Thirty-eight faculty members of the Dallas campus of the University of North Texas were notified last week that their contracts will not be renewed and they will have to reapply to keep their jobs when the campus becomes the independent University of North Texas at Dallas in September 2010, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported March 4. In response to the announcement, several faculty members told The Chronicle they felt their efforts in focusing on teaching and development to build the Dallas Campus had gone unappreciated. John Ellis Price, president-designate of the Dallas institution, said the University's legal staff told him a direct transfer of faculty from the Dallas campus to UNT-Dallas would be inconsistent with Texas laws, The Chronicle reported. Faculty at two other branch campuses that recently became independent universities were transferred to the new institutions without a reapplication process, The Chronicle reported.
Georgetown University law professor Peter Tague unintentionally spread a false rumor across the Internet by attempting to demonstrate during a criminal law class that reliable sources can provide inaccurate information, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported March 4. When Tague told his class that U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was planning to announce his retirement for health reasons, at least one student immediately began texting and e-mailing the information to friends and family, despite Tague's instructions not to do so, according to the law blog Above the Law. By the time Tague revealed the information was a falsehood he had told to prove a point, the rumor had circulated among thousands of texts, e-mails, blog posts and web sites including Radar Online and The Drudge Report, according to Above the Law and The Chronicle.
Bankruptcy filings reached a landmark high in New Hampshire last month, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported Sunday. The 505 filings, a 26-percent increase over February 2009 and the highest number since the state changed its bankruptcy laws in 2005, comes after a record 352 foreclosure deeds were recorded in January, according to the Union Leader. Bankruptcy attorneys expect filings to continue increasing in the coming months because people often wait to receive federal tax refunds before paying bankruptcy and attorney fees, according to the Union Leader. New Hampshire's subprime mortgage delinquency rate is the third-highest in New England. By the end of 2009, 5,446 subprime loans were delinquent, the Union Leader reported.
