Tag Archives: University

Case of missing China scholar rattles compatriots at U.S. colleges

Chinese student Yingying Zhang is seen in a still image from security camera video taken outside an MTD Teal line bus in Urbana, Illinois, U.S. June 9, 2017. University of Illinois Police/Handout via REUTERS

By Julia Jacobs

CHICAGO(Reuters) – For many of the 300,000 Chinese students at U.S. colleges and their parents back home, the presumed kidnapping of a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois confirmed their worst fears about coming to America to study.

Xinyi Zhang, a 21-year-old student from China who is studying accounting at the same Illinois school that the missing woman was attending, said the case has stirred deep anxiety for her and her family in China.

She said she had tried to shield her parents from details of the disappearance of Yingying Zhang, 26, who came to Illinois several months ago to study photosynthesis and crop productivity. But the Chinese media had covered the story too closely to keep them in the dark.

“I just don’t want them to be panicked,” said Xinyi Zhang, who is not related to the missing woman. “I am the only child they have, and the risk of losing me is just too huge to handle.”

The business school student, who is home for the summer before returning to Illinois next month for her senior year, said her parents worry about her going back to her off-campus apartment. They have even suggested she apply to graduate school in a different country.

The case came to a head this month when a 28-year-old former Illinois graduate student, Brendt Christensen, was charged with kidnapping Zhang, who went missing on June 9. Authorities believe she is dead, though no body has been found.

Her misfortune has become a near-obsession with many of the 300,000 Chinese international students at U.S. colleges and their parents half a world away, lighting up social media and animating long-distance phone calls.

State-sponsored Chinese news media outlets have framed the case as emblematic of a security problem in the United States. The People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, wrote earlier this month that the kidnapping shows that China is “much safer” than America.

On Weibo, a Chinese blogging site, commenters have repeatedly questioned the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s effectiveness in investigating the case, said Berlin Fang, a Chinese newspaper columnist based in the United States.

Xiaotong Gui, a 20-year-old math student at Pomona College outside Los Angeles, said reading about the case made her feel unsafe on her own campus nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the Illinois university, which draws thousands of students from China.

On Johns Hopkins University’s Baltimore campus, Luorongxin Yuan, a 20-year-old biology student from outside Nanjing, said the fact that the accused kidnapper was a graduate student has made her mother particularly anxious. “She doesn’t trust anyone here anymore,” Yuan said.

Before Christensen’s arrest, federal agents put him under surveillance and heard him say that he had kidnapped Zhang, court documents show. A search of the suspect’s cellphone revealed that he had visited a website that included threads on “perfect abduction fantasy.”

His attorney has said his client is still presumed innocent. If convicted, Christensen could face up to life in prison.

Shen Qiwen, a spokesman for the Chinese consulate in Chicago, said Chinese officials hoped the FBI would step up efforts to find the missing scholar. The FBI is involved in the case because kidnapping is a federal crime. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Illinois business student Xinyi Zhang said many Chinese students are hoping for a miracle.

“That could be me,” she said. “For some reason I’m still holding my hope, though, that there’s a tiny, tiny chance that she’s alive right now.”

(Reporting by Julia Jacobs; editing by Frank McGurty and Jonathan Oatis)

UCLA campus bomb scare ends, students return

FILE PHOTO: Students walk on the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) campus in Los Angeles, September 18, 2009. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

(Reuters) – The University of California Los Angeles allowed students to go back to their dormitories and resume activities early on Thursday, hours after a bomb threat forced the evacuation of campus buildings, the school said on social media.

The school said that emergency operations ended at about 12:15 a.m. Thursday, about two hours after a bomb threat was reported at the Sunset Recreation center, the university’s alert system said in a series of Tweets.

“ALL CLEAR. Resume normal activities, please use caution and increase your awareness,” the school said on the social media platform.

Josh Harmon, 16, a pre-college student at the university said he was one of about 2,500 people who were evacuated from dormitories and campus buildings to Drake Stadium, one of the school’s sports arenas.

“A lot of people are on their phones. It’s pretty relaxed,” he said in a phone interview with Reuters during the evacuation.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Toby Chopra)

U.S. judge rejects Texas professors’ bid to halt student gun carry

FILE PHOTO: Members of the University of Texas of the Guns Free UT group that includes faculty and staff protest against a state law that allows for guns in classrooms at college campuses, in Austin, Texas, U.S. August 24, 2016. REUTERS/Jon Herskovitz/File Photo

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A U.S. judge rejected efforts by three University of Texas professors to ban students from bringing guns to their classrooms after the state granted them that right last year, court documents showed on Friday.

