Yale University will offer massive open online courses, known as MOOCs, for the first time next January, the Yale Daily News reported Saturday. The university will partner with Coursera, a MOOC platform used by Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. Under the model, students will be able to sign up for free, six- to 15-week courses in a variety of disciplines, including art history and economics, and will be taught by Yale professors. Students who take the courses will not receive credit and the partnership reflects the university's plan to explore new teaching strategies that can be used outside of a physical classroom. With this announcement, Dartmouth is now the only Ivy League institution not involved in a MOOC partnership.
A former volunteer soccer coach at Princeton University was charged with possession of child pornography and, if convicted, could face up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, The Daily Princetonian reported Saturday. An investigation by the United States Postal Inspection Service found that the coach, Jorge Roman, bought 79 films between 2006 and 2011 that featured pornographic material involving male children. A Princeton assistant soccer coach and director of training for the Princeton Soccer Association from 1993 to 2001, Roman was working as a soccer coach at Rider University and ran a youth soccer program when he was arrested.
A report by the American Council on Education found that students who received bachelor's degrees from American colleges in 2007-08 were less racially diverse than the entire undergraduate population in those years, Inside Higher Ed reported. While white students composed 73 percent of degree recipients that academic year, they made up 62 percent of overall undergraduates. African-Americans, 14 percent of total undergraduates at the time, received only 9 percent of bachelor degrees. This discrepancy did not exist for women, the majority of bachelor degree recipients across all racial demographics. Asian-American and white students were the most likely to enter and graduate college at "traditional" ages, according to the report. Mikyung Ryu, the report's author, said the demographic gaps that the report found are a "huge concern" and that educational institutes must help "nontraditional" students gain degrees. The report also examined demographics of college graduates in the labor market and found that Pacific Islanders who graduate college have the highest rates of continuous work after college graduation.
