In a letter to the editor published Friday in The Daily Princetonian, a member of Princeton's Class of 1977 and mother of two Princeton students, Susan Patton advised undergraduate women to find husbands before graduating. To ensure a happy marriage with an intellectual equal, women at elite universities should take advantage of the large concentration of "worthy" men around them by actively seeking out a husband, she said in the letter. The letter was viewed so many times and sparked so much discussion that it crashed The Daily Princetonian's website, New York Magazine's fashion blog The Cut reported. Since being published, the letter has generated responses from The Huffington Post, Slate's XXFactor and Jezebel, among other national media outlets. Patton was among the first classes of women at Princeton in the mid-1970s, and she differed from her career-oriented peers by vocalizing her desire to get married as an undergraduate.
Through a program for graduate students that identifies and attempts to eliminate gaps in undergraduate education, Brown University has significantly increased diversity among students its life sciences PhD program, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. The program, called the Initiative to Maximize Student Development and financed with a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, approaches minority students' application process with a more holistic perspective and aims to make professors and graduate programs more attuned to their needs. Other schools could use this program as a model for their own graduate studies, Brown professor and program co-director Andrew Campbell said. Once students admitted to the program arrive at Brown, they receive one-on-one advising based on gaps from their undergraduate experience and enroll in supplemental, intensive instruction to build academic skill sets.
William Bowen, the president emeritus of Princeton University, argues in his forthcoming book that in order to maintain support from the American public, universities must find ways to lower higher education costs, Inside Higher Ed reported. In "Higher Education in the Digital Age," Bowen maintains that universities must increase the number of online course offerings to cut costs. Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, and their recorded lectures allow professors to convey necessary material while leaving more time to meet with students. While online courses are a promising alternative, Bowen emphasizes that they do not correct all rising costs related to higher education.
