Over 100 Cornell University students signed a petition against a proposed diversity course requirement that students believe will limit their academic freedom, The Cornell Daily Sun reported. The Campus Liberty Project, the group spearheading the petition, believes that the university should encourage students to explore individual interests to promote diversity. In January, Cornell's Student Assembly released a seven-page report exploring the implementation of a diversity course requirement. The report suggested multiple ways to enact the change, including introducing a mandatory course for freshmen, giving existing courses diversity credit to fill the requirement and increasing core classes' focus on concepts of diversity.
The Student Right to Know Before You Go Act, which requires states to collect data from colleges regarding graduates' salaries, is receiving unexpected bipartisan support in Congress, Inside Higher Ed reported. The bill, introduced in Congress last year, has rankled some colleges, who view the measure as unnecessary regulation. The bill's supporters say students have an interest in understanding the relationship between wages, majors and degrees when choosing where to attend college and the government should track graduates' salaries. Colleges, however, have expressed concern that graduates' successes should not necessarily be measured by their salaries. Liberal arts colleges are especially troubled by the bill because their graduates typically take jobs that pay lower salaries than those of trade school graduates, even though a liberal arts degree often results in higher wages in the long term, Inside Higher Ed reported. The proposed bill would create statewide databases to collect salary data and transcripts. A federal system for tracking student data is currently prohibited by law.
University of Maryland graduate student Dayvon Green shot his two roommates, killing one, before taking his own life on Tuesday, The New York Times reported. Before the shootings, Green had set off several small fires around his off-campus house. After his roommates asked him to help extinguish the fires, Green shot them, and one of the roommates ran to a neighbor's house. The student who survived is not in critical condition. After Green shot himself, police found a bag of weapons beside his body, including a loaded semiautomatic weapon not used in the shootings, a machete and a bat. The University of Maryland provided emergency counseling for students affected by the incident.
