Around The Ivies
BrownUniversity: The Corporation, Brown University’s highest governing body, recently approved a 4.1 percent hike in tuition, The Brown Daily Herald reported. This brings total undergraduate charges to approximately $64,566. The rise is consistent with the past two years’ tuition hikes of 4.4 and 3.8 percent, respectively. This change coincides with a 7.1 percent increase in the undergraduate financial aid budget.
Columbia University: Apartheid Divest, a new group at the University, is encouraging students to sign a petition that demands the University divest from eight companies making profit off of Israeli business in occupied Palestinian territories, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported. The group brings together members of two other groups, the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine and Columbia/Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace. The group is currently unaware if Columbia has holdings in the specific corporations but said that it is “highly likely” the University does. A University spokesperson told the spectator that the University does not comment on specific holdings.
Harvard University: After spending the last month collecting signatures, approximately 40 Harvard Medical School students delivered a petition to Harvard administrators that included demands that the next dean prioritize campus diversity, The Harvard Crimson reported. The student group Racial Justice Coalition created the petition, which now has more than 300 signatures and includes a demand that at least a quarter of candidates interviewed for the new dean position come from underrepresented backgrounds in medicine.
Princeton University: Princeton University has received 29,313 applicants for the Class of 2020, a record-high number in the University’s history, The Daily Princetonian reported. This year’s pool features a 7.4 percent increase over the previous year’s applicants, although it is too early to gather specific metrics from the applications, dean of admissions Janet Rapelye said. The university had previously admitted 785 students from early action applications, and this marks the first year more women than men were accepted early action.
University of Pennsylvania: In an attempt to attract more high-achieving students, the University of Pennsylvania’s Tutoring Center has started a new “professor letters” program, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported. In the new program, professors directly email qualified students about the possibility of tutoring for the class. This will accompany the Tutoring Center’s usual advertising through listserv emails.
Yale University: Several students are now calling for the removal of Chan Heng Chee, who serves as Singapore’s ambassador-at-large from the governing board of Yale-NUS, a coalition between Yale University and the National University of Singapore. This comes after Chan delivered a speech at the United Nations in Geneva, during which she defended Singapore’s law criminalizing sodomy between consenting adults. This has sparked discussions about LGBTQ rights. While some students have called for her removal, others say it would be inappropriate considering she was speaking as a Singaporean ambassador and not as governor of the college.