Two Dartmouth students, along with three University of California-Irvine students, won first place in IBM's Cell Broadband Engine Professor University Challenge for using three Playstation 3 video-game systems to replicate human brain functions, according to a university press release. The students used algorithms to reproduce brain functions, which previously had been an inefficient and slow process. Connecting three PS3s through a network and linking them to a computer, however, managed to speed up the results; the students reported a delay of only one second. The team beat out 80,000 other competitors and earned a $10,000 grand prize for their innovative work.
Members of Congress are considering legislation that would force wealthy colleges and universities to spend more of their endowment in an attempt to drive down the cost of tuition, the Associated Press reported Sunday. While private foundations are required by law to spend 5 percent of their endowment on their mission, private institutions spend on average only 4.6 percent. If colleges were forced to spend 5 percent of their endowment, an additional $1.5 billion would open up for financial aid. Members of the higher education community said they disagreed with the proposed changes. "We don't think as a general matter the federal government ought to be telling private philanthropic organizations, that have been around in some cases since before the federal government, how to spend their money," Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, told the Associated Press.
Middlebury College has begun a five-year effort to raise $500 million in an effort to fund school expansion. College officials told Vermont Public Radio on Wednesday that the campaign is aimed at strengthening the school's ability to educate its students. Mike Schoenfeld, the vice president for college advancement at Middlebury, told VPR that the campaign is one element of the college's new strategic plan. "The top two priorities are really about the human dimension at Middlebury," Schoenfeld said. "It's to increase financial aid for students and to increase the size of the faculty by 25 positions and support their work." So far, Middlebury has already raised $234 million towards its goal.