Monthly Archives: September 2008

“Could you be a hoopla-dite?”

Posted on September 17, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Regular EMUTalk.org reader and commentator Mark Higbee sent me a link to this article the other day and thought it’d be good for EMUTalk.org: from the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Could You Be a Hoopla-dite?” by Michael J. Buegeja, who runs the journalism program at Iowa State and who is a fairly well–known critic of contemporary technologies.
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Posted in EMU Technology, In the media...

“EMU scholarships financed Education students may get $13,000 partnership”

Posted on September 16, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Congrats to the Honors College for snagging another big grant, as the AAN reports in “EMU scholarships financed Education students may get $13,000 partnership.”

Eastern Michigan University’s Honors College has received a $749,000 grant to give scholarships to education students, the university announced Monday.

The grant comes from the National Science Foundation, and is aimed at teacher education students majoring in science, technology, engineering and math.

The scholarships stipulate that students who get the $13,000 award must work in a nearby partner school district for two years for each annual award given.

This comes on the heels of a similar grant for slightly more money last year. So congrats again to the Honors College and those students who will soon be getting scholarships!

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Posted in Academics, In the media..., Student Life

EMU Faculty robbed (or not?)

Posted on September 16, 2008 by | 5 Comments

This just came up on my EMU news feed: “EMU Faculty Robbed,” as reported by Detroit’s WDIV. I was going to post this the other day (it was sent around as a security alert), but I didn’t get to it.

In any event, it seems to me like this was a case more of an attempted robbery. The story says that two African-American men approached a female EMU faculty member without weapons and demanded money. Then,

The woman said she kicked one of the men on his bike and knocked him and the bicycle over.

The woman told police she got into her car and drove away.

So, first off, was there any robbery? Isn’t this more accurately an attempted robbery?

And second, does this anonymous faculty member want to add anything to the story here? It seems to me that whoever this person is ought to be commended for taking yet another bite out of crime (just like “another EMU student” last week).

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Posted in Faculty Life, In the media..., Security and Safety

EMUDPS releases “Annual Security Report”

Posted on September 16, 2008 by | Leave a comment

I don’t think I’m going to have a lot of time to pour pore through this anytime soon, but I thought I’d pass this along here and applaud the fact that it exists: The EMU Department of Public Safety Annual Security Report is a PDF that has crime stats for 2005, 2006, and 2007, and lots and lots of other information about security on campus– stuff about the Clery act, about SEEUS, about the drug and alcohol policy, the definition of various crimes, how to make a citzen’s complaint, you name it.

Slight Update:
A fun with grammar correction: An alert EMUTalk.org reader noted that my original use of “pour” was incorrect; it should probably be “pore,” as in “to read or study with steady attention or application.” Of course, “pour” might work as well, as in “to emit or propel, esp. continuously or rapidly: The hunter poured bullets into the moving object.” I don’t think anyone will be pouring bullets into this report, though perhaps criticism and/or praise?

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Posted in Security and Safety

“Remedial” is the wrong word, but interesting articles nonetheless

Posted on September 16, 2008 by | 5 Comments

The Chronicle of Higher Ed and Education Week both have stories about what I would prefer to call “under-prepared” students (mainly because “remedial” has this connotation that there’s something wrong with these students and that there is this space that is not quite education where students “get up to speed” before going on to the real classes) but that uses the word “remedial” instead. Both articles refer to a report called “The Diploma to Nowhere” issued by a group called Strong American Schools.
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Posted in Academics, Faculty Life, In the media..., Student Life

Toledo 41, EMU 17

Posted on September 14, 2008 by | 16 Comments

I actually happened to drive by the football stadium yesterday at what must have been the beginning of the game, around 12:30 or so. I was kind of surprised to see that many people there in the pouring rain, maybe because we’re close enough to Toledo to attract some of those fans. In any event, the AANews article suggests that things went kind of badly for the emus.

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Posted in In the media..., Sports

New EMU Email Information Sessions

Posted on September 12, 2008 by | Leave a comment

From Ward Mullen comes more news about the forthcoming email system:

NEW EMU EMAIL INFORMATION SESSIONS: Come learn about the new EMU email system scheduled for implementation on Oct. 3. Information sessions are being offered and include a question and answer section, along with a “sneak-peek” of the new EMU email web-client.

To register, go to: https://ict.emich.edu/training/register and select the session you want to attend. Contact Kathy Robertson, krobertso1@emich.edu or 734.487.2666 for more information.

I am kind of curious for the “sneak peek” part of things, but I sure hope that we’re not rolling out a new email system that is going to require a lot of people to attend a training session.

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Posted in EMU Technology

FREE Friedman tickets available for U-M, WSU, and MSU; EMU not welcome (apparently)

Posted on September 12, 2008 by | 20 Comments

About a week ago, I posted here about Thomas “The World is Flat” Friedman talking at EMU and wondering how it was that this event was being advertised at MSU and there seemed no information about it here at EMU. Regular EMUTalk.org commentator Alum posted information that more or less said that EMU students can get in just like everyone else: pay the $30 fee.

Well, according to this post at The Ypsi Tattler, that’s not the complete story.
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Posted in Blogosphere, EMU Events, In the media..., Michigan State U, University of Michigan, Wayne State U

“Online learning upscale (and scaled up)”

Posted on September 12, 2008 by | Leave a comment

From Inside Higher Ed comes “Online learning upscale (and scaled up),” which is a kind of interesting piece about how a new company, 2Tor (created by the guy who created the test coaching service the Princeton Review) is teaming up with the University of Southern California’s school of education for a MAT program. I thought I’d pass it along because it raises a lot of interesting questions about “flagship,” “elite,” and/or “brand-name” universities getting big into online teaching, and because we do quite a bit of teacher certifying at EMU.

Here’s a quote:

2Tor is starting in a field with which Katzman is familiar, and where the need is great: teacher education. On Monday, 2Tor will announce that it is teaming up with the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education to create an online version of its master’s of arts in teaching, called MAT@USC. Within a decade, in Katzman’s grand vision, the online version of USC’s program — which now produces about 150 students a year — could produce 5,000 or more, helping not just California but many states meet the desperate demand for teachers in high-need (urban, rural, low-income) schools.

Personally, I’m kind of skeptical about USC’s chances of success about this, but it is another example of the changing uses of technology in higher ed for sure.

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Posted in Academics, In the media...

Sports PR on “EMU Fan Experiences”

Posted on September 11, 2008 by | Leave a comment

It’s strange, but it would appear that EMUTalk.org is beginning to be recognized by various actual EMU entities as a “media outlet.” For example, I received an email last night from a rep from the Franco Public Relations Group, and apparently, EMU is a client. Go figure.

In any event, the subject of the email was “EMU Fan Experiences,” and it seemed like pretty good information to pass along (it’s under the “Read More” part). Win or lose, EMU games are a pretty fun and inexpensive night of entertainment. My family and I average about a game a year– some years two, some years none.
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Posted in EMU Events, Sports