Emerson lands a role in Hollywood
Hollywood is famous for flashes in the pan and overnight sensations, and Tinseltown dreams are often fleeting. But Emerson College, building on a two-decade presence on the left coast, is setting down roots in the entertainment capital.
The Boston college, already known as a Hollywood pipeline, has landed property for a permanent center on Sunset Boulevard for its successful Los Angeles program. Emerson president Jackie Liebergott made the announcement Thursday at the college's eighth annual LA Film Festival at the Harmony Gold Theatre. The college purchased the 37,000-square-foot vacant lot March 25 for $12 million.
Liebergott said the new center will mark a major advance for the college and give students "hands-on experience in all aspects of the entertainment world." It would put students in close proximity to Hollywood studios and some 3,000 Emerson graduates in the Los Angeles area.
Plans for the new center will be developed over the next two years. The program currently enrolls approximately 95 college seniors each semester, who take courses and internship positions as a springboard into the entertainment business. Many find jobs and remain in Los Angeles after graduation.
The new property will allow the school to expand the program to about 300 students a year, mostly seniors and graduate students, the school said.
The new center will include academic and administrative offices, student housing, and space for alumni and admissions activities. The program is now based in rented space in Burbank, and students live in nearby leased apartments.
Tight Harvard pool: A demographic bulge in high school seniors and the ever-intensifying scramble to attend the nation's most selective colleges and universities made it a hard admissions season for many high school seniors. Nowhere was that more true than Harvard, which admitted just 7 percent of a record applicant pool of 27,462, the lowest rate in its history. Last year, Harvard admitted 2,058 out of 22,955 applicants, a shade under 9 percent.
"With such a large and deep applicant pool, it was more challenging than ever to make the final admission decisions," said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid. "The admitted students are outstanding in every way, as are many of those not admitted."
Harvard admitted 1,948 students, but received applications from more than 2,500 who scored a perfect 800 on the SAT critical reading test, and 3,300 who scored 800 on the SAT math test. More than 3,300 were ranked first in their high school classes, Harvard said.
Just over half of those admitted were women, and a record 11 percent were African-American. More than 18 percent are Asian-American, and about 10 percent are Latino.
Fitzsimmons said the college took a conservative approach in admitting students because of changes to the admissions landscape at elite universities. Harvard and many other top-flight colleges announced major expansions of their financial aid programs in recent months, making it harder to predict what colleges students will choose.
Race to China: As a booming China increasingly opens up to the world, US universities have come knocking, seeing opportunities and dollar signs in exporting American education to the world's most-populous nation through the Internet.
But as two area institutions have found, winning Beijing's blessing for online programs, never mind documenting it, is no easy task.
The University of Massachusetts announced to much fanfare last week that it was on the verge of becoming the first foreign university to win the approval of the Chinese government to offer online courses in the Communist country.
Southern New Hampshire University begged to differ.
As news of the pact broke, the 1,900-undergraduate Manchester college countered that it had received permission from the Chinese government a year ago to offer an online MBA program beginning this fall.
After quietly lobbying Chinese officials for two years to win their approval, Southern New Hampshire administrators recoiled at the sight of another institution claiming bragging rights. Shortly after reading a story about the UMass effort in the Globe on Tuesday, Southern New Hampshire University president Paul LeBlanc called his counterpart at UMass, Jack M. Wilson, to express his concern.
Both sides insist there are no hard feelings. The conversation between Wilson and LeBlanc, who as it turns out is a UMass-Amherst alumnus, was cordial, both sides agreed.
But the basic disagreement remained, and both sides were resolute. UMass pointed to a memorandum of understanding with Chinese officials; Southern New Hampshire produced a memo that outlined their arrangement with several Chinese universities.
The dispute reflects the sometimes confusing reality of doing business with Beijing these days, analysts said.
"The Chinese bureaucracy often does not speak with one voice," said Frank Mayadas of the Sloan Foundation, a leading distance learning supporter.
Campus Insider runs on alternate Sundays with Ask the Teacher, an advice column. To submit tips to Campus Insider, e-mail Peter Schworm at schworm@globe.com.
