David Knight '10, a history major with a concentration in political history, was one of 25 students nationwide to receive the first Woodrow Wilson-Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship for Aspiring Teachers of Color last week, according to a press release from the College Office of Public Affairs. Knight has mentored children in New Hampshire and Vermont, interned with the Amy Biehl Foundation in South Africa and advocated for education in the Dominican Republic on an alternative spring break trip, according to the press release. He will receive $30,000 from the fellowship to fund a master's program in education. The program, which was transferred to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in 2009, has provided $8 million in funding for 350 individuals since its creation in 1992, the release said. The program aims to counteract falling percentages of teachers of color in the education work force by recruiting such teachers to work at public schools in greatest need of qualified instructors.
United Faculty of Florida, the faculty union for Florida universities, has called for a hearing to protest a recent decision made by the Florida State University administration to lay off 21 tenured and 15 tenure-track faculty members, The Tallahassee Democrat reported Friday. The University's administration eliminated multiple positions by merging the oceanography, geological sciences and meteorology departments to reduce spending, The Democrat reported. The change sparked anger from professors under the impression that tenure would keep their positions secure, as few institutions nationwide have eliminated the positions of tenured faculty, oceanography professor Mike Wentz told The Democrat. FSU, which turned to furloughs as a "last resort," set aside millions to hire new faculty members in the geological sciences in 2008, only to provide them with layoff notices a year later, The Democrat reported.
A Harriton High School student and his parents filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District in Philadelphia after the school remotely turned on the webcam of the student's computer while it was inside the family's home, The Washington Post reported Saturday. The school's vice principal allegedly referred to a laptop photo taken without the student's knowledge to support accusations of "improper behavior" including drug use, The Post reported. The school district, which supplies all students at its two high schools with Apple laptops, claims that webcam images were never used to justify disciplinary action, but only to locate lost or stolen computers, The Post reported. The district acknowledged that laptop cameras were activated remotely 42 times over a span of 14 months, but students were never informed of the presence of security software on the machines. The FBI is examining the situation to determine whether the school district broke any privacy or computer-intrusion laws, according to The Post.
