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A former medical student is claiming that he was suspended from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey for describing himself as a “white, African, American.”
Paulo Serodio is of European descent, was born in Mozambique, and is a citizen of the United States, so each of the components of his self-identification is literally accurate, but he says that students and staff at the university objected to it.
Serodio claims that he was harassed and assaulted after making the comments, and his lawyer told the Associated Press that “directly” as a result of the comments he was suspended from the school. Serodio is now suing.
This story is already blowing up in the right-wing blogosphere, for obvious reasons, but as far as I can tell the AP article is the only source on it so far, and I have to say it doesn’t feel complete to me.
We don’t have the whole story on this yet, and I bet you ten bucks that the full version is going to be more interesting than the one we have now.
1 pm update: I’ve found a copy of the complaint. More soon.
It seems like every month or so there’s a big media buzz around another deeply flawed study that claims to confirm negative stereotypes about American college students. In February it was the one that explored students’ supposed “sense of entitlement” in the classroom, in March it was the one that claimed that students spend more time drinking than studying.
In April it was the one from Ohio State University researcher Aryn Karpinski that found that Facebook users have lower grades than students who aren’t on FB. It was only a draft paper, based on a small group of students from one college, but it made a huge splash all over the world.
And now it turns out that it’s pretty much worthless as scholarship.
A new response from three scholars in the field (Josh Pasek, eian more, and Eszter Hargittai) looks closely at the Facebook study, and finds it incredibly weak. In comparing the grades of students who use and don’t use Facebook, for instance, one needs a substantial number in each category, but this study’s sample only included 15 non-FB undergrads. It also found major differences in Facebook adoption across majors, but made no effort to determine whether it was those population differences, rather than an actual tie to Facebook use, that was responsible for grade variation.
At least as important, the response looks at data obtained from three large studies, and found no significant connection between Facebook use and low grades. Indeed, one set of data suggested that Facebook use was, as the authors put it, “slightly more common among individuals with higher grades.”
As for Karpinski, despite the fact that she was quoted as saying that there was a “disconnect between students’ claim that Facebook use doesn’t impact their studies, and our finding showing that they had lower grades,” and despite the fact that she invited administrators “to find ways to limit access [to Facebook] … resulting in better academic performance,” she now says her findings were just “exploratory,” and that she never intended them to be seen as conclusive.
“People, she says, “need to chill out.”
Afternoon update: In the interest of fairness and completeness, here’s a link to Karpinski’s original conference presentation and to her rebuttal to the three scholars’ response to it. (She argues that their study has “serious methodological and statistical flaws” of its own.)
Late afternoon update: And here’s a link to Pasek, more, and Hargittai’s rebuttal to the rebuttal, courtesy of Hargittai.
The Brecht Forum in New York is hosting a panel tomorrow afternoon called “Whose Schools/Our Schools: A Strategic Round Table on the NYC Student Movement.”
The forum will be held tomorrow at 4 pm in the West Village, and will feature student activists from CUNY, NYU, and the New School.
Here’s the description and panel lineup, via The Young Vote:
Here are the thirteen demands put forward by the students who sat in at the University of Vermont yesterday:
1. REVOKE all DISMISSALS and non-reappointments thus far issued.
2. TERMINATE all plans for more layoffs and non-reappointments of staff and faculty.
3. Return positions that have been reduced to part-time back to FULL-TIME status.
4. Issue a statement of NEUTRALITY respecting the right of staff and faculty to ORGANIZE.
5. DISCLOSE all budget reconciliation options that were reviewed and considered prior to the decision to initiate layoffs.
6. DISCLOSE all information related to administrative compensation and bonuses.
7. Return ALL administrative BONUSES from FY `08 and FY `09 to the UVM general fund.
8. Return administrative salary pool to the 2002 levels.
9. Pursue all legal options to utilize the university’s ENDOWMENT to close the FY `10 operating budget gap.
10. CAP rate of TUITION and room and board fee increase at corresponding year rate of inflation.
11. Establish with us a democratic process by which students, staff, and faculty have a decisive role in decisions regarding the budget.
12. CAP student body population at Fall 2009 levels.
13. REINSTATE the varsity Softball and Baseball teams.
A federal court has found that a student who erased her tuition bills by filing bankruptcy has a right to force her alma mater to provide her with transcripts.
Stefanie Kim Kuehn earned a Master’s degree from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, but she graduated owing $6000 in tuition and fees. She later declared bankruptcy, discharging that debt, but the university refused to give her her transcripts.
A judge ruled that the university, having allowed Kuehn to graduate, could not now withhold transcripts in the face of a bankruptcy filing. That ruling was upheld at the federal circuit court level in 2007, and at the appellate level yesterday.
The court’s ruling provides little comfort for other broke students, though — the judges ruled that CSU would have been within their rights to delay granting Kuehn’s degree until she paid her bills.
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