Free Republic

Beyonce is one of the world's most scrutinized pop stars, and now that study is moving to academia. The Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey is offering a course called "Politicizing Beyonce." Kevin Allred, a doctoral student who is teaching the class, tells the university's online news site that he is using Beyonce's career as a way to explore American race, gender and sexual politics.

Complete Headline: University caves: will provide $300K to renovate multicultural center, appease student group that threatened 'physical action' The University of Michigan will spend $300,000 to renovate the Trotter Multicultural Center The Black Student Union threatened "physical action" last week unless its list of seven demands was met, including a new multicultural center on campus The University of Michigan will allocate $300,000 to renovate the Trotter Multicultural Center, in order to comply with the at least one of the Black Student Union (BSU) demands. The decision comes after members of the University’s administration and members of the BSU met Friday...

Conner Mertens, a redshirt freshman kicker at D-III Willamette University in Oregon, did something on Monday night that no college football player on any level had ever done before. He came out, while still an active player. First to his coach, then to his team, and now Conner Mertens is coming out publicly. “I'm bisexual,” Mertens told head coach Glen Fowles via Outsports.com, who informed his young kicker prior to his message that all the coach cared about was his kicker's accuracy. His off the field actions wouldn't affect his playing time, Fowles told Mertens. In fact, when Mertens asked...

College tuition has gone up 60 percent in the last decade, but some enterprising coeds are finding financial aid in a creative way — by landing a sugar daddy to the pay the bills. And students at Texas State University in San Marcos are right up there with the best of them. Dating (and we use that term loosely) site SeekingArrangement.com recently examined the fastest growing “sugar baby” schools in the country, and Texas State came in at No. 10. The average Texas student graduates with more than $24,000 in student debt, so the average $3,000 per month that a...

"In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore -- equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird -- Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric. After gathering ingredients for that evening's dinner, they walked to the cash register and awaited their moments of truth." Those are two "hipsters", and the punchline is that they pay for their foodie porn with foodie stamps, which sounds like it should be a terrible thing, except it's in Salon.com, which means they're going to try and tell you how it's a good...

<p>Two factors have so far shielded the American university from the sort of criticism that it so freely levels against almost every other institution in American life. (1) For decades a college education has been considered the key to an ascendant middle-class existence. (2) Until recently a college degree was not tantamount to lifelong debt. In other words, American society put up with a lot of arcane things from academia, given that it offered something — a BA or BS degree — that almost everyone agreed was a ticket to personal security and an educated populace.</p>

The University of Minnesota had to make its healthcare plans worse in order to avoid Obamacare-related penalties. The Affordable Care Act levels an excise tax on high-value health coverage plans, and UM would have to pay $48 million with its existing plans. Instead, the university is lowering the quality of its coverage. “The Office of Human Resources announced in a July email that it was making changes to the UPlan, the employee healthcare program, including adding a deductible and increasing copays for primary and specialty care,” according to the Minnesota Daily. “The email said the cost increases were necessary to...

A public university sent an email to alumni highlighting the esteemed research of one of its professors — research that notes many similarities between the old Ku Klux Klan and its modern-day equivalent, the tea party. The University of Washington’s email to alumni asked the question four separate times: “Is The Tea Party like the Ku Klux Klan?” Christopher Parker, a UW political science professor, argues in a new book that there are major similarities. The book is titled “Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in Contemporary America.” “In this commentary from Professor Christopher Parker...

Malcolm A. Kline, Share/Save If you love literature and go to Cornell, you’re probably in the wrong place. The poets, playwrights and novelists you might not seek out on your own who would, conversely, enrich your life or at least your vocabulary, make but cameo appearances. Rather, as an English major, you can expect to be exposed to: ENGL 2090 – Introduction to Cultural Studies ENGL 2100 – Medieval Romance: Voyage to the Otherworld ENGL 2150 – The American Musical ENGL 2160 – Television ENGL 2511 – Introduction to Women Writers ENGL 2620 – Introduction to Asian American Literature ENGL...

As Americans spend more and more to get college degrees, more and more people are beginning to question the value the recipients and the taxpayers are receiving. Certainly, as a percent of GDP, the U.S. spends more on college education than any other developed country on Earth save one.  At 2.9%, only South Korea ties us.  We outspend Canada (2.5%), Finland (1.9%), Sweden (1.8%), the Netherlands (1.7%), Israel (1.6%), France (1.5%), Austria (1.4%), Germany and the UK (both at 1.3%), and Italy (1.0%). A recent survey conducted by The Chronicles of Higher Education (together with American Public Media's Marketplace) showed that...