Professors Jennifer Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter had argued in a federal district court in Austin that academic freedom and classroom debate could be chilled under the so-called “campus carry” law backed by the state’s Republican political leaders.

The law allows concealed handgun license holders aged 21 and older to bring handguns into classrooms and other university facilities, including the University of Texas system, one of the nation’s largest with more than 221,000 students.

“Plaintiffs present no concrete evidence to substantiate their fear,” U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel wrote in his decision dismissing the professors’ complaint. Defendants included Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, University President Gregory Fenves and the university’s Board of Regents.

Paxton, who backed the law, praised the decision.

“The fact that a small group of professors dislike a law and speculate about a ‘chilling effect’ is hardly a valid basis to set the law aside,” he said in a statement.

University of Texas professors had lobbied unsuccessfully to prevent the law, arguing the combination of youth, firearms and college life could make for a deadly situation. Fenves reluctantly allowed campus carry, saying last year he was compelled to do so under state law.

Republican lawmakers said campus carry could help prevent a mass shooting.

A lawyer for the professors said the ruling was narrow and did not address the plaintiffs’ constitutional concerns.

“The order accompanying the dismissal doesn’t reach the merits of either the professors’ substantive First Amendment claims or any aspect of their Second Amendment and Equal Protection claims,” attorney Renea Hicks said in an email.

As of the start of May, 10 states had provisions allowing the carrying of concealed weapons on public college campuses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks state laws.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. college teaches veterans to heal each others’ mental wounds

Dr. Bob Dingman, Director of the Military and Veterans Psychology Concentration, speaks to Reuters at William James College of Psychology, the first in the nation to run a program focusing specifically on training military veterans to treat the mental health problems of their fellow soldiers and veterans, in Newton, Massachusetts, U.S., May 16, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Scott Malone

NEWTON, Mass. (Reuters) – Former U.S. Army Specialist Tara Barney will never forget the 2013 night when a fellow soldier cried as he described holding a dying friend in his arms, a wartime memory he had not shared with anyone.

“I can’t even talk to my wife like this,” she recalled her friend saying. “Nobody would understand.”

Barney, now 34, says that moment defined her future.

She finished her four-year enlistment and enrolled in William James College, which says it is the only U.S. psychology graduate school focused on training veterans as counselors.

Founded in 2011, the school’s programs aim to address the high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health conditions experienced by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other conflicts.

“If you talk to most vets, they want to talk to people who have had the same sets of experiences,” said Robert Dingman, the director of military and veterans psychology at the school, located west of Boston. “We don’t believe by any means that only vets can help vets, but we think it’s a good career pathway.”

Estimates of how many of the country’s 19 million veterans experience mental health problems vary widely. A federal government report released last year found that about 40 percent of veterans who received care through the Veterans Health Administration were diagnosed with a mental health or substance abuse condition, most commonly depression, followed by post-traumatic stress disorder.

Other data suggest that figure may represent a higher rate of mental health and substance abuse than is seen among the overall population of veterans. An analysis of medical research by the RAND Corp think tank found that rates of PTSD likely range from 5 percent to 20 percent of veterans.

CULTURES COLLIDE

William James College wants to bridge the cultural divide between veterans, some of whom view seeking mental health care as akin to admitting weakness, and psychologists and counselors, many of whom know little about military culture.

The gap is wide enough that Barney’s fellow student, Adam Freed, left a graduate psychology program at Yale University when he realized he was failing to connect with patients’ issues related to their or their loved ones’ military service.

“It was just something that was completely alien to me,” said Freed, 31. “I became increasingly interested in why didn’t I get it?”

Freed decided the best way to understand was to enlist. He signed up for the New York Army National Guard and went on to serve a tour in Afghanistan before enrolling at William James. This month he returned to active duty as an Army captain and military psychologist.

The college, previously known as the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology before renaming itself after the 19th-century philosopher, regarded as one of the founding thinkers of American psychology and brother to novelist Henry James, boasts a growing population of veterans, who this year represented about 50 of its 750 students.

Barney said her friends and even her wife were skeptical when she told them she was planning a career in psychology after stints as a prison guard and working on Army missile systems.

