Unchecked Power Tipped Campus

During a POL 102, "State and Local Politics" class session, understandable, when a student asked the professor, Michael Glass of Mercer Community College, to raise an example of "double dip" government employees, Professor Glass gave him several names, one of which happened to be the County Sheriff Kevin Larkin, who collected roughly $130K salary as the sheriff, on top of the $85K pension based on his retirement from the very job. The discussion in the context of an in class exercise to make a state proposal to handle the $2 billion budget deficit happened around 7:30 pm on February 1, 2010. To set the record straight, the Sheriff's "double dip" salary had been a heat topic recently on the local newspaper.

Another student sitting in the classroom, Brooke Seidl, a County Clerk dutifully notified the Sheriff by text message.

The Sheriff promptly summoned the Professor through campus security at 8:18 according to security logs, which the Professor ignored as he thought it must be a prank.

Thirty minutes before the class would be adjoined at 9:50 pm, the Sheriff, uniformed and accompanied by armed aide, showed up at the door of the MS-205 where the class was being held, and ordered the Professor out.

Three minutes later, the two entered the room again, when the Professor apologized for "making disparaging comments" about the Sheriff, while the Sheriff standing "less than six inches" from him, according the students in the classroom. Sheriff Larkin stormed out of the room after leaving a threat, "This isn't over". The deputy added, "You're a terrible teacher, you should get your facts from a book."

In the following day, both the President of the College, Dr. Patricia Donohue, and the HR Director, Jose Fernandez were called. The President promised the Sheriff a thorough investigation into Professor Glass, and Fernandez ordered immediately to launch the investigation on Professor Glass.

Professor recalled he was feeling intimidated, and "did what he did (making the apology)" in class.

Students in that class, though, showed strong reaction against the Sheriff's behavior. According to the student newspaper:

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"I was shocked more than anything. I was laughing because I was so surprised," said Buckley, adding "that's exactly what you don't want from a publically-elected official."

Walker said, "[Larkin and his aide] were very classless, and they called [Glass] by his first name no less."

Sudent Vanessa Holguin, 25, said she felt that the event "jeopardizes the extent of [her] education," adding that she felt Glass would "walk on egg shells," following the incident.

Grindlinger echoed Holguin's statement, saying "I feel like [Glass] will be more careful with the things he tries to teach about state and local government so it would not come back to him in such a rash way."

Grindlinger also said, "Does [Larkin] not have anything better to do with his time as an elected official?...It's an overall waste of time, I think, for someone in that stature to really complain.."
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To set the record straight, Mercer is a county in the State of New Jersey.

Universities in Taiwan to recruit students from the mainland

Vice Education Minister Lin Chung-ming announced 40 mainland universities from the mainland were put on a list that students of which can apply to Taiwan Universities.

The effectives of the measure will be yet to see. Usually in mainland, students with highest grades go to the US; second tiers go to the other western countries such as Canada and England; third tier students go to Hong Kong and Japan; fourth tiers go to south eastern Asian countries and Pacific countries. Taiwan universities will have a hard time competing with counterparts in Hong Kong, a prosperous and energetic city connected to the mainland by land.

To easy local concerns of political influence and employment pressure, the Education Ministry of Taiwan set strict limits on the project. Only students from 40 pre-approved mainland universities are allowed to apply, and the total annual inflow is set to 2,000. These students will not be allowed to stay after their graduation.

Some locals have expectation for the mainland students to shake up the Taiwan college education system, "you only hae to put a few students from Beijing or Qinghua University in classrooms to deter local students from dozing off or snacking," said a local writer Kao Hsi-chun.

The Taiwan Education Ministry is also considering recognizing diplomas from the above 40 (some sources use the number of 41) mainland universities. While more Taiwan students go to college in mainland, they have been placing higher pressure on the Taiwan government to recognize their degrees obtained from mainland universities. The number '41' is set by including 39 '985 project' universities, with the only exception of the National University of Defense Technology, plus Beijing Sports University, Central Conservatory of Music and China Central Academy of Fine Arts. It is not clear about the composition of '40'.

