PERRY NAMES THREE TEXAS TECH SYSTEM REGENT
ASSOCIATED PRESS- TUESDAY (MARCH 22)
AUSTIN-Governor Rick Perry has chosen three men to serve on the Texas Tech University System board of regents through January of 2011.
Perry today selected Mark Griffin of Lubbock, Dan Serna of Arlington and Larry Anders of Plano.
The appointments are subject to Texas Senate confirmation.
-- Griffin is president and attorney for Rip Griffin Truck Service Center and serves as president of Pro Petroleum.
Griffin also is president of the Lubbock Independent School District board.
He received his law degree from Texas Tech.
-- Serna is president and founder of Serna and Company, P-C.
He holds a bachelor's degree from Texas Tech.
-- Anders is chairman and C-E-O of Summit Alliance Companies.
Anders attended Texas Tech and received a chartered life underwriter designation from The
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AREA LAWMAKERS SUPPORT SCHIAVO BILL BUT LOCAL DEMOCRATIC LEADER SAYS LAW IS A PRIVATE MEDICAL, NOT POLITICAL, ISSUE
ABILENE REPORTER-NEWS- TUESDAY (MARCH 22)
The three Republican lawmakers who represent Abilene in Congress stoutly defend passing a law that could lead to reinsertion of a disabled Florida woman's feeding tube, but a local Democratic leader calls it unwarranted government intrusion.

U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock, and both of the state's senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, supported legislation signed into law early Monday to restore Terri Schiavo's nutrition and hydration.

All three stressed congressional responsibility for helping those who cannot help themselves.

Roger Spier, Taylor County Democratic club president, said Congress and the Democratic club are equally not entitled to take a position on a family's intimate medical matters.

''This is not a political issue. This is a medical issue,'' said Spier, a retired Air Force surgeon with 30 years of practice.

A patient in a persistent vegetative state, which Florida courts have found to define Schiavo's condition, does not recover or get better, he said.

In a persistent vegetative state, higher functions of the patient's brain have been destroyed, and although she's breathing and her eyes are open, ''she is not in any way connected with the world,'' Spier said.

The lawmakers see Schiavo's condition from a sharply different vantage point.

''Ms. Schiavo is not on life support - she's on a feeding tube,'' Hutchison said in a statement. ''To starve a person to a slow death is inhumane.''

''Congress had the right and responsibility to provide Terri Schiavo with additional legal options in efforts to save her life,'' Cornyn said in a statement. ''I'm committed to working in the Senate to ensure that all people are treated with respect and dignity.''

Neugebauer cited medical uncertainty concerning Schiavo as shaping his decision.

''We have some doctors saying that Terri will not recover,'' Neugebauer said during the debate on the Schiavo bill in the House. ''Yet we also have other neurologists saying that with the proper medical care, there is a chance that she could improve considerably.

''If we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the answers to these questions, we would likely not need to be here tonight. However, because these questions remain disputed, the responsible course of action is to err on the side of life.''

ABC News quoted a memo it said was circulated among Senate Republicans, touting the need for quick action to benefit Schiavo, and their party politically.

''This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue,'' the network quoted from the memo.

Clarke Cochran, political science professor at Texas Tech University, found the memo unsurprising.

''I think that clearly, Republicans are motivated partly by the issue, but more by the politics of it,'' he said.

The GOP targeted traditional Catholics and evangelical Protestants, Cochran said.

But in doing so, he said, Republicans risk alienating some voters in the center, where both Democrats and Republicans must troll for votes after nailing down their bases.

Bishop Michael D. Pfeifer of the San Angelo diocese of the Roman Catholic Church said the congressional and presidential action was consistent with his position, and that of his church.

''(We) strongly hold that the basic means of life should continue for Terri,'' Pfeifer said. The church distinguishes between extraordinary means of preserving life, such as a heart pump, and basic food and water, he said.

''She is not brain dead, and she is responsive in some way,'' he said.

Phil Strickland, director of Texas Baptists' Christian Life Commission, said he was unfamiliar with many of the personal circumstances of the Schiavo matter and he could not say how ''it ought to be.''

But, he said, ''there are decisions that are far better made by family and friends than they are by government.''

Southern Methodist University law professor Tom Mayo, who helped draft a 1999 Texas law that allows a medical treatment team to withdraw life support even against a family's wishes in prescribed circumstances, said Schiavo's case is different from that of a Houston infant who died recently following removal from a ventilator.

Unlike the infant, who had a fatal genetic condition, Schiavo wasn't dying and could live for many years in her present condition, given nutrition and water, he said. And Schiavo was not in pain, unlike the baby whose rib cage was constricted by his ventilator, Mayo said.

She would also not feel pain from hunger or thirst with nutrition and hydration removed, he said.

The life-and-death battle over Schiavo, which is now before a Florida federal court, points to the value of a ''living will,'' more formally known as an advance directive to physicians spelling out the patient's desires should he or she be rendered incapable.

''If there's a take-away lesson,'' Mayo said, ''this is it.''
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GEORGE H. O'BRIEN JR., 78; MARINE EARNED MEDAL OF HONOR IN KOREAN WAR
LOS ANGELES TIMES- TUESDAY (MARCH 22)
George H. O'Brien Jr., 78, who earned a Medal of Honor in the Korean War for leading a charge to capture a hill held by the enemy despite being wounded, died March 11 in Midland, Texas, of complications of emphysema.

Born in Fort Worth, O'Brien served in the merchant marine during World War II. He later earned a degree in geology at Texas Tech and spent most of his career as a petroleum geologist in Texas and New Mexico. During his college years, he also enlisted as a private in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Called to duty during the Korean War, O'Brien had risen to second lieutenant and was commanding a rifle platoon when Chinese troops overran several U.S. positions on a fishhookshaped hill called the Hook on Oct. 26, 1952.

Counterattacking the next day, O'Brien led his men up the hill through enemy fire, sustaining a wound to his arm. He paused to aid another wounded Marine, then threw grenades into enemy bunkers and fought in hand-to-hand combat, killing at least three Chinese. Refusing medical evacuation, he continued to lead the attack for four hours and covered the withdrawal when his unit was relieved.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented O'Brien's medal a year afterward "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty."
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RANGELAND STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM SET APRIL 6-7 AT HISTORIC FOUR SIXES RANCH
AGNEWS (TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY)- WEDNESDAY (MARCH 23)
GUTHRIE – Aficionados of historic Texas ranches and range management should attend "Good Stewardship...Is Good Business - A Showcase of Rangeland Management." The program is set for April 6 and 7 at the Guthrie Community Center and on the Four Sixes Ranch here.

The program starts with registration and a social at 5 p.m. April 6 at the Guthrie Community Center. Organizers note that the program is limited to 100 participants.

The program is a partnership effort of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and the Texas Wildlife Association. Speakers will include range and wildlife specialists and researchers with the Texas A&M University System and Texas Tech University, professionals with the Four Sixes Ranch, hunting professionals and allied industry experts.

Highlights the first day will include "The Story of the Sixes,"by Mike Gibson, general manager of the Burnett Ranches, and a photographic essay by Wyman Meinzer of Benjamin, photographer, author and speaker.

Following dinner, Dr. Dale Rollins, Texas Cooperative Extension wildlife specialist at San Angelo, will present "The Camouflaged Cowboy Hat, "a talk on the tradeoffs between proper livestock and wildlife management.

Participants will meet at 8 a.m. April 7 at the Guthrie Community Center and depart by buses for a day-long tour of the Four Sixes Ranch. The tour will offer a look at the ranch's general management and range strategies that benefit both livestock and wildlife.

Tour topics are: "Fire as a Management Tool," "Mechanical Treatments of Rangeland," "The Brush-Cover Continuum," "A Hunter's Pointers and a Cowboy's Logic," "Chemical Treatments of Rangeland," "The 6666 Horse and Cattle Operations," and "Wildlife and Hunting."

Adjournment is set for 5 p.m.

Individual registration is $75 for Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association members and $100 for non-members.

For more information call Todd McCartney at (800) 242-7820.
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TECH GRAD'S DAD SENDS JOB HUNT LETTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS- THURSDAY (MARCH 23)
AUSTIN (AP) - The chief executive of the influential Texas Association of Business sent a "dear friend" letter to every Texas legislator last week stating that his son, a 2004 Texas Tech graduate, is "on the lookout" for a job.
"Please inform me if you know of any available positions," Bill Hammond wrote in his fourparagraph letter to lawmakers.
Hammond described his letter, printed on an association letterhead, as "normal activity in the course of everyday business for a lot of people."
"Nothing has come of it, and I wouldn't be surprised if nothing did. I can assure you 100 percent, there's no attempt to exert undue influence on anyone. That's silly," he said. "Basically I love my son. If I offended any legislator, I apologize."
But Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, said Hammond's use of association letterhead "raises both eyebrows."
Sherri Greenberg, a lecturer at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and a former Democratic House member, said she fielded many letters seeking jobrelated help when she represented a Travis County district from 1990 to 2000.
Lobbyist Bill Ratliff, a former Republican senator and acting lieutenant governor, said he might have suggested Hammond limit his inquiry to legislators he considers personal friends.
He said he also would have steered away from the letterhead.
But Ratliff and Greenberg each said Hammond didn't cross a line.
"You know how things are around the Capitol," Greenberg said.
Ratliff said: "It would be far worse if it were a legislator writing such a letter to the lobby. That probably smacks of coercion."
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IF GUN BACKGROUND CHECKS DON'T WORK, WILL 'WATCH LISTS' BE ANY MORE EFFECTIVE?
AMERICANDAILY.COM- THURSDAY (MARCH 24)
*Co-authored by John Lott, Jr. and Sonya D. Jones

Should people lose rights because they are sympathetic to, but do not actually help, terrorist groups? Should law enforcement be the arbiter of those sympathizers who should be placed on “watch lists”?

Democrats said “yes” to both questions recently as they released a report showing that 35 gun purchases during the first half of last year were made by people on terrorist “watch lists” and called it a major public security risk. Their solution? Ban the sale of guns to people law enforcement places on the “watch list.”

Evening news broadcasts, such as CBS', led their segments on the report denouncing the sales: “As incredible as it sounds . . . .” Democratic Senators such as Hillary Clinton, Jon Corzine, Ted Kennedy, Carl Levin, Charles Schumer, and Frank Lautenberg quickly came out strongly saying that “suspected” individuals should be prohibited from buying guns.

The 35 “suspected” purchases, out of 3.1 million total transactions, were allowed because background checks found no prohibiting information. No felonies or disqualifying misdemeanors, for example. They were neither fugitives from justice nor illegal aliens. Nor had they ever disavowed their US citizenship.

The FBI was alerted when these sales took place, but the transactions weren’t stopped because the law didn’t prohibit them. “Suspects” didn’t have to be foreigners. They may have simply been individuals classified by law enforcement as sympathetic to militia groups or other undesirable domestic organizations. Ironically, this debate occured as the U.S. Supreme Court slapped down state laws that use police reports to set prison sentences because police reports are not reliable. Being on the “watch list” would also just rely on police reports. There would be no adjudication by a judge, no trial by jury, before being placed on the list.

Some politicians have recently experienced being on a “watch list” firsthand.

