University of Iowa names president
The University of Iowa has selected David J. Skorton, vice president for research and external relations at Iowa, to become its next president, according to The Daily Iowan.
Skorton, 53, who has been at the university since 1980, was one of six finalist who were interviewed for the position by the Iowa Board of Regents. Skorton will officially assume the position March 1 with a salary of $281,875, and will move into the president’s mansion.
He has been involved throughout the university in a number of ways, as a heart doctor and engineer; co-founder of the UI Adolescent and Adult Congenital Heart Disease Clinic; and as host of “As Night Falls — Latin jazz” a two-hour radio program on the university’s public FM radio station.
Skorton said he hopes to reach out to the state to help with the state economy and budget for higher education, according to The Daily Iowan.
Skorton will replace Mary Sue Coleman, who left Iowa in August for the presidential slot at the University of Michigan. Edward J. Ray, provost of Ohio State, was also a finalist for the position.
Physicist reports flaws in missile
The New York Times reported on speculations surrounding the Lincoln Laboratory, a federally funded and prestigious research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Theodore A. Postol, a tenured physicist in security studies at MIT, told the Times the university is hiding serious flaws it found during testing of “Patriots,” the nation’s main antimissile weapon. The weapons are ground-based rockets meant to destroy incoming enemy warheads before impact.
The Lincoln Laboratory directed the report on the “Patriots,” which concluded the weapons could sense the difference between enemy warheads and decoys.
William Cohen, secretary of defense, supported Postol’s remarks, and said the “Patriots didn’t work,” according to the article in the Times. Postol claims the president and provost of MIT knew about the inaccuracies, and did nothing to correct the information. University officials deny any wrong doing.
Diving stocks repel donors from colleges
Plummeting stock prices are not only the cause of concern for economists and stockbrokers, but also for the leaders of private colleges, according to the Associated Press.
Private colleges have relied on income from investments which have been given to the school by donors. Oberlin College depends on investments to establish its endowment funds, which accounts for one-fourth, $150 million, of its budget. Budget cuts, lay-offs and elimination of programs were results of declining values of the investments which support the endowment funds.
Similarly, Ohio Dominican University is putting a hold on the purchases of new equipment and is cutting back on publications in response to the dip in its endowment funds.
Private schools depend on endowment funds much like public universities rely on tax dollars. Ohio State utilizes funds for 2 percent of its budget.
— compiled by Amanda Wurst
