The Stanford Graduate School of Business has laid off 49 employees, approximately 12 percent of its non-faculty workforce, in response to economic downturn, according to the Stanford News Service web site. The school is suffering from a $15-million budget deficit following a decline in revenue, and the University's endowment is expected to lose between 20 and 30 percent of its value this year, Provost John Etchemendy said. The School of Business was especially susceptible to the economic downturn, the article said, because a large proportion of its revenue stems from the endowment and gifts from alumni. Academic programs, including financial aid and an MBA curriculum established in 2007, will be protected in the new budget, the News Service reported.
Financial aid officers discussed how to help students cope with the economic recession at a conference hosted by the University of Southern California's Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice last week, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. The conference, "Aid in an Age of Uncertainty," recommended alternative ways for dealing with loans and provided suggestions for communicating policy and financial aid priorities. Attendees proposed that colleges offer no- or low-interest institutional loans, extend tuition payment deadlines, and increase loans by borrowing against unused scholarship funds.
Brainify.com, a new social-bookmarking web site aimed at college students and faculty, entered the beta testing phase last week, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Social-bookmarking web sites allow people to share links with people in their network. The site, created by Murray Goldberg, the founder of the WebCT course management system, will be accessible only to those with college e-mail addresses. Brainify will include special features designed with the higher-education environment in mind, including the ability to sort bookmarks by specific academic subject areas, The Chronicle reported. Goldberg said he hopes to make Brainify a center of aggregated knowledge that would be the first place students and faculty turn to for answers to academic questions. Critics suggested in The Chronicle that the restricted-access community will suffer from its exclusivity, which they said will reduce the amount of input and diversity users encounter.
