Daily Debriefing
By John Alzate
Published on Monday, May 12, 2008
The Dartmouth Coalition for Progress sponsored an Activism Skills Training workshop Saturday at the Rockefeller Center. The event was designed to teach students how to coordinate issue- and candidate-based campaigns on campus. The workshop featured speeches from Karen Liot Hill '00, mayor of Lebanon, N.H., Luke Watson, director of outreach for Congressman Paul Hodes, D-N.H., and Laura Clawson, the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in sociology at Dartmouth and a contributor to the Daily Kos blog. Clawson has written about the ongoing alumni debates at the College for the Daily Kos. The speakers discussed issues of political campaigning, blogging, lobbying, conducting campus events and environmental activism. All attendees received copies of an activism handbook printed by Palaeopitus Senior Society and the Dartmouth Progressives.
History doctorate programs in the United States are facing rapid growth in the number of incoming students while simultaneously encountering low retention rates, according to a study released this week by the American Historical Association. The study collected data from 164 U.S. and Canadian history doctoral programs over the course of 10 years, starting in 1997. In the U.S., fewer than half of students received degrees and almost a third dropped out of the programs. Canadian history programs saw an overall decline in the number of applications but a much higher program completion rate.
Leaders from two major athletic organizations, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, have met in recent weeks to discuss joining forces, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. NCAA officials first announced this possibility at the NAIA annual convention last month, expressing a desire to have more games between teams in the two associations. Both organizations are hoping the changes will reduce health insurance, travel and other administrative expenses, establish new recruiting standards for high school athletes and allow more scheduled games. Conversations between the associations began last year, when NCAA officials discussed ways to limit the rapid growth in the number of Division III teams.