Column Just before Christmas, Google claimed quantum supremacy. The company had configured a quantum computer to produce results that would take conventional computers some 10,000 years to replicate - a landmark event.

Bollocks, said IBM - which also has big investments both in quantum computing and not letting Google get away with stuff. Using Summit, the world's largest conventional supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee, IBM claimed it could do the same calculation in a smidge over two days.

As befits all things quantum, the truth is a bit of both. IBM's claim is fair enough - but it's right at the edge of Summit's capability and frankly a massive waste of its time. Google could, if it wished, tweak the quantum calculation to move it out of that range. And it might: the calculation was chosen precisely not because it was easy, but because it was hard. Harder is better.

Google's quantum CPU has 54 qubits, quantum bits that can stay in a state of being simultaneously one and zero. The active device itself is remarkably tiny, a silicon chip around a centimetre square, or four times the size of the Z80 die in your childhood ZX Spectrum. On top of the silicon, a nest of aluminium tickled by microwaves hosts the actual qubits. The aluminium becomes superconducting below around 100K, but the very coldest part of the circuit is just 15 millikelvins. At this temperature the qubits have low enough noise to survive long enough to be useful

By configuring the qubits in a circuit, setting up data and analysing the patterns that emerge when the superpositions are observed and thus collapse to either one or zero, Google can determine the probable correct outcome for the problem the circuit represents. 54 qubits, if represented in conventional computer terms, would need 254 bits of RAM to represent each step of the calculation, or two petabytes' worth. Manipulating this much data many times over gives the 10 millennia figure Google claims.

IBM, on the other hand, says that it has just enough disk space on Summit to store the complete calculation. However you do it, though, it's not very useful; the only application is in random number generation. That's a fun, important and curiously nuanced field, but you don't really need a refrigerator stuffed full of qubits to get there. You certainly don't need the 27,648 NVidia Tesla GPUs in Summit chewing through 16 megawatts of power.

What Google is actually doing is known in the trade as "pulling a Steve", from the marketing antics of the late Steve Jobs. In particular, his tour at NeXT Inc, the company he started in the late 1980s to annoy Apple and produce idiosyncratic workstations. Hugely expensive to make and even more so to buy, the NeXT systems were never in danger of achieving dominance - but you wouldn't know that from Jobs' pronouncements. He declared market supremacy at every opportunity, although in carefully crafted phrases that critics joked defined the market as "black cubic workstations running NeXTOS."

Much the same is true of Google's claim. The calculation is carefully crafted to do precisely the things that Google's quantum computer can do - the important thing isn't the result, but the journey. Perhaps the best analogy is with the Wright Brothers' first flight: of no practical use, but tremendous significance.

What happened to NeXT? It got out of hardware and concentrated on software, then Jobs sold it - and himself - to Apple, and folded in some of that software into MacOS development. Oh, and some cat called Berners-Lee built something called the World Wide Web on a Next Cube.

Nothing like this will happen with Google's technology. There's no new web waiting to be borne on the wings of supercooled qubits. Even some of the more plausible things, like quantum decryption of internet traffic, is a very long way from reality - and, once it happens, it's going to be relatively trivial to tweak conventional encryption to defeat it. But the raw demonstration, that a frozen lunchbox consuming virtually no power in its core can outperform a computer chewing through enough wattage to keep a small town going, is a powerful inducement for more work.

That's Google's big achievement. So many new and promising technologies have failed not because they could never live up to expectations but because they cant survive infancy. Existing, established technology has all the advantages: it generates money, it has distribution channels, it has an army of experts behind it, and it can adjust to close down challengers before they get going. To take just one company - Intel has tried for decades to break out of the x86 CPU prison. New wireless standards, new memory technologies, new chip architectures, new display systems, new storage and security ideas - year after year, the company casts about for something new that'll make money. It never gets there.

Google's "quantum supremacy" isn't there either, but it has done enough to protect its infant prince in its superconducting crib. That's worth a bit of hype.

Sponsored: Detecting cyber attacks as a small to medium business

See the rest here:

Google and IBM square off in Schrodingers catfight over quantum supremacy - The Register

Steve Anderrson Saturday, 11 January 2020, 04:58 EST Modified date: Saturday, 11 January 2020, 04:58 EST

At a glance, the quantum volume is a measure of the complexity of a problem that a quantum computer can provide a solution. Quantum volume can also use to compare the performance of different quantum computers.

Ever since 2016, the IBM executives have doubled this value. In the 21st Century, Quantum computers have hailed as one of the most important innovations of the 21st century, along with potential applications in almost all fields of industries. Be it healthcare or artificial intelligence, and even financial modelling, to name a few.