Sen. Ted Kennedy was understandably upset last year and publicly complained to the Senate Judiciary committee when he was prevented from flying on an airplane because his name was placed on just such a “watch list.” Rules did not allow him to be told at the airport why he was being denied a ticket, but fortunately for him being a U.S. senator meant the problem was solved with a few telephone calls.

Ultimately, though, despite all the fears generated, background checks simply aren’t the solution.

The Federal Brady Act has been in effect for 11 years and state background checks even longer.

But despite all the academic research that has been done, a recent National Academy of Sciences report could not find any evidence -- not a single published academic study -- that background checks reduce any type of violent crime.

Surely, it would be nice if these regulations worked. But it's hard to believe they will be any more successful stopping terrorists. Criminals and terrorists share a lot in common, starting with the fact that what they are doing is illegal. In addition, terrorists are probably smarter and engage in vastly more planning than your typical criminal, thus making the rules even less likely to be successful.

People need to remind themselves that a “watch list” is only that. It is not even probable cause. If you had probable cause that these suspects had done something illegal, you could arrest them.

Yet Sen. Carl Levin, for example, has been more solicitous of the constitutional rights of foreign combatants held in Guantanamo to "due process" then he is to the rights of Americans. He believes Americans can lose their rights to own a gun without an evidentiary hearing.

Democrats may think that people on "watch lists" should be denied their rights to own a gun, but what is next? Why not just make the system much “more efficient” and simply put all people “watch lists” directly in prison?

Sonya D. Jones is a law student at Texas Tech University.
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LAWMAKERS INCLINED TO BOOST UT-AUSTIN'S BUDGET TUITION CAP, FINANCIAL AID STILL UNDER DEBATE
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN- SATURDAY (MARCH 26)
The still-evolving state budget for the next two years includes elements that have officials of the University of Texas alternately pleased, concerned and uncertain.

An earlier version would have given UT $8.5 million less in general revenue for the 2006-07 budget than it currently receives. That would have eroded the school's ability to make repairs, pay competitive faculty salaries and reduce class sizes.

Instead, the statewide appropriations bill approved by the Senate this week would increase the school's allocation by about $25 million, or 5.25 percent, over current spending. But campus officials are disappointed by a provision, also approved by the Senate, that would effectively prohibit a boost in the portion of tuition controlled by the university's governing board.

The UT System Board of Regents approved an increase earlier this month that would result in many students paying 4.75 percent more in tuition and fees, while others would pay less or more depending on their areas of study and course loads.

It's unclear whether the Senate's cap, assuming it becomes law, would force the regents to backpedal.

One option for sidestepping a limit on tuition would be for the regents to increase mandatory fees instead, as some other universities have done.

Up to now, UT has preferred to boost tuition because a portion of that revenue — unlike fees — is earmarked for financial aid.

"We've tried to be forthright and focus on total cost of education, not individual pieces," Kevin Hegarty, UT's vice president and chief financial officer, said Friday. "You can reload the buckets of cost to put more in one and less in another if that's what's ultimately required."

The House, which has not approved its version of the budget, is poised to boost UT's allocation of general revenue by $11 million for the 2006-07 biennium, according to an analysis by the UT System. The House bill contains no cap on tuition.

Differences between the House and Senate bills would be resolved by a conference committee. And there, too, lies uncertainty.

House Speaker Tom Craddick has been a strong proponent of allowing regents to set a portion of tuition, which until two years ago was a power that lawmakers had reserved solely for themselves.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, has repeatedly expressed concern, most recently this week, about the sizable tuition increases that have occurred at UT and other campuses since the Legislature granted tuition-setting power to regents.

Even under the current system, the Legislature still controls a portion of tuition, the so-called statutory tuition. The statutory tuition at UT and other schools is currently $720 a semester and is scheduled to go up by $30 in September.

The so-called designated tuition, which is set by the regents, is currently $1,410 a semester at UT, the highest among the state's public universities.

But designated tuition, statutory tuition and required fees together total $2,867 a semester at UT, which is less than what students are charged at Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University and UT-Dallas.

Also unresolved is a debate about financial aid. The Senate-approved appropriations bill for 2006-07 would provide $294 million for need-based scholarships known as the TEXAS Grants, which students do not have to repay.

That would be $30 million less than in the current budget.

Other proposals would shift many students from TEXAS Grants to the B-On-Time loan program, which carries no interest and does not have to be repaid if the student graduates in four years with at least a B average.

But shifting students to loans would make it harder for Hispanics and blacks to attend college, warned Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, in a letter this week to UT President Larry Faulkner.

That is because members of those minority groups make up about 60 percent of TEXAS Grant recipients, and only 16.8 percent of the recipients graduate within four years, Ellis wrote.

Only 22.6 percent of all public university students graduate within four years, and not all of them have at least a B average, he added.
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STUDENTS DISCUSS HAZING
THE RICE THRESHER- FRIDAY (MARCH 25)
About 60 students, faculty and staff members discussed hazing and university policy at a twohour forum held Tuesday by Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman and the Student Association. Students questioned the panelists about the specific criteria for hazing violations and the system for investigating and sanctioning such violations.

The men’s and women’s club lacrosse teams were suspended last month for violating the Alcohol Policy and allegedly hazing new members at an off-campus party Dec. 3. At the party, known as “initiation,” about 20 new members of the men’s and women’s teams were handcuffed in pairs using metal novelty handcuffs and were given a fifth of a gallon of hard liquor to drink. President David Leebron reduced the teams’ suspensions from three to two semesters on appeal.

The men’s and women’s captains were sanctioned individually for violating the Code of Student Conduct. All five of the captains were originally suspended for three semesters. On appeal, four of the suspensions were reduced to two semesters, and one was reduced to one semester. The forum’s purpose was to address the general topic of hazing rather than the specific situation of the lacrosse teams, former SA President Derrick Matthews said at the beginning of the event.

The panelists were Rice Counseling Center Assistant Director Salimah Adam, SA President James Lloyd, Assistant Dean of Student Judicial Programs Don Ostdiek and Wellness Center Director Emily Page. Forman moderated the discussion, which consisted of audience members asking questions of the panelists.

Lovett College President Lanny Bose said he recognizes the university’s policy on hazing has not changed, but students perceive that the policy’s enforcement has become stricter with the punishment of the lacrosse team. Bose asked whether student events such as Orientation Week and college government changeovers will also come under scrutiny.

Forman said he could offer no specific guidelines for determining which events might be considered hazing, but student leaders should ask Ostdiek about specific plans if they are concerned about an event.

“I would hope this [forum] offers us a chance not just to look at traditions and ask, ‘Can we get away with this?’ but look at what value these traditions hold for us,” Forman said.

Forman said although the Texas law that defines and prohibits hazing currently applies only to public institutions of higher education, the Texas State Legislature is considering legislation that would extend hazing statutes to private institutions. The bill is currently being considered by the House Committee of Higher Education and would take effect Sept. 1. Will Rice College junior Nathan Woodward said the hazing section of the Code of Student Conduct is too vague.

The code defines hazing as “any act which endangers the mental or physical health or safety of a student, or which destroys or removes public or private property, for the purpose of membership and/or association with a group, including a group of students pressuring another to engage in such conduct.”

Ostdiek said the section may lack detail, but its spirit is clear.

“You need to interpret the hazing section in conjunction with the rest of the Code,” Ostdiek said.

Adam said psychologically, hazing usually involves humiliation, public shame, vulnerability or issues of power and control.

Wiess College President Jack Hardcastle said students should feel an obligation to prevent hazing.

“We’re approaching this with the assumption that it’s the university or some higher organization policing students,” Hardcastle, a junior, said. “Why are we not approaching this from the assumption that this is like the Honor Code or [University] Court — that students are policing themselves?”

Brown College junior Jen Wessel said she worries that students hosting events will be less likely to call Rice Emergency Medical Services for alcohol-related illnesses and injuries, for fear of punishment.

“I have a fear that … everyone is so freaked out right now that whenever someone holds a private party, or if you’re a social, people will not want to call EMS,” Wessel said. Forman said students’ medical records are confidential, and Ostdiek does not receive records of EMS calls.

Although four students were transported to the hospital after participating in the lacrosse initiation, Forman said those EMS calls were not the stimulus for the investigation.

“The EMS calls simply did not play a role in this investigation at all,” Forman said.

Martel College junior Aaron Sankin said several traditions at Rice seem to fit the Code of Student Conduct’s definition of hazing but have not been scrutinized by administrators in the past. As an example, Sankin described Jones College’s annual “freshman sacrifice,” in which freshmen are tied to columns outside the college to witness Baker 13.

“When you set a precedent of not enforcing a rule for a very long time, is it fair to suddenly enforce that rule without informing anyone?” Sankin said.

Forman said enforcing a rule is always fair.

Martel freshman Sahil Gujral said administrators should outline criteria for hazing more clearly and avoid “scapegoating” particular students or organizations.

Several other students also asked for more specific criteria. Forman said listing specific types of hazing in the Code of Student Conduct is infeasible.

Lloyd, a Brown junior, said the SA will work to further define the hazing policy and inform students about it. He said administrators at other universities, such as Southern Methodist University, Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University, provide multi-page documents to educate students about hazing. The Web site http://www.stophazing.org lists questions to help students determine whether behavior is hazing, such as, “Do you have any reservation describing the activity to your parents, to a professor or University official?”

Martel sophomore Erin Sozanski asked whether student leaders would be punished as individuals for groups’ hazing violations.

“There are lots of things that happen that could be considered hazing,” Sozanski said. “Who will be found responsible if these things continue to happen?”

Ostdiek said no student is ever punished simply for being the leader of an organization. “To be sanctioned under the code has to be for behavior that you commit,” Ostdiek said. “No one has been or will be sanctioned for symbolic reasons.”

Adam said she hopes the forum will raise student leaders’ consciousness about potential hazing.

Brown College junior Kyle Ragan said party hosts should not be held responsible for other students’ excessive drinking.

“You can’t tell me that just because you host a party or you’re a social that you have direct control, or even leadership, over what someone drinks,” Ragan said.

Forman said if an individual chooses to drink at a party, the host would not be guilty of hazing because the drinking would not be for the purpose of association with a group.

Page said common sense should guide students’ actions, both as party hosts and organization leaders.

“You do everything in your power to ensure that students will not be put in a position where health and safety are at risk,” Page said. “If your gut instinct is that [an event] may not necessarily jive with what the university deems to be acceptable, ask [Ostdiek or Forman].”

Several students asked how an organization could be found guilty of hazing if the “hazed” individuals consented to participate in the activity. Forman said legally and under Rice’s policy, consent of the victim is not a defense for hazing.

Page said victims of hazing may be afraid to come forward.

“Somebody may feel very ridiculed, but they would never share that for fear of further ridicule,” Page said.

Sankin asked about the process for investigating cases in the Student Judicial Programs Office. Forman and Ostdiek said the judicial process is flexible.

“We want to preserve the judicial process as a last resort and, as much as possible, reach an understanding before we get to that point,” Forman said.

Under the Code of Student Conduct, the assistant dean of Student Judicial Programs may choose to assume authority over any case, rather than submitting the case to U. Court or the Judicial Affairs Committee.

Ostdiek said U. Court’s organization should be modified so the organization is capable of handling more serious cases while still respecting students’ confidentiality rights. However, Ostdiek said he likely would have handled a case of the magnitude of the lacrosse case under any circumstances.

Lloyd said he hopes U. Court can become better prepared to handle serious cases, and he plans to work with the organization to achieve that goal.

