Budget Office wins national award, for producing budget document judged easy to read and understand, for 25th straight year

Catawba County Board of Commissioners adopts resolution supporting citizen participation in government through elections in Catawba County.

A hazing-related student death at Bowling Green State University has renewed conversations about hazing on college campuses.; Credit: Adam Lacy/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

There were zero reported deaths from college hazing incidents in 2020, but as campuses reopen to students, there have already been two hazing-related deaths this year. Eight men face a range of charges, including involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, evidence tampering and failure to comply with underage alcohol laws, after Stone Foltz, a sophomore at Bowling Green State University, died on March 7 of alcohol poisoning.

At a news conference on April 29, Wood County Prosecutor Paul Dobson described the fraternity event in which initiates were told to drink 750 milliliters of hard alcohol — or about 40 shots, according to Hank Nuwer, author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives. Dobson said Foltz's death was "the result of a fatal level of alcohol intoxication during a hazing incident."

Experts like Nuwer are concerned that as students return to in-person learning and are eager to take part in "the college experience," more hazing-related deaths may be on the way.

"There seems to be a disconnect — not seeing that alcohol-related hazing can kill," he says.

Nuwer is a professor emeritus of journalism at Franklin College and the author of five books on hazing. He spoke with NPR's All Things Considered about how the Stone Foltz case could reshape hazing prosecution, how college campuses create a "perfect storm" for hazing and how to put an end to the practice, once and for all.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview Highlights

On the legal history of prosecuting hazing

There've been charges all along, but often they get dropped or they're unsuccessful. I would consider this to be a landmark case because of the possibility of at least five years of imprisonment, if the prosecutor is successful.

We have 44 state laws out there on hazing, but some are very, very weak. And Ohio's is weak now, but they're trying to strengthen it after a death at Ohio University [in 2018] and now Bowling Green.

On what the return to college campuses means for hazing

What I'm seeing is, in effect, we have two freshmen classes in that the sophomores have been taking online classes. Now they're going to be out there, and they haven't had any hazing or alcohol education programs. They're coming out there with a gusto because now they're the people of status, who have power over these pledges. And then the regular freshman class is coming in, all excited as usual, and we've seen so many times where a death occurs within the first couple of days of the students on campus, sometimes before they've taken a single class.

On the challenges to end fraternity hazing

In my opinion, campuses are the perfect storm for something like this because we're all about status and power. All of these obstacles have led to today, when alcohol has been added to the mix. There wasn't a single alcohol death before 1940. Now, it's one of the most major [causes of hazing-related deaths]. There were 62 deaths from 2009 to 2021; 39 were alcohol related.

On whether this is a chance for colleges to reset this part of campus culture

I want a hard approach. You have to go after the alumni who are encouraging this. You have to punish all of the hazing — not temporarily. This tradition has to stop, and it can't be looked at as tradition. As Mr. [Paul] Dobson, the prosecutor, is doing in the Stone Foltz case: You have to prosecute to the fullest extent [of the law].

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

; Credit: /Rob Dobi for NPR

When someone applies to college, there's often a box or a section on the application that asks if they have any relatives who attended the university —perhaps a parent or a cousin. This is called "legacy," and for decades it's given U.S. college applicants a leg up in admissions. But no longer in Colorado's public colleges.

On Tuesday, Colorado became the first state to do away with that admissions boost, when Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a ban on the practice into law. The governor also signed a bill that removes a requirement that public colleges consider SAT or ACT scores for freshmen, though the new law still allows students to submit test scores if they wish.

Both moves are aimed at making higher education access more equitable. According to the legislation, 67% of middle- to high-income students in Colorado enroll in bachelor's degree programs straight from high school, while only 47% of low-incomes students do. There are also major differences when it comes to race, with white students far more likely to enroll in college.

Legacy admissions have long been a target for reform. In a 2018 survey of admissions directors by Inside Higher Ed, 42% of private institutions and 6% of public institutions said they consider legacy status as a factor in admissions. Some of the nation's largest public universities do not consider legacy, including both the University of California and the California State University systems. However, private colleges in California have reported using legacy as a way to encourage philanthropic giving and donations.

During the pandemic, many colleges backed off on using SAT and ACT scores in admissions. Research has shown — and lawsuits have argued -- that the tests, long used to measure aptitude for college, are far more connected to family income and don't provide meaningful information about a student's ability to succeed in college. Wealthier families are also more likely to pay for test prep courses, or attend schools with curriculums that focus on the exams.

