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Tues October 21, 2002
What They
Didn't Tell
Us About the Cuts
By Thomas Hobbs, Staff Writer
FRESNO STATE --
[Editor's
Note: The following discussion and analysis provides an overview
of the financial position and activities of the California State
University for the year ended June 30, 2002 in its entirety, including
recognized auxiliary organizations. Click
here to download the official and most recent official California
State University Audited Financial Statment & a pdf
note on the resulting
fiscal crisis.]
Comment
©1958-2003 Bulldog Newspaper Foundation.
All Rights Reserved.
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October 10, 2003
Save Mart Center
Bond Status Questions
By
Howard E. Hobbs Ph.D., Editor & Publisher
FRESNO STATE -- Universities like Fresno State that sell tax-exempt
bonds to pay for construction of athletic venues like The Save Mart
Center and then make lucrative deals to sell the naming rights to
the facility might soon have to face the loss of purported tax-free
status of those bonds.
Then, the Internal Revenue Service quietly
issued a ruling just made public in recent days, that the privileges
gained by individual donors and corporations that purchase naming
rights to such facilities as the Save Mart Center, count as a "personal-business
use" of that property.
Tax law states that if the value of personal-business
use exceeds a certain proportion of the value of the property and
the costs of debt service on it, the bonds' tax-exempt status is
revoked.
Public institutions like California
State University, Fresno can only make deals worth up to 10
percent of the value of property and 10 percent of the amount of
debt, while most private nonprofit organizations have a maximum
of 5 percent. Of course, the rule does not apply to for-profit entities,
which cannot issue tax-exempt bonds.
Fresno State would appear to fall under
the categories of public and private institutions covered by the
decision. However, because the finding was made in a private-letter
ruling, it only settled how existing law applied to one particular
case and cannot cited at this time as precedent in other cases,
according to IRS spokesperson, Anthony Burke.
Some experts are worried about how the
IRS interpretation will affect those who bought tax-exempt bonds
to help finance the Save Mart Arena. The ruling could have a big
effect on many colleges and university athletic facilities like
Save Mart Center.
Linda B. Schakel, an expert on tax-exempt
bonds, who is president-elect of the National Association of Bond
Lawyers told reporters, when she worked for the Treasury Department
in 1997, she helped write the law on which the IRS based the private-letter
ruling, she says. "It's a little bit different than controlling
how your name appears on concessionaires' cups and janitors'
uniforms."
Joseph R. Irvine, a tax lawyer for Ohio
State University, told reporters, this week, "...any institution
that sold tax-exempt bonds to pay for any new construction should
be concerned." Most issuers, including colleges, he says, "will
see that this is the position the IRS would take on an audit."
Universities, colleges and schools often
seek o pay for new construction with tax-exempt bonds through their
local or state governments. The tax-free status of the bonds makes
them attractive to potential buyers, who would be upset if they
found out after purchasing what they were told was a tax exempt
security, to find out later that they owed back-taxes and penalties
on them after all.
Selling naming rights to the Save Mart Center also brought
in big bucks to the University. In the biggest tax bond deal of
its kind we know of, Fresno State is getting $40-million over 20
years from Save Mart Corp., a regional supermarket chain, for naming
the arena its "Save Mart Center."
But naming rights carry with them particular
effects on any tax-exempt bonds used to finance the construction,
according to tax attorney, Gregory V.
Johnson, a specialist in public finance in the Denver office of
Patton Boggs, a law firm. "It's not just putting your name
on a building, it's putting your name on a building for a business
purpose."
For example, if John Doe personally donated $20-million to
his alma mater, and, in gratitude, it named a stadium for him, the
bonds would be tax-exempt. But if his company paid the institution
$20-million to put its name on a stadium for advertising purposes,
the bonds might be taxable. Their status would depend on whether
the institution was public or private, and whether the payments
met either the 10- or 5-percent maximum, respectively.
The ruling will affect colleges more than
cities and municipalities because colleges tend to build smaller
facilities, Mr. Johnson says, explaining that the proportional value
of naming rights increases as the size and cost of facilities decrease.
Mr. Irvine believes that a naming-rights
gift for Ohio State's new arena, as an example, falls safely below
the 10-percent ceiling. The university used tax-exempt bonds to
build the facility, where its basketball and hockey teams play and
other events are held. OSU received $12.5-million in 1998 from the
Schottenstein family, which owns Value City, a national discount-store
chain, to name the facility the Value City Arena at the Jerome Schottenstein
Center.
