McMaster University's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine has adjusted its admission criteria in order to increase enrollment of male applicants, The Globe and Mail of Toronto reported. DeGroote's chair of admissions Harold Reiter told The Globe and Mail that the disproportionate number of female students is due to an "overemphasis on grade point average," which tends to favor women, and that the number of male students has increased since the admissions office broadened its requirements. A similar gender imbalance exists in several other Canadian medical schools, most notably in Quebec, where over 70 percent of medical students are female, and some schools have been viewing male applicants under a policy of affirmative action. Research has shown that women are more likely than men to work part-time and avoid specialties like surgery, because of the need to balance careers with raising a family, The Globe and Mail reported.
Police arrested two Georgetown University students and a visitor to campus on Saturday after discovering a lab producing dimethyltryptamine, a hallucinogenic drug, The Washington Post reported. The 400 residents of Harbin Hall, a freshman dormitory, were evacuated at 6 a.m. after a resident told campus police about a strange odor coming from the ninth floor. Drug paraphernalia including chemicals, heating equipment and a ventilation system were found in the dormitory room, and seven students were subsequently tested and cleared for chemical exposure. Hard drugs such as dimethyltryptamine are uncommon at Georgetown, which has a heavy drinking culture with only occasional drug use, and the discovery of a drug lab is unprecedented, according to The Washington Post.
For-profit institutes of higher education have begun spending increasing amounts of money to lobby the U.S. Department of Education, the White House and members of Congress, Inside Higher Ed reported. The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities nearly doubled its spending on lobbying from about $1.3 million in the first quarter to nearly $2.6 million in the third quarter of 2010. This increase is likely a response to the Department of Education's trend toward increased regulation of private colleges and universities, including "gainful employment regulations," according to Inside Higher Ed. The Institute for College Access and Success, a not-for-profit organization that supports the Department of Education's regulatory initiative, only spent $20,000 in the third quarter of this year.