By Stephanie VanderVelden

As political tension surges across Egypt, chaos is affecting groups beyond Egyptian citizens. Students from several American colleges and universities are currently studying abroad in Egypt, specifically in Cairo; the epicenter of the ordeal. The protests denouncing President Hosni Mubarak have erupted in violence, putting citizens and students at risk. Emergency evacuations have been organized to remove American students from increasingly dangerous conditions.

Students staying in dorms and with host families witnessed the violence first hand. Sounds of gun fire and protesters with weapons forced students to stay inside as the violence increased. Egyptian security teams guarded university dorms from approaching looters as students watched from inside.

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Jim Lehrer was born on May 19, 1934 to Lois Catherine and Harry Lehrer in Wichita, Kansas. Lehrer is a well-known American journalist and is the news anchor for PBS Newshour. He is sometimes called the “Dean of Moderators” because he has presided over 11 presidential candidate debates, including the most recent debate between President Obama and McCain. EDUinReview will now take a look at the education background of this talented television newscaster.

Lehrer was born in Kansas and spent his early childhood there, but his family moved to Texas before he was in middle school. He attended middle school in Beaumont, Texas and high school in San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, where he was a sports editor for The Jefferson Declaration, the school’s newspaper.

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According to a study authored by a pair of marketing professors, students are prone to stretching the truth on teacher evaluations.

About a third of the students surveyed admitted to stretching the truth at one point, and 20% said they lied in the comments section. While some did it to make teachers they liked look good, a majority did it to punish those they didn’t like.

As a former adjunct professor, this is an issue that concerns me a lot, so I’d really like to understand what’s going on with this lying. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section and I will respond to them.

First, I’ll address the main issue: Especially for adjuncts and part-time professors, teaching evaluations are the main way we’re evaluated by our superiors. A bunch of bad evaluations means we won’t keep our jobs.

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Authorities found the body of Jenni-Lyn Watson on Saturday. Watson, a 20-year-old ballerina at Mercyhurst College, went home to Liverpool, N.Y.  for her Thanksgiving break and was missing since Nov. 19. Now, her ex-fiancé is accused of her murder.

Twenty-one-year-old Steven Pieper, also from Liverpool, had a year-long engagement with Watson and was arrested late afternoon on Saturday. He is charged with second-degree murder.

One of Watson’s closest friends, Mallory Otis, spoke with Pieper after she heard her friend had gone missing.

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A drama professor at Green River Community College has been accused of committing voyeurism with a female student. Last week, a probable-caused document was filed against drama professor Gary K. Taylor. The document claims that Taylor hid a camera in a women’s dressing room, in order to record a college student as she changed her clothes.

Taylor lured the student into the dressing room by asking her to participate in an interview for the school newspaper about an upcoming school play. The student agreed to be interviewed, and Taylor asked her to step into the dressing room to change into a dress for the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

A human skull, which once-upon-a-time served as Albany College’s mascot, was long-ago seized by the sheriff’s department for investigation. The skull was brought to show-and-tell by a grade school boy in 1984, where it was reported to authorities and became part of a decades-old cold case.

The Linn County Sheriff’s Department recently re-examined the case and in doing so, they believe they’ve traced the skull back to its days for the Albany College Pirates, where is served as the skull in the skull and cross bones display.

It’s impossible to know where the skull came from for sure, because the institution moved to Portland, Oregon in 1943 and is now known as Lewis and Clark College, but what we do know is that professionals at the University of Oregon have determined that the skull most likely belonged to a Native American woman. Upon the discovery of this information, the skull was given to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde for proper care. Read the rest of this entry »

Artist Lynette Cook's conception shows the inner four planets of the Gliese 581 system

Generation Y might still be fumbling to fix their textbooks after NASA announced that Pluto was no longer a planet, but stop the presses once again, because scientists are saying they may have finally discovered a planet similar in structure to Earth!

Astronomer Nader Haghighipour from the University of Hawaii at Manoa has announced with his team that the potential new planet was found by a telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea.

The planet supposedly has water on the surface, is in the Libra constellation 20 light years away and orbits the small star, Gliese 581. The rocky planet has strong gravity and is thought to be 30 percent bigger than Earth. Five other planets orbit Gliese 581 as well. The scientists on Haghighipour’s team have 238 unique observation of Gliese 581 and have been monitoring the star for 11 years. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week we’ll recap the biggest news in education headlines to keep you informed of what’s affecting policy, higher education, public education and more.

Obama Makes Community Colleges a Budget Priority

President Obama shifted some of his intent educational focus to community colleges recently. He says it’s a move that could make education more accessible and affordable to so many who’ve otherwise ignored it.

New York City Schools Eliminates Parent-Paid Teaching Aides

The city of New York may have a fight on its hands as teacher aides, paid for my parent organizations, are removed from the classrooms. Read the rest of this entry »