Deborah Adishian-Astone, executive director of
auxiliary services at Fresno State, told reporters Fresno State
sold it's tax-exempt bonds to finance the Save Mart Center.
According to Treasury
Final regulations, sale of naming rights and tax exempt bonds
may not give rise to investment-type property if it is made for
a substantial business purpose.
[Editor's
Note: Go to related
tax-exemption story. Also note that according to Fresno State,
in the bond sale to fund the Save Mart Center – an unorthodox style
of collegiate financing was devised in order to obtain public funds
for the purchase of investment bonds that contractually obligate
income streams, including naming rights, corporate sponsorships,
private gifts, luxury suites seat licenses for the operation of
an athletic facility on campus. Note that these bonds were put up
as the sole source of security for the construction project. The
Bulldog News has been informed that a sponsorship arrangement between
Save Mart Supermarkets and Pepsi Bottling Group started the fund-raising
melee back in 1998. The move soon led to Pepsi’s financial backing
of the Fresno State Savemart Center following the university's strategic
switch from its former Coca-Cola vending machines on campus. Local
businessman Larry Shehadey then donated the eight-story clock tower
at the main entrance.]
Comment
©1958-2003 Bulldog Newspaper Foundation.
All Rights Reserved.
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October 7, 2003
CALIFORNIA HIGHER ED
BUDGET CUTS
By Howard Hobbs PhD, Editor & Publisher
FRESNO STATE - In the news, California
State lawmakers have announced today another cut in the University
of California's budget by 8 percent, or $248 million from last year.
Worse yet, state funds for the California
State University System fell by more than $345 million. The state's
community colleges have been cut by 9.4 percent, a hefty $240 million.
In passing the 2003-2004 state budget, Sacramento
will delay by about a year the 10th UC campus at Merced, Calif.
This in spite of enormous graduating high school seniors.
Meanwhile, the California Community College
chancellor, Dr. Thomas J. Nussbaum has recently announced his plans
to retire in January 2004. A replacement has not yet been announced.
Comment
©1958-2003 Bulldog Newspaper Foundation.
All Rights Reserved.
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Updated
September 20, 2003
University Presidents’ Role
in NCAA Eligibility Legislation
By Dan Covell & Carol A. Barr
[Abstract from the Journal of Higher Education,
Vol. 72, 2001]
“A
college which is interested in producing professional athletes is
not an educational institution.” Robert Hutchins, president, University
of Chicago. [1980]
FRESNO STATE -- America is different. Its
universities are unique in their efforts to please many constituencies,
prospective students, donors, legislators, the general public. The
growth of intercollegiate sports aptly illustrates the strengths
and weaknesses of a constituency-oriented system of higher education.
With enthusiastic support from students,
alumni, and even government officials, our colleges have developed
athletic programs that have brought great satisfaction to thousands
of athletes and millions of spectators.
Few aspects of college life have done so
much to win the favor of the public, build the loyalties of alumni,
and engender lasting memories in the minds of student athletes.
College sport is what it is because the
American public wants it so bad.... Now why the public wants it
so much is a question for the public. Right? These
statements identify an elemental conflict between academics and
athletics that exists in American higher education; that is, the
belief that the simultaneous institutional pursuits of rigorous
academics and "big time" intercollegiate athletic programs
are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile.
Many critics of American higher education
note that our institutions are beset with contradictory and unrelated
activities both academic and nonacademic in nature. The transformation
of American higher education over the last century has led to criticism
of academic activities--such as research funded by for-profit corporations--that
often contribute little to students who fund the institution, and
an unchecked academic balkanization on campuses has created a separation
between undergraduate and graduate studies, arts and sciences, and
liberal and professional learning that has meant confusion about
the specific missions of specific institutions.
Combine this with a current push for distance
learning fueled by technological advances and the need to reach
more diverse populations of students to maintain institutional and
programmatic viability, and critics cite that it has become nearly
impossible to define precisely what is meant by higher education.
This debate is made more complex when nonacademic
components are also assessed in terms of their congruence with the
mission of higher education. The adoption of the Cambridge/Oxford
residential college model led to the incorporation of many nonacademic
components within the traditional American higher education system,
including intercollegiate athletics.
This in part has led to the development
of what Derek Bok, president, Harvard University, called the "constituency-oriented
system of higher education," where schools use athletics
and other nonacademic activities to foster a sense of community
with students, alumni, and the general public.
While the constituency-based system contains
numerous potentially contradictory elements worthy of exploration,
it is intercollegiate athletics that is often cited as a particularly
aberrant aspect of American higher education, particularly at Division
I National
Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) institutions. The inevitable
response of critics of the constituent system to this charge is,
what do such activities have to do with the mission of higher education?