But the experience with her fellow soldier friend had convinced her that her military service would be invaluable as a counselor, she said, adding, “Some people just don’t want to know the veteran’s experience.”

Several students in the program said they also hope to overcome the cultural gaps that can make it harder for therapists to connect with veterans.

Fewer than one in 12 adult Americans have served in the armed forces, and the students said many veterans are wary of discussing their wartime experiences with people who do not share a military background.

Freed recalled a psychologist asking him during a job interview what it felt like to be “blown up.” Freed had avoided such an incident in combat but said he did not consider the topic as appropriate for casual conversation.

“I don’t think people ask about other forms of trauma with the same laissez-faire attitude,” Freed said. “I would confidently say that they would not ask, ‘What was it like to be raped?’ These are both things that are extremely, extremely traumatic and yet they are treated in a very different way.”

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)

Bond market braces for impact of New York’s free tuition plan

Graduates celebrate receiving a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University during the year's commencement ceremony in New York in this May 18, 2005 file photo. REUTERS/Chip East/Files

By David Randall

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Little known private colleges that are already struggling to grow their revenues are facing a new threat that could further weaken their finances and make borrowing harder: free tuition at public universities.

The State of New York passed in April a bill that will by 2019 offer free tuition at community colleges and public universities in the state to residents whose families make less than $125,000 per year. At least six other states are considering similar laws, to ease the burden of student debt that has doubled since 2008 to over $1.3 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Fund managers expect that such initiatives, combined with other pressures that have long been building up, will cause bonds issued by smaller private colleges to fare far worse than the broader market if interest rates continue to rise.

So far the bond market has largely ignored such a threat as historically low rates encourage many investors to take on greater risks in search for better yields.

“There are many schools that are going to be losers in this game,” said R.J. Gallo, a portfolio manager at Federated Investors in New York.

Gallo, who owns debt issued by well-known institutions such as Northeastern University in Boston and Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, said that bonds of lower-rated schools yield only about 1.3 percentage points more than AAA-rated ones. That, for him, is not enough to compensate for the additional risk.

Nearly 80 percent of college-age students in New York qualify for the scholarship, according to state estimates. While the state has yet to say how many new students it expects to take advantage of the plan, analysts say that they expect a significant number forgoing private colleges located in the Northeast and opting for public options instead.

RECORD HIGH ‘DISCOUNT RATES’

The prospect of competition from free public programs comes at a time when many private colleges are already forced to offer incoming students discounts because of stagnant personal incomes and years of above-inflation tuition hikes.

The proportion of gross tuition revenue that is covered by grant-based financial aid averaged a record 49.1 percent for full-time freshmen in the current school year, according to a May 15 report by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

The average U.S. private non-profit four year institution charges $45,370 per year in tuition, room and board, a 12 percent increase over the last five years, according to the College Board. Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2qHVUBj

Moody’s forecasts that financial pressures will triple the number of schools that close their doors nationwide from today’s rate of two to three schools per year. Free public education will add to those pressures, said Christopher Collins, an analyst at Moody’s.

“It’s a highly competitive sector and there’s also now the fact that these really small schools are competing with public colleges and universities with a much lower price,” he said.

Given that there are more than 1,000 private colleges and universities nationwide, closures are rare.

Earlier this year, Connecticut’s Sacred Heart University and St. Vincent’s College announced plans for a potential consolidation. Last November, Dowling College in Long Island, New York, filed for bankruptcy after defaulting on $54 million in debt issued through local government agencies.

New York’s scholarship plan alone is unlikely to cause any private school to go under, said college financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz, the president of consulting service Cerebly Inc. Instead, regional private schools that tout their small class sizes may lose their appeal if the competition from free programs forces them to lower tuition and they try to offset that by increasing enrollment.

“These colleges justify their costs by saying that you will get a more personal education, but will increasingly start to fail,” he said, adding that he expects to see more private colleges closing their doors over the next decade.

Nicholos Venditti, a bond fund manager at Thornburg Investment Management in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said he has been cutting his funds’ exposure to private college debt in part because other states could soon emulate New York’s model.

“If free tuition becomes a widespread phenomenon, it puts pressure on every higher education model throughout the country,” he said.

(Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Tomasz Janowski)

After tough week, Trump looks for a lift at Liberty University

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures while attending a “celebration of military mothers" at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 12, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Saturday is set to deliver the commencement address – his first as president – to Liberty University, the nation’s largest Christian college, where he is expected to find to a friendly audience after a week of turmoil in Washington.

