College shorts 2/25/10

Professor arrested for murder of colleagues

Details continue to surface in the case of the recent shootings of biology professors at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Authorities arrested Biology professor Amy Bishop after her shooting spree at a biology department meeting on Feb. 12 left three faculty members dead and three more in critical condition.
Bishop’s motive for the shooting was likely because the university had recently turned down her appeal for tenure. Acquaintances say Bishop told them that she blamed specific faculty members for blocking the tenure that she believed she deserved. Bishop was an accomplished Harvard-educated biologist, and gained prominence for having invented an innovative portable cell growth incubator with her husband.

But authorities have recently uncovered another side of Bishop’s history — she shot her 18-year-old brother in 1986, but was never charged because she claimed that it had been an accident. The murders have left students and faculty alike in a state of shock and sent the close-knit science community of Huntsville reeling.

— The New York Times

Boulder tops Sierra Club list for “Cool Schools”

The University of Colorado at Boulder topped the Sierra Club’s third annual list of “Cool Schools,” which ranks universities according to their degree of “eco-enlightenment.” College admissions experts say that rankings like these are becoming ever more important as students increasingly evaluate schools based not only on academics, location, and social life, but also on their degree of social and environmental consciousness.
“Ten years ago, I don’t remember any students asking me about green campuses,” said Steven Roy Goodman, a college admissions strategist. “Now, it’s quite common for students to be keenly interested in how environmentally responsible colleges are.”
Middlebury tied with the University of Washington in Seattle for the number- two slot on the list, scoring 98 points to The University of Colorado at Boulder’s 100.

— www.sierraclub.org

Ohio schools integrate digital technology

The Five Colleges of Ohio consortium — which consists of Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University and the College of Wooster — has received a two-year, $600,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in order to integrate digital technology into their libraries and curriculum.
“The grant will provide free and open access to digital documents that were once only available on our individual campuses, sometimes to a very limited number of people,” said Mark Christel, project director and director of libraries at the College of Wooster.
In addition, the grant will help faculty integrate digital collections into their courses by working with librarians, create professional development in library technology for library staff, and help develop a portal through which students and faculty can access digital collections.

— collegenews.org