The simultaneous pursuits of athletic success,
related profits, and institutional academic integrity, say these
critics, cannot be reconciled. To them, this is the glaring weakness
in the constituent system. Supporters argue the strengths of the
system, which the popular appeal of nonacademic activities are a
vital complement to academic components and in keeping with the
founding ethos of American higher education.
Efforts to wed the athletic and the academic
attempt to deflect this criticism of the wedding of the athletic
and the commercial that is inherent in the constituent system. According
to Helman (1989), this ideal notion of intercollegiate athletics
and the student-athlete is legitimized through eligibility rules,
which provide "standards that tether commercial athletics to
the educational purposes of higher education". If Division
I programs are to meet the standards set by the NCAA that demand
this tethering (see below), then the programs must be maintained
and legitimized through such eligibility rules.
The question that arises from this charge
is to whom within the academy this responsibility of tethering will
ultimately fall. It is in the realm of academic tethering that school
presidents, the individuals who are seen to have ultimate control
over all components of the campus, have moved to the fore. When
first student-athletes and then faculty oversight groups proved
unable to deal effectively with the problems associated with intercollegiate
athletics and the demands of constituents, many school presidents
saw it as their role as institutional CEOs, those managers who serve
as the public face of the institution and the ultimate internal
decision maker, to address these issues. Over
time, certain groups of presidents have come to lead the associated
public debate and NCAA organizational push for association-wide
initial eligibility standards.
Many other major concerns regarding Division
I athletics--pay for play, controlling agent tampering, recruiting
abuses by coaches, boosters and others, the recurring specter of
gambling and point-shaving--have not elicited the same sort of demands
for and responses of presidential leadership, because many presume
that these are strictly "athletic" issues to be dealt
with by professional athletic administrators.
In an attempt to understand the roles of
presidents in maintaining congruence within the constituency-based
American higher education system, this article provides a detailed
chronology of presidential efforts to deal with the conflicts related
to the tethering of academic mission to athletic pursuits through
the development of NCAA initial eligibility academic legislation.
Such legislation impacts recruiting and
admissions, the ultimate sport product on the field and the court,
and the charge to tether commercial athletics to the educational
purposes of higher education and to preserve the viability of the
intercollegiate athletic enterprise.
In response to criticisms that "big
time" athletics has no place on campus and has no relation
to institutional academic missions, the bylaws of the NCAA have
been crafted to require that intercollegiate athletics be administered
under an institution's academic rubric.
The NCAA publishes annually the purposes
of the association under Article 1 of its Constitution. The first
stated purpose is, "To initiate, stimulate and improve intercollegiate
athletics programs for student-athletes and to promote and develop
educational leadership, physical fitness, athletics excellence and
athletics participation as a recreational pursuit."
Also included as stated purposes are, "To
encourage its members to adopt eligibility rules to comply with
satisfactory standards of scholarship, sportsmanship and amateurism,"
and "To legislate, through bylaws or by resolutions of a Convention,
upon the subject of general concern to the members related to the
administration." NCAA bylaws do not dictate whom schools may
admit, as illustrated in Bylaw 2.5, "The Principle of Sound
Academic Standards," which reads: Intercollegiate athletic
programs shall be maintained as a vital component of the educational
program, and student-athletes shall be an integral part of the student
body.
The admission, academic standing and academic
progress of the student-athletes shall be consistent with the policies
and standards adopted by the institution for the student body in
general. An institution may admit any student, but the student may
or may not be eligible to compete in intercollegiate athletics,
depending on whether that student meets the initial academic eligibility
criteria set by the NCAA membership.
Division I schools must also recognize
"the dual objective in its athletics program of serving both
the university or college community participants, student body,
faculty-staff, alumni and the general public community, area, state,
nation, a verification of Bok's constituency-based assessment.
[Editor's Note: The California State
University is the largest system of senior higher education in the
nation, with 23 campuses, nearly 407,000 students and 44,000 faculty
and staff. Since the system was created in 1961, it has awarded
about 2 million degrees. The CSU mission is to provide high-quality,
affordable education to meet the ever-changing needs of the people
of California. For more information on The CSU, visit www.calstate.edu.]
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Sept. 19, 2003
What it costs taxpayers to
provide you with an education at
California State University, Fresno
By Edward Davidian, Staff Writer
FRESNO -- Sacramento
lawmakers cut the 2003-2004 University of California budget by $248,000,000
last week. Then went on to cut funds for the California State University
system by $345,200,000. Community colleges were cut by $250,000,000.
