State University System
Florida colleges fear boost in high-tech cheating
Sun-Sentinel
Florida’s colleges are on high alert in the battle against what they fear is a growing number of tech-savvy cheaters. Smartphones and social networking have made cheating easier and more widespread than ever, some say. And experts add that if schools don’t crack down on the dishonesty now, there could be long-term consequences for society…
FAMU passes stricter hazing rules — lack of charges frustrates Champion’s mom
Orlando Sentinel
Trustees at Florida A&M University on Thursday adopted a new rule requiring virtually all who have a relationship with the school — students, employees, volunteers and even vendors — to report any hazing activity they learn about to campus police within 24 hours. Meanwhile, the mother of FAMU drum major Robert Champion, who died after a hazing in Orlando in November, expressed frustration that no one has been charged…
No general public at Obama’s FAU speech
Palm Beach Post
President Obama‘s speech at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton on Tuesday will be closed to the general public, with tickets available only to the school’s students, staff and faculty via an online lottery, the White House said today…
FAU quickly plans for Obama’s visit
Sun-Sentinel
Florida Atlantic University is hurriedly planning one of its biggest events ever: a visit Tuesday from President Barack Obama. The president is scheduled to speak at 2:55 pm in FAU Arena. He’ll make the case for the “Buffett Rule” a tax proposal the …
Obama, Democrats to promote ‘Buffett rule’
USA TODAY
Obama will make the proposed Buffett Rule a central part of a speech Tuesday at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, said a White House announcement. The proposal is “a simple principle for fairness that ensures that millionaires pay at least the …
Business Plan Challenge semifinalists named
MiamiHerald.com
They had their work cut out for them: More than 200 teams entered our 14th annual entrepreneurship contest, sponsored by Florida International University’s Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center.
Lawmakers urge Scott to invest in pre-eminent universities
Tallahassee.com
It may be a tough choice, but Leon County legislators want Gov. Rick Scott to sign a bill letting Florida State and the University of Florida charge higher tuition as the state’s pre-eminent universities…
UF shows off its small satellite
Gainesville Sun
University of Florida researchers have developed a satellite about the size of a take-out carton of Chinese food, with similar advantages in being able to be delivered cheaply and quickly. UF officials, faculty and students on Friday showed off the satellite, nicknamed SwampSAT, to Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll. UF mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Norman Fitz-Coy, director of the center that developed SwampSAT, said it has advantages over traditional satellites that can be as large as a bus.
Florida Polytechnic Bill Sent to Governor for Consideration
The Ledger
The state Senate bill creating an independent polytechnic university in Lakeland arrived on the desk of Gov. Rick Scott today. The governor has 15 days in which to consider whether to sign Senate Bill 1994 into law or to veto it. The deadline date for a decision is April 21. If he doesn’t sign it but doesn’t veto it, it becomes law without his signature…
State College System
Daytona State College board declines to support off-campus housing project
Daytona Beach News-Journal
The board has not ruled out considering some type of nursing bachelor degree but wants to get input from administrators at the University of Central Florida. The board doesn’t want to compete with UCF or Bethune-Cookman University, board members said.
Edison State College builds pool of presidential applicants
The News-Press
As of Friday, Edison State College had processed 17 applications from people wanting to be president. They are: Resumes are trickling into Edison State from …
Walton welcome center has preservationists up in arms
The Northwest Florida Daily News
The property in question along US 331 is now the site of the Coastal Branch Library, the Walton County Courthouse Annex and the South Walton Campus of Northwest Florida State College.
School Notes
The Ledger
Polk State College celebrated its first LEED-certified building, the Lakeland Student Center, with a plaque presentation during a meeting of the District …
Independent College and University System
Embry-Riddle offering summer camps
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is offering a host of hands-on aviation and aerospace summer camps for children…
JU receives $100000 challenge grant at boardwalk dedication
Business Journal
On a day that Jacksonville University planned to dedicate a nature preserve and boardwalk, the university received bigger news. WC Gentry, a Jacksonville attorney, Duval County School Board chairman and JU donor, issued a $100000 challenge grant to …
Gentry issues $100000 challenge grant for JU Marine Science Research Insitute
Florida Times-Union (blog)
Duval County School Board member WC Gentry announced a $100000 challenge grant Friday, which when paired with $100000 in matching donations will pay for a new dock critical to the research mission of Jacksonville University’s Marine Science Research …
Jacksonville University leaders hope program will shape public policy
Florida Times-Union
Leaders at Jacksonville University hope their students and professors soon will shape the way government works, pushing the Arlington campus’ influence far outside its physical boundaries. The university announced last fall the …
Police-involved shooting near Jacksonville University
Florida Times-Union
There’s been an officer-involved shooting at a Jacksonville apartment complex at University Boulevard North and Fort Caroline Road. The Sheriff’s Office homicide unit and rescue crews were called about 3:30 pm to the Casa del Rio St.
