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Ottawa — The Harper government is putting its imprint on higher education, pulling the plug on a foundation closely associated with former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and establishing a new, marquee graduate scholarship program aimed at attracting young academic superstars to Canadian campuses.

The new graduate program, named after former Governor General Georges Vanier and outlined in yesterday’s budget, will give 500 PhD students from Canada and abroad $50,000 annually for up to three years. It will be funded initially with a $25-million investment over two years.

University leaders increasingly have lamented that they are being out-gunned financially in their quest for top young scholars by U.S. schools, as well as those from Australia and Britain and emerging education heavy weights such as Singapore. The new program is designed as an antidote to that, and as a way to signal the government’s commitment to the sector with an easily recognizable program that it hopes will one day rival other well-established scholarships such as the Fulbright and the Rhodes on the world stage. » Read more after the jump →

Ford awarded Fulbright-Hays scholarship for study in South Africa

Dr. Deborah Ford, associate professor of English, has been awarded a Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad Program scholarship for summer study in South Africa. The program, “Student Achievement and Workforce Development in Disadvantaged Populations,” will focus on how educators prepare students from diverse backgrounds for both postsecondary study and the workforce while ensuring academic success.

South Africa’s educational goals are similar to those of U.S. educators: to promote student achievement and prepare students for a global economy. As a participant in the seminar, Ford and other U.S. teachers, faculty and administrators will engage with their counterparts in South Africa, discussing issues and comparing practices.

Ford will present curriculum projects on scaffolding, the process of breaking large writing projects into component parts; developing computer-based lessons for electronic delivery and entrepreneurship in the context of traditional liberal arts education. » Read more after the jump →

New Zealand hotels and accommodation is a hotel information, accommodation and reservasi that is exact for you who were going on a trip or going sightseeing to New Zealand as tourists or had a holiday in summer.

New Zealand hotels provided various price beginning as NZD$35.00 from Microtel Rotorua that was met in 1204 Pukuatua Street Rotorua. In New Zealand hotels you could choose various styles of the price exclusive, if you needed apartement we provided for you as our special guest.

We provided various hotels and information among is Auckland Hotel and Akomodation, Auckland price beginning as NZD$55.00 located at 62 of Emily Place, Downtown, Auckland City New Zealand 1001. » Read more after the jump →

Many Gallaudet students travel the world, and one in 14 hails from a country other than the U.S. With a new, free study abroad opportunity offered at Gallaudet, even more students will have a taste of the globetrotting life. Enrollment Management has announced a week-long Study Abroad Tour open to first year undergraduates starting in the summer of 2009.

The Study Abroad Tour will take all first year students in good academic standing to explore the language, food, history, art, and ways of life of a different country. Any student enrolled starting in the fall 2008 or spring 2009 semester will qualify. The University will cover the expenses of airfare and ground transportation, hotel accommodations, and entry and exit taxes.

Catherine Andersen, interim dean of Enrollment Management, launched this program for a number of reasons. “We want students to take what they learn in the classroom and connect it outside,” Dr. Andersen said. “Research tells us that students learn best when they are engaged in their learning and guided by supportive faculty and staff. This program does that and more!”
» Read more after the jump →

The Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce, Comcast and the county public schools will honor high school seniors named as National Merit Commended, National Merit Scholar Semifinalists and National Achievement Scholars at the 2008 Student Achievement Breakfast on Thursday.

Each year, about 34,000 of the approximately 50,000 high scorers on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test receive letters of commendation and are deemed National Merit Commended students in recognition of their academic promise.

Additionally, nearly 16,000 students qualify as Semifinalists and are eligible to become National Merit finalists, an honor that carries significant weight on college admissions and scholarship applications.

The National Achievement Scholarship Program is an academic competition that honors outstanding African-American high school » Read more after the jump →

BOISE, Idaho — A doom-and-gloom economic outlook persuaded a legislative committee Friday to scale back Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s $78 million state employee pay-raise package.

Under a new plan now being pushed by the 12-member panel that helps set state worker compensation, Idaho’s roughly 20,000 workers would get 3 percent raises distributed by merit in fiscal year 2009. Including benefits, the plan would cost taxpayers about $61 million more in the coming year.

