Twenty students at the University of California, Berkeley began a hunger strike Monday, demanding that UC President Mark Yudof and that UC chancellors denounce a recent Arizona immigration law which orders police to question anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant that students deemed racist, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday. Students are also demanding that the University drop charges filed against protestors from earlier in the year, rehire 27 janitors that were laid off because of budget cuts and make the University campus a place where undocumented immigrants can feel comfortable and receive the same services as any other students. The Chronicle reported that the hunger strikers had as many as 75 supporters and that the group would be camping outside day and night until their demands are met.
University of Maine President Robert Kennedy on Tuesday unveiled "UMaine 150," the University's reorganization plan to make UMaine more financially sustainable, UMaine News reported. The initiative includes plans to eliminate the Department of Public Administration, suspend several majors including German, Latin, theater and women's studies, although the University will still offer instruction in these areas. The school will reduce its number of colleges from five to four by integrating the economics department into a unified School of Economics in the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry and Agriculture as well as by moving the School of Social Work from the Business School into a new interdisciplinary Division of Health and Biomedical Science. "UMaine 150" drew from recommendations made by UMaine's Academic Program Prioritization Working Group, which looked for ways to reduce UMaine's academic budget by $12.2 million over a three-year period beginning July 1, 2011.
Taiwan schools are ready to open to Chinese students this fall after the Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan announced it would stop preventing bills that would allow Chinese students to study in Taiwan from becoming actual law, according to the Taipei Times. The new law includes restrictions on where Chinese students can study, how many spots a university can give to Chinese students and, in addition, does not allow them to receive scholarships or continue to work in Taiwan after graduation. According to the Ministry of Education, the law will not change the number of spots open to Taiwanese students, the Taipei Times reported. Another bill proposed by the DDP may cut the number of Chinese students permitted to study in Taiwan each year from 2,000 to 1,000.
