Bridgepoint shares fall on accreditation denial
AP News
July 09, 2012
Shares of Bridgepoint Education Inc. dropped more than 30 percent Monday after the for-profit education provider said a group that certifies schools denied an accreditation for one of its institutions.
THE SPARK: Bridgepoint's Ashford University, which has a campus in Clinton, Iowa, but mostly serves online students, was denied accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Without accreditation, a school can lose its access to federal financial aid, which can comprise as much as 90 percent of for-profit schools' revenue.
THE BIG PICTURE: The Western Association of Schools and Colleges is one of seven regional accrediting commissions. It has jurisdiction over schools located in California. Bridgepoint is based in San Diego.
In its letter to Ashford denying accreditation, the association said it found that the university hadn't shown substantial compliance with its accreditation standards related to student retention and graduation, the alignment of resources with educational objectives and the implementation of a core of full-time faculty that can oversee the university academic policies and ensure the integrity of its programs.
WASC noted that a large number of students who start degree programs at the university drop out, most within a short period of time. It said that over the past five years, 128,000 students have withdrawn from the university, while 240,000 new students have enrolled.
In addition, the university needs to put in place an effective system for assessing student learning and an "empowered and independent" governing board that has an acceptable relationship with Bridgepoint, WASC said in its letter...
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
‘Twilight’ fan struck and killed by car--Why doesn't Comic-Con just give tickets to the people who are camping in line?
San Diego Comic Con rocked by tragic death: ‘Twilight’ fan struck and killed by car outside convention center The 53-year-old woman, identified as Gisela Gagliardi of Kingston, N.Y. - was racing against the light to get back to the line of Twi-hards, which had started to move, that she had been on since Sunday.
BY ETHAN SACKS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
JULY 10, 2012
A "Twilight" fan was struck and killed by a car in front of a horrified crowd of fellow Twi-hards camping out two days ahead of the opening of San Diego Comic-Con.
The 53-year-old woman was running across a busy crosswalk against the light at 9:20 a.m. She was racing to return to her group on a line organizers were moving, when she was hit, the San Diego Union Tribune reported.
A police spokesman told the newspaper that the woman - identified as Gisela Gagliardi of Kingston, N.Y. - had tried to stop herself before she stumbled and fell into the side of a Suburu Outback.
Gagliardi was unconscious and bleeding from the head when an ambulance arrived. She was later pronounced dead at an area hospital.
“If you pray pls do so now for Twi fan G! She was just hit by a car in front of the convention center! She was unconscious when taken hosp,” one fan (@RobKris13) tweeted.
Fellow Twi-hards mourned the death on Twitter with the hashtag "IPTwiFanG" and have started an online petition to have a moment of silence before Thursday's panel for "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2," which will feature stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.
The Outback's driver, an unidentified 67-year-old San Diego man, was questioned by police, but not charged.
“It is with tremendous sadness that we offer our heartfelt condolences,” San Diego Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer said in a statement. “Our sincere thoughts and prayers go out to all those involved in this tragic incident.”
San Diego Comic-Con, running from July 12-15, is considered the biggest event on the sci-fi, fantasy and comic book lovers' calendar, regularly drawing 250,000 attendees to the four-day event. A seat inside the Convention Center's Hall H, where Hollywood studios often fly in A-list actors to unveil footage of upcoming movies for the 6,000 fans that can cram inside, is especially coveted.
Gagliardi had been with a group of Twi-hards that had been camping out since Sunday.
“It’s such a sad loss for our community,” a fellow fan, Melissa Sandate of Tucson, told the Union Tribune.
BY ETHAN SACKS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
JULY 10, 2012
A "Twilight" fan was struck and killed by a car in front of a horrified crowd of fellow Twi-hards camping out two days ahead of the opening of San Diego Comic-Con.
The 53-year-old woman was running across a busy crosswalk against the light at 9:20 a.m. She was racing to return to her group on a line organizers were moving, when she was hit, the San Diego Union Tribune reported.
A police spokesman told the newspaper that the woman - identified as Gisela Gagliardi of Kingston, N.Y. - had tried to stop herself before she stumbled and fell into the side of a Suburu Outback.
Gagliardi was unconscious and bleeding from the head when an ambulance arrived. She was later pronounced dead at an area hospital.
“If you pray pls do so now for Twi fan G! She was just hit by a car in front of the convention center! She was unconscious when taken hosp,” one fan (@RobKris13) tweeted.
Fellow Twi-hards mourned the death on Twitter with the hashtag "IPTwiFanG" and have started an online petition to have a moment of silence before Thursday's panel for "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2," which will feature stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.
The Outback's driver, an unidentified 67-year-old San Diego man, was questioned by police, but not charged.
“It is with tremendous sadness that we offer our heartfelt condolences,” San Diego Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer said in a statement. “Our sincere thoughts and prayers go out to all those involved in this tragic incident.”
San Diego Comic-Con, running from July 12-15, is considered the biggest event on the sci-fi, fantasy and comic book lovers' calendar, regularly drawing 250,000 attendees to the four-day event. A seat inside the Convention Center's Hall H, where Hollywood studios often fly in A-list actors to unveil footage of upcoming movies for the 6,000 fans that can cram inside, is especially coveted.
Gagliardi had been with a group of Twi-hards that had been camping out since Sunday.
“It’s such a sad loss for our community,” a fellow fan, Melissa Sandate of Tucson, told the Union Tribune.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
The Higgs Boson: Why You Should Care About the God Particle. And, Sadly, Why You Don't
Ainissa Ramirez, a Yale University materials scientist, likes to call herself a science evangelist, and her passion and expertise at science education is unparalleled. So this week, with the announcement about the discovery of the Higgs Boson, was both exciting–because of an amazing opportunity–and frustrating–because she thought the science world largely blew it.
The Higgs Boson: Why You Should Care About the God Particle. And, Sadly, Why You Don't
By Ainissa Ramirez
Forbes
7/08/2012
Here’s what you need to know about the God Particle.
The Higgs boson (Higgs is a guy’s name, BTW, and a boson is a particle that’s smaller than an atom) is the biggest scientific discovery of the 21st Century. Period.
This discovery is up there with Copernicus. If we did not find the Higgs boson, everything that we understood about how the universe works would have been wrong. We would have had nice equations that describe things we observed in the world, but they would have been crap. That would have been $10 billion flushed down the toilet with the creation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and we would have gone back to the drawing board with our tail between our legs after fifty years of an aimless pursuit.
It was a big gamble, and we won. It is that big...
So what’s the problem?
One of the founders of the Higgs theory, Gerald Guralnik, was quoted in the New York Times saying he was glad to be at a physics meeting “where there is applause, like a football game.”
The problem is that it’s only physicists that are excited. A few thousand scientists (less than 1 percent of the population) are losing their minds, not taking any calls, getting buzzed in the middle of the day, and crying and hugging each other.
The rest of society is trying to figure out why this is a big whoop.
The biggest discovery of the 21st century, which connects you (and the world and the universe) to the Big Bang, was barely a whimper to over 99 percent of the population.
As Strother Martin said in Cool Hand Luke, “ What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
I think the nerds got it wrong by not inviting everyone to the party. The biggest discovery of the 21st century may actually widen the gap between scientists and the general public...
I think we should do a better job at teaching science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) using events such as this as a catalyst. Since science is right now part of the national conversation, let’s strike while the iron is hot and create ways to get more people excited about science...
CERN should have hired a PR firm to develop a website for the general public on the Higgs Boson. Maybe CERN should have hired a TV personality to be a spokesperson...
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