Otter had originally wanted a 5 percent pay increase, mirroring the merit raises approved by the 2007 Legislature.

Aides to the governor appear to have conceded there’s not enough money to give workers more than 3 percent, given the new tax revenue forecasts. Between the current fiscal year and the year due to begin July 1, Idaho economists expect a sputtering economy to produce $120 million less in tax revenue than had been forecast one month ago.

“It would not be wise for us to establish budgets that we can’t sustain,” Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert and head of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, told the 12-member Change in Employee Compensation Committee.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate still must vote to approve the recommendation. Separately, lawmakers and Otter also are discussing possible changes to benefits for part-time state workers, including a proposal from Otter to slash insurance coverage for workers who average just 20 hours per week.

As part of the plan, state workers could face a 29 percent increase in their monthly medical premiums.

Otter’s financial staff said that by giving ground on employee pay raises, they are making room in the shrinking budget for some of the governor’s other priorities, including $50 million he’s seeking for the Opportunity Scholarship for low-income Idaho students to attend state colleges and universities.

“If we go to 3 percent raises, there’s plenty of room for the Opportunity Scholarship,” said Wayne Hammon, Division of Financial Management administrator.

Before the 3 percent raises passed the Republican-dominated committee, members voted 10-2 against an alternative from Sen. Kate Kelly, D-Boise, that called for a 4 percent increase, with the possibility of going higher if the economy rebounds. She cited a 2-year-old report that shows Idaho must pay state workers 5.8 percent more in each of the next 10 years to erase a more than 15 percent pay deficit compared to similar private-sector jobs.

“We are becoming dangerously close to actually backsliding,” Kelly said.

“It would be fiscally irresponsible right now to” do more than 3 percent, Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell, told her.

State worker groups were disappointed over likely not getting the increase Otter originally recommended.

“It’s going to be a tough year for state employees,” said Don Brennan, who represents the Idaho Public Employee Association.

Brennan, the retired Idaho vocational education director, said the pay proposal approved Friday doesn’t resolve questions surrounding more than 3,000 retired state employees who currently receive state medical benefits. Earlier this year, Mike Gwartney, Otter’s Department of Administration director, introduced a plan to cap premium payments for retirees who are between 55 and 65 years old at about $1,800 annually per person.

Under that plan, retired workers would no longer be eligible for state medical benefits after age 65, once they qualify for Medicare. The proposal also would end all retiree medical benefits for employees hired after July.

By raising medical benefit costs for Idaho retirees, Otter aims to cut the state’s $442 million unfunded medical liability. Under the existing system, the liability was set to rise to $800 million by 2016, Gwartney has said.

Sen. Chuck Coiner, R-Twin Falls, is working with Gwartney to revamp that proposal, including developing a program for the more than 2,000 state retirees older than 65 to use their bargaining power to get supplemental Medicare insurance that’s cheaper than the roughly $390 in monthly payments they make now.

Coiner said Idaho’s unfunded liability would drop to about $120 million over the next eight years, under his plan.

“It’s a win-win situation,” he said.

/AP

Denver, Colorado (PRWEB) — Responding to the growing online education trend and instructor demand for experiential learning methods, a team of PhD-level scientists today launched eScience Labs, Inc. A pioneer of the next generation of science kits, eScience Labs provides quality, safe, and complete at-home experimentation tools for the modern online learner.

“Labs should be more than an experiment, they should be an experience,” says Dr. Nicolas Benedict, president and CEO of eScience Labs. “Learners need lab kits that meet the demands of the evolving learning experience, not the traditional lab-in-a-box, figure-it-out, work-at-your-own-risk lab kits.”

Over the last three years, online learning has grown exponentially, driving an increasing interest in hands-on learning experiences to augment at-home science curriculum. An innovative alternative to complement progressive instruction methods, eScience Labs’ line of lab kits enhance instruction, comprehension and learning outcomes. Intended for advanced high school and introductory-level college students, eScience lab kits deliver:
» Read more after the jump →