Obama supports Esther Brimmer for Assistant Sec. of State
President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Esther Brimmer, a scholar at the Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, on March 6.
He also appointed Philip H. Gordon, a SAIS graduate (M.A. 1987, Ph.D. 1991) and a former professorial lecturer in the school's European Studies Program, as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Melanne Verveer as ambassador-at-large for Global Women's Issues.
Currently, Brimmer is the deputy director and director of research at SAIS's Center for Transatlantic Relations and lectures professionally.
As the assistant secretary of State for International Organizations, Brimmer will oversee policy relating to U.S. relations with the United Nations and other multilateral issues. She will be leading a bureau with posts at U.N. organizations in New York, Geneva, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Montreal and Nairobi.
Brimmer joined SAIS in November 2001 to specialize in transatlantic political and security affairs.
As a member of the State Department's Office of Policy Planning, she worked on the European Union, Western Europe, the U.N. and multilateral security issues from 1999 to 2001. She also served on the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in spring 2000.
Brimmer also managed projects as a senior associate at the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict and served as a special assistant to the undersecretary of State for Political Affairs after earning her master's and doctorate degrees in international relations at the University of Oxford.
Senate instates Harvard's Elena Kagan as solicitor
The United States Senate voted 61-31 in favor of Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, confirming her as the nation's first female solicitor general on March 19.
Although Kagan's nomination as solicitor general was met with initial enthusiasm, the vote on Thursday revealed unexpected Republican opposition, which was fuelled after a spat with Senator Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary committee, over Kagan's unwillingness to answer several questions from the Pennsylvania Republican about her legal views.
Kagan gained only eight Republican votes in support of her nomination.
Kagan also received criticism over her opposition to the Solomon Amendment, which allows military recruiters on college campuses, and her lack of court experience.
Professor Charles Fried, a prominent conservative at Harvard Law School who served as solicitor general under President Reagan, dismissed the criticism by some Republican senators as political posturing following a long line of right-wing opposition to the Obama administration.
He and other former solicitor generals submitted a joint letter to the Judiciary Committee endorsing Kagan's appointment.
Private colleges see decline in number of apps
Many private colleges, especially top liberal arts schools, experienced declines in applications this year. Application numbers declined by 20 percent at Williams College, 12 percent at Middlebury college and 10 percent at Swarthmore College, while other colleges had smaller declines.
In contrast, Ivy League institutions did not see any significant declines.
Only University of Pennsylvania went down in application numbers, and the decrease was only 90 applications.
Admissions experts attribute the decline in application numbers to both the economic downturn and a natural fluctuation in the admissions cycle.
Michele Hernandez, president of Hernandez College Consulting, noted that "of course the economy affects the numbers of applicants at expensive top-tier liberal arts schools," but explained that some change is normal from year to year.
Michael Chimes, director of college guidance at the Gill St. Bernard's School in New Jersey, has noticed this trend as well. He stressed that "families are nervous about their economic futures, and the price tags of the more expensive private institutions, like Penn, are very intimidating." Chimes also noted the large expense of applying to 10 or more schools, which made students "pull back" from applying to too many colleges this year.
Colleges typically worry about declines in applications because the effects inflate their acceptance rate. U.S. News & World Report factors in acceptance rates when determining rankings, according to the magazine's Web site.
Kent State Univ. keeps students with 0.5 GPAs
Kent State University decided to keep first-year students with a grade point average below 0.5 for the current semester.
0.5 has been the minimum FPA for first-semester freshmen and first-semester transfer students to avoid dismissal. Due to the recent decision made by administrators, the students will have a second chance.
Senior Associate Provost Tim Chandler asked, "Is it fair and reasonable to dismiss a student after one semester? For many students, coming to a university is a really big change and for some of them, [it] takes more than one semester to get used to the idea of what college is all about."
At the end of Fall 2008, 350 first-semester freshmen and first-semester transfer students were to have been dismissed.
Due to the University's decision, the students were allowed to register for Spring 2009. However, only 157 students came back. Administrators attributed this decline in students to outside circumstances that students have not yet resolved, such as family situations, but in the eyes of various other administrators, some students are simply not ready to attend college. Two Ds and two Fs equal a 0.5 GPA based on 12 credit hours. Those students who came back are expected to drastically improve their grades.
The students who registered again are required to line up with certain policies depending on each college. In the College of Arts, students must have a mandatory meeting with advisors on a regular basis and in the College of Business Administration, they must register for a student success class. Regardless of any college, none of the students may take pass/fail classes.
Md. confirms plan to restrict death penalty
The House of Delegates committee of Maryland approved the senate's plan to restrict capital punishment to cases with specific kinds of evidence last Friday.
This measure will be a major step toward added restrictions on Maryland's death penalty that could receive final legislative approval.
Under the proposal of the Senate, prosecutors may only seek capital punishment in murder cases where the crime was caught on videotape, the defendant confesses on video tape or DNA or biological evidence links the defendant to the crime.
Governor Martin O'Malley had called to abolish the death penalty, which the House seemed ready to follow.
However, the governor this week urged delegates to abandon the repeal in favor of the Senate plan.
When the 47-member Senate rejected O'Malley's repeal attempt earlier this month and instead approved limitations on the existing statute, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, a Democrat and death penalty supporter, said his chamber would not take up any further debate this session.
O'Malley, a Democrat, and other death penalty opponents, acknowledged that reform was the best they could hope for this year.
