The Chronicle: Daily News Blog

While many American universities are eagerly eyeing India and other parts of Asia as potential markets for new students, one India-based institution has set its sights on the United States.

The institution, Vinayaka Missions America University Inc., has just bought the former headquarters of an energy company in western Maryland for $8.5-million and says it plans to begin operations as early as this fall by offering noncredit courses.

Eventually, according to the Herald-Mail, a local newspaper, leaders of the 27-year-old institution said they hoped to offer degree programs, including some in nursing.

The university, which carries approval from the Indian government, according to its Web site, celebrated its purchase of the Allegheny Energy Company’s former headquarters building and 45 acres of land on Tuesday at a news conference, where leaders of the institution offered traditional Indian-print shawls to local officials.

University officials said that the institution now operated 27 educational institutions with 20,000 full-time students and 40,000 distance-education students. —Goldie Blumenstyk

An Iraqi university president who was arrested last week and led from his home with a hood over his head is suspected of aiding Al Qaeda terrorists by providing them with weapons, the Associated Press reported today.

The accusations against the president of Diyala University, Nazar al-Khafaji, and another high-profile detainee are outlined in documents that were leaked today. “According to excerpts from the arrest reports by the anti-terrorism squad involved in the case, the two are suspected of aiding Al Qaeda insurgents involved in sectarian killings,” the AP reported.

The province of Diyala, north of Baghdad, remains one of Iraq’s most volatile and is riven by sectarian violence. Mr. Al-Khafaji and Hussein al-Zubaidi, the provincial council’s security head who was arrested on the same day, are both Sunnis. Sunni leaders say their arrests by Shiite-led forces were politically motivated.

The provincial council suspended work in response to the arrests, and the council’s chief, Ibrahim Bajilan, said today that “council members would not return to work until the detainees are released,” the AP reported. —Aisha Labi

Jerusalem — A bomb exploded on Tuesday at Al-Azhar University, in the Gaza Strip, causing damage but no casualties.

The blast occurred in a classroom on the first floor of the humanities building. The room had just been vacated by students who were taking an examination, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, an independent organization known as PCHR.

Al-Azhar is a secular university politically affiliated with the Fatah movement headed by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. The human-rights organization described the attack as part of the continuing “security chaos” in Gaza that involves sporadic and sometimes deadly clashes between rival supporters of Fatah and Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip last year.

“It is worth noting that acts of violence were reported on Sunday, 24 August 2008, between supporters of Hamas and Fatah blocs at the university, in which a number of students and administrative staff members were attacked,” the group said in a statement.

“PCHR is gravely concerned over this latest attack, which is part of the state of security chaos prevailing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the group said. “PCHR calls for respecting university life and academic freedoms.” —Matthew Kalman

A 1921 painting by the French cubist Fernand Leger is missing from the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College, and the painting might have been stolen or accidentally thrown out with some crates, The Boston Globe reports today.

The museum lent the painting, “Woman and Child,” to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art for an exhibit there through April 2007, the newspaper reports. After the Oklahoma museum shipped it back in a crate along with other paintings, it was stored in a vault at the Davis museum during renovations. Museum officials noticed the painting was missing last fall.

The officials don’t know what happened to the painting, but it has been reported as missing to the Art Loss Register, and an insurance company has already paid the college’s claim. The Globe reports that the average price of a Leger painting is in the neighborhood of $2.8-million.

Wellesley College art historians are saddened over the loss of the painting.

“We’ve all wondered about it,” Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, an associate professor of art, told the Globe. “It’s a tremendous loss for the college, but, beyond that, we just don’t have a lot of information.” —Kate Moser

Washington — College students showed up during the presidential primary season as prominent supporters of Sen. Barack Obama. Apparently it won’t be causing them many problems with their professors.

An analysis released today by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics found college professors and other educators holding strong as the top donors to Mr. Obama’s campaign. Continuing a trend noted last year, educators donated at least $2.3-million to the Obama campaign in June and July, surpassed only by lawyers and retirees, the group reported. Education-industry donors are typically dominated by professors and other college employees, it said.

Employees of the University of California and their families gave $80,380 to Mr. Obama in June and July, making their institution the third-largest corporate donor to the campaign, after only Microsoft and Google. Eight other universities — Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Michigan, Georgetown, Chicago, Washington, and Pennsylvania — also were in the top 25.

The center’s executive director, Sheila Krumholz, suggested in a written statement that contributions from such renowned universities may help Republicans label Mr. Obama as “elite.” Ms. Krumholz neglected to mention that her own organization’s data list investors and developers, along with retirees and lawyers, as top contributors to the Republican candidate Sen. John McCain.

