the news in brief

(U-WIRE) CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – First-year college students are more likely to withdraw from… (U-WIRE) CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – First-year college students are more likely to withdraw from school if they take large introductory classes from part-time or adjunct professors, according to the results of a new study.

Audrey Jaeger, assistant professor of higher education at North Carolina State University, and M. Kevin Eagan, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently completed a study titled “Closing the Gate: Part-Time Faculty Instruction in Gatekeeper Courses and First-Year Persistence,” which compared the experiences of 30,000 students at four different institutions from 2002-05, Eagan said.

They specifically focused on foundational, or “gatekeeper” courses, in which at least 90 students were enrolled, Eagan said.

The research did not show a similar drop-out rate in classes taught by full-time faculty members not on a tenure track or by graduate instructors, causing Eagan and Jaeger to attribute the high drop-out rate at least in part to the amount of time the instructors spend on their college campuses, according to the study.

Part-time or adjunct professors and lecturers typically do not have office space on campus, Eagan said, and do not always hold office hours. Not being able to connect with instructors is detrimental to students, he added.

Senior faculty members often opt out of teaching large introductory courses, Eagan said, choosing instead to focus on research and teaching upper-level courses.

In addition to encouraging full-time faculty to teach introductory courses, Eagan said he and Jaeger recommend providing incentives to part-time instructors to spend time on campus.

Incentives could include office space or could be in the form of additional monetary compensation, he added. – Laura Hoffman, Cavalier Daily (U. Virginia)

(U-WIRE) CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Facebook, the Harvard-born online networking giant, unveiled a new chat feature Sunday that rivals Google’s popular Gmail chat program.

Harvard students said they were ambivalent about the launch, which Facebook engineer Josh Wiseman called on the official Facebook blog “a new way to communicate with your friends in real-time.”

A new chat bar appears at the bottom of the user’s browser when signed into Facebook, showing the online status of the user and other friends signed on the networking site. Availability is indicated by a green dot similar to the one on Google’s Gmail chat.

Facebook acknowledged yesterday on its blog post that it would be “rolling this out slowly going forward.”

As of yesterday afternoon, the Harvard Facebook network was one of a handful of other Ivies with access to the service. Students at University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Cornell, Princeton and Columbia said they did not have access to the service from former Harvard undergraduate and Facebook founder Mark E. Zuckerberg. – Alexander R. Konrad, Harvard Crimson (Harvard)

(U-WIRE) HARRISBURG – Joe Schwork referred to Pennsylvania as the “ashtray of the Northeast” Monday as he left the state capital.

Schwork (junior-information sciences and technology) and 13 other Penn State students joined more than 100 other college students from across the state to rally for Clean Indoor Air legislation in Harrisburg.

The Clean Indoor Air legislation would ban smoking in public indoor workplaces, Schwork said.

Penn State students from three groups – Project SmokeLess, Relay for Life and Rescue Lion – attended the event, sponsored by the American Cancer Society’s Colleges Against Cancer.

The purpose of the event was to “tell legislators all Pennsylvanians deserve the right to breathe clean indoor air,” said Joe Joyce, a senior at Ursinus College, in Collegeville.

According to a media alert from the American Cancer Society, a special conference committee is currently considering the legislation.

Schwork, co-leader of Project SmokeLess, met with Sen. Jake Corman’s aide. Schwork said Corman, R-Centre, is supportive of a comprehensive Clean Indoor Air bill but voted for a bill with exemptions in the Senate.

“His aide told us the reason why he voted for the bill was because he was in the mindset that something was better than nothing,” Schwork said.

Corman’s aide would not say whether Corman would vote for or against a compromised bill from House and Senate representatives until he sees the final language of the bill, Schwork said.

“[Corman’s aide] claims too many exemptions would be a ‘no,’ but they have to read it and digest it before they make a decision, so once the bill comes out, we’re probably going to follow up with Corman to see where he stands on it,” Schwork said.

A “Fight Back” rally was also held on the steps of the Capitol rotunda. – Heather Schmelzlen, Daily Collegian (Penn State)