TO CLIPS INDEX - Clips for April 30, 2008

Students protest cuts of distance learning
The Arizona Republic - April 30, 2008 12:00 AM
Distance-learning supporters fear budget reductions
Bringing song, dance and a burst of color to the state Capitol, hundreds of students,
teachers and parents rallied Tuesday, urging Gov. Janet Napolitano and lawmakers
to spare their distance-learning schools from budget cuts. The rally typified many
Arizonans' uncertainty over the state's 2009 budget predicament. Nobody knows the
extent of the cuts the schools might face as lawmakers try to offset a $1.9 billion
deficit for the coming year.

Governor axes DUI, gun-law changes
The Arizona Republic - April 30, 2008 12:00 AM
Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed legislation Tuesday altering the state's new DUI law,
citing a provision that would have cut in half a key penalty for first-time offenders.
She also rejected a proposal to reduce to a petty offense the penalty for carrying a
concealed weapon without a permit. And she signed into law a measure allowing
the state to take over some of Arizona's most troubled school districts, including the
Roosevelt Elementary School District in south Phoenix.

Teachers will be crucial to the state's future, Town Hall is told
The Arizona Republic - April 30, 2008 12:00 AM
Gov. Janet Napolitano told more than 180 Arizonans this week that teacher-recruitment
and retention efforts must prepare educators to teach the critical-thinking, problem-solving,
and team-learning skills that employers expect of high school graduates today. A cross-
section of statewide leaders met in Prescott for four days through today for the 92nd Arizona
Town Hall, titled Who Will Teach Our Children? "The public education system is the way we
provide equal opportunities for Arizona youth," Napolitano said. "A strong public education
system is essential to support a quality workforce and maintain a strong state economy."

Devils coaches, stars break ground on practice facility
The Arizona Republic - April 30, 2008 12:00 AM
Men's, women's teams will share
Glistening shovels looked like trophies and reflected another change in the fortunes of
Arizona State basketball. Nobody was there to bury the Sun Devils. Instead, the building
of the men's and women's programs moved forward Tuesday with the official ground-
breaking of Weatherup Center, a $19.5 million practice facility near Farrington Stadium.
ASU men's coach Herb Sendek, women's coach Charli Turner Thorne, star players Jeff
Pendergraph, Lauren Lacey, James Harden, Briann January and their teammates grabbed
ceremonial shovels, turning the first dirt on a structure expected to be open for layup drills
on May 1, 2009.

ASU professors join national scholars club
East Valley Tribune - April 30, 2008 - 12:43AM
Two Arizona State University professors now join the ranks of the prestigious National
Academy of Sciences, an organization that advises the federal government on matters
of science and technology. Edward Prescott and Luc Anselin are among 72 new members
who were elected in recognition of their accomplishments in original research. Prescott,
who is the chair of economics in the W. P. Carey School of Business, is renowned for his
work on business cycles that influenced economist’s thinking about economic fluctuations,
arguing that they represent the optimal response of the economy to various shocks.

Ground broken on new ASU basketball facility
East Valley Tribune Blog - April 29th, 2008
Breaking ground, breaking bread and more
Tuesday was the official groundbreaking ceremony for Arizona State basketball’s Weatherup
Center, which will be located between the soccer stadium and the band’s practice field. The
roughly $20 million facility for both hoops teams will house two practice courts (where both
the men and women plan to do the vast majority of practices and shoot-a-rounds), locker
rooms, video rooms, weight rooms, coaches’ offices, etc. ASU plans to move lock, stock and
barrel into this home in April 2009, and is short approximately $5 million in funding, a
remarkably small figure given the school’s historic struggles to raise money for previous
projects. ASU will be the sixth Pac-10 school to have a second hoops facility.

Editorial: National standard for calculating high school graduation rates needed
East Valley Tribune - April 30, 2008 - 12:19AM
President Bush’s signature No Child Left Behind Act came up for reauthorization last year,
but Congress couldn’t win agreement and it looks like the law may remain untouched this
year, too. Out of frustration, Bush instructed Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to
implement some of his proposed changes in the act administratively. Normally, these kinds
of end runs around Congress are a bad idea, but one of the proposals is both vital and over-
due.

NAUPD gets seized Escalade
Arizona Daily Sun - April 30, 2008
Luxury has come to the Northern Arizona University Police Department's fleet of patrol cars.
NAUPD recently scored a 9-year-old Cadillac Escalade, a seized drug vehicle, by way of the
Northern Arizona Street Crimes Task Force, or Metro. The four-wheel-drive Cadillac is a fully
marked and equipped patrol vehicle. One of the markings is the message "Vehicle Seized
from a Drug Dealer," which is painted on three sides.

NAU sports accreditation under way
Arizona Daily Sun - April 29, 2008
NAU is becoming reaccredited with the NCAA by forming a steering committee. It would like
participation from the faculty, staff, students and Flagstaff community. The committee, which
is led by Sarah Bickel, associate vice president for Student Affairs, is creating a "self-study"
report that will become the basis for a site visit by the NCAA peer review team from Oct. 22 to
24. The draft report is available for feedback before it is due on May 1.

Trial opens in attack that paralyzed grad student
Arizona Daily Star - April 30, 2008
University of Arizona graduate students Francisco Baires and Veronica Pastore wanted to
celebrate Pastore being awarded a grant that would allow her to study in Africa. The two
students walked downtown for some drinks, threw darts for a few hours, then headed north
up Stone Avenue, back toward Pastore's apartment. "It was the last healthy walk Francisco
may ever have," Deputy Pima County Attorney Jonathan Mosher told jurors Tuesday. Just
past the Sixth Street underpass, Mosher said Ryan "Scandalous" Baker jumped out of his
car and demanded the couple's cash and jewelry. When he didn't get it, Baker took his
metal Louisville Slugger baseball bat and hit Baires on the head with it, Mosher said.