Ostdiek said no matrix exists for determining penalties for a hazing violation. He said he does not seek out hazing violations, but he might investigate a situation he heard about, even if no student made a formal complaint.

Page said Ostdiek’s stance is appropriate.

“If we wait until somebody does complain or somebody does get hurt or, heaven forbid, somebody dies, have we waited too long?” Page said.

Forman said he hopes students will examine current traditions for possible hazing implications, but most student events are safe.

“The goal is not to start cracking down on shaving cream fights or the vast majority of things people are concerned about,” Forman said. “When you really need to start worrying is when you’re planning an event where you can envision people getting hurt one way or another.”

Martel junior Jeff Senison said whether or not an event is hazing, administrators are more likely to find it unacceptable if it involves alcohol.

“I really don’t think we’d be sitting here today if the students [at the lacrosse party] were handcuffed together and were square-dancing,” Senison said. “The only reason this event has been so scrutinized is because there was alcohol involved.”

Forman said alcohol is a factor because it contributes to a physical danger. He said the risk of physical or mental harm is the most important factor in determining whether an event is acceptable.

Matthews, a Will Rice senior, said he thinks the forum was successful.

“I think there were a few students who used the forum to keep bringing up lacrosse, but I think the overall sentiment in the room was, ‘We want to figure out what hazing is and what that means for us,’” Matthews said.

Matthews said he thinks the lack of a specific definition of hazing may work to students’ advantage.

“If we had really specific guidelines, it would most likely cause problems with events that no one has issues with,” Matthews said.

The forum was held Tuesday from 7-8:45 p.m. in Herzstein Hall, Room 210.

Forman said he plans to hold similar events in the future to examine various issues.
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POLICY FUELED BY STATE PRESSURE
THE PROPOSAL LIMITS STUDENTS TO FIVE DROPS OVER A COLLEGE CAREER.
THE SHORTHORN- UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS- FRIDAY (MARCH 25)
A recent UTA proposal to limit the number of dropped courses allowed was developed partly in response to the state Legislature’s efforts to increase the graduation rate, a university officials said.

The Undergraduate Assembly sent the proposal to President James Spaniolo on March 8. It caps the number of courses a student can drop in their undergraduate career to five.

“We’re basically being pressured by the state Legislature,” Public Affairs Director Bob Wright said.

He said the Legislature will debate a bill Tuesday that would give tuition and fee rebates to students who complete their degree programs in a timely manner.

David Gray, chair of the Undergraduate Assembly’s Academic Standards Committee, said the proposal will save the state money.

The state loses money when students drop courses excessively. Public colleges and universities receive reimbursements from the state for students enrolled at the census date. But if a student drops after the census date, the state does not get the money back.

“Frankly, it’s a waste of the state’s resources,” Gray said.

The proposed limit would take effect in fall 2006 if approved. Gray said the new rule would encourage students to move through their programs faster.

“We have a lot of students drop [classes] and that often prevents other students from enrolling in them,” he said.

Gray said the committee looked at about eight state universities’ policies for comparison before shaping its proposal.

Included were the University of Houston, UT-Austin, the University of North Texas, Texas Tech University and Texas A&M University.

UT-Dallas, North Texas and Houston have no limit on the number of courses a student can drop. At UT-Austin, individual colleges and schools may set drop limitations.

Texas Tech implemented a more stringent drop policy last fall. Incoming freshmen are limited to four dropped classes, and transfer students are allowed three drops.

The policy is designed to make students more conscientious about succeeding in courses and encourage on-time graduation, Texas Tech Registrar Don Wickard said.

“We’re trying to get them to move on through their college careers and get their degree,” he said.

Graduating on time would not only lessen the burden on taxpayers, but would help students who often receive no refund after dropping a class, Wickard said.

“It [graduating on time] helps the state; it helps the students, and it helps the workforce and the economy,” he said.

Although he has heard grumblings from students who believe the policy keeps them from taking courses to gain career direction, Wickard said students could still take a range of subjects.

“Just don’t drop,” he said.

Texas A&M Registrar Donald Carter said the school decided several years ago to limit the number of times a student could withdraw from a class because excessive drops wasted the university’s resources.

Students are now limited to only three dropped courses during their academic careers.

After that, students “can stop going to class, but they’re going to get an F,” Carter said.

He conceded the implementation of the policy was partly due to the state Legislature’s attempts to speed students through their academic programs.

From now on, schools may not want to use a liberal drop policy because it could bring scrutiny from the state, Carter said.

Although the university’s policy may seem strict, Carter cited an internal study that showed students averaged only one drop during their careers.

“You’d think they’d use all three, but that’s not the case,” he said.
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MOVING WALL COMES TO TECH MEMORIAL CIRCLE
LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL- SATURDAY (MARCH 26)
The Moving Wall, a half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., will be on display in Memorial Circle at Texas Tech Friday through April 7.

An opening ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. Friday with keynote speaker Col. Roger Donlon, the first Medal of Honor recipient for the Vietnam War.

U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, is scheduled to present Texas Tech's Vietnam Center with a $496,000 check at 1 p.m. Friday. The money represents federal funding to sustain the growth of the Vietnam Center's Virtual Archive, which provides research assistance to students and historians worldwide.
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MATHEMATICIANS TO CONVERGE ON TECH
LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL- TUESDAY (MARCH 22)
The Texas Tech department of mathematics and statistics will serve as host for the 2005 Spring Central Section Meeting of the American Mathematical Society April 8-10 at Tech.

More than 300 mathematicians from throughout the United States and 23 other nationals will speak on a variety of topics.

The event is open to the public. Registration fees are $40 for AMS members, $60 for nonmembers and $5 for emeritus members, students or unemployed mathematicians.
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GRIFFIN SELECTION WILL BENEFIT TECH
LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL- THURSDAY (MARCH 24)
THIS WEEK'S appointment of Lubbock attorney and businessman Mark Griffin to the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents bodes well for higher education in general and Texas Tech in particular.

Mr. Griffin's concern for, support of and interest in education is well-documented by his years of community service in the fields of both public and private education.

Mr. Griffin, a University of Texas at Austin alumnus who graduated from Tech's School of Law in 1979, currently is serving as president of the Lubbock Independent School District Board of Trustees.

His strong interest in higher education is nothing new, however, having previously taught business law on a part-time basis at Lubbock Christian University. Lately, his attention to higher ed has been heightened perhaps even more by having a daughter who is a freshman at Texas Tech.

Joining Mr. Griffin as Gov. Rick Perry's latest appointments to the Tech board are Arlingtonbased accountant Dan Serna and Dallas-based insurance and financial services executive Larry Anders for terms to expire Jan. 31, 2011.

Subject to Senate confirmation, the new appointees will replace regents Carin Barth, E.R. Brooks and Brian Newby, whose terms expired earlier this year.

For his part, Mr. Griffin brings a diversified background of invaluable expertise to the Tech System table.

He is president and general counsel for Rip Griffin Truck Service Center, L.P., and is president of Pro Petroleum Inc. In addition to his LISD board presidency, he also serves as a director of Covenant Health System and of Plains Capital Corporation. He is a member of the Lubbock County Bar Association and the State Bar of Texas.

Indicative of his attention to detail, Mr. Griffin consulted with the governor's office on whether he needed to resign his seat on the LISD board in order to serve as a regent. He was told he could continue to serve in both capacities so long as no issues arise that could present a conflict of interest, reported The A-J's John Reynolds.

Mr. Griffin's brief answer to that question speaks volumes about the depth of his character, integrity and sense of fairness. "If there's an issue that would require a direct contract (between LISD and Tech), I will have to look at stepping down," he said.

As Chancellor David R. Smith, M.D., said of Mr. Griffin in praising the three appointees' expertise, "Mark Griffin's passion for Lubbock and our students will serve us well. He is a wellseasoned and proven community leader, a successful businessman and he has continuously given generously and tirelessly to the community through his civic and volunteer efforts. We look forward to his leadership."

Based on his background, education and experience, Mr. Griffin can be counted on to be an integral part of a team providing the type of leadership and guidance Tech needs to successfully further its important mission.
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COLLEGE STUDENTS EXPRESS REACTIONS TO THE SCHIAVO SITUATION
LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL- FRIDAY (MARCH 25)
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear the appeal by Terri Schiavo's family to reinstate her feeding tube. The Schiavo case has stimulated debates across the country. At Texas Tech University, students considered the issues and gave their opinions on the situation in Florida.

The parents of the brain-damaged Schiavo, 41, made an appeal to the Supreme Court Wednesday to give their daughter with nourishment and a longer life through the feeding tube that has kept her alive for the past 15 years.

According to the Associated Press, the parents said if the feeding tube was not reinstated, their daughter would face an unjust and imminent death. Doctors said if the device was not replaced then Schiavo could die within the next two weeks. As of Wednesday, Schiavo had gone five full days without food or water.

Originally, Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer ruled that the feeding tube must be removed. Then, Schiavo's parents made an appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which also was denied. Since the Supreme Court has decided not to hear an appeal on behalf of Schiavo, it is now a matter of time before the inevitable occurs.

Some Texas Tech students interviewed said they believe Schiavo should still be able to live, although they would not want to live that way if the roles were reversed.

Marla Lee, 21, said she would rather die than live a lifeless existence.

Adam (who did not want to give his last name), 23, said there is a better alternative to living in a vegetative state.

"I'm trying to put myself in her shoes," Adam said. "Hopefully before that would happen, I would have a decision for my fate.

"I was telling my friends the other night that if I were in a vegetative state, then I would want the tube removed. I'd rather be in heaven or a better place than living in a vegetative state," Adam said.

Protestors in Florida and people throughout the nation who have been gripped by this story agree that Schiavo should live if her family believes it is what she would have wanted.

Although the parents have made appeals on Schiavo's behalf, her husband has said that his wife would not have wanted to live with severe brain damage. Her family, the state of Florida and the nation have fought the ensuing battle for her life.

Heather Whitney, 21, said she questioned whether the state or nation would know what is best for Schiavo better than her family would.

"In a situation like that, it's justified for Congress to be involved because it's about what's best for her," Whitney said. "But who says the state knows what is best for this woman?"

Other students questioned whether Schiavo and her husband could divorce and allow the parents to care for their daughter. According to the Associated Press, Schiavo's husband has had an ongoing affair and children with another woman while saying he still loves and cares for his wife.

Michele King, 19, said she believes the husband should be able to go on with his life. Although she and Jennifer Cantrell, 20, said they do not believe adultery is the right answer. They do believe that the husband should be able to move on.

"If it was me, I would want my husband to go on with his life," Cantrell said. "I wouldn't want him to wait around if I'm not coming back, so to speak."

As her legal guardian, Schiavo's husband still controls the fate of his wife. However, Adam said that is no excuse for the actions he has taken.

"How can you say you love and care for someone when you're cheating on them?" Adam asked.

"If he has an ulterior motive, then they should get divorced. You just can't justify adultery."
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DWI TRAILER BUILT FOR LUBBOCK IS FIRST IN TEXAS
KCBD.COM- SATURDAY (MARCH 26)
The Lubbock County District Attorney's Office donated $3,000 from their drug forfeiture account to the cause. The money will go toward the purchase of a specially-made trailer to honor three little girls who were killed by a drunk driver in Seminole.