Brandeis University on Monday announced the suspension of its decade-old partnership with Al-Quds University following a recent Nazi-style rally at the Palestinian school in Jerusalem. At the Nov. 5 rally, Al-Quds students wore black military gear, carried fake automatic weapons, gave the Nazi salute, and surrounded the main square of their campus with banners depicting images of “martyred” suicide bombers. “While Brandeis has an unwavering commitment to open dialogue on difficult issues, we are also obliged to recognize intolerance when we see it, and we cannot—and will not—turn a blind eye to intolerance,” Brandeis said in a press release. “As...

Last week, ABC 7′s I-Team produced a troubling report about a surge in extreme drinking so far this year at UC Berkeley. According to the investigation, UC Berkeley has seen an increase in the number of students who get so drunk, often at frat parties, that they need to be taken to the hospital for care. This has, at times, put a significant burden on the city’s ambulance services, leaving other city residents waiting for care, or requiring the Berkeley Fire Department to call for help from other paramedics in the region. It also puts pressure on the hospital closest...

Fudan University in Shanghai is to study China's historical figures such as Confucius and the early emperors through modern DNA technology, Beijing Times reports. The studies follow the latest findings published on Monday on Cao Cao, a warlord who lived nearly 2,000 years ago in final years of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It debunked rumors that Cao's father Cao Song was fostered by comparing the DNA of Cao's living descendents and that found in the teeth of Cao's grandfather. Han Sheng from Fudan University, who led the Cao Cao research, says it is a breakthrough in the fields of both...

Brandeis University is facing criticism from students and faculty members after refusing to distance itself from an event recently held on the campus of its Palestinian partner school that critics decried as a “Nazi-style” rally. Brandeis, the nation’s most well known Jewish university, partners with the Palestinian Al Quds University, where students held a military rally on Tuesday of last week. Groups of Al Quds students dressed in black military gear and armed with fake automatic weapons marched on the school’s campus while waving flags and raising the traditional Nazi salute, according to pictures first posted by Middle East analyst...

Scenes from a "moderate" "Palestinian" university Hitler-style saluting peace partners Campus scenes yesterday at Al-Quds University. The Western-funded university authorities regularly tolerate such Fascist-style displays by students, some of whom have then gone on to attack Jewish civilians. Scroll down below for more photos. Scenes yesterday afternoon from a “moderate” "Palestinian" university WHAT ARE THE CHANCES FOR PEACE SO LONG AS THE PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT ENCOURAGES THIS AND WESTERN GOVERNMENTS CONTINUE TO FUND HIM WITHOUT CRITICISM?[Note by Tom Gross]During his press conference in Jerusalem today on the “peace process,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry criticized Israel again, but did...

UCLA will appeal a decision that could force it to give up its baseball stadium on land leased from the U.S. veterans' agency..... ......The development came in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of four homeless veterans that seeks to invalidate leases on the 387-acre property, which had been used for veterans' housing until the 1980s. Otero ruled the land could be used only for healthcare for veterans.........

Three University of Wisconsin professors who feel climate change is a straightforward and undeniable issue that needs to be tackled outlined the implications of global warming on human and environmental health at a panel held Thursday. “There is no doubt as to the effect of humans on the environment,” McKinley said. “We need to decarbonize at a rate of 5 percent or 6 percent per year,” Nemet said. “You can’t deny that people are burning coal. It’s cheap, domestic and extremely carbon intensive.” Nemet said regulations on energy production will help new plants to focus on energy production methods other...

Initial implementation of the Affordable Care Act began last Tuesday with the debut of online insurance marketplaces, which provide a more simplified way to buy healthcare. Uninsured students must find a source of healthcare by March 2014 otherwise they could face fines on their tax return. Although some believe requiring citizens to buy insurance is unconstitutional, others say it’s the only way the 48 million uninsured Americans will ever have coverage. The bulk of students fall into the country’s most uninsured age group (18-34), primarily because most young adults are healthy and don’t see the need for coverage. “Yes it’s...

Freepers! I need your advice. I live in the northern California/SF Bay area, and I'm mid-forties. I have started chipping away at pursuing a college degree (yes, a little late in life) but am finding the local offerings have such an overt liberal bias that is very difficult to stomach. Work and family commitments prohibit moving to find a conservative college/university, so I'm searching for online degree programs in business, economics, civil engineering, or one of the sciences (trying to remain flexible in that regard). I would love to be able to attend a "Hillsdale" type college, but can't move...

The NCAA said Tuesday that it will reduce the unprecedented sanctions against Penn State's football program by gradually restoring scholarships starting next season. Officials did not rule out future modifications, such as reducing the four-year postseason ban. The announcement comes 14 months after NCAA president Mark Emmert levied the historic penalties in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. Penn State had faced a cap of 65 scholarships starting in 2014, but instead will have 75 scholarships in 2014, 80 in 2015 and the full allotment of 85 in 2016.