Grafton County commissioner Ray Burton moved to transfer investment authority to the county's deputy treasurer and away from current treasurer Vanessa Sievers '10 at the Board of Commissioners' weekly meeting on Tuesday, the Valley News reported. Burton said Sievers "simply is not doing her job," according to the Valley News. The Board criticized Sievers for not attending Board meetings, relying on e-mail to conduct county business, and allegedly mishandling the county tax receipts fund that holds $9.8 million, according to the Valley News. Sievers said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth that she had an investment plan, but cannot move forward without the Board's approval. "I am stunned at the allegations especially since things have been on an up turn since last week's article," Sievers wrote in the e-mail.
Government professor Lisa Baldez discussed the dramatic changes in women's political participation over the last 30 years in a lunch at the Hanover Inn on Wednesday, as part of the Faculty and Students Together program. Baldez also talked about the book she recently co-authored, "Political Women and American Democracy," which she said will serve as a reference for others doing research in the field. Americans often see the state of gender relations in the United States as superior to gender relations in other countries, she said, even though the United States ranks 64th in the world in terms of women's political participation, between Tajikistan and Mauritius. She also spoke about the United States' refusal to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the United Nations' international bill of rights for women. Other countries that have not signed are Iran, Nauru, Palau, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan and Tonga, she said.
Johns Hopkins University has created a public web site that allows individuals to search university-sponsored research using Collexis Holdings technology, Campus Technology reported. Although most institutions have similar sites for private use, Johns Hopkins granted public access to the site in order to encourage research collaboration with other institutions, according to Campus Technology. The Collexis system allows researchers to update their profile every time they publish a new paper -- a feature absent from traditional online expert directories, Bill Kirkland, CEO of Collexis, told Campus Technology.