It will be the first of it's kind in Texas and the second in the nation. The mangled truck the children were riding in will be on display in a glass enclosed trailer. M.A.D.D. says it will be a larger than life powerful message of how drinking and driving kills.

"I saw this (the trailer) the day the crash happened. I talked to the Police in Fresno, California who built this, and asked them how I could build one for Lubbock. They said getting the donation is the easy part, but asking a family to donate the car is hard," said M.A.D.D. Victim Service Leader, Shannon Ramos.

She said the Lindsey family was more than willing to share their story with other people through a mobile DWI trailer.

"We'll outfit it with TVs, the graphics, the police report and the outcome of the criminal case. It will be totally interactive so people will know what happened that day," said Ramos.

A drunk driver ran a stop sign and hit a family of five in Seminole. Ten year-old Rachel Lindsey, and her siblings 6 year-old Madelyn, and one month-old Yates were killed. The parents were the only ones who survived the crash.

Ramos says she's worked passionately to bring this unique trailer to Lubbock. She wants to help turn the family's pain into education and prevention for others.

"The Lindsey's are having to heal their hearts. There's nothing outsiders can do to heal that.

We're working on this trailer and it's keeping M.A.D.D. and the community of Seminole busy. It makes us feel better and I hope it makes the family feel better too," said Ramos.

The DWI trailer will be used for events like the South Plains Fair, Texas Tech tailgating events, and for schools that want to use it. The trailer will be unveiled on the anniversary of the fatal crash in Seminole this August.
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STUDENTS WIN GATES CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARSHIP
LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL- SATURDAY (MARCH 26)
Texas Tech students William Michael Henne of Allen and Nicholas Johnson of Albuquerque, N.M., are among 38 American students awarded Gates Cambridge Scholarships.

This international and highly competitive scholarship is an award for up to four years of graduate study at the University of Cambridge, England.

Henne is a cell and molecular biology major scheduled to graduate from Tech in May. Johnson is an electrical engineering major who is scheduled to graduate from Tech in August.

Both students are also 2004 Goldwater Scholars, winners of a scholarship named for the late Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarships were established by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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TECH TAKES STEPS TO BOOST RANKS OF TENURED WOMEN
FAMILY-FRIENDLY POLICY SEEN AS TOOL TO RECRUIT YOUNG PROFESSORS
LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL- SUNDAY (MARCH 27)
Last month, Texas Tech's Board of Regents codified the informal practice that allowed faculty to take time off for urgent personal matters without hurting their progress toward earning tenure.

The custom, which is called "stopping the tenure clock," is seen as a way to create a more welcoming environment at Tech for young professors, both men and women, who are demanding more family-friendly policies at work.

"Tech is making an effort to adopt these policies to recruit more women," explained Charlotte Dunham, director of Tech's Women's Studies Department. "Stopping the tenure clock had been done on a case by case basis. Now we have a written policy that makes it a lot stronger."

Tenure remains a fundamental requirement in academia, but the rules on making tenure, which were made assuming a professor would not be distracted by domestic responsibilities, are discouraging women from entering tenure-track positions, according to recent research.

Of the 10 academic colleges at Tech, only two - Education and Human Sciences - had more than half their tenured positions held by women in fall 2004, according to figures provided by the university.

The College of Education was the only school with more than half its tenure-track slots held by women.

Two colleges - Business and Engineering - had less than 10 percent of their tenured positions held by women. Another five colleges had less than 25 percent of their tenured positions occupied by women.

Dunham said the disparity in tenured women across colleges at Tech is typical of trends in universities across the nation.

A report released last month by the American Council on Education noted that while women earn 51 percent of all doctorates awarded to U.S. citizens at American institutions, they represent only 38 percent of full-time faculty.

The ACE also concluded that societal pressures connected with child-rearing played a large factor in women not pursuing tenure-track positions.

"The traditional career path, based on societal norms from an earlier era ... inhibits the success of many women with spouses and children," the report stated. "At nearly every stage in their careers, married women leave academia at a disproportionately high rate; those with children under six are half as likely to enter tenure-track posts as married men with children under six."

In addition, women with doctorates report difficulties re-entering tenure-track positions after having taken extended leaves, the report noted.

Dunham said Tech's administration, from the chancellor on down, is paying attention to increasing the number of women in the professorial ranks.

"My feeling is they're very open not just to talking about things but taking action to change," she said.

The tenure-clock initiative was originally proposed in a report issued three years ago by a university committee on gender issues, which was chaired by Dunham.

The committee concluded in part that, "A major way of recruiting and retaining women faculty and staff is to recognize the family needs of employees and provide supports to help manage those demands."

In addition to dealing with tenure-clock demands, the committee also recommended paid leaves for pregnancy or family care, reduced workload options for faculty having to handle family responsibilities and establishing a university child care center.

The biggest increase for women at Tech in the past five years occurred in the College of Education. In the fall of 2000, six of the 22, or 27.3 percent, tenured positions were held by women, according to university figures.

By the fall of 2004, the college had added 10 tenured women. With 16 of 31 tenured slots, women held 51.6 percent of the tenured positions.

Among tenure-track positions, the trend was even more extreme. In 2000, 18 of 29, or 62.1 percent, of those positions were held by women. By 2004, women held 23 of 27 tenure-track positions, or 85.2 percent.

The education school's dean, Sheryl Santos, said those figures are not out of line in the education field, which tends to be dominated by women.

If anything, the numbers may mean that the school needs to recruit more men, she said.

She said the more pressing issue at her college is that "our salaries are lower than other colleges."

Addressing salary equity as well as family support issues will be important to boosting gender equity at Tech, Dunham said, because "time won't take care of inequities" all by itself.

"It will take conscious effort to make people play on a level playing field," she said.

Santos, who's been at Tech for only a year and a half, said she's been impressed by the willingness of Tech's administration to tackle the problem.

She said hiring her and Pamela Eibeck as dean of the engineering school "was a very conscious decision to bring in qualified females."

She added, "I think there's a sincerity about the administration doing the right thing."
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DR. MOLD
FORBES MAGAZINE- FRIDAY (MARCH 25)
The science may be sketchy, but medical "experts" like Gary Ordog keep litigation alive and kicking.

Gary Ordog was trained in emergency medicine. He spent the first 17 years of his career patching up knife and gunshot wounds at Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center in the tough Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles. Then he found a more lucrative specialty. For $9,800 up front (plus $975 an hour) Dr. Ordog appears as an expert witness in lawsuits to testify that mold can cause a terrifying array of diseases, from lung cancer to cirrhosis of the liver. Mold "is a major, devastating part of my patients' lives," says Ordog, a portly British Columbia native who says he's treated thousands of people for mold exposure at his clinic in a strip mall in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Clarita. "It destroys their health, their homes and all of their possessions."

The American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine and the federal Institute of Medicine say there's no evidence for such claims. The vice president of Ordog's own professional association, the American College of Medical Toxicology, agrees. "Mold exposure does not cause significant disease," says Paul Wax, a practicing toxicologist in Phoenix who isn't involved in litigation.

That hasn't stopped Ordog from serving as an expert witness in, by his estimate, hundreds of lawsuits by people alleging they were injured by mold and mycotoxins. The Insurance Information Institute estimates that $3 billion in mold claims were paid out in 2002, the most recent year for which detailed statistics are available. Most states have responded by passing laws allowing insurance companies to exclude mold from coverage, so plaintiff lawyers now target landlords, condominium associations and school districts instead. "I've got seven or eight cases set for trial between now and June," says William Slaughter, a defense lawyer in Ventura, Calif.

Four years after a groundbreaking $32 million verdict in Texas, mold litigation has fallen into a familiar pattern. Like previous suits over silicone breast implants, electromagnetic radiation and the anti-nausea drug Bendectin, it is being kept alive by a handful of experts who are willing to contradict mainstream scientists to say that mold can make otherwise healthy people sick.

There's no question that mold can cause asthma, sinusitis and other breathing problems. But that's not what experts like Ordog are saying. They're diagnosing more serious conditions--such as cancer, immune-system disorders and memory loss--that have been linked to specific mycotoxins. And if they find any traces of them in a plaintiff's home, workplace or school-- bingo. But there are no reliable tests to show that a person has been exposed to a specific mold or mycotoxin, much less how long that exposure lasted or how much of a substance he absorbed.

"I certainly believe these poisons make people sick, but I can't make that connection," says David Straus, a researcher at Texas Tech University's medical school whose testimony has helped plaintiffs win three mold lawsuits.

Some medical experts are old hands at tort claims. Texas mold expert Andrew Campbell previously testified in silicone breast implant cases. Nachman Brautbar of Los Angeles has worked on everything from breast implants and welding fumes to the chromium contamination in the Erin Brockovich case (his Web site features a testimonial from the film's namesake).

Only 30 mold lawsuits alleging personal injury have gone to a verdict in the U.S., by the estimate of Los Angeles attorney Stephen Henning, and the defense won more than half. But with an expert supporting their claims, plaintiffs can often extract a lucrative settlement simply by surviving defense motions to dismiss.

Ordog's testimony helped a California couple win a $2.4 million settlement in 2003 over the death of their infant son from pulmonary hemorrhage linked to Stachybotrys chartarum, or "black mold." The CDC in 2000 repudiated reports linking Stachybotrys to infant pulmonary hemorrhage, but the defendants weren't willing to risk putting a case involving a dead child in front of a jury.

A defense lawyer once calculated Ordog's annual take from expert witness fees and his busy toxicology clinic at more than $3 million. Ordog laughs at that figure--"I wish" is all he'll say-- but he has acknowledged earning more than $10,000 a day for testimony and travel time. Such figures are grating to defense attorneys, who say Ordog shouldn't even be allowed to testify. The state of California sought to revoke his license in 2003, alleging that in several cases he misdiagnosed patients as having toxic poisoning. Ordog says no hearings have been held and that his license was renewed last year.

But his say-so has been challenged. A California judge once said Ordog "lacks credibility completely" after he testified that he was chief toxicologist at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Santa Clarita, which has no such department; that he'd published "hundreds" of scholarly articles, when a search of the PubMed database turns up fewer than 70, almost all of them dealing with gunshot wounds and trauma; and that former President Bill Clinton called him personally to run a special mold commission for the Environmental Protection Agency, even though an EPA spokesman says the agency's authority doesn't include indoor air quality. Ordog "is completely abusing the system," says James Robie, a defense lawyer with Robie & Matthai in Los Angeles who has cross-examined Ordog several times. "He is possibly the most dishonest man I have ever met."

In an interview at a luxurious Santa Clarita restaurant Ordog says he's the victim of a smear campaign. The state's complaint to revoke his license, he says, was "payback from Alcoa" after his testimony helped secure a multimillion-dollar verdict against it. (The November 2000 judgment was against Alcoa Paving Co., a now-defunct firm unrelated to the aluminum maker.) Ordog also says the "evidence is overwhelming for our position," citing 28,000 articles supporting the idea that mycotoxins can cause disease. A PubMed search finds 28,540 articles containing the word "mycotoxin," but experts say there are no reliable studies showing that mold can cause anything more than asthma and similar breathing difficulties (see box, p. 101).

