MA Universities Urge Research, Student Support
BU IN DC
Strom Thacker of the College of Arts & Sciences and the Pardee School of Global Studies participated in the Consortium of Social Science Association’s annual meeting and advocacy day on March 9 and 10.
MA UNIVERSITIES URGE RESEARCH, STUDENT SUPPORT
As Congress begins its annual budget process, Boston University, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology urged the Massachusetts Congressional delegation to support the universities’ funding priorities for federal student aid, scientific research, and the humanities. The universities’ joint memorandum expressed appreciation for the temporary suspension of a portion of the threatened sequester cuts in the previous two fiscal years, but emphasized that the austere federal funding environment has already inflicted damage to the Commonwealth’s research and higher education enterprise. Read the memo
PRESIDENT UNVEILS STUDENT AID BILL OF RIGHTS
On March 10, President Barack Obama announced a new Student Aid Bill of Rights, a series of executive actions to help student loan borrowers better navigate and manage their debt load. The U.S. Department of Education will implement a central web portal by next summer to allow borrowers to file and track complaints about their loan services, as well as a separate website where borrowers can access information on all their federal loans at once. The President also asked the Department “to study how other complaints about colleges and universities, such as poor educational quality or misleading claims, should be collected and resolved and to strengthen the process for referring possible violations of laws and regulations to other enforcement agencies.” Learn more
SENATE CONFIRMS PATENT OFFICE DIRECTOR
The U.S. Senate confirmed Michelle Lee as the director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Monday, filling a position that had been vacant for two years. Ms. Lee was previously the deputy general counsel and head of patent strategy at Google, and also served as the first director of the USPTO’s Silicon Valley office. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her law degree from Stanford Law School. Find out more