Florida SAT scores improve, but many students not prepared for college
Orlando Sentinel
Florida’s average SAT scores climbed this year while the pool of test takers shrank slightly from last year, results released Monday showed. As in past years, the state’s average scores on the college-admission exam’s critical reading, math and writing sections lagged the nation’s. Florida’s average scores for the three tests were 492, 492 and 476 compared with national scores of 496, 514 and 488.
State University System
Textbook publishers, college bookstores preparing for digital shift
Naples Daily News
…But research shows change is on the way, with the company that manages FGCU‘s bookstore estimating traditional print purchases will drop by 50 percent in five to seven years. However, it’s happening more slowly for textbooks than for other books…
Dispatch recordings from Friday’s accident released
NBC2 News
NBC2 just received emergency dispatch recordings from an accident that injured two FGCU students Friday. In the recordings first responders can be heard calling for air support from MEDSTAR’s replacement, but in the end, it was unable to respond.
Entrepreneurial spirit grows at FSU
Tallahassee Democrat (blog)
As Florida State strives to establish itself as an entrepreneurial university, taking one of its “big ideas’ for fundraising and converting it into reality, the music school of all places is ground zero away from the College of Business.
UF/IFAS celebrates 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act Oct. 13
TCPalm
The University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is holding an Open House event to mark the land-grant university system’s 150th anniversary at several facilities on Saturday, Oct. 13 from 9 a.m. to noon.
USF Trustees Approve Program With LRMC
The Ledger
University of South Florida’s Board of Trustees has unanimously approved collaboration between USF Health and Lakeland Regional Health System that will turn the hospital into a teaching hospital and draw more doctors to the area.
USF Tampa police investigate on-campus rape
Tampabay.com
University of South Florida police continue to investigate the reported rape of a student in Kappa Hall on Wednesday. The woman said a man she didn’t know raped her at 6:50 p.m. in the residence hall. Police have not named a suspect or said if they believe he is a student. They also said Monday that they are still investigating how he got in the dorm room…
University of Tennessee beats out USF in ‘Today’ show’s school spirit challenge
Tampabay.com
It’s official: the Today show will not be coming to the University of South Florida next week. One of six finalists in Today’s College Challenge, a national contest that asked voters to pick the school with the most spirit…
Voter registration drive set for Wednesday at UWF
Pensacola News Journal
Escambia County Supervisor of Elections David Stafford will team up with University of West Florida faculty, Student Government Association, Voyages and the UWF Black Employee Association for a fall voter registration drive on Wednesday…
State College System
Polk State College Gets Creative To Up Graduation Rate
83degreesmedia
Polk State College in Winter Haven is increasing the number of degrees awarded, as motivated by the Graduate Tampa Bay initiative. The Lakeland-Winter Haven MSA is one of three in Tampa Bay competing with over 50 other metropolitan areas in the national Talent Dividend Competition. A $1 million prize will be awarded to the area that sees the largest increase in college degrees by the year 2013.
8th annual Professional Bereavement Conference
WTXL ABC 27
Big Bend Hospice, Inc. invites professionals to attend the 8th annual Professional Bereavement Conference on Friday, September 28, 2012 from 8:30am to 4:30pm at Tallahassee Community College.
Independent Colleges and Universities
Reef research center to help unlock, preserve sea treasures
Sun-Sentinel
That’s one of the reasons Nova Southeastern University built the new, 86,000-square-foot facility with 15 laboratories at the park.
Southeastern Unveils Initiative to Build 5000-Seat Football Stadium
The Ledger
Southeastern University announced a definitive initiative on Monday night to compete in NAIA Division I football in a new 5,000-seat stadium on its Lakeland campus starting in the fall of 2014…
University of Miami legal fellowships provide real life work experience
MiamiHerald.com (registration)
Started two years ago and funded by the university and outside private grants, Legal Corps is a six-month postgraduate fellowship program that places newly minted lawyers in public sector organizations and pays them a $2,500 monthly stipend. The goal: provide real-world experience for graduates while also helping organizations that might otherwise not be able to hire legal help.