Ordog isn't the only mold expert with credibility issues. Texas authorities are seeking to revoke Andrew Campbell's medical license, alleging a pattern of misdiagnosing patients with occupational or mold-related illnesses, overbilling and excessive testing. A family-practice specialist by training who runs the Medical Center for Immune, Environmental & Toxic Disorders in Spring, Tex., Campbell blames insurers for his problems. "My patients have signed affidavits saying they were happy with my care," he says.

How does this go on? Junk science was supposedly banished from the courtroom in the 1993 Supreme Court decision Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, involving since-debunked claims that Bendectin causes birth defects. Under Daubert, judges must exclude witnesses who rely on implausible theories or poor methodology. But Daubert applies only in federal courts.

Many state courts use the looser standard of "general acceptance," which can be met by convening a group of like-minded experts and publishing their papers in a sympathetic journal. Those papers fail to use double-blind methods to strip out possible researcher bias, and most rely on self-reported mold exposure by patients, many of whom are involved in mold lawsuits.

Bolstered by articles in such journals as Archives of Environmental Health and the Scientific World Journal, plaintiff experts can mount an expensive fight against defense lawyers who are trying to get them dismissed. Because Ordog's opinions cover a wide range of medical disciplines from toxicology to cancer, "You end up hiring docs in all areas of medicine to disqualify him," says Michael O'Neill, a Los Angeles defense lawyer.

As the epidemiological evidence against mold claims mount, lawyers and experts are changing tactics. Steven Goldman, a lawyer in New York City, has filed 400 or so lawsuits in the city on behalf of apartment dwellers and employees who believe mold made them sick. He deliberately avoids using the word "mold," however, referring instead to "dangerous and hazardous conditions." That gets him around the mold exclusions in many insurance policies--and gives his experts room to pursue other theories of disease linked to the same underlying complaint about neglected water leaks.

"What's the next mold? Bacteria!" Goldman says excitedly. "And I'm the only one who knows it." Still, it won't be long before the experts catch up.
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SECURITY ON THE OFFENSIVE
TIRED OF BEING UNDER ATTACK, COMPANIES ARE TAKING PREVENTIVE STEPS TO HEAD OFF SECURITY BREACHES
COMPUTER WORLD- TUESDAY (MARCH 22)
(COMPUTERWORLD) - Eric Litt, chief information security officer at General Motors Corp., calls it "management by inclusion."

Simply put, it's an information security strategy that reduces operational risk by denying network access and services to all people and processes not previously vetted by the company. "If I don't know you're good, I don't talk to you," Litt says.

Litt is one of a growing number of security managers who say traditional reactive defenses -- focused on blocking known threats at the edge of the network perimeter -- are no longer enough. What's needed are more-proactive security capabilities that emphasize quicker identification and resolution of both internal and external threats.

"You just cannot sit back any longer and wait for your LAN to go down or for your employees to complain," says Ed Amoroso, CISO at AT&T Corp. "You need to be looking at things before they become a problem."

Several factors are driving this trend toward more-strategic security operations. Laws such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have put a greater burden on companies to demonstrate due diligence on matters related to information security. Worms, viruses, spyware and other types of malicious code are getting a lot better at sneaking past firewalls, antivirus defenses and intrusion-detection mechanisms. And growing wireless use, remote workers and the trend toward Web services are giving hackers more avenues for launching attacks.

Another important fact: The time it takes for hackers to exploit software holes has been shrinking dramatically, giving users very little time to react to new threats. The SQL Slammer worm of 2003 took eight months to appear after the flaw it exploited was first publicized. In contrast, last year's MyDoom worm started making the rounds in less than four weeks.

"It's getting so nasty out there, it's frightening," Amoroso says.

To achieve its goal of more-proactive security, GM launched a sweeping overhaul of its processes, including the manner in which it authenticates users and systems, enforces security policies, controls access to network services, patches holes, spots intruders and responds to incidents.

It's a mighty task for a $186 billion behemoth with global operations, thousands of partners and tens of thousands of users. But it's essential in order for GM to stay one step ahead of the bad guys, Litt says.

"We are in a competitive stalemate with the creators of malware," Litt says. "What we are trying to do is gain back the advantage."

Lane Timmons, security systems analyst at Texas Tech University's medical school in Lubbock, says a key to this is a better understanding of how your company's networks behave normally so you can spot abnormal activity more quickly.

After getting hammered by worms and viruses over the past few years, the school deployed several tools to help it spot and squelch attacks more quickly than the "hundreds of man-years of effort" that it used to take, Timmons says.

Among those tools is the network behavior modeling product QRadar from Q1 Labs Inc. in Waltham, Mass. The software analyzes and models typical network activity over a set period of time and then uses that data as a baseline to identify abnormal activity that might suggest the presence of worms, Trojans, port scans or denial-of-service attacks.

Such behavior modeling has dramatically improved the university's ability to detect and respond to both internal and external intrusions, Timmons says. "Our ability to do a real-time analysis of our networks has made a big difference," he says.

Actionable Data

Integrating and correlating information from multiple security technologies is also crucial to enabling a more holistic view of the threats and vulnerabilities facing a corporate network, says Amoroso.

To this end, AT&T is retiring all of its individual Internet-facing firewalls, intrusion-detection systems and antivirus tools and is integrating the functions into its IP backbone layer. The company has built a massive security event management system, called Aurora, that's capable of pulling in and correlating terabytes of network traffic and security data from the IP layer.

The data analysis allows AT&T to spot trends and signs of impending trouble far better than the fragmented view provided by the individual security technologies, Amoroso says.

"It gives us real actionable data, to respond to threats" before they materialize into full-fledged problems, he says.

Prep Work

Being proactive also means ensuring that security is built into your application software and not bolted on later, says Mary Ann Davidson, CISO at Oracle Corp.

Customers should ask vendors questions about their security practices, Davidson says. Questions should include, "How do you write secure code? Do you train your developers for that? Do you do ethical hacking to test your code? How are you making it easier for your customers to secure your code? What is the best practice for locking down your product?" she says.

What's crucial at GM, says Litt, is "making sure the code we get is really secure out of the box and that the vendors are not making us a testbed for their software." That's because a majority of the security problems companies are facing today are the direct result of software bugs that hackers are exploiting. Litt is working with several influential industry and user groups to pressure vendors to pay more attention to security.

"We are trying to use our combined voices to drive the software industry to think about security in a different way," says Litt, who for years has been including strict security terms and conditions in all of GM's software purchasing contracts.

GM is also applying the same concept to the software it develops in-house. The company has instituted "toll gates" for reviewing security at various stages in the product development life cycle "even before the first line of code is written," Litt says.

In the end, however, there's a limit to just how proactive you can be, says Lloyd Hession, CISO at Radianz Inc., a New York-based provider of telecommunications services to financial companies.

"One of the key issues is that we can't really figure out what the next threat scenario is going to be," he says. "A year ago, for example, nobody was up and jumping over spyware. It's kind of suboptimal to want corporate commitment and resources to be deployed today if you don't know what it is being deployed to really stop."

Instead, the goal should be to better prepare yourself for attacks, Hession says. And that means being able to identify threats early, have a good incident-response and backup process in place and ensure that there is no "skills mismatch" between your security team and the attackers when the attacks do come, he says.

"There is no silver-bullet technology or singular process change" for addressing this problem, Litt says. The goal should be to "social-engineer security into your processes versus putting it in as an afterthought," he says
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EL PASO FAMILIES FACE STRUGGLES WITH CASES SIMILAR TO SCHIAVO'S
EL PASO TIMES- THURSDAY (MARCH 24)
As the nation watches the battle over Terri Schiavo in Florida, the Alvarado family in El Paso needs only to look at Judith to feel what millions of people can only imagine.

Judith Alvarado, 57, has been in a coma -- and on a feeding tube -- since a 1999 car accident.

Sitting in front of his wife's bed, Hector Alvarado gently caresses her round face with his strong hands. Not a day passes without Hector Alvarado, or their 19-year-old son, Josh, whispering "I love you" or "I miss you" to her.

"We talk to her just like she is awake," Josh Alvarado said. "We are always kissing her and telling her what we are up to. I put my daughter, Eva, next to her and she turns her head to look at her. We try to make it as normal as we can."

The Schiavo case has become the center of national debate and a long-running court battle over the so-called right to die. It has also created discussions over religious, legal and ethical aspects because of the husband's wish -- and the courts' approval --to remove a feeding tube.

Michael Schiavo, the husband and legal guardian, says his wife told him she would not want to be kept alive if she were brain-damaged, which she is.

"I can't believe they made that decision," Hector Alvarado, 55, said from his North Hills home. "Having been through different neurologists, they will all tell you the same thing. There is no way anybody can tell whether there is any thought process going on; it is impossible. To say somebody is in a vegetative state doesn't mean there isn't any brain activity. That is absolutely false, and I know that because of my own experience."

Alvarado said his wife, who is fed through a tube inserted below her rib cage, communicates with head movements and can breathe on her own. Doctors call Judith's condition a persistent vegetative state.

"How can you pull the plug on that?" daughter Janice McGinn said.

"We have seen progress," Alvarado said. "She responds to questions by moving her head twice for yes and once for no and three times for thank you. Her eyes will also follow you across the room. And if you tell her to look at somebody, she will.

"If someone she has not seen in a while walks into the room and she recognizes them, she'll start to cry," Alvarado said. "And her doctors do not expect any significant changes in the future -- kind of like the woman in Florida."

Family members -- including McGinn and Josh's girlfriend, Kathy Armstrong -- take turns caring for Judith. There is a schedule. They bathe, feed and give her medicine around the clock. A health-care provider helps the family during the week.

"We are just waiting for her to wake up fully," Josh Alvarado said. "The doctors can't give us an estimated time. We are not giving up hope."

The Alvarados weren't prepared for what happened to Judith. There was never a living will or any kind of discussion about what to do in this kind circumstance.

"She has a standard will about what to do with assets but not a living will," Hector Alvarado said. "We never thought anything like this would happen. It was so unexpected."

No one should be put in a situation like that of the Alvarados or the Schiavos, said Dr. Kathryn Horn, the medical director of VNA Hospice and an associate professor of family medicine at Texas Tech University. Everyone, not just the elderly, should have some type of living will, which outlines directions on what to do in a medical emergency.

"You should have an advanced directive that tells your family members what you would want them to do," Horn said. "You can be as detailed as to say, 'I don't want a feeding tube' or 'I do want a feeding tube' or 'I want heroic measures' or 'I don't want heroic measures.' And it names who will make the decisions for you, the person that I want to decide or me."

Horn said these advanced directives do not take a lawyer and do not need to be notarized.

"It is something you can have on hand, but it does require witnesses that are not going to have an advantage by your death," Horn said. "Doctors often have copies or you can get a living will through the Texas Medical Association. You can even find a copy of a living will online."

But the most important thing is letting your family know about the directions so they know what you would want, Horn said.

As a registered nurse and the director of patient services for Hospice El Paso, Barbara DuMond has seen a lot of end-of-life decisions, including when to stop treatment and when not to, and how people arrive at the decisions.

"Some of the questions people might ask is, What is the person's prognosis?" DuMond said. "Are they likely to recover with medical support, or are they going to die in spite of it? If they do survive, is that quality of life acceptable to that person?"

When the time comes for loved ones to make a critical decision, such as removing the feeding tube, the religious aspect can come into play, as in the case of Terri Schiavo.