In the face of these drastic cuts
present salary levels are on the block, as well. At present, average
full-time pay for a professor is $108,180; assoc. professors $ 69,
534.
The graduation rate form Fresno State
is only 42%. Catch this, the total costs of operation of the statewide
CSU System is a whopping $15,106,121,000 annually.
The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded
annually has increased over the past 3 decades, climbing from nearly
800,000 in 1969-1970 to over 1.2 million in 1999–20001 (U.S. Department
of Education 2002)...More!
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Sept. 11, 2003
Fresno State Hit With Ten
NCAA Rule Violations
Tom Hobbs, Staff Writer
FRESNO - Men's Basketball
is still trying to deal with the implications of the NCAA investigation
findings announced this week. FSU was placed on four years probation
on Wednesday. This, on top of self-imposed sanctions by the university
in December of 2002, is a morale-buster for the Fresno State's Men's
Basketball program.
The NCAA cited numerous violations of bylaws
governing academic fraud, recruiting, eligibility, financial aid
(including awards and benefits), extra benefits, amateurism, coaching
limitations and playing and practice seasons legislation, including
a "lack of appropriate institutional controls" by the
program's administrators.
Because of FSU's self-imposed sanctions, which included
a ban on last season's men's basketball postseason play and the
elimination of three men's basketball scholarships, the NCAA imposed
probation will be retroactive to December, 2002.
Also, the NCAA mandated that Fresno State
return 90 percent of the money earned during its appearance in the
2000 NCAA tournament and that the team's participation in the tournament
be expunged from the record ...More!
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September 9, 2003
Hitler's Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl Dead
at 101
Associated Press News Release
BERLIN (AP) Leni Riefenstahl,
the legendary filmmaker reviled and revered for movies she made
about Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich, has died one of the last
confidantes of the Nazi dictator. She was 101...More!
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August 27, 2003
California Schools
Academic Scores Hit Bottom
By Amy Williams Staff Writer
FRESNO STATE -- It appears
that California teachers have little effect on students' academic
performance of elementary, middle, and school students.
A California state study released today by the Public Policy Institute
of California (PPIC) reports that students’ peers have a stronger
effect on their achievement than the qualifications of their teachers
or the size of their classes...More!
©1958-2003 Bulldog Newspaper Foundation.
All Rights Reserved.
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August 1, 2003
Krueger Killed Three
Dumped by UC Berkeley
Hired by National University
By Amy Williams Staff Writer
FRESNO STATE -- Dr. Paul
Krueger, the Penn State University prof who was to be hired by National
University in San Diego learned yesterday that his job offer rescinded.
Why? National just learned that when Krueger was a teenager in 1965,
he and a friend killed three fishermen with a rifle. Krueger, at
the time, was a runaway, according to local news accounts.
Comment
©1958-2003 Bulldog Newspaper Foundation.
All Rights Reserved.
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Stebbins
Dean's Tarnished Brass [07/25/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- The CEO of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce has taken
his place in history among the high-profile Fresno liars of all
time. |
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Ethical
Journalism Practices [06/26/2003]
BERKELEY -- Let’s talk about changes in the ethics of journalism.
The century began with the Yellow Press, which is portrayed in most
history books as being ethically challenged. |
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Moral
Education Abstracts on Character [06/16/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- Throughout the history of American education there
have appeared discerning movements which have redefined and redirected
and in numerous ways made good our fundamental commitment to democracy. |
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College
Newspaper Fight Lands in Courthouse
[06/16/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- Finding a sponsor to underwrite development of a
new 18,000 seat Event Center on the CSU-Fresno campus is still in
a tail spin as the SaveMart Supermarket and Pepsi deal is taking
a lot of heat. |
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Fresno
State Officials Named in Cheating Slam! [06/09/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- Documents made public today in NCAA letters, link
former Fresno State adviser to academic fraud. |
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Save
Mart Center Tax Exemption Under Fire
[06/07/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- Finding a sponsor to underwrite development of a
new 18,000 seat Event Center on the CSU-Fresno campus is still in
a tail spin as the SaveMart Supermarket and Pepsi deal is taking
a lot of heat. |
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Annual
Father's Day Fly-In Chandler Field
[06/06/2003]
FRESNO -- Computer problems can leave you feeling helpless. When
yours breaks, can you rely on a professional to correctly find the
problem? |
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Stanford
Professor Named Social Science Dean
[06/01/2003]
MERCED, CA. -- Kenji Hakuta, Ph.D., is an experimental
psychologist by training, a teacher and researcher by profession,
and a builder of bridges by nature. |
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International
SARS Health Alert [05/22/2003]
Sars
is still spreading! The full text of all articles in the New England
Journal of Medicine collection on the severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) is provided free. |
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Computer
Repair Investigation [05/21/2003]
FRESNO -- Computer problems can leave you feeling helpless. When
yours breaks, can you rely on a professional to correctly find the
problem? |
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Burning
Questions Remain [05/20/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- Emergency Traffic Advisory: University Police asked
anyone coming to the campus this morning to avoid Barstow and Cedar
Ave. approaches from the north side. A fire at an off-campus student
apartment community has caused a traffic hazard. |
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Engineering
Dogs Receive Honors [05/16/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- The men's North Gym bustles with friends and families
of Engineering Dept. students waiting for their crowning achievement. |
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Parable
of the Cave [400 B.C.]