Chinese Kids Eye Colleges in USA

A summer camp advertisement stuck on a billboard of local high school graduates admitted to top US colleges in front of the Tianjin Book Building (TJBB).

The annual national college entrance examination had been traditionally known as a single log bridge competed by tens of thousands of troops. The portrait was not an exaggeration when you consider 600,000 would be accepted by colleges out of over 8,000,000 attempted in 1989.

However, after a national policy to expand college admissions, over 4 million freshmen are admitted into college, while the total number of applications started to decline. Almost one million high school graduates did not apply for college in 2009. Some experts interpreted the decline of interest as a reflection of disappointing job market for college graduates.

On the other hand, students who applied for colleges in the US doubled. 15,000 mainland kids took SAT in Hong Kong between October 2008 and June 2009. There is no SAT test center in mainland China. Students travel to testing centers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and as far as the US to take the test.

In major cities such as Beijing, Chongqing, up to 10-20 percent of high school graduates applied US colleges. Mr. Shen Xianzhang, deputy principle of the Rendafuzhong High school in Beijing told reporters that 43 students had been admitted by top US colleges, the majority went to Ivy League schools with full scholarship, including Harvard, Stanford and Yale. At Beijing No. 4 High School, 20 graduates went abroad for colleges in 2007. The number grew to 30 in 2008, and 50 in 2009. Another high school in Beijing, the Lab High School affiliated with Beijing Normal University sent 16 graduates to University of Toronto through a joint program.

A strong economy and a strong exchange rate against major western currencies certain help too. The total number of students studying in foreign universities and colleges increased from 144,000 in 2007 to 170,000 in 2008. The number is expected to almost double in 2009.

Stanley Nel of University of San Francisco told China Daily that "Students used to tell me that they did not have the money to go to USF, and they needed full scholarships. That is not the case now." More than 80 students from mainland China has been admitted to USF this year.

Chinese College Students Can Do Math

A recent study published on Science showed the disturbing lagging of students' knowledge in science in the US.

What is more disturbing are the facts that the paper does not reveal. After the central government adopted a policy to stimulate internal consume, the annual enrollment of colleges was increased near 10 times, from less than 600,000 in 1990s to more than 6 millions overnight. Also, in Chinese education system, best universities are those mega-size national universities, and by and large, the quality of the university grows monotone with the number of students it has. In other words, all Chinese students who participated in the study are those who with so poor academic performance that they won't be able to attend a college 10 years ago.

Still these Chinese student were able to beat their US counterparts by a margin of 2:1 in science knowledge. Although the reasoning part showed comparable results, the overall capability of an individual is the product of knowledge and reasoning skills. Therefore, the final result still looks doom for US students.

What's even more disturbing is the shape of the distribution curve with grades of US students, which is almost a perfect shifted normal distribution. We would have expected a budge on the right hand side, which might reflect out liners of the public school systems and those who attend private schools. Alas, there are too few of them that no such budge could be detected.

In short, US won't be able to compete with China in the years to come.

Number of Public Universities in China by Province

Jiangsu: 118(44)
Shandong: 110(41)
Guangdong: 109(37)
Hunan: 99(27)
Anhui: 89(30)
Hebei: 88(33)
Hubei: 86(35)
Hanan: 82(31)
Beijing: 80(58)
Liaoning: 79(40)
Shannxi: 76(37)
Sichuan: 76(30)
Zhejiang: 73(28)
Fujian: 72(19)
Heilongjiang: 68(25)
Jiangxi: 66(20)
Shanghai: 60(31)
Shanxi: 59(17)
Guangxi: 56(18)
Yunnan: 51(17)
Tianjin: 46(18)
Jilin: 44(25)
Chongqing: 38(15)
Guizhou: 37(13)
Inner Mongolia: 37(10)
Gansu: 34(13)
Xinjiang: 31(11)
Hainan: 15(5)
Ningxia: 13(5)
Qinghai: 11(3)
Tibeten: 6(3)

Total: 1909(739)

Number of Colleges (within which number of colleges that confer bachelor degrees)
Data accurate as on May 18, 2007