Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to rely on student loans to pay for tuition? With recent college grads slowly drowning in a pool of debt, many of them are probably wishing that they had another way to pay for college.

In Indiana, September is a time to save for the future, more specifically, college. Gov. Mitch Daniels declared September “College Savings Month.”

Gov. Daniels wants College Savings Month to be a time for families across the state of Indiana to look to the future and consider the importance of higher education. He also wants parents to recognize the positive influence a college education can have on their children’s future. The state is encouraging parents to look into CollegeChoice 529 Savings Plans.

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The first four-year Muslim college in the United States will open its doors for its first semester this year.

Zaytuna College is located in Berkeley, California, near the University of California – Berkeley, and will only offer two degree programs this year: Islamic Law and Theology, and Arabic. These degree programs were developed with an ideology of teaching students about Islam, while staying within a Western history and culture context. Another goal of the founders of Zaytuna is to promote a level of understanding between the Western and Islamic worlds.

“We feel the college is very important in that it provides a grounding for the community in its own tradition—not in a sense to create a difference with the larger society, but to actually normalize its presence within the larger society, that there is no contradiction between being an American and being Muslim,” said Hatem Bazian, a co-founder of Zaytuna College. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you in the market for a new school bag? Do you also want to lower your carbon footprint? Then you’ll want to check out Rickshaw Bagworks’ Zero messenger bag. The “Zero” means that there’s zero manufacturing wastes created by making the bag. Plus, the bag is made entirely from recycled fabric in San Franscisco. It comes in three sizes, so you can pick the pack that matches your workload.

The new tweed styles are particularly fashionable for this fall. This classic fabric ensures that your bag will be in style for a long time. If you’re looking for something a little more eye-popping, they also carry a whole rainbow of colors, all with a stain-resistant coating.

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It’s conventional wisdom that smaller classes are better for students, who will receive more individualized attention. Smaller classes, particularly of younger students, are also easier for teachers to manage. But as budget cuts get passed in response to lower tax-revenue, schools are asking how much worse bigger classes will be.

Various studies that have been conducted on the issue disagree. A landmark study conducted in Tennessee, called The Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio project, or STAR project, found that kindergarten and first-graders did significantly better academically in classes of 13 to 17 students, compared with classes of 22 to 25 students. However, these findings apply to a student population consisting of low-income families.

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In Ocononowoc, Wisconsin, students will be getting greener rides to school. The Oconomowoc transportation department now has 11 hybrid school buses in its fleet. The buses run on a combination of plug-in electric, solar power and diesel fuel. Each bus uses diesel to start, and then switches to electric power when it reaches a speed of about 25 miles per hour.

“We’re increasing the fuel economy by 50 percent, we’re reducing emissions by 30 to 40 percent,” says Sandy Syburg, president of Oconomowoc Transport. The city paid for the original buses, and the hybrid upgrade was funded by a grant from the Wisconsin Clean Transportation Program, a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

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At the University of West Florida, visiting professor Mark James asks his students to close their laptops and put away their cell phones. Although James is not against technology, he has decided to make his English literature classes gadget-free. “The students seemed more involved in the discussion than when I allowed them to go online,” he told The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Let’s face it, most students who bring their laptops to class to “take notes” really spend most of their time on Facebook. Aside from the distraction, some professors feel that the use of too much technology in classrooms takes away some of the professor-student interaction that is key to learning. Students may feel like they participate more in lectures if the professor is writing the notes as they talk, rather than reading from a PowerPoint slide. Of course, class size, subject and course level all have special considerations when it comes to the technology debate. Some find that new technologies just don’t work in the kinds of classes they teach. Read the rest of this entry »

A day after graduation, Eileen Coppola resigned as principal of the prestigious New York City Hunter College High School. She presented a notice of no confidence to the president of Hunter College, who is responsible for the administration of the high school.

The controversy at the school stems from the use of a single test to determine who is accepted to Hunter College High School. The test was written decades ago and has changed little over the years. In order to better their chances of acceptance, affluent families turn to professional test preparation. Many argue that the admissions criteria should be expanded to include interviews or portfolio reviews. In fact, a faculty committee recommended the changes, saying that these measures could increase diversity at the school. Only one percent of Hunter College High School student body is Hispanic, and three percent are black. Seventy percent of the students in the public school system are black and Hispanic. Read the rest of this entry »

Some say that beauty pageant contestants aren’t exactly the smartest girls in the world, but Rima Fakih, the 2010 Miss USA, easily proves them wrong.

Fakih immigrated to Queens, New York in 1993 with her family when she was seven years old from Sour, Lebanon. She attended St. John’s Preparatory School and graduated in 2003, when she was only 17 years old.

After she graduated, Fakih attended the University of Michigan. While in college, Fakih earned her bachelor of arts in economics, and also earned a minor in business administration. Read the rest of this entry »

As a part of this year’s National Hazing Prevention Week taking place on September 20-24, 2010, Sigma Nu, the Interfraternity Council Member Fraternity, is spearheading a social media campaign. Over the course of 40 days, Sigma Nu will release via their Twitter channel a comprehensive list of arguments against the 40 most common heard excuses for sorority and fraternity hazing.

The project began on August 11, 2010 and since then a team of contributors have blogged, tweeted and Facebook posted a different excuse daily using the Twitter official hash tag #40Answers.

This is the first social media campaign to combat hazing in Greek Life and is slated to become a popular resource for Greeks against hazing to ensure a quality fraternity and sorority experience for organization members

Numerous organizations within Panhellenic, National-Panhellenic, Interfraternity and Diversified Greek Councils have committed to endorsing and supporting the campaign.

Here is the list of scheduled tweets:

•    August 11, 2010 Pledges must pay their dues to become a member.
•    August 12, 2010 Hazing teaches pledges to respect their elders.
•    August 13, 2010 Pledges must learn to appreciate the fraternity.
•    August 14, 2010 I don’t think _________ is hazing. Read the rest of this entry »

The town of Puerto Asis in southwest Columbia is on high alert after three teenagers have been murdered in the last 10 days after their names appeared on a kill list, along with 66 others, that was posted on the social networking website, Facebook.

While the Colombian police are investigating the murders, it is unclear as to who posted the list on Facebook, how the victims are related to one another or why they were selected for the list. Read the rest of this entry »