"If the husband said that that was her request, then that is of primary importance, that is the bottom line," said Sister Marie Vianney Bilgrien, project director at the Tepeyac Institute at the Catholic Diocese of El Paso. "If that is her will, that is the overriding commitment. Life is not the greatest good; the union with God is the greatest good."

Bilgrien, a school sister of Notre Dame, said some people might not agree with that stance.

"It's almost like life at any cost or life at any value, when in reality, we are here on earth to form relationships with each other and God," she said. "Then we go with God. That is the ultimate good, and I don't hear that talked about when the discussion comes up about Terri."

As the debate continues, the Alvarados go about their daily lives, working outside the home and caring for Judith, who lies in her bedroom. Portraits of Judith and of Jesus hang side by side on the wall, and the television and radio are constant companions.

"She has been in the hospital several times, but she cries and is uncomfortable," Hector Alvarado said. "She wants to be home. She wants to here."

Financially, the family struggles a bit. They pay for 20 percent of the medical care, and Tri-Care Prime, a military insurance, pays 80 percent. Hector Alvarado is retired and works as a computer system analyst for Coleman Research. Daughter Janice McGinn is a clerical worker at Thomason Hospital, and Josh Alvarado is a student at Western Technical Institute and hopes to be a medical assistant.

"In a way, I want to do this for my mom," Josh Alvarado said.

Hector Alvarado, who has been married to Judith for 26 years, has no plans to be anywhere else but beside his wife.

"This is our lifestyle," he said. "Yes, at times it is a burden because you have to check her periodically at night. And you have to make sure she takes her medicine. Plus you are limited with your free time. But Judith and I have always been close, and this is the best for her until she wakes up."

Victor R. Martinez may be reached at vmartinez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6128.

El Paso Times reporter Diana Washington Valdez contributed to this story.
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SENATE APPROVES BUDGET-PLAN WOULDN'T FULLY FUND EL PASO MED SCHOOL
EL PASO TIMES- THURSDAY (MARCH 24)
AUSTIN — A $139 billion state budget approved Wednesday by the Texas Senate includes $13 million for El Paso’s new medical school — not nearly enough to keep the project on schedule to open in three years.

However, two senators pushing for the full $68 million needed to open the medical school in 2008 emphasized that the state’s final 2006-07 budget will change after the House passes its version next month — and after more money surfaces to pay for additional needs.

“We will put a full-court press on until the end of the session to get the rest of the money,” said Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, a member of the Senate Finance Committee.

That would take an additional $55 million.

“Not having funding is like saying, ‘We’re going to the moon,’ and not filling the rocket with fuel,” he said. “You just can’t get off the launchpad if you don’t have the faculty — having them in place and having an accredited medical school.”

Gov. Rick Perry urged lawmakers two months ago to fully fund El Paso’s medical school. But he does not control the state’s purse strings.

It’s too early in the budgeting process for Texas Tech University officials to assess the impact if legislators do not fully fund the El Paso medical school.

“It’s imperative that Texas understands the intense need for physicians around the state,” Texas Tech Regional Dean Dr. Jose Manuel de la Rosa said. “And the longer it takes to get full funding, the further behind we get in meeting our health-care needs.”

House budget writers have put El Paso’s legislative priority on a “wish list.” The Senate plan calls for $7 million to pay debt service on a $45 million medical school classroom and $6 million to start recruiting faculty. Construction of the classroom at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center near Thomason Hospital is scheduled to begin this summer.

Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, a key member of the Finance Committee, said he’s confident that funding for El Paso’s medical school will increase before the Legislature adjourns May 30.

Lawmakers hope to get more money to appropriate late in the session when Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn revises the amount of revenue she expects the state to raise during the next two years.

It will cost about $350 million over 10 years to develop the medical school — Texas’ first in 30 years and the first in the United States in about 20 years.

The Senate voted unanimously for the budget, although some complained that it fails to meet state needs. The budget plan would increase spending by nearly 5.5 percent a year.

It restores many cuts made to the Children’s Health Insurance Program two years ago, when legislators faced a $10 billion shortfall.

The budget plan gives state employees a 4.5 percent pay raise in each of the two years that Texas state budgets cover. Teacher pay raises will be taken up later.

Higher education will get an additional $105 million to pay for student enrollment increases and $127 million for formulas intended to discourage regents from raising tuition costs again.

But Shapleigh complained that the budget would still leave Child Protective Services with dangerously high caseloads of 62 children a worker.

And Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, complained about budget cuts to the TEXAS Grant program, which helps needy students pay for college. A $30 million cut from $324 million will take away the grant from at least 15,000 students, he said.

As long as Texas ranks 49th in the country in spending, the state can expect to stay at the bottom in high-school graduation rates and SAT scores, Shapleigh said.
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MED SCHOOL MAY OPEN LATE
KTSM-TV- FRIDAY (MARCH 25)
There is worry the State Legislature is short changing El Paso's medical school which would prevent it from opening on time. That means medical students would be forced to look for another option.

Texas Tech is under construction, and its going to take a lot of money to finish the project. The Texas State Senate approved a budget of $13 Million for the school, not nearly the total needed, possibly leaving students out of luck for 2008.

Texas Tech needs $68 Million to finish the project and staff the school.

The medical school is scheduled to open in 2008, but without the money, it could push that back by years.

Texas Tech will attract medical students from across the country, bring more doctors to the borderland, offer more choices in medical care, and boost the central El Paso economy.

The House will vote on their budget next month. After that the House and Senate have to agree on a combined budget and vote to approve it.

NewsChannel 9 will let you know what the State Legislature decides. Return to Top

SHIGELLOSIS OUTBREAK IN LUBBOCK
ABC 28- THURSDAY (MARCH 24)
The Lubbock Health Department says 35 cases of shigellosis have popped up since January

The shigella bacteria is spread hand to mouth after someone forgets to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

The Texas Department of Health is also warning everyone to take precautions to keep this from spreading further.

"Shigella has a short incubation period. Typically in 24 to 48 hours the person will become ill," says Dr. David Waagner, of the Texas Tech Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. "It starts with an upset stomach or vomiting. It rapidly sets on with a high fever to 103-105 (degrees) shakes, chills and profuse diarrhea, typically bloody."

Health officials say to wash your hands frequently, especially after changing a diaper and helping your child in the bathroom. Also, with summer just around the corner, remind your children not to drink the pool water.
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COLLEGES FACE NEW DEMANDS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY, CONFERENCE SPEAKERS SAY
THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION- MONDAY (MARCH 21)
Lawmakers and the public are starting to demand that colleges be held accountable for preparing their students for 21st-century work, a panel of speakers who included the next head of education for the United Nations said on Friday during the American Association for Higher Education's annual conference here.

Colleges need to realize that they are beginning to face the same scrutiny that elementary and secondary schools do under the No Child Left Behind Act, said Peter Smith, who will leave the presidency of California State University-Monterey Bay this summer to become assistant director general for education of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

"We're not doing all that well, and we're not being honest if we don't admit it," Mr. Smith said. "The latest research shows that 18 to 20 out of 100 ninth graders have at least associate degrees 10 years later." he said. "How can we have political awareness" of the value of higher education, he asked, "if 4 out of 5 people don't have a positive experience? This isn't the way to build a significant coalition for the future."

The panel's other members were Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and Craig Swenson, provost of the University of Phoenix.

Mr. Callan said his organization would release its first study on how much college graduates are actually learning in the next couple of months as a follow-up to "Measuring Up," its annual stateby- state report on higher education.

The "Measuring Up" report grades the states on a number of scales, but Mr. Callan's group is now concentrating on finding ways to measure "educational capital" -- how well states are doing at developing a pool of well-educated people prepared to succeed at jobs in an information-based economy.

Financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the new study sets benchmarks for the literacy level of college graduates, including not just reading comprehension but also the ability to understand graphics and mathematical problems; how well colleges are educating students to enter the professional work force, measured by licensing results, postgraduate admissions tests, and teacher-preparation exams; and the communications and problem-solving skills of all college graduates. Researchers got data from Illinois, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nevada, and South Carolina. "State policy makers are asking the question, Why is the state in the higher-education business?" Mr. Callan said. "The answer is, to increase the knowledge and skill level of the population."

Mr. Swenson, of the University of Phoenix, said that colleges are not used to answering those sorts of questions, but that they will need to if they are to justify the state and federal funds they receive. His institution receives neither.

"We have a black-box mentality in higher education," he said. "We think that the important things can't be counted, and the things that can be counted aren't important. We believe attacks are coming from opponents who are anti-intellectual. But the black box is not nearly as big as we think it is."

Professors own a "cottage industry" of designing curricula for individual courses, he said, and "you're never allowed to ask whether the curriculum meets the overall objective" of making sure students can take responsibility for their education. At Phoenix, a for-profit university, the constant oversight from state agencies, regional accrediting bodies, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Securities and Exchange Commission had "made assessment a way of life," he said.

The overall objective at Phoenix, Mr. Swenson said, was getting answers of "yes" to the following questions: "Do our students know what they're supposed to know? Can they do what they're supposed to do? Can they value what they're doing appropriately? And is what they're learning making a difference in their lives and careers?"

Buzzwords flew freely in the session of the AAHE conference, which drew more than 800 academic administrators and student-affairs personnel from across the country. Monterey Bay, Mr. Smith said, has focused on "outcomes-based education" in designing its curriculum, which is based on developing the "four scholarships" of the late Ernest L. Boyer: discovery, integration, application, and teaching.

The only president in Monterey Bay's 11-year history, Mr. Smith said the university constantly measured how well it was meeting five goals: diversity, access and retention, learning, and support of learning. On some scales it is succeeding, he said, but not on others. He noted in particular that the campus struggled to retain sophomores.

"You need to be candid about your problems to get the political capital to deal with them," he said.

All three speakers said that colleges needed to do a better job of assessing and demonstrating how well students are learning, and that they needed to be open to new ways of educating students if those methods were better than existing methods.

"Right now, we've got the idea of, we want to get those little critters in there, charge 'em, and keep 'em five or six years," said Mr. Smith, who is also author of The Quiet Crisis: How Higher Education is Failing America, published last year (see an excerpt that appeared in The Chronicle.) "We've got to come up with an educational process that allows you to accumulate learning over time. It can't be an either/or; it has to be both" a continuous curriculum and one that allows students to step out into the work force and step back into college.

The growing demand for accountability in higher education was a theme of many of the conference's sessions, which featured as speakers Raul Yzaguirre, former president of the Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group; the civil-rights activist Derrick Z. Bell; James B. Hunt Jr., a former governor of North Carolina; and John Merrow of the Public Broadcasting Service's Merrow Report, who has a documentary to be broadcast this spring titled "Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk."

In higher education, "we have the resources and talent to resolve the crisis" in accountability, said Clara M. Lovett, president of the AAHE. "The challenge, though, is that (a) we have to recognize where the hot spots are, and (b) we have to have the courage and the imagination to say that the way we did things 20 or 30 years ago won't work. We need more people inside higher education saying that we are not getting where we need to be, in terms of the outcomes and the number of people we're educating."
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FRATERNITIES OPPOSE U. OF COLORADO'S NEW STANDARDS AIMED AT CURBING HAZING
THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION- MONDAY (MARCH 20)
National and local fraternity leaders have denounced new standards aimed at curbing drinking and hazing problems at the University of Colorado at Boulder. University officials came under increased pressure to respond to fraternity problems following the alcohol-related death of a freshman pledge in September.

