CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
- AAU, Other Associations Submit Comments to USDA on Regulatory Reform
OTHER
- New ACE Report Finds Federal Aid Rarely Affects Tuition Policy
- AAU President to Serve as Interim President at Cornell University
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
AAU, OTHER ASSOCIATIONS SUBMIT COMMENTS TO USDA ON REGULATORY REFORM
Three associations, including AAU, submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last week in response to the agency’s Request for Information ( RFI) on ways to make its regulations more effective or less burdensome. The letter, submitted by AAU, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the Council on Governmental Relations, focused on rules governing the use of animals in research.
The associations urged USDA to establish a risk-based, tiered level of oversight for animal research that poses no more than minimal risk; to take a more risk-based approach to inspections that would harmonize with the Public Health Service policy; and to explore alternatives to requiring a literature search as a means of identifying alternatives to animal models.
The RFI was issued in accordance with the Department’s retrospective review of existing regulations required by Executive Orders 13563, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review,” and 13610, “Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens.”
OTHER
NEW ACE REPORT FINDS FEDERAL AID RARELY AFFECTS TUITION POLICY
A new report issued by the American Council on Education (ACE) finds little evidence that increases in federal student financial aid prompt colleges and universities to raise tuition, and that institutions rarely rely on federal aid as a rationale to give out less of their own institutional aid.
The report, “Federal Financial Aid Policy and College Behavior ,” was written by College of William and Mary researchers Robert Archibald and David Feldman. It addresses the so-called Bennett Hypothesis, a theory advanced by former Secretary of Education William Bennett that the availability of federal student loans encourages colleges and universities to raise tuition because students can offset any price increase with loans.
AAU PRESIDENT TO SERVE AS INTERIM PRESIDENT AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Cornell University announced on March 24 that AAU President Hunter Rawlings will serve as the university’s interim president, effective April 25, in the wake of the untimely death of Cornell President Elizabeth Garrett. Dr. Rawlings served as Cornell's president from 1995 to 2003, and also held the position of interim president at the university in 2005-06.
As previously announced, Dr. Rawlings informed the AAU board of directors in May 2015 that he would retire from AAU when his contract expired at the end of May 2016.
Mary Sue Coleman, a former president of the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa, was appointed as his successor.