Good rating for Tucson on biotechnology
Citizen Staff Report - April 30, 2008
Tucson is named a "rising biotechnology star" in Arizona by Business Facilities, a national
business magazine for site selectors and corporate real estate professionals, citing the
expansion of bioscience in Tucson through the Technology Research Initiative Fund, BIO5
and the new Arizona Bioscience Park.

Briefs: Tucson, state recognized for biotech growth
Tucson Citizen - April 30, 2008
Good rating for Tucson on biotechnology
Tucson is named a "rising biotechnology star" in Arizona by Business Facilities, a national
business magazine for site selectors and corporate real estate professionals, citing the
expansion of bioscience in Tucson through the Technology Research Initiative Fund, BIO5
and the new Arizona Bioscience Park. The magazine's March issue recognized Arizona in a
cover story about the top biotechnology industry cluster growth areas, crediting Arizona's
strong research base in genomics and personalized medicine.

Astronaut to speak at graduation
UA Daily Wildcat Online - April 30, 2008
Apollo 8's Borman selected in light of UA's Mars exploits
The UA will continue the trend of a space-themed year by having astronaut Frank Borman
speak at this year's commencement ceremonies. Borman was the commander of Apollo
8, the first mission to fly around the moon. UA President Robert Shelton selected Borman
to speak, said Edith Auslander, vice president and senior associate to the president.
Borman calls Tucson home, is a Tucson High Magnet School graduate and his wife
attended the UA, Auslander said.

Professors trying new ways to curb cancer
UA Daily Wildcat Online - April 30, 2008
Pharmacy, engineering work together to find best 'drug cocktail'
Two UA professors have teamed up to stifle cancer by using cutting-edge methods. Professors
Pak Kin Wong and Donna Zhang have spent their brief stays at the university honing comple-
mentary ways to stave off and subdue cancer cells through drug combinations. Wong, an aero-
space and mechanical engineering professor, has devised technology that significantly reduces
the number of tests ­needed to find the right types and ratios of drugs to curb cancer. The break-
through came a few years ago while he was a graduate student at UCLA.

Opinion: No resources to fix class availability
UA Daily Wildcat Online - April 30, 2008
Several departments at this university are selective of whom they let into their classes. They
don't intentionally want to shut out lowerclassmen just for being at the bottom of the barrel
during class registration, but they end up doing so because they don't always have the
resources to offer everyone a required class. Despite our well-known sports programs and
versatile university activities, this is a university primarily and academics should always be
the first priority.

Research Could Cut Aircraft Development Costs, Improve Safety
UA News - April 29, 2008
A distressing fact for aeronautical engineers: Scale model airplanes don't fly anything like
their full-sized counterparts. And that makes aircraft design a lot more difficult. “Right now,
for developing a new airplane, there's only so much you can do with wind tunnel testing
and computations,” said Hermann Fasel, a professor in the aerospace and mechanical
engineering department at The University of Arizona. “Then you have to make a big jump
and build a full-sized airplane, a prototype. Then you fly and test this airplane to see if it
performs as predicted by calculations and wind tunnel tests.

Drift Toward Direct Lending (Update)
Inside Higher Ed - April 30, 208
As the number of loan providers suspending or restricting their participation in the federal
guaranteed student loan program has grown in recent months, citing uncertainty in the credit
markets, questions have arisen about whether the perceived lack of availability of loan funds
would drive more colleges into the government’s competing direct loan program. So far,
despite a relative handful of announcements from major institutions like Indiana, Michigan
State, Northeastern and Pennsylvania State Universities, there have been few signs of a
major shift.

The Pursuit of Efficiency and the Pursuit of Folly
Inside Higher Ed - April 30, 208
Surveys have found that Americans hold great confidence in the nation’s public colleges and
universities; a level shown to surpass even that held for churches, hospitals, the media and
all levels of government. That’s good news. But beyond this general high level of confidence,
the public seems, at times, deeply ambivalent about universities. On one hand, there is a
cherished and sentimental view of universities as academic places where caring teachers
mold young minds through unhurried and probing conversations about poems and politics,
the human condition and the forces of nature.

College Finance Chiefs Say Tuition Increases Will Keep Rising Faster Than Inflation
Chronicle of Higher Education - April 30, 2008
Most college financial officers expect tuition increases to continue outpacing inflation, and many
cite competing with other institutions to offer good amenities as an important contributing factor.
These were among the key findings of a report released on Tuesday describing the opinions of
senior financial officers at 100 private colleges. The report was based on a survey by Independent
529 Plan, a prepay tuition program sponsored by the nonprofit Tuition Plan Consortium.

Efforts to Expand G.I. Bill Gain Ground in Congress
Chronicle of Higher Education - April 30, 2008
Washington - Momentum is building in Congress for a bill that would significantly expand tuition
benefits for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The legislation, which would cover up to
the full cost of a four-year education at a public college, may be attached to a war-spending bill
that lawmakers are expected to take up soon. Supporters of the tuition-benefits bill, S 22, say
today's troops deserve the same educational opportunities that the original G.I. bill provided to
veterans after World War II. They argue the new bill would benefit not only veterans, but the
economy as well.