Michigan legislators have introduced a plan that would allow in-state college-bound students to attend college for free and then, as graduates, pay a percentage of their income back. Known as a “pay it forward” model, the money paid back would go into a special fund to help other students attend college using the same plan. […]

Marylou Yam has been appointed as the 14th president of Notre Dame of Maryland University, effective July 1. Yam joins the school from Saint Peter’s University (N.J.), where she served as provost and vice president for academic affairs. She worked to expand Saint Peter’s from a college to a university and helped established its first […]

Historically black colleges and universities are coming together to encourage entrepreneurial ventures and thinking among their students and faculty. Kicking off the initiative is the first HBCU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Collaborative Symposium in late March in conjunction with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance’s Annual OPEN Conference. Hosted also by the Association of Public […]

Two South Carolina public institutions are at risk of losing nearly $70,000 in state funding after books with LGBT themes were assigned to freshmen last fall. For 2013-14, The College of Charleston provided 2,000 freshmen with the graphic novel Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel. It details the relationship of the author and her closeted-gay father, […]

Eric J. Barron, president of Florida State University, has been named the 18th president of The Pennsylvania State University. According to the Penn State Board of Trustees, the selection committee was compelled by Barron’s role leading a doctoral research university that also has a law school and a college of medicine, as well as his […]

University of California, Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake has been selected as The Ohio State University’s 15th, and first black, president, effective June 30. He will replace E. Gordon Gee, who resigned last July after controversy erupted over comments he made at an athletic council meeting. Drake has served as UCI chancellor since 2005 and […]

Gwendolyn Boyd has begun her tenure as Alabama State University’s 14th (and first female) president, succeeding William H. Harris, interim president and president emeritus. Boyd was previously an engineer and executive assistant to the Applied Physics Laboratory chief of staff at Johns Hopkins University, where she had worked for the past 33 years. An ASU […]