Yip Yap: Noted and Quoted FLHE Voices from Around the State
FSCJ faculty members express conerns
Florida Times-Union
The news in the Times-Union investigative series on Florida State College at Jacksonville has been devastating to our institution. As veteran faculty members with a combined 47 years of service to FSCJ, we feel compelled to express our deep concerns regarding the information exposed in the Times-Union series. During the spring term, we read with disbelief accounts of the dispute over the dismissal of former Associate Vice President Celine McArthur, the questions surrounding the part-time employment by another institution of Executive Vice President Don Green and the early reports of mismanagement of the federal Pell Grant program…JoAnn D. Carpenter, Ph.D., is professor of history and Marcella G. Washington, Ph.D., is professor of political science at FSCJ.
Q&A with: Kim Wilmath
The Florida Current
Kim Wilmath has been on the job as communications director for the State University System and Board of Governors for three weeks. A Tampa native and graduate of the University of Florida, Wilmath, 25, leads a team that shapes the message in stories about the Board’s policy decisions and responds to reporters’ questions about the SUS’s performance…
Art and poetry programs at Flagler College
St. Augustine Record
An artist and a poet will be in the spotlight at upcoming Flagler College programs. International artist Romero Britto will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday Flagler College in the Virginia Room of the Ringhaver Student Center…
They’re adults now: Stop hovering!
Palm Beach Post
At Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Dr. Corey A. King, associate vice president and dean of students, said the goal is not to cut parents off from their children, cold-turkey. “We tell them, ‘You’ve been highly engaged for 18 years, but we want you to do it in a different way.’ We don’t want to cut the rope, we want to lengthen the rope, because the more we try to close parents out, the more likely that puts up a road block. We want to redirect that parental energy into the Owl Parent Association.”
Dueling projects face big hurdles
Sun-Sentinel
“I don’t know if visitors coming down from cold places will want to do anything winter here,” said Peter Ricci, director of hospitality programs at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton…
FGCU Vice President Rosemary Thomas resigns
Naples Daily News
Seven months after becoming vice president of university advancement at Florida Gulf Coast University, Rosemary Thomas is leaving to take the same job back in Maryland…
State officials put spotlight on human trafficking
Sun-Sentinel
“The message we’re sending today is a strong one – that Florida will be and is a zero-tolerance state for human trafficking,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi at a summit dedicated to the issue at Florida State University…
Fla GOP defends campaigning against justices
Palm Beach Post
“Before we had that, we had terrible scandals involved” with the court, said Talbot ‘Sandy’ D’Alemberte, a former American Bar Association president, legislator and Florida State University law school dean and president.
How Much Weight Does Fla. Latino Vote Carry in 2012 Election?
WFSU
“It looks more like they’ve been concentrating more on showing some Hispanic faces once in awhile, or having the candidates endorse that they are for Hispanics and say something in Spanish that they can’t really speak very well, and I’m referring specifically to Mr. Romney,” said Felipe Korzenny, the Director of Florida State University’s Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication…
Florida State University chemist may hold key to building a better toxin mousetrap
Science Codex
A Florida State University chemist’s work could lead to big improvements in our ability to detect and eliminate specific toxins in our environment. Featured on the cover of the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), Sourav Saha‘s specialized work to strip electrons from the toxic chemical known as fluoride is producing a variety of unique results. ”I started out with the very basic premise of trying to find new ways to detect toxic fluoride in solutions,” said Saha, an assistant professor of chemistry at Florida State. “As I got further into that work I was able to create a compound that could actually strip the electrons right off the molecule, producing a variety of tangible benefits such as toxin detection and removal.”
MRSA found on 80 percent of dollar bills according to SPC study
Examiner.com
A St. Petersburg College biological sciences professor and some of her students set out to discover how much, if any, “bad bacteria” is found on frequently handled fomites like paper money and credit cards. The preliminary findings from the study titled, “”Cash or Credit: Spreading the Wealth of Virulence Genes?”, were released Monday. Shannon McQuaig, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Natural Sciences at St. Petersburg College spoke to the Infectious Disease Examiner Monday about the study and their preliminary findings…
Do You Hate Getting Political Posts on Your Facebook News Feed?
Huffington Post (blog)
Rick Brunson, a journalism professor at the University of Central Florida, told the Orlando Sentinel that he disagrees with the practice of blocking a Facebook friend over politics, stating, ”I find (the political posts) mildly irritating, but I tolerate them. I may read the posts or I may not, and then I move on. That’s the price you pay for stepping into a social-media platform.’