Administrators at Boulder approved the standards last week and said Greek organizations would lose their university privileges if they did not agree to the new rules by April 29.

Representatives of the North American Interfraternity Conference and campus chapters said they had no problem with several of the rules. Among those are standards requiring fraternities and sororities to have a staff member in residence at their houses, follow all local and national laws, and meet the academic standards set forth by their national chapters.

But the groups oppose an additional condition that would require them to postpone rush activities for new members until the spring semester. Traditionally, freshman rush takes place during the fall semester.

University administrators say that delaying rush would give students more time to adjust to college life and make informed decisions about joining fraternities and sororities. They also contend that students need more time to concentrate on the academic demands of college before they get involved in fraternity and sorority pledging events.

"With a full semester under their belt, perhaps they will make better choices if or when they are put in challenging situations that they aren't comfortable with," said Laura Strohminger, director of the Greek Liaison Office at Boulder.

About 160 of the 800 colleges with Greek systems have a rule postponing rush until the spring semester, and many have imposed the standard recently in an effort to limit hazing and alcoholrelated problems.

Fraternities at Boulder, however, have garnered support from their national organizations to oppose the postponement policy.

"That rule is not going to solve issues of alcohol abuse," said Jon Williamson, executive vice president of the North American Interfraternity Conference, an umbrella organization that represents 5,000 fraternity chapters. "In addition, we feel that it takes away students' constitutional right of freedom of association. ... What's stopping them from deciding that rush can be postponed until six weeks before graduation?"

Ms. Strohminger said that many fraternity leaders were concerned that postponing rush would result in less student interest in their organizations. Many fraternities have struggled recently with dwindling membership nationwide.

The university's ability to control Greek organizations is somewhat limited. Fraternities and sororities at Boulder are completely independent of the institution, Ms. Strohminger said. None of the fraternity houses are on the campus or owned by the institution.

Although Greek organizations do not need the university's recognition to operate, they receive "more benefits from us," Ms. Strohminger said, and they "expect students to make a much bigger commitment than other organizations on campus."

In addition to financing Ms. Strohminger's office, the university also foots the bill for campus office space provided to two groups that represent fraternities and sororities at Boulder, the Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Council. Any fraternity or sorority that does not sign the agreement would lose access to those offices and other campus facilities and resources.

"We've been in conversation with them, and the hope is that they will sign the agreement," said Ms. Strohminger. "We will be meeting with each fraternity individually to discuss it."

The 18-year-old pledge who died in September, Lynn Gordon Bailey Jr., was pronounced dead in the Chi Psi fraternity's library. According to a Boulder police report, he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.328 percent, well above Colorado's legal limit of 0.08 percent. The previous evening fraternity brothers had instructed Mr. Bailey and other pledges to finish a combined total of 10 bottles of wine and whiskey and informed them that "no one is leaving until the whiskey is gone," according to one witness.
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U. OF TEXAS FILES PATENT-INFRINGEMENT LAWSUIT AGAINST 14 ELECTRONICS COMPANIES
THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION- TUESDAY (MARCH 22)
The University of Texas System has accused 14 electronics companies, mostly cellphone makers, of infringing an engineering professor's patented invention, and has filed a lawsuit to enforce its claims.

George V. Kondraske, who teaches electrical and biomedical engineering at the system's Arlington campus, developed a device and method that allow users to enter text messages on a standard telephone keypad.

The apparatus, which received a patent in 1987, was originally developed for people who are hard of hearing or speech-impaired. The technology at issue in the lawsuit is called "predictive text." When someone types in one or more letters, the device attempts to predict what the user is trying to communicate and fills in the rest.

Given how central text messaging is to communication devices like cellphones, and how vast the cellphone industry has become, the university could end up with a huge judgment.

The lawsuit, filed this month in U.S. District Court in Austin, asserts that the companies infringed that patent, although it does not specify how.

Among the companies that were sued are the Kyocera Wireless Corporation, the Sanyo North America Corporation, and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.

University officials said on Monday that the university's Board of Regents holds the intellectualproperty rights to the technology, but the officials declined to comment further on the lawsuit.

Mr. Kondraske did not return telephone calls.

Calls and e-mail messages to several of the companies named in the lawsuit were not immediately returned.

If the lawsuit is successful, the Arlington campus and Mr. Kondraske would split the judgment.
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PROPOSED SYSTEM FOR COLLECTING STUDENT DATA CAN BE MADE SECURE, REPORT SAYS, BUT PRIVACY WORRIES REMAIN
THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
The federal government could collect students' Social Security numbers and other individuallyidentifiable data without compromising their privacy, says a new report on a proposed datacollection system that is supported by state colleges but opposed by private institutions. The report, which the Education Department submitted to Congress on Monday, concludes that adequate safeguards are in place to ensure the security of data in the administration's proposed "unit record" system.

The Education Department has argued that the proposed system would allow it to measure a college's performance more accurately by generating better information about retention and graduation rates and by enabling it to track transfer students. It would also allow the department, for the first time, to calculate an institution's net price, or what students actually pay after financial aid is taken into account.

The unit-record plan would replace a system in which colleges report data in summary form about total enrollment, student aid, graduation rates, and other measures.

Supporters, including lobbyists for state colleges and universities, say that the report amounts to an endorsement of the president's plan to test the new statistical system on 1,500 campuses next year.

"This puts to rest the privacy issue that some people are using to derail a simple study," said Travis J. Reindl, director of state policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "It really makes the case that this is worth looking into."

But critics of the plan, including private-college lobbyists, fear that students' personal information could be used for noneducational purposes. They call the idea that students could be entered into a central database and tracked for the rest of their lives "chilling."

"There is a clear precedent for federal databases being used for purposes for which they were not originally intended," said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "The statistical people at the Department of Education do not have the political might to keep away all of the political interests who will want this data."

Mr. Warren noted that many colleges were moving away from using Social Security numbers as student identifiers because of the threat to individual privacy.

David S. Baime, vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, said his association was "initially quite optimistic" about the president's plan, but decided to withhold its support after hearing concerns about student privacy from member institutions.

The ultimate decision on whether the new system will be adopted rests with Congress, which has to give the Education Department the authority to build the system. That could be done in pending legislation to renew the Higher Education Act, which governs most federal student-aid programs.

Mr. Reindl said the prospects for approval were good, given the recent emphasis on accountability in higher education.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have been relatively quiet on the proposal so far, although Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat who is a member of the education committee, expressed concerns about the plan in November in a letter to Roderick R. Paige, then the secretary of education.

If lawmakers give the go-ahead, the pilot program would require participating colleges to submit to the department "header files" containing each student's name, Social Security number, date of birth, address, race, and gender, along with additional information on course loads and credits, date of degree completion, and financial-aid package. The files, which would be collected through the existing Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or Ipeds, would be stored in a permanent database that would not be accessible from the Internet.

Even if security were not a concern, implementing the new system would not be easy. According to the report, many institutions would have to upgrade their software, hire new employees to handle the reports, and reconcile varying information systems used by their registrars and institutional-research and financial-aid offices.

The burden would be particularly high on small colleges, where there is often only one person in charge of statistical reporting, said James C. Fergerson, director of institutional planning and analysis at Bates College.

The report -- "Feasibility of a Student Unit Record System Within the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System" -- concludes that such issues would need to be worked out in the "design phase" of the system.
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TEXAS LAWMAKERS WANT TO REGAIN AUTHORITY OVER TUITION THAT THEY GAVE TO UNIVERSITIES IN 2003
THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Just two years after the Texas Legislature voted to give the state's public universities the power to set tuition, state lawmakers, displeased by hefty rate increases, are moving to take back control.

Measures have been introduced in both houses to cap the amount by which colleges can raise tuition, while two bills filed in the House of Representatives would strip university boards of regents of the authority to set tuition rates. A budget bill passed on Monday by the Senate Finance Committee contains a provision that would cut state financial support for colleges that raise rates above $94 per credit hour, the current tuition at the University of Texas at Austin.

Texas' experience may serve as a cautionary tale as public colleges in other states seek greater freedom from state controls. Lawmakers in Virginia, for example, have endorsed legislation that would grant state colleges greater management flexibility. Colorado universities are negotiating performance contracts with the state Commission on Higher Education under which they will be given greater independence in setting tuition and developing academic programs in exchange for meeting agreed-to goals in quality, access, and affordability.

Texas lawmakers' disenchantment with tuition deregulation is an example of the need for "clear expectations on both ends about what to expect in exchange for autonomy," said Travis J. Reindl, director of state policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

"It's really very important to take a broad view, to focus on the forest and not just the trees," Mr. Reindl said. "In Texas, there was a lot of focus on the trees."

State Sen. Florence Shapiro, a Republican, led efforts to pass the original legislation. Now Senator Shapiro, who heads the Senate Education Committee, has introduced a bill that would allow colleges to continue to set their own rates as long as they meet a number of performance standards, including increasing graduation rates, attracting research grants, and improving financial management. The performance measures would be determined by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

"We need to have a system of accountability," Senator Shapiro said. "If colleges increase tuition, Texas citizens are going to be able to see what they're getting for their dollars."

But after tuition rose 37 percent last year at the University of Texas at Austin and 21 percent at Texas A&M University, some lawmakers simply want to repeal colleges' tuition-setting authority outright.

"I wish we could put the genie back in the bottle," said Rep. Garnet F. Coleman, a Democrat who has introduced a bill that would return the power to increase tuition to the Legislature.

Other proposals would prohibit colleges from increasing tuition and fees by more than a set percentage of the previous year's costs. And the budget bill expected to be approved by the Senate today would effectively cap tuition at the University of Texas at Austin by reducing state financial support for colleges that raise tuition above $94 per credit hour.

Despite that provision, the University of Texas regents earlier this month approved tuition increases of varying amounts at campuses across the system for the 2005-6 academic year. At Austin, the flagship campus, tuition and fees would increase by 4.75 percent to $3,486 per semester for students in the liberal arts and $3,646 per semester for students in the natural sciences. Students in business and engineering programs could see a rate increase of more than 14 percent.

Mark G. Yudof, chancellor of the University of Texas System, has written to lawmakers to oppose the budget rider. A spokesman for the university system said Mr. Yudof had no comment on the other tuition proposals.

Mr. Reindl, of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said he was concerned that the displeasure over the tuition increases could lead lawmakers to "overreact" and enact a fix that could end up giving Texas colleges less financial flexibility than they had before the tuition-deregulation bill.

"Lawmakers are in a 'teach them a lesson' mode," he said.
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U. OF ALABAMA SUES ARTIST OVER PAINTINGS OF FOOTBALL GAMES, ALLEGING TRADEMARK VIOLATION
THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION- THURSDAY (MARCH 24)
The University of Alabama has sued a local artist, alleging that commercial prints of his popular paintings of Alabama football games and of the legendary coach Paul (Bear) Bryant have violated trademark and licensing laws and have deprived the Tuscaloosa campus of important revenue.

Daniel A. Moore, an alumnus of the university, has been painting historic moments of Alabama football for 26 years. Among his best-known works are a piece that depicts the goal-line stand that led the Crimson Tide to victory in the 1979 Sugar Bowl, and a painting that commemorates Mr. Bryant's 315th career win.

The university's Board of Trustees filed a lawsuit last Friday in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Ala., against Mr. Moore and his publishing company, New Life Art. The suit asks that Mr. Moore pay licensing fees on his products that relate to the University of Alabama.

