Santa makes early visit / Salvation Army distributes food, toys & clothes to more than 270 famil - News - Ashland Times-Gazette - Ashland, OH
A yearlong collection of toys and donations culminated in a countywide Salvation Army Christmas distribution at the Eagles Club 2178, just north of the city off Ohio 58.
The distribution provided families in need with food and toys and clothes for their children. More than 270 families -- nearly 1,000 individuals -- were helped during the event.
"It's a challenge to be a part of this event and not feel like you should reach into your pocket and give more," said Matt Miller, Salvation Army business and development administrator.
Miller, who joined the Salvation Army staff in October, helped with the distribution for the first time Wednesday.
"It's really interesting to see," said Eagles member Tom Wittman of Ashland, who participated in the event for the first time. "I like to see this going on."
Renee Kemper of Ashland also was a new face among volunteers. After helping more than 10 years ago, Kemper returned to the scene to lend a hand.
Kemper, a former Archway employee, said she had more time this season and wanted to aid in the Christmas distribution. Seeing kids come in and pick out toys warmed her heart.
Toys were arranged on tables, separated by age group. There were piles of board games, books, candy and stuffed animals. Even Spiderman, Hannah Montana and Iron
"I think what's incredible is to see the quality of food and items we're providing to families," Miller said. "People who have given to the Salvation Army will be very pleased to see how far their gifts have been stretched."
Miller said a donation of even a penny goes a long way with Salvation Army, thanks to deals the agency receives at local retailers. The agency currently is holding a Million Pennies for Christmas drive to collect additional funds to help the community this Christmas.
Funds collected by the Salvation Army are used for the Christmas distribution as well as 700 on-site meals each month, rent and utility payments, children and teen activities and a pantry open daily.
Cardiff University is “in no way unusual” in hiring more than a dozen academics on relatively short-term contracts timed to expire shortly after the research excellence framework census date, an academic has claimed.
The positions are mentioned in documents provided to trade unions ahead of redundancy consultations for positions terminating between November 2013 and January 2014.
The documents highlight 13 posts in which the “relevant factor” for redundancy relates to the REF. One entry states, for instance, that the postholder has been hired “to produce research outputs that will enhance the contribution to the School’s REF submission”.
All the posts are senior-level appointments and many are part-time, typically a fifth of full-time contracts (the minimum required for the REF). The majority of the appointments, which are spread across the university, are for two years or fewer, with one lasting around nine-tenths of a year.
The Cardiff academic who shared the information with Times Higher Education, who did not want to be named, admitted that there might be “legitimate reasons” for the appointments, but believed their timing amounted to REF “game-playing”.
“The cost to the university is limited because the post is part-time and fixed term, but the resulting profile is clearly not an accurate reflection of the research environment or output capacity of the university, because the actual research may have been conducted [elsewhere]…and also because the posts terminate as soon as the outputs have been counted in the REF,” the academic said.
A spokeswoman for Cardiff said that most of the posts were for retiring academics who had agreed to short-term extensions “to continue their research and teaching”. The extensions allowed – in line with the academics’ wishes – “high-quality research” conducted by them at Cardiff to “be returned for the REF”.
Some of the other academics in question had moved to different universities, she said, but “wanted to maintain their connection with Cardiff and agreed short-term, part-time contracts on a similar basis”. The spokeswoman added: “In all these cases, Cardiff is entirely within the REF guidelines on academics eligible for return.”
The Cardiff academic did not believe that the institution’s approach was unusual, a view echoed by another source, who told THE of rumours that several economics departments across the UK were planning to recruit US-based scholars for as little as two weeks around the REF census date.
“The main point is that it illustrates a problem with the REF process and undermines its credibility. It is hard to see how this farce is in the public interest,” the Cardiff academic said.
This view was endorsed by Gill Evans, emeritus professor of medieval theology and intellectual history at the University of Cambridge. She said the “loophole” in the rules was greatly to the advantage of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, both in areas “crammed with senior scholars who are retired or are from overseas and choose to live locally”.
But Graeme Rosenberg, REF manager at the Higher Education Funding Council for England, said that stories of institutions bringing in staff on short-term contracts had emerged during every edition of the old research assessment exercise.
“However, the numbers have proved to be small, and we therefore did not consider it necessary to change the rules to prevent this,” he said.
Swansea University has said it will consider entering the work of 18 “distinguished research professors” into the research excellence framework even though none of them is based at the institution and some spend only a fifth of their time working for it.
A spokesman for the university said that the “REF profile” of the professors, who joined in February, was a “consideration” in their appointment, as it was with any new member of staff.
He confirmed that Swansea would consider entering research published by the professors before they had any connection with the university.
The scholars, who hail from the US, Australia and continental Europe as well as the UK, have “global reputations”, according to Swansea’s website.
“The appointments are spread across all six academic Colleges and will further strengthen our reputation for research excellence as we seek to fulfil our ambition of becoming one of the world’s top 200 universities by 2020,” it says.
In a press release issued in mid-June, Swansea says that the professors will spend “the equivalent of a fifth of their time” working for the institution.
But the spokesman said that not all were on 0.2 full-time equivalent contracts, although he did not provide further details or reveal how much had been spent on them in time for Times Higher Education’s deadline.
When the professors were appointed, a press release said they would “spend a proportion of their time working with colleagues in Swansea to build and to strengthen global research collaborations and to enhance the vitality and sustainability of our research environment”.