Swing-state Florida’s up-for-grabs region
HeraldNet
For the bigger corridor picture, I spoke with Terri Fine, professor of politics at the University of Central Florida. Tampa, with its large Cuban-American population, tends to be conservative, she explained, while Central Florida “is probably more purple…
Christian Aguilar, University of Florida Student Missing Since Thursday …
Huffington Post
Christian Aguilar may have been beaten in a dispute over a woman, according to reports. Christian Aguilar, a University of Florida student, has been missing since Thursday, and police fear he may be too hurt to get help after a possible beating …
Search continues for Miami-Dade teen missing near UF
MiamiHerald.com (registration)
Christian Aguilar chatted on his cellphone Thursday with a friend from Doral Academy Preparatory School in West Miami-Dade. Though he was a freshman at the University of Florida in Gainesville and she was at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, they kept in contact.
Univision anchor: Mitt Romney made demands during Miami appearance
Bradenton Herald
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made several demands during his Wednesday appearance at the University of Miami forum sponsored by Spanish-language network Univision , according to the website BuzzFeed.
GrowJAX and ACG: ‘Companies to watch’ focus on human and financial capital
Jacksonville Daily Record
Urban Land Institute North Florida chose University of North Florida President and former Mayor John Delaney as the recipient of its 2012 Visionary Leader Award…
UNF professor honored
Florida Times-Union (blog)
The University of North Florida is honoring Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, a professor in the Coggin College of Business Department of Economics and Geography with the 2012 Distinguished Professor Award during the 41st annual fall convocation ceremony…
FEA backs Nancy Soderberg
Florida Times-Union (blog)
Nancy Soderberg is a Jacksonville resident, small business owner and political science professor at the University of North Florida. She served as Ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 – 2001…
Matricide in South Florida, the unimaginable crime
Sun-Sentinel
Kathleen Heide, a University of South Florida criminology professor, said an average of 250 cases of parricide — the killing of one’s father or mother — occur in the U.S. each year…
Obama, Romney Spar Over Space Exploration
U.S. News & World Report
At the University of South Florida, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan accused Obama of “dismantling” the space over his first term, and an accompanying policy paper released by the Romney campaign said America’s space program is “befitting [of] a President who rejects American exceptionalism, apologizes for America, and believes we should be just another nation with a flag.”
Genital cutting tied to later abuse risk
Reuters
“If something is entrenched in a culture, it is difficult to change,” said Dr. Hamisu Salihu of the University of South Florida in Tampa, the lead researcher on the new study.
Politics Play Part in Gulf Power’s Economic Symposium
WJHG-TV
Even the Panhandle’s foremost economic expert, University of West Florida Professor Dr. Rick Harper, warned the federal government’s actions will also have a local impact. “We need to slow down the growth rate of federal government spending…
Gulf Power Symposium Focuses on Panhandle’s Economic Competitiveness
wmbb
Not forgetting the dominant military force of Northwest Florida, Economist from the University of West Florida, Dr. Rick Harper, said its Congress who must work together in order to bolster the economic outlook for our area…
Releases and Web Stories
FAU To Celebrate Disability Awareness Month
BocaNewsNow.com
Florida Atlantic University will host a series of events to commemorate Disability Awareness Month during October.
EXPLO Launches Join the Debates, An Online Project for High School Students …
Sacramento Bee
Trained students hailing from the University of Denver, Centre College, Hofstra University, and Lynn University, host sites for the 2012 presidential and vice-presidential debates will facilitate many of these discussions…
A Decade of Community Outreach: 2002-2012
Santa Fe College
Santa Fe College and East Gainesville Instruction (EGI) invite you to join them in celebration! On Thursday, September 27 from 6-7:15 p.m., everyone is invited to attend the Tenth Annual Community Forum.
SF Teaching Zoo Hosts Animal Enrichment Day Oct. 13
Santa Fe College
Find out on Saturday, October 13 from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. at Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo’s Animal Enrichment Day. On Animal Enrichment Day, come visit the zoo to talk to zookeepers, find out how we use animal enrichment, and make enrichments for your pets …