As pandemic restrictions loosen up, and in-person testing resumes, some universities have begun to re-incorporate the SAT and ACT into their admissions. But others have made the temporary changes permanent. This spring, the University of California system agreed to continue a test-free admissions policy through 2025. California sends the largest number of high school students to U.S. colleges, and if the UC system no longer uses the tests, its unclear whether those students will be interested in applying to other schools that do require them.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Students work on a classroom exercise at a school in Kibera, a poor neighborhood in Nairobi, Kenya.; Credit: Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images

You'd think the best way to get girls to succeed in school would to be design programs specifically for them — offer them mental health support or free menstrual pads.

But a new study, published in May in the journal World Bank Economic Review, begs to differ. Researchers David Evans and Fei Yuan reviewed 267 studies of education programs from 54 low- and middle-income countries to find the most effective ways to get more girls in school and improve their learning. Globally, more than 130 million girls remain out of school, according to the World Bank, due to poverty, child marriage and violence.

Instead of only examining girls' education programs, they looked at all kinds of programs. To measure access, they analyzed enrollment rates, attendance, drop-out, graduation and completion rates, and to measure performance, they looked at test scores.

Their biggest finding is that gender-neutral programs — such as handing out cash aid to families of school-aged children — can be just as effective at improving girls' education as programs designed just for girls.

The study is among the first to look both at ways to boost girls' access to school as well as their classroom performance, says Markus Goldstein, lead economist at the World Bank's Africa Gender Innovation Lab, who did not work on the report.

We spoke with Evans, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, and Yuan, a doctoral candidate in education policy and program evaluation at Harvard University, to discuss the best ways to boost education for girls in low- and middle-income countries. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What inspired you to conduct this study?

Evans: A lot of the previous work that examined this issue have focused on programs targeted to needs that are unique to girls, such as menstrual health. Those are worthy interventions, but if we only focus on programs that target girls, we might miss programs that benefit girls a lot but happen to help boys as well.

That's why we decided to look at all of the interventions we know of to identify the ones that are most effective at improving outcomes for girls, regardless of whether they're specifically for girls or not.

You found that the most effective programs for getting more girls into school cut the cost of education for students, regardless of gender, and their families. What are some examples of programs that worked well?

Evans: A lot of the most effective programs are ones that either eliminate school fees, provide scholarships or provide families a cash transfer to cover the other costs of having their daughter in school.

For example, in Ghana, lots of girls and boys pass their secondary school entrance exam, but they don't have the money to pay school fees. So, a program there provided scholarships to students who had already passed the entrance exam. It dramatically increased the high-school graduation rate of girls by 66%.

But the most effective interventions are those that address costs related to specific obstacles that girls face in a particular setting. In Afghanistan, for example, a [non-gendered] program built schools in rural communities. It decreased [the cost of] travel to school for both girls and boys and led to a more than 50% increase in girls' participation in primary school. That's dramatic.

Which programs were the most helpful for improving a girl's school performance, as opposed to just getting them into the classroom?

Evans: The most effective interventions to increase learning were programs that improved the quality of teaching. But it's not just throwing teachers into a conference room and giving them some lecture. It's also not about throwing fancy technology, like laptops or tablets, at classrooms. Hardware doesn't work. It's distracting for teachers and students.

Instead, a literacy program – which included coaching teachers, providing them with detailed teachers' guides and providing students with books – had a big impact on girls' education [in terms of test scores] in Kenya. So did another program in Kenya that helped teachers to teach children in a language they spoke at home (rather than English).

Were there any other types of programs that helped girls learn better in the classroom?

Yuan: Another intervention worth mentioning is called Teaching at the Right Level, based in India. The idea is that students in the same classroom may have many different reading levels. But because of constraints like large class sizes, teachers may not be able to tailor their teaching to the right level for every student. This leaves some students behind.

Teaching at the Right Level facilitated summer camps in which children were grouped by reading level, instead of age or grade. This allowed teachers to target their teaching to the specific levels of these students. In one region, after 50 days of focused teaching in these camps, children at the lowest achievement levels in India were able to catch up to the learning level of the third-highest achieving state in the country.

Many of the high-impact interventions you're referencing don't target girls specifically. Are you saying that girls' programs aren't necessary?

Evans: Not at all! We particularly focused on how to increase access to education and improve quality of learning. Some [girl-focused] programs have other goals – such as reducing violence against girls, improving girls' psychological and emotional wellbeing, reducing adolescent pregnancy or helping girls to transition from school to the workforce.

But when teaching is of bad quality, we just need to help schools improve the teaching. That's not necessarily a gender-specific problem.

Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to just offer scholarships or cash transfers to girls only instead of both genders, especially if far fewer girls are attending school than boys?

Evans: Sure, if you don't have the budget to waive school fees for everyone, eliminating school fees for girls is an effective way to do a girl-targeted program. That's what The Gambia did. But sometimes general, non-targeted interventions are more politically palatable for governments, since constituents have both daughters and sons.

Were you concerned that some of the gender-neutral programs might benefit boys more than girls?

Evans: That was something we were worried about – increasing inequality. But we found that overall, the impact of gender-neutral programs tends to be slightly larger on girls than boys both in terms of access and learning. These differences, for the most part, were not statistically significant. They were small. But it does mean that these general, non-targeted interventions are not increasing inequality between boys and girls. If anything, they're likely to decrease it.

What changes do you hope to see in how we work on girls' education around the world?

Evans: We want to make sure that people who care about girls' education draw on the full toolbox of programs that can improve girls' education. That includes girl-targeted programs. It also includes general programs.

We don't anyone to walk away from this and say, 'Oh, we don't need to worry about girls.' Instead, it means that if we are worried about girls, we have a broader array of tools to help them.

Joanne Lu is a freelance journalist who covers global poverty and inequity. Her work has appeared in Humanosphere, The Guardian, Global Washington and War is Boring. Follow her on Twitter: @joannelu

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Smokers who are exposed to radon appear to be at even greater risk for lung cancer, because the effects of smoking and radon are more powerful when the two factors are combined, says a new report by a committee of the National Research Council.

Radon in household water supplies increases peoples overall exposure to the gas, but waterborne radon poses few risks to human health, says a new report by a committee of the National Research Council.

The federal government should not increase the maximum level of copper allowed in drinking water, because higher levels could lead to liver poisoning in infants and children with certain genetic disorders.

Insufficient evidence exists to support claims that taking megadoses of dietary antioxidants, such as selenium and vitamins C and E, or carotenoids, including beta-carotene, can prevent chronic diseases, says the latest report on Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

Representatives from academies and research organizations around the world sent messages of condolence and support to members, officials and staff of the U.S. National Academies in the wake of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The following are excerpts from some of these messages.

One out of every four dogs and cats in the western world is now obese. Like humans, dogs and cats that are obese run a higher risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, or other health problems.

Scientific evidence links mold and other factors related to damp conditions in homes and buildings to asthma symptoms in some people with the chronic disorder, as well as to coughing, wheezing, and upper respiratory tract symptoms in otherwise healthy people, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

Medication errors are among the most common medical errors, harming at least 1.5 million people every year, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) today released SCIENCE, EVOLUTION, AND CREATIONISM, a book designed to give the public a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the current scientific understanding of evolution and its importance in the science classroom.

The National Research Council today released its assessment of U.S. doctoral programs, which includes data on over 5,000 programs in 62 fields at 212 universities nationwide.

A National Research Council committee asked to examine the scientific approaches used and conclusions reached by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during its investigation of the 2001 Bacillus anthracis mailings has determined that it is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion about the origins of the anthrax in letters mailed to New York City and Washington, D.C., based solely on the available scientific evidence.

As of today all PDF versions of books published by the National Academies Press will be downloadable to anyone free of charge. This includes a current catalog of more than 4,000 books plus future reports produced by the Press.

The Institute of Medicine today presented the 2012 Gustav O. Lienhard Award to Donald M. Berwick, a physician whose work has catalyzed a national movement to improve health care quality and safety.

Legal responses to juvenile offending should be grounded in scientific knowledge about adolescent development and tailored to an individual offenders needs and social environment, says a new report from the National Research Council.

U.S. adults perform comparably to adults in other economically developed countries on most measures of science knowledge and support science in general, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Cognitive training, blood pressure management for people with hypertension, and increased physical activity all show modest but inconclusive evidence that they can help prevent cognitive decline and dementia, but there is insufficient evidence to support a public health campaign encouraging their adoption, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine proposes a strategy that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should use to evaluate the evidence of adverse human health effects from low doses of exposure to chemicals that can disrupt the endocrine system.

