Alumni giving to the Tuck School of Business reached record heights this year, with donations totaling $5.9 million, a press release from the school announced on Tuesday. The amount represents an 18 percent increase from last year's donation total. With 67.5 percent of alumni contributing, Tuck is the only business school in the nation that has seen alumni giving participation rates of over 50 percent, the press release reported based on numbers drawn from Businessweek. On average, Tuck surpasses its peer business schools' giving participation rates by about 30 percent, the release said.
Columbia University Teacher's College professor Madonna Constantine has been suspended from her tenured position and will face dismissal on Dec. 31, 2008, pending appeal, the Columbia Spectator reported on Monday. Constantine, a professor of counseling and clinical psychology, was accused following an 18-month investigation of plagiarizing the work of her students and a former Columbia professor in academic journals. A faculty committee announced the decision to suspend Constantine in a letter to faculty on Monday. The committee's letter denied Constantine's request to appeal the finding of plagiarism and cited Constantine's assertions that the work had been stolen by her accusers as an obstruction of the investigation. Constantine's lawyer, Paul Giacomo, termed the sanctions against Constantine "retaliatory and hostile" in a statement in the Spectator. The case has divided Columbia faculty, with one professor accusing Constantine's critics of racism. In October 2007, Constantine gained national attention and widespread support at Columbia after she found a noose hung from her office door, a case that remains unsolved.
Sallie Mae, the nation's largest provider of student loans, is facing further controversy after the discovery of a contract that gives the provider substantial control over USA Funds, the country's leading loan guarantor, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on Thursday. The contract, which has been posted online in recent days, calls into question whether the lender's relationship with USA Funds could allow Sallie Mae to profit from increased levels of student loan debt. USA Funds works to ensure that providers comply with the terms of the student-loan program and controls reimbursement of the providers by the government. Both Sallie Mae and USA Funds maintain that their controversial relationship, formed in 2000 when Sallie Mae bought the parent company of USA Funds, serves to save students money by preventing loan-default costs.
