these policies created a sense of bel...