New Report Outlines Research Agenda to Better Understand the Relationship Among Microbiomes, Indoor Environments, and Human Health

The U.S. Department of Energy should place a higher priority on developing an accurate and actionable inventory of agency-owned or managed properties that can be leased or sold for energy development, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The U.S. is losing ground in a second laser revolution of highly intense, ultrafast lasers that have broad applications in manufacturing, medicine, and national security, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Synthetic biology expands the possibilities for creating new weapons — including making existing bacteria and viruses more harmful — while decreasing the time required to engineer such organisms, concludes a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The science questions that could be answered by an electron ion collider (EIC) – a very large-scale particle accelerator – are significant to advancing our understanding of the atomic nuclei that make up all visible matter in the universe, says a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

If the dilute and dispose approach for disposing of the surplus plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is fully implemented, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) should use two independent review teams to develop public trust in and improve its decisions, says a new interim report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The changes in brain structure and connectivity that occur between the ages of 10 and 25 present adolescents with unique opportunities for positive, life-shaping development, and for recovering from past adversity, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

International thought leaders will join the next generation of engineers in London from Sept. 16 to 18 for the Global Grand Challenges Summit 2019. The summit aims to help inspire and equip future engineering leaders to address the rapidly evolving challenges of an unpredictable world.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) should focus funding on holistic, evidence-based, population-wide adolescent health programs that consider adolescent risk-taking as normative, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The goal of achieving universal health coverage by 2030 — one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals — necessitates that countries strengthen their food and drug regulatory systems as a whole, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Over the next five years, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP) should encourage and be among co-leaders in the federal government’s development of an enduring interagency mechanism to address an array of biological threats – including natural disease outbreaks, accidental releases, and intentional attacks -- to deployed U.S. forces and to the nation itself, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Latest COVID-19 Conversations webinar discusses implementing crisis standards of care.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s plan to dilute and dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico is technically viable, provided that the plan’s implementation challenges and system vulnerabilities are resolved.

Instead of an “all-or-nothing” approach to disease prevention, Americans need guidance on how to safely return to school, work, and other activities mid-pandemic, said panelists at a May 13 COVID-19 Conversations webinar.

The Committee on Human Rights (CHR) of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine fully endorses the Call for a Human Rights-Based Approach to COVID-19, issued by the Executive Committee of the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies (IHRN).

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says using laboratory dogs in research at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is scientifically necessary for only a few areas of current biomedical research.

Adolescents need to be heard to ensure that health programs that serve them are reaching them effectively, according to Promoting Positive Adolescent Health Behaviors and Outcomes, a report released last December by the National Academies.

To more accurately quantify disaster-related deaths, injuries, and illnesses, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies supporting disaster response should adopt a uniform national framework of data collection approaches and methods for distinguishing direct from indirect disaster deaths, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The National Academy of Medicine today announced Stephen P. Hinshaw is the recipient of the 2020 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health, for basic and applied research on individuals with externalizing disorders, and for efforts to reduce mental illness stigma through youth-based programs and the promotion of humanization.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine today released the final report of a consensus study recommending a four-phased equitable allocation framework that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) authorities should adopt in the development of national and local guidelines for COVID-19 vaccine allocation.

Research by Gulf Research Program Early-Career Research Fellow Amina Schartup Explores How Mercury Levels in Fish May Rise with Climate Change

Decision-makers leading COVID-19 vaccine rollouts need to begin communicating with the public immediately if they have not already — emphasizing public support for vaccinations, leveraging celebrity and community champion endorsements, and focusing on those who are skeptical or hesitant of the vaccines rather than firmly opposed — to ensure demand and promote uptake, says a new rapid expert consultation from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a final report today reviewing the second draft of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) monograph, A Randomized Trial of Differential Effectiveness of Service Dog Pairing Versus Emotional Support Dog Pairing to Improve Quality of Life for Veterans With PTSD, which assesses the potential therapeutic effects of programs with trained service dogs and emotional support dogs on veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Although the number of women among new inventors is edging upward, women still make up only about 13 percent of inventors in the economy overall. What keeps more women from engaging in invention and entrepreneurship? A recent workshop explored that question and how to remove the obstacles.

Since the start of the pandemic, 2.5 million women have departed from the job market. A new rapid expert consultation says direct financial support, greater access to male-dominated jobs, and investing in child care can encourage women to return to the post-COVID workforce.

As millions of adolescents head back to school, what can science tell us about how the isolation and upheaval of the past year-and-a-half have affected their mental health and development?

When communicating with parents about getting their children vaccinated against COVID-19, emphasize the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, encourage them to talk with their family doctor, and leverage parents’ social networks.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many older Americans experienced social isolation or loneliness, which can impact both mental and physical health. Carla Perissinotto, a geriatrician who served on a National Academies study committee that examined the topic, reflected on her patients’ experiences during the pandemic and what we’ve learned.