ATHENS, Greece -- I said, let me show in a figure how far
our nature is enlightened or unenlightened. |
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More
Fraud Allegations Fresno State Sanctions
[05/06/2003]
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Fresno State will formally respond to the
NCAA's investigation into academic fraud violations by the men's
basketball team. |
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Charitable
Choices
in the Post-Welfare Era [04/26/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- Congregations and faith-based organizations have
become key participants in America's welfare revolution. Recent
legislation has expanded the social welfare role of religious communities,
thus revealing a pervasive lack of faith in purely economic responses
to poverty. |
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Local
Stars Make It Big [04/25/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- Take a look at the Campus sky tonight through the
Bulldog lens. |
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Colossal
Vintage Days Celebration [04/24/2003]
FRESNO - California State University, Fresno is gearing up for a
“colossal” 28th Annual Vintage Days celebration Thursday,
April 24 through Sunday, April 27 with more activities for students,
families and the public to enjoy the spring celebration on campus. |
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Chalk
Dust on Bulldog Blackboard [04/25/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- Welcome to the Blackboard Student
Orientation Course. Think of this course as your Digital Campus
Reference Guide! |
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Friendly
Fire is Major Cause of Coalition Casualties
[04/06/2003]
WASHINGTON - Who goes there: Friend or foe? Soldiers, sailors and
pilots - even with their high-tech military machines - often have
a hard time telling the difference in the heat of battle. |
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Honor
Award Goes To Madden Library Dean [04/07/2003]
FRESNO STATE -- Micharel Gorman, Dean of Library Services at California
State University in Fresno, was elected to the Library Board at
the ALA midwinter meeting in Philadelphia earlier this year. |
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Stanford
Anti-War Activities Clash [04/02/2003]
WASHINGTON -- As student antiwar activists work to make their case
against war persuasive to ambivalent classmates, the leaders of
a Stanford University peace group have launched a different kind
of campaign--to reform a conservative think tank on campus with
dubious ties to the Bush Administration. |
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The
New Terrorism Fanaticism and Mass Destruction
[03/28/2003]
WASHINGTON D.C. -- Recent attacks in Oklahoma City, at the World
Trade Towers, and at American embassies in Africa demonstrate the
horrifying consequences of a terrorist strike. |
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Foul
Shots: What did President Welty Know? [03/28/2003]
MARION, Ohio -- Michael F. Adams is in charge of his athletics department.
Don't anybody think he isn't. |
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Assassinations
Prolonged Vietnam War [03/26/2003]
PALO ALTO -- A compelling argument that if Kennedy had lived he
planned to end American involvement in Vietnam and thus spare a
generation who died fighting there. |
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Impartiality
in Moral and Political Philosophy [03/05/2003]
NEW YORK -- In
Justice as Impartiality Brian Barry takes the position, it
is a commonplace that Anglophone moral and political philosophy
has for the past decade been the scene of a running battle between
defenders and critics of impartiality. |
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University
Pay Frozen, Stanford's Fiscal Crisis [03/04/2003]
PALO ALTO -- Last month, Stanford's provost, John Etchemendy, announced
a hiring freeze. The moratorium was to apply to all regular and
academic staff positions, including temporary and casual employees,
as well as staff members hired through employment agencies. |
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Hounds
of War Unleashed on Baghdad!
[02/21/2003]
WASHINGTON -
The George W.
Bush administration has apparently begun moving along a broad front
to pound Iraq with a deadly first strike that may cast the world
into major economic disruption by early next week. |
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Challenger's
Shadow Columbia Breakup! [02/08/2003]
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the Columbia investigation intensifies, we're
hearing all kinds of sense and nonsense: It was an old shuttle;
the tiles were always falling off; maybe it hit space debris... |
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