Education

Several Tampa City Council members are coming to USF  to answer students' questions tonight at a forum, sponsored by the student government of USF.

They will be discussing the city's economic future and how to keep USF graduates in Tampa. They will also explain how students can get more involved in local government.

Event coordinator Abdool Aziz says the event is a good opportunity for students.

You know Democrats and their allies plan to use  cuts to Medicare included in the U.S. House budget against presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and any other member of the GOP running for office this fall.

At a press conference in Tampa Thursday, Democrats ran out another line of attack on what the House budget would cut — college aid.

U.S. Rep Kathy Castor, a Democrat, and Hillsborough Community College president Ken Atwater raised the alarm about $170 billion in cuts to the federal Pell Grant program within the House budget.

The University of South Florida now ranks 50th in the nation for research expenditures, among all U.S. universities, public or private.

The new ranking by the National Science Foundation places USF in the elite class of research universities, joining Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Yale and Harvard within the top rankings nationwide. USF is second in Florida only to the University of Florida.

Some USF St. Petersburg students are learning the nuts and bolts of presidential campaigns by volunteering for them in a political science class called “Road to the White House.” 

This week's University Beat on WUSF Public Media introduces you to Professor Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan and some of her students, and tells you about some of the experiences, from meeting the candidates to debating reality TV stars.

Professors at the University of South Florida Polytechnic and University of South Florida at St. Petersburg earn a higher average salary than colleagues at USF's flagship Tampa campus, according to data compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Professors at USF Poly earn $124,400, on average, or $17,200 more than the average professor at the Tampa campus.

University of Miami professors reported the highest average pay in the state at $140,800.

Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is working on an alternative version of the DREAM Act, which would allow some undocumented youths and young adults a pathway to citizenship.

Rubio's version would require undocumented immigrants wait to become citizens, he told the Tampa Bay Times, but would allow those who qualify to remain in the U.S. legally while waiting.

The federal government has decided not to intervene in a false claims suit filed against USF by a former doctoral candidate.

That student accused College of Medicine researchers of falsifying scientific data to win federal and state research grants. 

It's not the U.S. News list of top universities, but the University of South Florida is at least getting the attention of another national media outlet. 

Citing its research power, the Washington Post's "College Inc." website has named USF as one of five "up-and-coming" universities.

The Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based, think tank that has been an ardent supporter of school choice, has published a piece opposing the ‘parent trigger.’

The law allows the majority of parents at chronically low-performing schools to petition for one of four methods to overhaul their schools, including replacing administrators and staff, closing the school or converting to a charter school.

The Miami high school attended by Trayvon Martin, the student shot and killed by a neighborhood watch leader in Central Florida, held a moment of silence for Martin this morning, students and staff have told StateImpact Florida.

Students at Dr. Michael M. Krop High School say it is the first acknowledgement of Martin’s death since he was killed while visiting his father’s girlfriend’s home near Orlando.

Donal B. O'Shea has been chosen to be the next president of New College of Florida in Sarasota.  The school's Board of Trustees voted unanimously in favor of the appointment on Saturday.

Dr. O'Shea comes to Sarasota from South Hadley, Massachusetts, where he is the dean of faculty and vice president for Academic Affairs at Mount Holyoke College.  

The University of South Florida Polytechnic is not recruiting faculty or students while lawmakers debate the school's future, its interim regional chancellor told The Lakeland Ledger.

From the story:

It's not an atmosphere under which a quality academic staff can be drawn in, said Touchton  "We just feel like we need to wait and see what happens."  Advertisements ­previously posted for various open positions have been discontinued.