Dozens participate in run for slain University of Tampa student
Tbo.com
Dozens of athletes took part in run for Ryan McCall, a University of Tampa senior who was killed in 2009. Portions of proceeds raised from the run will be used to fund a scholarship to a student from Hillsborough County High School who …
Occupy Tampa marks six-month anniversary with march, new ideas
Tampabay.com
The tour of Tampa’s financial district didn’t meet opposition until the 15 or so remaining marchers turned onto the University of Tampa campus and walked through a building. Three security guards in golf carts followed the marchers until they left …
For-Profit and Career Colleges
Videos, student work featured in Full Sail University’s app
Orlando Sentinel
Full Sail University launched a new app that offers mobile-device users a range of content like graduate stories, videos, access to their blog, a showcase of student work, and dozens of photos in a collection of galleries…
Yip Yap: Noted and Quoted FLHE Voices from Around the State
Rick Scott should turn back assault on universities
Orlando Sentinel
This year Florida lawmakers launched what former Gov. Bob Graham aptly described as “a political assault on higher education.” How rough was it?
Thumb up: Florida State University marks 50th anniversary of the school’s …
TCPalm
BLACK AND WHITE HISTORY: Fifty years ago this year, Maxwell Courtney of Tallahassee became the first black student to attend Florida State University. In 1965, he became the first black graduate, earning a degree in mathematics with minors in French and English. From April 19 to 21, FSU will be celebrating Courtney and others who played a role in the successful racial integration of the university without violence or federal intervention…
Young man with autism appeals to Obama
Fox News
At 18 months old, Billy Pagoni was diagnosed with severe autism. The disorder was so disabling, he had trouble speaking. Today, he’s 20 years old, about to graduate from high school in Naples, Fla., and wants more than anything to go to college. But, so far, every school he and his mother have contacted have told them there is no program available for his specialized needs. With seemingly no opportunities available for him, Billy has made a public plea to President Obama to help him enroll into a college or university and continue his education.
Demoted deputy back to work after college cheating suspension
Daytona Beach News-Journal
A Volusia County sheriff’s lieutenant demoted for cheating to get his degree from Daytona State College is back on the job after serving a 10-day suspension. Brodie Hughes, 37, who cheated to get his bachelor’s …
Nevada State College identifies 10 in running for president’s job
Las Vegas Review – Journal
Donna Price Henry, dean and professor of biology, College of Arts and Sciences, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Fla.
Crimes come back to haunt young offenders in Florida
Palm Beach Post
For Veronica Limia, the first arrest came when she was 12 years old. At 17, Limia found herself being charged as an adult with two felonies for burglary and grand larceny. More than a decade later, the 29-year-old Limia has gone on to earn a college degree and recently graduated from [FIU] law school. But the former West Palm Beach resident, who now lives in Miami, said she still lives daily with the consequences of her checkered past…
Isiah Thomas Fired: Florida International Fires Basketball Coach After 3 Seasons
Huffington Post
Isiah Thomas arrived at Florida International knowing that he was taking a risk. Three years later, the school didn’t see enough reward. The Basketball Hall of Fame player was fired Friday by FIU, after his teams went 26-65 in his three seasons. His hiring came out of nowhere in 2009 – “No one thought we could pull this off,” FIU director of sports and entertainment Pete Garcia proudly said at the time – and in the end, so did his firing…
Should Florida change its self-defense law?
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Noted Florida State University Professor Gary Kleck‘s research determined that over 2.5 million times per year, Americans use a gun to defend themselves and their families.
How the NRA attained dominance in the ‘Gunshine State’
Palm Beach Post
According to a study by Florida State University criminology professor Gary Kleck, “the strongest and most consistent predictors of gun ownership are hunting, being male, being older, higher income, residence in rural areas or small towns, having been reared in such small places, having been reared in the South, and being Protestant.”
Politics, fear cause spike in state’s concealed weapons permits
Sun-Sentinel
Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee who has written extensively about gun issues, said people’s fear of crime can spur them to seek concealed protection. ”That’s their response to concerns about crime, unfounded though they may be,” he said. Crime rates, Kleck said, are flat, but increased media coverage of crime may be creating scary scenarios in people’s minds…
Illegal status foils law school graduates in Florida
Palm Beach Post
Jose Godinez-Samperio is a former Eagle Scout who graduated at the top of his class at Florida State University’s College of Law and passed the Bar on his first try. But he may never practice law. Godinez-Samperio is an illegal immigrant, brought to this country when he was 9. The Florida Board of Bar Examiners denied Godinez-Samperio entry into the state Bar because of his legal status. Instead, it is asking the state Supreme Court whether undocumented immigrants can be licensed as lawyers.