Trump has been closeted in the White House all week, making only a few, brief public appearances after he took the highly unusual and fraught step of abruptly firing James Comey as FBI director on Tuesday.

Dismissing the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at a time when the agency probes alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election has overshadowed Trump’s push to boost jobs through tax reform and a massive infrastructure program.

The Lynchburg, Virginia, college should provide a receptive crowd for Trump’s economic message. He campaigned there during his run for office and was bolstered by the endorsement of its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., who helped secure support from religious conservatives.

“He’s going to tell them what he wants to do to make their careers run more smoothly and make it easier for them to raise families,” Falwell told WDBJ7, a CBS television affiliate in Roanoke, Virginia, about Trump’s message to graduates.

“I’ve been working with his speech writers and I think he’s going to deliver a wonderful speech that will be personal to Liberty,” Falwell said in the interview.

Trump has expressed frustration that the Russia probe has loomed over his presidency. He insisted this week that he fired Comey over his performance, not because of the investigation, but the timing of the dismissal and his comments afterward have raised alarms with his critics.

Trump, who has been preparing for his first foreign trip to the Middle East and Europe late next week, also will deliver the commencement address to the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, on Wednesday.

“To young Americans at both schools, I will be bringing a message of hope and optimism about our nation’s bright future,” Trump said in his weekly address to the nation.

Trump will encourage students to “be a force for good in the world by standing up for the values that Liberty has taught them,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

Liberty University said it expects more than 7,000 of its 18,000 graduates to participate in the ceremonies, most of whom earned their degree online. Past commencements have attracted as many as 40,000 people, the college said.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Bill Trott)

Historically black university in Texas cancels Senator’s speech

FILE PHOTO: Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) speaks during a news conference following party policy lunch meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. on August 4, 2015. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

By Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – U.S. Senator John Cornyn will no longer deliver the commencement address at Texas Southern University this weekend, the school said on Friday, after U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was booed at another historically black university.

More than 800 people signed a petition started by a Texas Southern University student who opposed the university’s invitation to the Republican senator to speak at Saturday’s graduation in Houston.

The petition said Cornyn’s backing of DeVos and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, among other things, showed that he supported “discriminatory policies and politicians.”

“We have the right to decide if we want to refuse to sit and listen to the words of a politician who chooses to use his political power in ways that continually harm marginalized and oppressed people,” the petition said.

The university, which will graduate more than 1,100 students on Saturday, said every effort had been made to ensure its ceremony was a celebration that would be remembered for the right reasons.

Cornyn has been invited to meet with Texas Southern University students in the future, the school said in a statement.

Libby Hambleton, a spokeswoman for Cornyn, said in an email that the senator was honored to have been invited to speak, but that he “respects the administration’s decision and looks forward to continuing to engage with the university in the future.”

It was not immediately clear who would replace Cornyn at the ceremony.

Texas Southern University’s action came after graduates at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida, booed, jeered and turned their backs on DeVos in protest on Wednesday as the education secretary gave a commencement speech.

Bethune-Cookman students, alumni and political activists, angered by comments DeVos has made about historically black colleges and universities, gathered tens of thousands of signatures on petitions seeking to have the invitation to DeVos rescinded.

DeVos, who is a proponent of school choice, said in February that such schools were “real pioneers” when it came to choice, without acknowledging racism as the main factor that led to the creation of such institutions.

She subsequently noted that historically black colleges were created because other institutions were not open to African-Americans.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing Daniel Wallis)

Graduates at Florida university turn backs in protest of DeVos speech

FILE PHOTO - Betsy DeVos, U.S. Secretary of Education, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. on May 1, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

By Bernie Woodall

(Reuters) – Graduating seniors at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida turned their backs in protest of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos at the start of her commencement speech on Wednesday at the historically black institution.

Boos and jeers could be heard as DeVos, who drew ire in February when she said historically black colleges were “pioneers” of educational choice, was introduced. Faculty and school administrators on stage stood and applauded.

Live video of the ceremony in Daytona Beach showed many graduates facing away from DeVos, though it was not clear how many of the approximately 300 seniors participated in the silent protest.

“One of the hallmarks of higher education and of democracy is the ability to converse with and learn from those with whom we disagree,” DeVos told the graduates.

