STATE UNIVERSITIES
Budget approved for new SVSU business programs facility
Saginaw Valley State University’s request for $9.8 million in state funding received planning authorization approval in the 2018 fiscal year budget for a new business programs facility. The 40,000-square-foot building addition will be connected to the existing Malcolm Field Theatre for Performing Arts where Business of Management faculty offices currently are located.
Wayne State project proposal receives state approval
The state has committed $14.75 million toward renovating and repurposing Wayne State University’s vacant Science and Engineering Library into a proposed STEM Innovation Learning Center. It will include a range of facilities from traditional classrooms to maker-hacker labs for undergraduate science, technology, engineering and math students.
Montgomery begins his tenure as WMU’s ninth president
Edward B. Montgomery began his tenure as the ninth president of Western Michigan University Aug. 1. His previous positions include dean of the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and executive director of the White House Council on Auto Communities and Workers under the Obama administration.
PEER INSTITUTIONS
Penn and Berkeley dark energy project awarded $1M
A collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley that is exploring a class of dark energy theories, called chameleon theories, has been awarded $1 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation. Justin Khoury, principal investigator at Penn, said of the significance of the research, “An understanding of dark energy is going to tell us something profound about physics and science more generally.”
UCLA changes hiring policy, removes barriers to opportunity
Prospective job applicants at the University of California, Los Angeles will no longer be asked to check a box on the initial employment application indicating whether they have been convicted of a crime. Information will instead be requested during the background check. The policy change grew out of a discussion initiated by the systemwide Underground Scholars Initiative, which started as a UC Berkeley advocacy group supporting formerly incarcerated Berkeley students.
— Compiled by Ben Bugajski, The University Record
