The Observer, December 7, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 13
Outside the Circle
Oral Roberts president quits
Announced last week, the president of Oral Roberts University, Richard Roberts, signed an immediate resignation. The brief announcement made no mention of the university's growing scandal in which several lawsuits charge that Roberts and his wife used university funds inappropriately and silenced those who tried to question their actions.
Roberts and his wife have denied any illegal activity and the statement quoted him as saying:
"I love ORU with all my heart. I love the students, faculty, staff, and administration and I want to see God's best for all of them."
This resignation came just after a former senior accountant at the university sued the school, which further fueled accusations against the duo.
The Tulsa World reported that the suit by the accountant said that he was "directed, against his will and over his objections," to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, Oklahoma tax agencies and the public by not questioning spending of university money on personal expenses for Richard and Lindsay Roberts. The personal expenses included a swimming pool, pool table, and wet bar.
Kaplan expands in China
Kaplan Inc., which operates a test prep business as well as its own postsecondary program, announced last week that it plans to expand in China. The company is buying a majority stake in a corporation designed to train Chinese students to prepare for entrance to British universities. Kaplan is also buying a majority stake in the Sino-British College of Shanghai.
Kaplan has also signed an agreement to prove training in finance and economics to students at the Southwest University of Finance and Economics, in western China. The Washington Post owns Kaplan, and this month, Washingtonian magazine reported that the Post earned just over 50 percent of its revenue from Kaplan during the period covered by most recent financial statements issued by the company.
Ending the intellectual property frenzy
Universities often spend considerable time and money worrying about the intellectual property implications of collaborations with businesses. While initial deals are drawn, often the collaborations end with lawsuits.
In a recent recommendation to universities, Bill Destler, the new president of Rochester Institute of Technology, argues that universities should seek a modest payment from businesses to cover the basic costs of research they perform and then relinquish all intellectual property rights. Dester argues that it takes too long to make deals with businesses because universities all imagine themselves holding the rights to the next big drug breakthrough or commercial product, such as Gatorade, which has made the University of Florida nearly $80 million.
In an essay he recently published on the RIT Website, Destler reasons his unique approach: "America's leadership in new product and service development is in jeopardy. Competitive cost-cutting has forced the elimination of all but the shortest-term research and development programs in the private sector, and our corporate laboratories have all but vanished," he writes.
His solution: "Imagine a group of colleges that decide to make faculty and staff, graduate and undergraduate students, and facilities available to companies to carry out corporate research and development projects at low cost and without the usual intellectual property fights that usually derail such efforts. Imagine a new relationship between business and academia in which hundreds of companies discover that they can once again afford to do new product research and development, while identifying future employees at the same time. Suppose that the participating colleges and universities agree to accept a modest, up-front payment, to be shared by the students, faculty, and the institution, in return for relinquishing all IP rights associated with the work to the sponsoring company."
MIT's high school site
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare program puts most college course material online, including video lectures, making them available and free to anyone in the world. The program has been widely praised by educators worldwide for making the education of MIT accessible.
Last week, MIT announced that it would produce a high school version of OpenCourseWare. The goal is to place materials online for high school students to improve current instruction in science, technology, engineering, and math.
As of last week, almost all of MIT's courses have been placed online through OpenCourseWare – a total of 1800.