Mr. Moore filed a countersuit against the university on Monday that asserts, among other things, that Alabama is infringing his rights to freedom of speech and expression.

"We were shocked by the lawsuit," said Stephen D. Heninger, Mr. Moore's lawyer. "We're 26 years down the road now. His paintings are hanging all over the University of Alabama."

But university officials said that they had been trying to negotiate with Mr. Moore since 2000 to resolve the dispute out of court.

"This action was necessary to protect the university's reputation and financial interests, and to protect consumers who assume Moore's products are officially licensed by the university," said Janet Griffith, assistant vice president for university relations, in a written statement.

Mr. Heninger disagreed. He said there has been limited communication with the university since 2002, when Alabama revoked Mr. Moore's press pass for football games after 21 years.

"They said that if he wouldn't agree to license his work, he couldn't have access," Mr. Heninger said. The university's suit does not estimate how much money it could gain in licensing revenue from Mr. Moore's work, though officials said that the standard fee is 8 percent of the artist's net sales.

An online gallery offers prints of Mr. Moore's work in various editions, ranging in price from about $150 to more than $1,500.

Tom Stipe, a university spokesman, said in an interview that Alabama is trying to "protect important sources of revenue." He said that the money the institution makes through licensing products goes mostly to academic scholarships and that a small percentage supports the Paul W. Bryant Museum on the Tuscaloosa campus.

But Mr. Moore asserted, in a news release, that an athletics-department official told him in 2002 that the university needed to use all revenue sources in order to meet the $100-million goal of a fund-raising campaign, which at the time had not yet been announced.

The Alabama athletics department is now in a $100-million campaign to update its athletics facilities.
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FIJIAN ACADEMIC CITES RACIAL BIAS AS REASON FOR JUMPING FROM FLAGSHIP TO UPSTART UNIVERSITY
THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION- THURSDAY (MARCH 24)
The deputy vice chancellor of Fiji's University of the South Pacific resigned last week, saying that racism had again been a factor in his second unsuccessful bid to lead the island nation's flagship institution of higher learning. He also said he was taking a post at an upstart rival university.

Rajesh Chandra, a professor of geography with more than 30 years of experience in teaching and administration, including 18 months as acting chief of the University of the South Pacific until earlier this year, will head a fledgling private college, the University of Fiji, which opened last week.

While the attraction of leading a new university was a factor in the decision, Mr. Chandra said on Wednesday that he could no longer serve at an institution where "ethnicity rather than competence" played the deciding role in hiring for the top position.

Mr. Chandra, a Fijian of Indian descent, had twice been shortlisted for the vice chancellorship, or presidency, of the university, which enrolls 18,000 students and employs some 300 faculty members.

The institution is multinational, serving 12 island nations sprinkled across the South Pacific, and is jointly sponsored by the governments of Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand.

But internal dramas during its 37-year history have often taken place against the backdrop of longstanding domestic tensions between Fiji's politically dominant indigenous inhabitants and their more economically successful compatriots who trace their origins back to the Indian subcontinent. About 43 percent of Fiji's 840,000 inhabitants identify themselves as Indo-Fijian.

Five years ago, after an independent panel of Australian academics recommended that Mr. Chandra be chosen as vice chancellor, the appointment was put on hold by the university's ruling council. Later, his chief rival for the post, Savenaca Siwatibau, an indigenous Fijian economist, was picked.

According to Mr. Chandra, a similar push-pull process took place during his 18 months as acting head following the death of Mr. Siwatibau, in 2003. The position was eventually filled this year by Anthony A. Tarr, an Australian-born academic who was until recently the dean of law at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis.

The University of the South Pacific did not return requests for further comment.

In a written statement, Mr. Tarr wished Mr. Chandra well at his new institution, which was created by a private Hindu organization and expects to enroll 1,000 undergraduates by 2007 but has yet to receive official recognition. Mr. Chandra said he intended to hire an ethnically varied slate of educators for the smaller university.
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BILLS SEEK CAP ON FAST-RISING COLLEGE TUITION SOME LAWMAKERS WANT COST-SETTING BACK FROM REGENTS
HOUSTON CHRONICLE- TUESDAY (MARCH 22)
AUSTIN -- A little more than a year after Texas public universities began setting their own tuition, several state lawmakers are working to take back control of the fees, saying some of the increased rates have gotten out of hand. Bills have been filed in both the Senate and the House to cap the amount universities can raise tuition. Two House bills also have been filed to restore the Legislature's historical authority to set tuition and fees altogether, removing the power given to the regents last session.
The bills could find a more receptive audience in the Senate, where Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and key senators were opposed to deregulating tuition in 2003.
House Speaker Tom Craddick, who forced the Senate to agree to tuition deregulation as part of a budget compromise last session, may be a roadblock to any change in the House.
Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, has filed a bill that would keep tuition from increasing more than 5 percent per year.
"I want to restrict the escalating cost of getting a college education," Ellis said.
The University of Texas regents this month approved another round of tuition hikes, this time instituting a flat-rate program for UTAustin undergraduates.
With these increases, seniors this fall taking 14 hours will pay 45 percent more on average in tuition and fees than they did their freshman year.
Tuition at Texas A&M University increased 21 percent last year. A&M regents are meeting later this week to discuss further increases for this fall.
Under Ellis' plan, universities would have to roll back tuition and fees for the 2005-06 school year to no more than 5 percent higher than what costs were for 2002-03. Regents then would have the power to raise tuition 5 percent each year after 2006.
Two representatives — Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, and Pete Gallego, D-Alpine — have filed bills that would remove university regents' tuition-setting power entirely.
"You have tuition increases ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent," Coleman said. "That's a sticker shock to middle-class families in Texas that they've never seen before."
Expecting a fight from other representatives, Gallego also filed a bill to cap tuition and fee increases at 3 percent, hoping lawmakers might be more receptive to that.
8 percent funding hike
Meanwhile, the Senate Finance Committee on Monday approved a budget that would increase funding for higher education by 8 percent, or about $800 million. Lawmakers said they hope the increased funds will help slow the tuition hikes.
"I really expect that our institutions of higher education will be adequately funded and there will not be a need to raise tuition in any significant way," said committee chairman Sen. Steve Ogden, R-College Station. Included in the budget proposal, Senate Bill 1, is a rider that would prohibit universities from setting designated tuition, the portion of tuition rates universities are allowed to set themselves, at more than $94 per semester hour. The only university affected immediately would be UT-Austin.
UT Chancellor Mark Yudof was unavailable for comment on the bills, but he wrote a letter to the Senate Finance Committee this month asking lawmakers to reconsider the rider.

Craddick was a strong proponent of the deregulation last session, agreeing to the Senate's $500 million funding increase for higher education only if deregulation occurred immediately.

Craddick's office said he wouldn't comment on the proposed bills until they reach the House floor for debate.
TUITION CONTROLS
Several measures have been introduced in the Legis lature that would affect how tuition and fees are set:
· Cap tuition increases at 5 percent per year (Senate Bill 1554)
· Require universities to roll back tuition for the 2005-06 school year to no more than 5 percent higher than what costs were fro 2002-03 (SB 1554)
· Remove regents’ tuition-setting power entirely and give it back to legislators, as it was before 2003 (House Bills 1019 and 2687)
· Cap tuition and fees at 3 percent per year (HB 2688)
· Prohibit universities from setting designated tuition at more than $94 per semester credit hour (Rider on SB 1)
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ON TOP 10-PERCENT LAW, LET’S ALTER IT, NOT TOSS IT
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN- WEDNESDAY (MARCH 23)
The Texas 10-percent law guarantees that the top 10 percent of every high school class — measured solely by grade-point average — can be admitted to any public university in the state. The Legislature is now engaged in a polarized debate about this law. Both sides are partly right, and both sides believe some myths — and there is a solution that would give both most of what they want.
This law matters only at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M at College Station. At the state's other campuses, nearly all top-10-percent students would be admitted anyway. But the law is overwhelming UT-Austin; the number of top-10-percent applicants claiming guaranteed admission will soon exceed the number of students the university can responsibly admit and hope to educate.
The law's critics say it is bad policy to base admissions decisions on the single criterion of class rank. Test scores, strength of curriculum, essays, recommendations, activities, leadership, hardships overcome and athletic or artistic talent all become irrelevant.
Students of modest ability who played it safe, avoided hard courses, grubbed for grades and finished in the top 10 percent are admitted ahead of more talented and ambitious classmates who took honors courses, had leadership roles in extracurricular activities and finished in the second 10 percent. This gives students the wrong incentives, and it's unfair to the stronger students. This is all true.
Critics also emphasize that the law hurts students at strong, highly competitive high schools, which is also true. But the law also creates unfairness within each high school, preferring students with the best grades over students with the best overall records — and no one claims any social justification for that.
The law's supporters say it is the best tool yet devised for motivating students at low-achieving high schools. University officials can promise students in those schools that 10 percent of them are guaranteed admission to the flagship universities. They are competing only with their own classmates; they need not outperform affluent students elsewhere. They do not have to trust the universities to be fair; students at their school are guaranteed admission.
This, too, is true. The law is an essential means for motivating students in inner-city, rural and small-town high schools.
Each side also believes some myths. The law's critics believe it admits unqualified students who flunk out. But with the help of retention programs, top-10-percent students from weak high schools progress toward their degrees with about the same success rates as other students.
The law's supporters believe it is a mechanical means of ensuring ethnic diversity at the university. They think traditional affirmative action depends on discretionary efforts by university officials, but that the 10-percent law works automatically. Not true.
Targeted recruiting, financial aid and retention programs have been essential to make the law work at minority high schools. Neither traditional affirmative action nor the 10-percent law can succeed without committed effort by university officials. The two approaches work in complementary ways, and Texas needs both.
Focus now on the points that each side is right about. It is unfair, and creates bad incentives, to admit all students on the single criterion of class rank. But guaranteed admissions from each high school powerfully motivates talented students in low-achieving high schools. A simple legislative solution would implements both insights:
.First, vary the size of the guarantee so no campus has to take more than half its freshman class under a percentage law. Depending on applicant flow, it might become a 6-percent guarantee at UT-Austin, a 10-percent guarantee at A&M and a 20-percent guarantee elsewhere. That solves the problem of UT-Austin being overwhelmed by guaranteed admissions, and it leaves seats available for more applicants from the strongest high schools.
.Second, retain the guarantee that every high school is entitled to its share of admissions.
University officials could still go to lowachieving high schools and promise that a percentage of every school's graduating class would be guaranteed admission. That keeps the law's recruiting and motivational benefits.
.Third, let the universities choose the students to be admitted from each high school. Let recruiters tell high school students that they are still competing only with their own classmates, but they are comp eting on the full range of academic criteria. Their grades will matter, but so, too, will the courses they choose and their writing skills, activities, recommendations and test scores.
It would be a mistake either to repeal the 10-percent law or to leave it as it is. The key to a winwin solution is to separate its essential feature from its incidental ones. Ten percent instead of some other number is incidental, and 10 percent is overwhelming UT-Austin.
Admitting students solely on the basis of grades is incidental, unfair and gives students the wrong incentives.
But the essence of the 10-percent law is that it guarantees admission to students from every high school in Texas. We can honor that guarantee without keeping the features that cause the problems.
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