Education category, Page 42
From garage to workplace: Local college makerspaces to support manufacturing
The next big thing in startups could sprout from an unexpected source: one of four new entrepreneurial makerspaces located at Western Pennsylvania colleges. The Community College of Allegheny County, Westmoreland County Community College, Penn State New Kensington’s Digital Foundry and Indiana University of Pennsylvania have created makerspaces to attract entrepreneurs...
Carnegie Mellon plans new robotics center at Hazelwood Green
Carnegie Mellon University is looking to build a new robotics center at the Hazelwood Green site in Pittsburgh. Plans for the robotics center were presented to Pittsburgh’s Planning Commission on Tuesday. The center would include a 150,000-square-foot research building with a two-story enclosure for testing on robots and drones and...
Last tour of Hempfield high school before renovations scheduled
Hempfield Area School District residents can check out the inside of the high school one last time before renovations begin by attending an alumni tour on Saturday at 10 a.m. The tour will be led by administrators, teachers and retired faculty who will guide visitors around the building and discuss...
Hempfield book policies up for future vote with further revisions
School libraries would be required to post a list of requested new books a month ahead of time for the public and school board to review under new proposed revisions to book policies at Hempfield Area School District. The policy revisions for acquiring new school library materials and challenging the...
Funding for Pitt, Penn State, other state-related schools caught in Pa. budget impasse
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. HARRISBURG — After repeated legislative failures, Pennsylvania state House members left Harrisburg indefinitely without passing funding for the commonwealth’s state-related universities. Appropriations for Lincoln University, Penn State...
Outgoing Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher reflects on tenure filled with challenges, growth
When Patrick Gallagher became chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh in 2014, higher education institutions already were staring down falling enrollments and growing questions about the worth of a college degree. Then the covid-19 pandemic hit, shutting down campuses for months. Now, with Gallagher’s tenure in its final days, Gallagher...
Ransomware criminals are dumping kids’ private files online after school hacks
The confidential documents stolen from schools and dumped online by ransomware gangs are raw, intimate and graphic. They describe student sexual assaults, psychiatric hospitalizations, abusive parents, truancy — even suicide attempts. “Please do something,” begged a student in one leaked file, recalling the trauma of continually bumping into an ex-abuser...
Penn State, Pitt, others get hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds, but tracking it is a challenge
This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public-service journalism for Pennsylvania. Sign up for our regional newsletter, Talk of the Town. STATE COLLEGE — Each year, Pennsylvania’s legislature sends hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to...
Borrowers disappointed with Supreme Court ruling striking down student loan relief
Out of cellphone range and running low on hope, Annie Quinn kept refreshing her phone while traveling through rural Maryland on Friday, bracing for what nine U.S. Supreme Court justices would decide about her financial future. The news, as she feared, wasn’t good. When her phone signal returned, Quinn, 38,...
Student loan payments start again soon. Supreme Court’s ruling means higher bills for many
WASHINGTON — In a good month, Celina Chanthanouvong has about $200 left after rent, groceries and car insurance. That doesn’t factor in her student loans, which have been on hold since the start of the pandemic and are estimated to cost $300 a month. The pause in repayment has been...
Affirmative action is out in higher education so what’s next for college admissions?
Colleges across the country will be forced to stop considering race in admissions under Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling, ending affirmative action policies that date back decades. Schools that have relied on race-conscious admissions policies to build diversity will have to rethink how they admit students. It’s expected to result in...
Western Pa. campuses say diversity will remain priority following high court ruling
Just as they had before Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions, campuses across Western Pennsylvania made one thing clear within hours after the historic ruling. They said they will find ways to keep their classes diverse, even without direct use of race. What that...
Pittsburgh Public Schools to change start times for 2023-24 school year
Pittsburgh Public Schools will change start times for students beginning in the 2023-24 academic year. The new plan — which was approved by the school board Wednesday — aims to “support the district’s efforts to provide synchronous professional learning for school-based staff,” district officials said in a statement. “We are...
