Glen Elder, sociology and psychology professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, gave a lecture to members of the Dartmouth sociology department at the Rockefeller Center on Monday. Elder, who teaches at UNC's Carolina Population Center, identified key elements of World War II that shaped later lifestyles of American men. Elder said the age at which men entered the war, the bonds men formed during service and the specific pathways of war involvement shaped postwar life. Based on his past study of California residents who lived through both the Great Depression and World War II, Elder said the war benefited younger men who entered the service because it provided an escape from the Depression and access to higher education through the GI Bill. In contrast, older men that entered the war saw higher rates of divorce, increased dislocation and decreased physical health. Elder is the co-director of the Carolina Consortium on Human Development, where he manages a research program on life course studies. He was invited to speak at the College in part because of his research on adolescent development.
Employees in the academic community have contributed eight times more money to the Obama campaign than to the McCain campaign during the 2008 presidential race, according to a report released by the Chronicle of Higher Education. More than $12 million has been donated to the Obama campaign by members of academia, compared to just over $1.5 million given to the McCain campaign. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, political experts say support for Obama in the high academic community can be attributed to disillusionment with the Bush administration as well as support for Obama's professor-like outlook, the result of his experience as a lecturer at the University of Chicago. The Obama campaign has received a larger amount of donations from academics in both Arizona and Alaska, the home states of Republican presidential and vice-presidential nominees John McCain and Sarah Palin, respectively.
Private universities spent, on average, more than $400,000 on anti-piracy efforts related to illegal peer-to-peer file sharing during the 2007-2008 academic year, according to a report released by the Campus Computing Project earlier this month. The report also states that 59 of the 321 institutions that responded to the survey have licensing agreements with legal downloading services, 56 of which have no-fee agreements. Colleges have increased anti-piracy efforts over the past few months in response to new mandates designed to combat illegal peer-to-peer file sharing on college campuses, included in the Higher Education Act, which was passed by Congress on Aug. 14. Administrative and technical support staff at private universities also spent, on average, more than 300 hours in the past academic year on file-sharing issues, according to the report.