The appointees include Theresa Fossum, professor of veterinary surgery at Texas A Mark Bevir, professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley; and Maud Ellmann, professor of the development of the novel at the University of Chicago.
Lecturers creating electronic course packs will be able to clear copyright on material scanned in from printed books and journals, under a licensing scheme launched last week by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
The CLA is working on a series of schemes for sectors of industry and education, that will permit the creation, storage and exploitation of digital versions made from printed works. The agency's chief executive, Peter Shepherd, said the electronic licence had been developed in response to requests from photocopy licensees.
The first electronic licences will be offered to higher education and the pharmaceuticals sector. CLA will also administer, in association with the Royal National Institute for the Blind, a scheme to meet the special needs of the visually impaired. A modified version for further education needs is planned.
"Digitisation offers users greater use of published material for little extra cost, and publishers have a duty to increase their readership," said Rene Olivieri, Blackwell Publishers' managing director, who sees this initiative as significant because authors, publishers and users have reached an agreement by understanding of mutual needs.
Scanning paper books and journals produces image files that are an exact (though perhaps less sharp) replica of the printed version. The CLA scheme not only covers image files but extends to text files created from them by optical character recognition (OCR). Text files are searchable and generally more useful. Because they are more compact than image files, they are more suitable for distribution over a campus network. But as OCR is error-prone, licensees will be required to append a notice warning that the digitised copy may differ from the original.
Edward Barrow, CLA's business development manager for new technologies, explained that no payment would be required to join the scheme, but institutions would be asked to sign an agreement. The Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals is understood to be giving its approval to these terms. Publishers using the standard agreement will be free to set their own prices.
The scheme meets a transitional need and will not apply to material published electronically, for which separate arrangements must be made with publishers.
When designing 1999/2000 course material, lecturers will give bibliographic details to their library which will contact the CLA to check whether the material is available in digital form. The CLA will quote for permission to make a digital copy, calculating a usage charge based on the number of students on the course. A database of material digitised by different universities is planned.
Institutions wanting to give students 24-hour access to course materials now must weigh the costs of running a wired campus and paying for electronic copies against the expense of the alternative, which is to extend library opening hours.
An academic faces an investigation over his decision to stage a live sex show for students involving a sex toy called a "fucksaw". John Bailey, who teaches a popular human sexuality course at Northwestern University in the US, held an after-class event for students with a 25-year-old woman volunteer and her 45-year-old fiancé. According to reports on 3 March, the woman, who is not a student, was "repeatedly stimulated by a motorized sex toy called a 'fucksaw' on stage". In a statement explaining the session, Professor Bailey says he agreed to stage the demonstration when the volunteers suggested it because he "did not wish, and do not wish, to surrender to sex negativity and fear". In a statement, Northwestern president Morton Schapiro says he is "troubled and disappointed by what occurred". He says: "I have directed that we investigate fully the specifics of this incident, and also clarify what constitutes appropriate pedagogy, both in this instance and in the future."
A Scottish university has announced it is to cut up to 95 jobs in a bid to save £5 million from its annual running costs. It was reported on 4 March that Glasgow Caledonian University needed to make savings of £12 million a year by 2014 as a result of cuts in government funding. It has already saved £5 million, with £7 million still to find. The latest proposals may save a further £5 million by July 2012. In a statement, the university says a consultation has been launched on its proposals, which could affect about 6 per cent of its 1,613 staff.
A US college basketball star has been suspended from his team for having premarital sex. Brandon Davies plays for Brigham Young University in the Mormon stronghold of Salt Lake City, Utah. He faces dismissal not only from the team but also from university after admitting to having sex with his girlfriend and breaching his pledge to "live a chaste and virtuous life", it was reported on 4 March. The university said an "honour code review" would determine whether the 6ft 9in tall 19-year-old's expulsion would be permanent. Jimmer Fredette, one of Mr Davies' teammates, said: "He told us he was sorry he let us down. We told him it's OK. Sometimes in life we make mistakes."
Tuition fees for home students in Scotland are expected to be ruled out for at least the next five years, raising fears about the future of university funding in the country. It was reported on 5 March that Labour and the Liberal Democrats have ruled out introducing fees after this year's Holyrood election. Labour had previously indicated that it was in favour of some sort of graduate contribution. The announcement, expected to be mirrored by the Scottish National Party, follows a warning that Scottish universities are facing a funding gap of £93 million. When the fee cap rises to £9,000 a year in England in 2012, the share of the Scottish block grant earmarked for higher education will fall.
A university lecturer who is also the imam of an East London mosque has received death threats for expressing his views on evolution and women's rights. It was reported on 7 March that Usama Hasan, senior lecturer in engineering at Middlesex University and an imam at Leyton mosque, ceased leading Friday prayers after 25 years when protesters disrupted one of his sermons by calling for his execution. A leaflet handed out by the protesters says that any Muslim who believes in evolution is an "apostate" who "must be executed". An online petition that expresses "horror" at Dr Hasan's stance, not only on evolution but also on allowing women to appear in public without a veil, has apparently been signed by 1,000 people.
English universities are more financially reliant on non-European Union students than ever before, according to funding chiefs. A report published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England on 7 March says that fee income from foreign students grew by 17.8 per cent in 2009-10, contributing a total of 9.6 per cent of all income, the highest level to date. The report comes at a time of great concern among vice-chancellors over government plans to restrict the number of student visas.
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