Student prices to rise at Pitt’s Greensburg, Johnstown branch campuses
Student fees are going up this fall on University of Pittsburgh branch campuses at Johnstown and Greensburg. A trustees panel voted Wednesday to raise the student activity fee for full-time Pitt-Johnstown students from $180 a year to $400. The panel also approved increasing the athletic and recreation fee at Pitt-Greensburg...
Pitt’s dean of education to become president at Charlotte HBCU
The University of Pittsburgh will be searching for a successor to School of Education Dean Valerie Kinloch, who is leaving to become the president of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C. She will assume the role of president of the historically Black college on Aug. 1 Kinloch has been...
State teacher’s union blasts proposed school voucher scholarships
Pennsylvania’s teachers union is protesting a proposed program that would shift funding from public to private schools. The initiative would provide state-funded “lifeline scholarships” to eligible students at schools identified as “low-achieving.” The program could come to a vote in the Senate this week amid the state budget approval process....
Activists call on Pittsburgh Public Schools to stop issuing citations against students, cut back on suspensions
A rally Monday outside the Pittsburgh Public Schools administration building in Oakland highlighted concerns about students being pushed out of schools because of summary citations and suspensions. Spearheaded by 412 Justice, an organization focused on economic, environmental and educational justice, the rally brought attention to what organizers described as school...
For some states with transgender bathrooms laws, enforcement is an issue
BISMARCK, N.D. — When North Dakota restricted what bathrooms transgender students can use in public schools and universities this year, the school district in the state’s largest city promised to ignore the new rules. A Republican legislator then called for confiscating its state funding, but the law doesn’t include that...
How to prepare to start paying back your student loans when the pandemic payment freeze ends
NEW YORK — A three-year pause on federal student loan payments will soon end regardless of how the Supreme Court rules this week on a White House plan to forgive billions of dollars in student loan debt. The conservative-leaning court seems poised to strike down President Biden’s plan, which would...
Pitt, Penn State branch campuses bleeding enrollment; decline expected to continue
Brianna Guinther studies nursing minutes from her Greensburg home at a University of Pittsburgh branch campus, a leafy suburban setting with plenty of quiet study spaces and a new Life Sciences Building. Having Pitt-Greensburg as an option spared her a more arduous commute as she pursues a four-year degree. She...
Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children provides residential care for studentsVideo
Editor’s note: Students’ last names have been omitted at the request of the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children. Chloe makes her way down the long hallway. She holds onto her white probing cane, moving it from side to side. As she takes a few steps up a slight grade,...
Walk or run, this busy spot on Pitt campus has a new name
So, will it be Gallagher Walk or Gallagher Run? University of Pittsburgh trustees Friday renamed a spot in the heart of campus for departing Chancellor Patrick Gallagher, saying it reflected a transformational project during his nine-year tenure, and something else about him. The plaza and walkway that were chosen wrap...
West Virginia University approves $7M in staff cuts, 3% tuition increase
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — With more cuts expected, West Virginia University’s governing board moved forward Friday with slashing 12 graduate and doctorate programs amid a $45 million budget shortfall and approved a just under 3 percent tuition increase. The estimated $1.2 billion fiscal year 2024 budget approved by the institution’s Board...
Pennsylvania House lawmakers pass bill to recruit more educators by offering $10K stipends
HARRISBURG — Faced with a rising number of Pennsylvania teachers leaving the profession, state House lawmakers on Thursday passed a bill to recruit more educators by giving student teachers a stipend while they’re in the classroom. The legislation seeks to remove the barriers for prospective teachers, whose work in the...
Carnegie Mellon president, chair of Pa. university system named to Homeland Security panel
Carnegie Mellon University’s president and the Fox Chapel-based board chair of Pennsylvania’s state-owned university system have been added to an advisory council to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Farnam Jahanian from CMU and Cynthia Shapira from the State System Higher Education’s board of governors are among 20 additions announced...