A business professor at University of California, Carl Shapiro, said he and his colleagues had begun donating to Mr. Obama in large part because of their reaction to the presidency of George W. Bush. Mr. Shapiro told The Chronicle that while he considers himself a political moderate, his donations reflected “a really disastrous presidency that’s gotten people going.” —Paul Basken

The mayor of Akron, Ohio, has proposed leasing the city’s sewage system to a private contractor in hopes of raising millions of dollars for college scholarships.

The awards would go to local students who attend the University of Akron or one of the city’s trade schools. Mayor Don Plusquellic told the Associated Press that the plan would help keep talented students from leaving town after graduating from high school.

The idea has prompted support, criticism, and the inevitable nickname, “stools for schools.” —Eric Hoover

Washington — President Bush announced on Monday the recipients of the 2007 National Medal of Science and the 2007 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the country’s highest honors for scientific achievement. Nine academics were among the winners.

But the list of laureates did not come with a corresponding list of citations, and officials of the National Science Foundation, which administers the awards, told The Chronicle that it might take the White House “several more weeks” to release them.

The same NSF officers said the winners of the 2008 medals would be selected this year. In 2007 the White House named the winners of the 2005 and 2006 National Medals.

The academics who will receive a National Medal of Science for their scientific achievements, during a ceremony at the White House on September 29, are:

Fay Ajzenberg-Selove, a professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mostafa A. El-Sayed, a professor of chemistry and director of the Laser Dynamics Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Leonard Kleinrock, a distinguished professor of computer science at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Robert J. Lefkowitz, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Duke University Medical Center.

Bert O’Malley, the chair of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor College of Medicine.

Charles P. Slichter, a research professor of physics and emeritus professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Center for Advanced Study.

Andrew J. Viterbi, a benefactor of and engineering chair at the University of Southern California.

Two professors will received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for their achievements:

Adam Heller, a research professor of chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

Carlton Grant Willson, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Stay tuned for more information. —Maria José Viñas

India’s technical-education regulator has warned the country’s engineering and professional colleges against taking bribes for admissions, The Indian Express reported.

The regulator, the All India Council for Technical Education, sent a note to the colleges saying they were forbidden to take donations or charge “any more or additional fees under any circumstances other than the fees prescribed” by a fee-regulation committee from any student for any course in the 2008-9 academic year.

Bribery is common at India’s almost 1,200 private engineering colleges, and a lack of government oversight has allowed engineering education to become largely driven by profits.

Hundreds of engineering schools sell admission to students who can pay “capitation fees,” and the regulator has been criticized for not cracking down on the practice.

The regulator said it would take “serious action” against colleges found to have accepted additional fees and would report them to the relevant state governments, according to the newspaper. —Shailaja Neelakantan

In an effort to avoid conflicts of interest, Stanford University will severely restrict industry support for continuing medical education, the medical school’s dean, Phillip A. Pizzo, announced today on its Web site.

For years, drug and medical-device companies have paid for refresher courses that doctors must take to maintain their licenses. The companies say they just want to keep doctors current on the latest medical information, but critics charge that the sponsors use the courses to promote their products.

Under Stanford’s new policy, which will take effect on Monday, the medical school will pool contributions from drug companies rather than allow a company to specify which specific courses it wants to underwrite. “I want to be able to honor the public trust,” Dr. Pizzo said. “We want CME to be unbiased and science-driven, and we don’t want it to be influenced by marketing.”

Five other major medical schools have adopted the pooled approach, The New York Times reported today, citing information from a watchdog group called the Prescription Project. The others are the medical schools at the Universities of Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, and California at Davis. The move comes two years after Stanford banned industry gifts, including free meals, at its medical center.

The issue of conflict of interest in medical education has sparked heated debate in recent years. Last month, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa told The Chronicle that the National Institutes of Health should revoke grants to university scientists who failed to report conflicts of interest. And last year, the Republican senator issued a report describing how he says pharmaceutical companies use continuing medical education to bolster sales of their products. —Katherine Mangan

The pugnacious chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, James E. Rogers, has for months waged a public campaign attacking the state’s governor for his proposed budget cuts of up to 16 percent for the system. Last week Gov. James Gibbons fired back with an angry letter of his own, in which he singled out university salaries for criticism.

“The system of higher education currently employs 1,328 people who are paid $100,000 or more annually,” Mr. Gibbons, a Republican, wrote, according to the Las Vegas Sun. “I cannot help but wonder how many Nevadans would support an income tax, or any increased taxes for that matter, to sustain those salary levels in the face of significant government spending reductions in other areas.”

Mr. Rogers is hardly backing down. In a terse reply, he said that the governor’s letter “confirmed every one of my fears and concerns” and that it was clear that Mr. Gibbons had “no problem in sacrificing education.”

And today Mr. Rogers released a public memorandum, under the heading “Hope, hope. There is hope,” in which he says the state’s Legislature will find a financial solution that “at least will prevent the dismantling of the Nevada System of Higher Education.” —Paul Fain