Taylor Stevenson '10 the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate for the seat for Brainerd, Minn., in the state senate was defeated by Republican Paul Gazelka in Tuesday's midterm elections, according to the Brainerd Dispatch. The district is under Republican control for the first time since 1972, according to the Dispatch. "This was just a bad year for Democrats. Everyone was taken off guard by how massive sentiments were on the other side," Stevenson told The Dartmouth. Gazelka won the district with 51.5 percent of total votes polled, also defeating write-in candidate and current state Sen. Paul Koering, the Dispatch reported.
Students' majors and history of military service can determine the quality of their experiences at four-year colleges and universities, according to a survey of 1,400 colleges released by the National Survey of Student Engagement. Students' chosen majors influence their degree of participation in academically-driven activities, such as internships and student research with faculty, a press release from the NSSE said. Findings also showed veterans perceived campus support to be lower than non-veterans' perceptions and conversed less with faculty members, the press release said. Veterans worked on academics or jobs more than twice as much per week compared to non-veteran students, but the report found no differences in the enjoyment of the college experience between the two groups.
Western Washington University and theater professor Perry Mills are engaged in a legal battle before the state Supreme Court over whether the University has a right to a private faculty disciplinary hearing for Mills, rather than a public hearing, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported Wednesday. The University charged Mills with various counts of misconduct in 2005, and a private disciplinary hearing suspended him for two academic quarters without pay, The Chronicle reported. Last year, the state appeals court ruled that conducting disciplinary hearings in private was in violation of the state's Administrative Procedure Act because it did not offer the accused a fair trial. According to the act, any hearing must be public unless directed otherwise by a court. If Mills wins the case, the University will compensate him for his suspension, and he will be eligible for a public hearing, The Chronicle reported.
