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Archive for April, 2007

Enrollment Management update 4/26/07

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Admissions:
Marilee Jones, the Dean of Admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), resigned from her post today “after it was confirmed that she had ‘misrepresented her academic degrees to the Institute,’ Dean for Undergraduate Education Daniel E. Hastings announced in an e-mail to the MIT community today.”

According to Jones, “I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to MIT 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my resume when I applied for my current job or at any time since.”

Hastings stated that “the process of admitting the incoming class continues without disruption.”

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April 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pm

Random Post 4/18/07

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Thanks for reading. Cheers!

Written by Eric Stoller

April 18th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

Moving towards equality

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Basic Rights Oregon - Victory - House Bill 2007 and Senate Bill 2

via Basic Rights Oregon:

Today, after nearly 4 hours of debate on the House floor, both The Oregon Family Fairness Act (House Bill 2007) and The Oregon Equality Act (Senate Bill 2) passed the Oregon House with bipartisan support.

Senate Bill 2 will ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in areas such as employment, housing, public accommodation and public education.

House Bill 2007 will create a new statute in Oregon law, separate from Oregon’s marriage statutes, to provide same-sex couples with Domestic Partnerships. These Domestic Partnerships provide Oregon’s same-sex couples and their families with many of the basic protections, rights, and responsibilities under state law, currently only afforded through a marriage contract. It differs substantially from marriage in several ways – including that the protections of Domestic Partnerships are not portable outside the boundaries of Oregon.

The Next Steps:
House Bill 2007 will now move to the Oregon Senate for committee hearing and floor vote. Senate Bill 2, which passed the Senate on March 21st in a vote of 21-7, will go back to the Senate for a concurrence vote on amendments to the religious exemption made in the House Rules Committee.

If passed in the Senate, as expected, the bills will be sent to Governor Kulongoski, who has pledged to sign both pieces of legislation.

Written by Eric Stoller

April 17th, 2007 at 3:08 pm

The right to bear arms

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Horrible events have transpired today at Virginia Tech.

Why in the hell is it necessary that we have the “right” to bear arms? Hunting? Self-defense? Why do we need to have guns? I mean this is just crazy. The University of Utah cannot even legally bar guns on their campus.

Why are handguns in the possession of anyone who is not a police officer? I could care less about gun control or adding more regulations for gun possession. I feel that guns should not be produced and sold. Having access to guns while growing up in Iowa did not make me more of U.S. citizen or a patriot. I feel that the right to bear arms is an antiquated policy that does nothing except provide fodder for political polarization.

How do guns, and the right to bear them, benefit humanity?

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Written by Eric Stoller

April 16th, 2007 at 1:11 pm

Inner monologuing with Adam

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My current plate of consulting activities is currently full of heaping portions of projects. Thus the rationale for my recent spurt of blog posts. If I can get a lot of posts up in a short period of time then I may have more time to be productive. I could always go on another blogging hiatus but I’d rather not…

One of the aspects of blogging that seems to derail my productivity is the never ending buffet of comments from heterosexual white guys (hwg’s). My skin is fairly thick but my inner monologue always buzzes at me to address comments from hwg’s. In case you are wondering, I’m a card carrying member of the hwg club. I think that sometimes my identity is difficult to swallow for a lot of the hwg’s who wander to my site. It does not surprise me…if I had met me about 3 or 4 years ago I would have probably had difficulty digesting the social justice banquet that is set on the table of this blog. Here’s to life-long learning, good friends, and listening.

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Enrollment Management update 4/10/07

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Rankings:
A lot of enrollment management administrators ponder the effects of the U.S. News and World Report college rankings report. The report can lead to a lot of free publicity for those schools that are fortunate enough to be ranked by U.S News.

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April 10th, 2007 at 12:42 pm

Blackboard Community System

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Blackboard Community System

Blackboard had an amazing booth at the NASPA/ACPA Joint Meeting in Orlando. It was the size of small house and it looked like one too! Inside their mini-mansion, the folks from Blackboard were demoing their portal solution, the Blackboard Community System.

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Strategic Student Affairs Technology planning

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Sam’s Station

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Sam’s Station owners, managers, and staff, please read the following – “The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: A Handbook For Implementing Great Service in Your Organization.

I love the #3 — Spinach, Tomato, and Parmesan Cheese Omelet. It is one of my favorite breakfast dishes. However, something has to be done about the appalling lack of customer service at Sam’s Station. Consistently poor customer service will drive customers away. If only Sam’s Station did not have a chokehold on the Corvallis omelet market…

Are there any other places in Corvallis, Oregon that can make an omelet with spinach, tomato, and parmesan cheese? All I’m asking for is a little bit of attention, a few coffee refills, maybe some water, etc.

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and sometimes I want an omelet on Saturdays…

Written by Eric Stoller

April 9th, 2007 at 4:31 pm

Al Gore – NASPA/ACPA Joint Meeting

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Al Gore

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Here is the first 30 minutes of Al Gore’s keynote at the NASPA/ACPA 2007 Joint Meeting. [27 mb mp3]

The talk was fairly similar to An Inconvenient Truth. Vice President Gore used an Apple MacBook Pro and Keynote 3.0 to deliver his presentation. It’s probably the best infographic talk that I have ever witnessed. The content and the presentation were stellar.

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Written by Eric Stoller

April 8th, 2007 at 3:25 pm