Enlisting minority recruiters
The escalating competition for low-income and minority students at elite colleges is making recruiting difficult at other schools slightly lower on the totem pole.
At Tufts University, the number of African-American freshmen plummeted from 90 last year to 52 this fall, because fewer of the black students who were admitted accepted the Tufts offer.
Admissions dean Lee Coffin said it's hard for Tufts to compete with wealthier rivals, especially in the Ivy League, which have been advertising increasingly generous financial aid for low-income students. Columbia is the latest to jump on the bandwagon, replacing loans with grants for students whose families earn less than $50,000.
``We had conversations this spring with students who said, `You are absolutely our first choice, but fill-in-the-blank institution offered $1,000 or $2,000 more,' " Coffin said.
Tufts has added a staff member for minority recruitment and is considering other remedies.
TURMOIL OVER BU DEAN: Ongoing turmoil in the College of Communication has left some professors wondering how much Boston University has really changed since the days of John Silber, when, critics say, fear pervaded the school and decision-making was opaque.
In September, dean John Schulz announced plans to step down Oct. 15, yet a BU inquiry found no merit to allegations that he had exaggerated his accomplishments. At a staff goodbye party in his honor a few weeks ago, Schulz again stirred controversy when he said there were some people at BU whom he would like to meet in an alley with a baseball bat, according to professors who spoke with attendees.
Schulz declined to comment to the Globe, but acknowledged to provost David Campbell that he made inappropriate remarks, according to BU spokesman Steve Burgay. Campbell verbally chided Schulz, who was ``apologetic and contrite," Burgay said.
But Burgay said the incident had nothing to do with Schulz leaving office weeks earlier than planned. About a week after the episode, Tobe Berkovitz, a mass communication professor, was named as interim dean, and he took office on Sept. 25.
Burgay said that Berkovitz emerged as a strong first choice and that it was better to avoid a lame duck period. Several professors say that they don't buy the administration's statements about the inquiry or the reason for Schulz's early departure.
FAVORITES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION POST: Familiar names in Republican circles are surfacing for the soon-to-be-vacant chairmanship of the state Board of Higher Education.
Sources familiar with board matters say that a favorite is John Brockelman, a board member and former head of the Massachusetts Republican Party. But Brockelman declined the post, citing family and professional obligations. Another name circulating, sources say, is Beth Lindstrom, the former consumer affairs secretary. Lindstrom was forced to resign from a weeks-old position on the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority when it was found that Governor Mitt Romney had inadvertently packed the board with more Republicans than state law permitted.
Stephen P. Tocco, current chairman of the Board of Higher Education, was recently elected chairman of the board of trustees of the University of Massachusetts and plans to resign from the Higher Education Board as soon as Romney announces his replacement.
FACULTY OPINION: A faculty committee at Brandeis University has found that the school erred last year in removing a student-created art exhibit from the school library that included paintings by Palestinian teenagers depicting injured Palestinian youths. At the time, the university said the exhibit was too one-sided; it was later displayed at MIT.
The move sparked debate about free speech at Brandeis, a nonsectarian school where half the students are Jewish.
``The exhibit depicted views about the Middle East that clearly did not purport to be those of the university, and it represented accordingly a legitimate student exercise of the right to free speech," the faculty committee said in the report, which was discussed at a faculty meeting last week.
The committee recommended that the school clarify its policies, including by adding requirements that exhibits provide a clear statement of sponsorship and a notice stating that the university does not necessarily endorse its content.
The eight-member committee felt that the exhibit did not violate hate-speech rules, particularly after the student added more context to the exhibit at the university's request, said its chairman, professor Paul Jankowski.
``The removal departed from the administration's openness to controversy," he said.
The university plans to take the committee's recommendations under consideration, said Lorna Miles, a Brandeis spokeswoman.
E-mail tips to campus@globe.com. Campus Insider alternates with Ask the Teacher, a Globe advice column written by a teacher, on Sundays in the City & Region section. 
