Howard Makes Bold Changes

Goal is to promote excellence

This week Howard University's president and Board of Trustees announced major changes to the academic structure of the school. The Academic Renewal Plan – the culmination of two years of meetings, university community input and the hard work by the Presidential Commission on Academic Renewal (PCAR) – was presented to the board by Howard's President Sidney A. Ribeau on Jan. 29 and approved.

“Universities must periodically review and assess themselves to respond to developments in higher education and the changing needs of our nation and the world,” Ribeau said in a statement. “At Howard, we are doing just that. We must maintain the highest standards of academic and administrative excellence.”

The plan consolidates or eliminates many of Howard's degree programs and works to reorganize the university's resources in a way that supports its strategic goals.

While this process was initiated by the board of trustees and President Ribeau, Alvin Thornton, Ph.D., senior advisor to the president on academic affairs and chair of the PCAR committee, was clear that this effort and the resulting recommendations involved all parts of the university community. "These were not presidentially or board determined decisions. These are largely decision that came from the university community," he said.

"These changes will, in essence," said Thornton, "strengthen Howard University, make it much more focused around the strategic areas that the Board of Trustees and the president have identified."

Some of these strategic goals include ensuring high quality undergraduate programs, a continued commitment to the professional schools and a return to a focus on teacher preparation, Thornton said. Others, according to a press release issued by the university, are: to strengthen the commitment to science, technology, engineering and math; encourage increased research, advance Africana and Diaspora Studies to make Howard University the leader in that area of study; augment urban education, business, communications, humanities and visual and performing arts programs; and streamline and focus degree program offerings.
"We have identified specific areas of emphasis,” Ribeau said in a statement, “and we plan to be leaders in those areas.”

Howard currently offers 171 degree programs. As part of this plan, 71 programs – 38 professional programs, 11 graduate programs and 22 undergraduate programs – will be either eliminated or changed. Thornton stressed that students in those programs to be discontinued will have the opportunity to complete their degrees and faculty members in those programs will not lose their positions. "The concept really has a lot on integrity," he said.

In the past Howard, Thornton said, "responded to the national need that our community had and our nation had to educate in all areas of the Black community. ... We cannot continue to do that because of resources and we, frankly, don't have to do that in the same way.

"This renewal program that the board has approved and the president recommended will strategically redesign us and prepare us to move forward for the future."

He added, "We're going to be much more research oriented at Howard University because we believe that's the best contribution we can make to the African-American and national community."

Sometimes we bloggers get a little world-weary (editor: do you mean depressed?) by all those serious and disturbing stuff we read in the media .

So, we thought a little diversion would be welcome. We have found a curious collection of videos that hopefully will be enough to lift the Friday morning blues.

This awards season, you might have become enamored of the acclaimed documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” about street art, culture, and a mysterious “Banksy.” Now there’s “Exit Through the Pet Shop,” starring Keyboard Cat, which is definitely just as enthralling:

(For comparison and educational purposes, here’s the trailer for “Exit Through the Gift Shop:”)

Next up:  the periodic table… but wait! Check out this kid… Oh yeah, she’s like 2.

And to wrap up, something a bit more heart-felt to help the transition into that Real World Mucky-muck, a 19-year-old student at the University of Iowa makes the case for why his family, though there are two moms, is just a great as any other Iowa family. This came before the House of Representatives passed a constitutional ban of same-sex marriage in the state.
(More info here.)

Happy Friday!

A new Mona Lisa theory: she’s actually Da Vinci’s man-friend/lover/apprentice! Go figure.

In the shadow of a snow-pocalypse, Chicago seems to be doing a reasonable job of helping reunite its citizens with their hundreds of stranded cars.

The White House is trying to figure out how to get Mubarak out of office.

Charles Croom, of Lockheed Martin will talk about "The State of Cyber Security 2011" at the UMBC Visionaries in IT Forum at 8:00am on Wednesday, February 23rd at the BWI Airport Marriott. The event is free but registration requested.

Croom joined Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions as Vice President of Cyber Security Solutions in October of 2008. In this capacity, he shapes the corporation’s cyber security strategy with insight from his 35 years of distinguished service, leadership, and technology experience from the U.S. Air Force. He co-chaired a National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee Task Force on “Strengthening Government and Private Sector Collaboration” which issued a May 2009 report recommending that the President direct the establishment of a Joint Coordinating Center. He currently serves on the Boards of the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and the Internet Security Alliance (ISA).

Croom retired as a U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General, Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), and the Commander of the Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations in September 2008. While at DISA, he led a worldwide organization of more than 6,600 military and civilian personnel to serve the information technology and telecommunications needs of the President, Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, combatant commanders, and other Department of Defense stakeholders.

The UMBC Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) will hold the second Bits & Bytes event on February 20-21, 2011 for academically talented young women who are juniors in high school and excel in math and science. This year's event is sponsored by Northrop Grumman and is intended to engage local high school girls in the college atmosphere and expose them to the possibilities open to them in Engineering or IT majors in college.

Along with in-depth exposure to life as a college student and UMBC as an institution, the students will participate in an Engineering or IT design competition and will interact with current college students involved in the CWIT Scholars Program, including staying overnight in a residence hall on campus and attending a college class with one of the CWIT students.

We at USDemocrazy have been spending a lot of time surfing the Internet in search of constant updates on the uprising in Egypt. (See our previous coverage here and here.)

Every cable news channel, blogger, newspaper, and Twitter account has a different take, which could lend to information overload.

Here’s the tne news in a nutshell: the situation is scary and uncertain.

Overnight in Cairo, pro-Mubarak and anti-Mubarak demonstrators clashed in a dangerous way in Tahrir Square. CNN’s man in Cairo, Ben Wedeman gave a great analogy on the fighting between the two groups, insinuating what many have thought: that the government is organizing the pro-Mubarak demonstrators.

“It’s been going on for fifteen hours. Imagine if you had, in Times Square, two gangs fighting together for 15 hours, and the government didn’t intervene. There’s no other explanation.”

Five people were shot dead in the early-morning protest and recent reports are coming out of upwards of 800 people who were injured. Major news outlets reported guns and molotov cocktails flying in Tahrir Square last night.

When Egypt was without Internet, there was a huge backlash against this technological repression orchestrated by the government. So, one group, called Anonymous, retaliated by taking the government off the Internet by hacking their Web pages and proving a point, which The New York Times reports with a perspective from a hacking insider:

“We want freedom,” he said of the group’s motivation. “It’s as simple as that. We’re sick of oppressive governments encroaching on people.”

It’s been well reported that the uprising in Tunisia has influenced what’s happening in Egypt, and then of course what’s happening in the rest of the Arab world. The Week has a good rundown of what the domino effect is doing in Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Libya,, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia. (Put simply, governments are being replaced, dissolved, or reformed.)

A lot of Americans have been turning to Al Jazeera English to keep posted on the situation in Egypt, and we remind you that you can keep up with the conflict on their live-blog of the protests!

You might remember our story of the poor Happy Meals that were banned by the San Francisco City Government from having toys inside…

Today we have another story of a city government legislative lock-down. The city is New York and the victim: Cigarettes.

The New York City council is banning smoking from city parks and beaches.

True, cigarettes do not make good victims. The statistics for health damage by smoke and second hand smoke are self evident.

But second hand smoke OUTDOORS? Some are calling that a reach. Others are calling it government overreach.

Government doing good, or government gone MAD? What do you think?