Around the Blawgosphere: SCOTUSblog’s Tom Goldstein a Guest on ‘The Daily Show…
ABA Journal
Nova Southeastern University School of Law professor James B. Levy is rooting for a young lawyer who started blogging as “hangshingles” at I Just Want to Practice Law … a few weeks ago. ”He’s got $130K in educational debt and $3,500 in savings,” Levy wrote at Legal Skills Prof Blog, referencing hangshingles’ first post,Starting numbers (Day 5). “Can he make it?” Levy writes that he plans to continue checking out the blog to see.
Orlando’s Rep. Adams fears Obama power grab
Orlando Sentinel
Dropping a bill that feeds into the “existing narrative that he [Obama] is trying to expand government and take away people’s rights” is one way to do that, said Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist from the University of Central Florida.
NASA races to find tenants for vacant shuttle facilities
Orlando Sentinel
“The prolonged uncertainty didn’t help,” said Dale Ketcham, director of the University of Central Florida’s Spaceport Research and Technology Institute…
Who’s at the top of the economic charts?
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
“The recovery in general has been spotty,” said University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith. “Nationally, it’s been in fits and stops.” Last year at this time, the recovery appeared young, and tepid, for businesses in the two counties…
Are You Afraid Of 50 Foot Snakes?
Global Animal
“What we found was a giant world of lost reptiles – turtles the size of a kitchen table and the biggest crocodiles in the history of fossil records,” says Jonathan Bloch, an expert in vertebrate evolution at the University of Florida.
American Universities Infected by Foreign Spies
BusinessWeek
Chen Dingchang, the head of a Chinese military-sponsored working group on anti-satellite technology, led a delegation in 1998 to the University of Florida to learn about diamond-coating manufacturing, used in missile seekers and other systems, said Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute in Arlington, Virginia, which studies Chinese aerospace technology…
Crocodiles have rebounded in South Florida
MiamiHerald.com
University of Florida professor Frank Mazzotti says the crocs are reoccupying territory they retreated from as their population dwindled because of hide hunters and coastal development.
UF alum makes it on stage for ‘Price Is Right’ on Monday
Gainesville Sun
Robert Walsh, a 22-year-old University of Florida alumnus from Virginia Beach, wore a T-shirt that said “Drew, please help me pay for law school” when he was on the game show “The Price is Right.”
For many Christians, Easter baptism mirrors Jesus’ rebirth
MiamiHerald.com
According to Dr. John Fitzgerald, a New Testament professor at the University of Miami, Easter baptisms are a long-standing tradition in Christian religions. “Baptism has been understood from the earliest times as a symbolic reenactment of Jesus’ own …
Author Harry: Building bridges takes ‘cultural reciprocity’
BurlingtonFreePress.com
Author and University of Miami professor Elizabeth Harry has a theory about how to improve communication between school employees and students and families from diverse cultural, racial and national backgrounds…
Religious revival: Flocks moved by spirit of megachurches
Palm Beach Post
“I call them the Walmart of the 21st century,” said David Kling, professor of religious studies at the University of Miami. “You go to Walmart and it offers you everything. A megachurch offers the same thing…
Does Your Neighborhood Make You Fat?
KPBS
“We just have to not rush into attributing these regional health disparities to car travel,” said Anne Price, a sociologist at University of South Florida Polytechnic…
Releases and Web Stories
Flagler College professor featured in “The Best 300 Professors”
ReadMedia (press release)
AUGUSTINE, FL (04/06/2012)(readMedia)– Flagler College has one of the country’s best undergraduate teachers according to The Princeton Review. The Massachusetts-based education services company profiles history and geography professor Steve Voguit in …
University of West Florida and Academic Partnerships Announce Launch of Online …
SYS-CON Media (press release)
By PR Newswire PENSACOLA, Fla., March 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — The University of West Florida (UWF), with the assistance of Academic Partnerships, offers an online Master of Education in Educational Leadership degree starting this fall. This 33 credit hour non-thesis certificate program complies with the Florida Principal Leadership Standards and is designed for educators who want to advance in the K-12 education arena. The program was developed to ensure that participants acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to become campus administrators, district supervisors, deans, or curriculum developers at the elementary, middle and secondary level. The 8 week courses are taught by the same professors that teach on campus and the degree can be completed in as little as 18 months…
