Dartmouth professor and former director of the College's Neukom Institute for Computational Science Richard Granger has filed a countersuit in Grafton County Superior Court in the ongoing litigation with the Newport Harbor Lutheran Church. Granger's ex-wife Cheryl Lean Granger pleaded guilty to embezzling $320,000 in 2008, after forging board members' signatures on 170 checks while acting as the church's bookkeeper. Following her conviction, she was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to repay the church. Although multiple copies of checks from the church made out to Granger are included in the church's legal complaint, no evidence has been found showing that Granger, a professor of psychology and brain sciences and head of Dartmouth's Brain Engineering Laboratory, had any knowledge of the illegal activity, the Union Leader reported.
The U.S. Department of Education plans to establish a system of regulations to ensure that colleges receiving federal funds for financial aid are using the money to benefit their students, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. The new rules would prevent institutions whose students have the lowest loan-repayment and highest rates of debt from receiving further aid. The Department of Education released an outline of the new plan in an Aug. 13 letter to Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who is serving as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, The Chronicle reported. The Institute for College Access and Success analyzed data released by the Department of Education on Friday, showing that only 36 percent of students enrolled in for-profit colleges pay the principal on their loans, compared to 54 percent of student borrowers at public colleges and 56 percent of student borrowers at private, nonprofit institutions, according to The Chronicle.
The number of health-care-associated infections at Dartmouth- Hitchcock Medical Center is "significantly below the national average" with 36 percent fewer cases of infection than expected based off national data, according to a press release from DHMC. The press release reported findings from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services' first Health-care-Associated Infections Report, which also shows that the 26 acute-care hospitals in New Hampshire are at or below the national average for infection rates. Health-care-associated infections total roughly 1.7 million reported cases each year and cause 99,000 deaths per year in the United States. The analysis is based on examination of overall infection rates, central line-associated bloodstream infections, central line insertion practices, surgical site infections, surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis administration and influenza vaccination rates of hospital staff, according to the report.