The university’s president, Edison Jackson, interrupted her speech with a warning to students. “If this behavior continues, your degrees will be mailed to you,” he said. “Choose which way you want to go.”

Ahead of the speech, students, alumni and political activists sought to have DeVos’ invitation rescinded, saying they were offended by her earlier comment. DeVos, who is a proponent of school choice – including charter schools and school vouchers – later clarified her remark, noting that historically black colleges were created because other institutions were not open to African-Americans.

About 60,000 signatures on two petitions were delivered to school officials on Tuesday objecting to her appearance at the university.

“Right now is not the time for Secretary DeVos to speak at any historically black college,” said Dominik Whitehead, a Bethune-Cookman alumnus who led one of the petition drives. DeVos’ statement, he said, “just shows she is out of touch.”

In a statement on Sunday, President Donald Trump said DeVos chose Bethune-Cookman for her first commencement address as education secretary to show the Republican administration’s dedication to the mission of historically black colleges and universities.

Jackson, an African-American and a Republican, and some others defended the choice of DeVos as the graduation speaker for the school, which was named for black educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune.

Sean P. Jackson, chairman of the Black Republican Caucus of Florida, said DeVos had long been a champion of providing strong education opportunities for minority students.

“The secretary says we should allow charter schools to come in and educate children if they are doing a better job than the public schools,” Jackson said on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Leslie Adler)

Georgia governor signs bill allowing guns on college campuses

A selection of Glock pistols are seen for sale at the Pony Express Firearms shop in Parker, Colorado

By Bernie Woodall

(Reuters) – Georgia Governor Nathan Deal on Thursday signed a bill allowing guns on college campuses in the state, making it the 11th of the 50 U.S. states to do so.

Since the 2007 shooting deaths of 32 people by a student at Virginia Tech, a university in southwestern Virginia, state legislatures have grappled with the question of allowing licensed gun owners to bring their weapons on college campuses.

Deal said in a statement that he believed that people licensed to carry guns could help increase safety on college campuses. He said students at campuses where guns are known to be disallowed are easy prey for assailants.

“At the present time, assailants can, and do, target these students knowing full well that their victims are not permitted to carry protection,” said Deal.

On March 31, the Republican-controlled Georgia Senate and House of Representatives approved the guns-on-campus measure and sent it to Deal, a Republican.

Laura Cutilletta, legal director for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said her group was disappointed in Deal’s action.

“Colleges and universities are safe havens from gun violence, largely because guns are prohibited on the vast majority of campuses. Allowing guns on campus will jeopardize students, faculty and staff and likely lead to more campus homicides and suicides,” Cutilletta said in an email.

The new Georgia law will prohibit firearms in some campus areas with large crowds, including football stadiums and basketball arenas.

Guns will remain prohibited in campus housing, including fraternity and sorority houses; any rooms where high school students are taking classes; rooms where disciplinary hearings are held; preschool or child care areas; and faculty, staff and administrative offices.

The American Journal of Public Health found that 23 percent of Americans in a recent survey supported guns on college campuses. (http://in.reuters.com/article/us-health-guns-public-opinion-idINKBN17N28Y)

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Richard Chang)

Two dead, including suspect in Dallas-area college shooting -police

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A gunman on Wednesday shot and killed a woman on a college campus in the Dallas area, before committing suicide, police said, two days after a deadly stabbing at another college in Texas.

Adrian Victor Torres, 21, shot and killed Janeera Nickol Gonzalez, 20, in a common study area at North Lake College in Irving, before taking his own life in a locker room shower in a nearby building, the Irving Police Department said.

“It is unclear at this time if there was a prior connection between the victim and suspect,” it said in a statement.

Local news showed video footage of students running out of school buildings, located about 10 miles (16 km) west of downtown Dallas, at about 11:30 a.m., as police swarmed the campus.

Gonzalez’s mother Lucia told an ABC affiliate that Torres “had been stalking her for quite a while but she didn’t make anything of it.”

The family told the WFAA that the two never dated and were not friends. Gonzalez was studying kinesiology and planned to graduate in a few weeks.

“There is no justice for my daughter,” Gonzalez said.

College officials announced the school would be closed for the rest of the week.

On Monday, a man enrolled at the University of Texas went on a stabbing spree with a large hunting knife at the school’s Austin campus about 200 miles (320 km) south of Irving, killing one student and wounding three, police said.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; , Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Clarence Fernandez)