Two administrators at Rider University were charged Friday with aggravated hazing for the alcohol poisoning of two Phi Kappa Tau fraternity pledges, resulting in the death of freshman Gary DeVercelly on March 30. The indictment of Anthony Campbell, Rider's dean of students, and Ada Badgley, director of Greek life, "stunned" higher education law experts, according to the Inside Higher Ed website. Three students were also charged with knowingly promoting conduct that resulted in serious bodily injury. Rider expressed its "surprise" but made no move to fire administrators until further information could be obtained. The university's director of public relations said Rider did its best "short of restoring the strict parietal rules that have disappeared from most campuses in the last half century" to prevent incidents like these. The night of drinking that led to DeVercelly's death was part of a six-week pledging process that included a scavenger hunt in New York or Philadelphia and a strenuous night of push-ups and sit-ups. Rider University has since dissolved Phi Kappa Tau.
Henry Bernstein, researcher and doctor at Dartmouth Medical School, recently published a study in the scientific journal Pediatrics that claims 17 percent of women are not ready to leave the hospital when they are discharged after giving birth and that a standard approach is not appropriate for all women. Bernstein said in the article that factors such as being a first-time mother, being black, having a history of chronic disease, inadequate prenatal care and off-hour delivery are most related to unpreparedness in leaving the hospital after childbirth. Currently insurance companies are required by federal law to cover at least a 48-hour hospital stay following childbirth. If the mother has undergone a Cesarean section, the stay increases to 96 hours.
Dartmouth professor of economics Steven Venti developed a model to predict future levels of retirement wealth with two colleagues from MIT and Harvard. Venti and his colleagues project a more positive outcome than the "perfect storm" some economists have been predicting regarding the economic security of future retirees. Venti said that while traditional pension plans are withering away, self-directed personal savings plans such as 401(k) plans are growing rapidly and that a financial market meltdown is unlikely. The trio based its findings on a model of the retirement saving sector which takes into account the changing nature of pensions in conjunction with the aging of the population. They said they predict that the growing wealth of 401(k) plans will more than offset the retirement of the baby boomers and the demise of traditional pensions. Yet 401(k) plans are not universal among small employers and hence not everyone will share in rising retirement wealth, according to the studies.