Recently, quantum computers have also entered a new phase of development which can describe as practical. The first real quantum computer was launched in 2009 by Jonathan Holm. From that time, the quantum computer development has travelled a long way. At the moment, the industry driven by a handful of tech giants, including Google and IBM.

Even though IBMs latest advances viewed as significant advances, quantum computers can currently only be used for particular tasks. This indicates that they are far away from the general-purpose which classic computers serve us and to which we are used to.

Therefore, some people start worrying that the encryption technology which used to protect cryptocurrencies, for example, bitcoin may get destroyed. This worry is at least unfounded at present.

As the network is entirely built around the secure cryptographic transactions, a powerful quantum computer could eventually crack the encryption technology which used to generate Bitcoins private keys.

However, as per an article which was published by Martin Roetteler and various co-authors in June in 2017, such type of a machine requires approximately 2,500 qubits of processing power so that they can crack the 256-bit encryption technology which is used by Bitcoin.

Since the most powerful quantum computer which the world currently has only consisted of 72 qubit processors, one thing is clear that it will take several years for a quantum computer to reach the level of threatening encryption technology.

With the help of IBMs computing power which keeps doubling every year, and also the fact that Google has achieved quantum hegemony, Quantum might be working to ensure that Bitcoin can resist potential quantum computing attacks.

Read more:

Is Quantum Technology The Future Of The World? - The Coin Republic

Only so many transistors can fit on a silicon chip. Photograph: Rowan Morgan/Alamy Stock Photo

Way back in the 1960s, Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, observed that the number of transistors that could be fitted on a silicon chip was doubling every two years. Since the transistor count is related to processing power, that meant that computing power was effectively doubling every two years. Thus was born Moores law, which for most people working in the computer industry or at any rate those younger than 40 has provided the kind of bedrock certainty that Newtons laws of motion did for mechanical engineers.

There is, however, one difference. Moores law is just a statement of an empirical correlation observed over a particular period in history and we are reaching the limits of its application. In 2010, Moore himself predicted that the laws of physics would call a halt to the exponential increases. In terms of size of transistor, he said, you can see that were approaching the size of atoms, which is a fundamental barrier, but itll be two or three generations before we get that far but thats as far out as weve ever been able to see. We have another 10 to 20 years before we reach a fundamental limit.

Weve now reached 2020 and so the certainty that we will always have sufficiently powerful computing hardware for our expanding needs is beginning to look complacent. Since this has been obvious for decades to those in the business, theres been lots of research into ingenious ways of packing more computing power into machines, for example using multi-core architectures in which a CPU has two or more separate processing units called cores in the hope of postponing the awful day when the silicon chip finally runs out of road. (The new Apple Mac Pro, for example, is powered by a 28-core Intel Xeon processor.) And of course there is also a good deal of frenzied research into quantum computing, which could, in principle, be an epochal development.

But computing involves a combination of hardware and software and one of the predictable consequences of Moores law is that it made programmers lazier. Writing software is a craft and some people are better at it than others. They write code that is more elegant and, more importantly, leaner, so that it executes faster. In the early days, when the hardware was relatively primitive, craftsmanship really mattered. When Bill Gates was a lad, for example, he wrote a Basic interpreter for one of the earliest microcomputers, the TRS-80. Because the machine had only a tiny read-only memory, Gates had to fit it into just 16 kilobytes. He wrote it in assembly language to increase efficiency and save space; theres a legend that for years afterwards he could recite the entire program by heart.

There are thousands of stories like this from the early days of computing. But as Moores law took hold, the need to write lean, parsimonious code gradually disappeared and incentives changed. Programming became industrialised as software engineering. The construction of sprawling software ecosystems such as operating systems and commercial applications required large teams of developers; these then spawned associated bureaucracies of project managers and executives. Large software projects morphed into the kind of death march memorably chronicled in Fred Brookss celebrated book, The Mythical Man-Month, which was published in 1975 and has never been out of print, for the very good reason that its still relevant. And in the process, software became bloated and often inefficient.

But this didnt matter because the hardware was always delivering the computing power that concealed the bloatware problem. Conscientious programmers were often infuriated by this. The only consequence of the powerful hardware I see, wrote one, is that programmers write more and more bloated software on it. They become lazier, because the hardware is fast they do not try to learn algorithms nor to optimise their code this is crazy!

It is. In a lecture in 1997, Nathan Myhrvold, who was once Bill Gatess chief technology officer, set out his Four Laws of Software. 1: software is like a gas it expands to fill its container. 2: software grows until it is limited by Moores law. 3: software growth makes Moores law possible people buy new hardware because the software requires it. And, finally, 4: software is only limited by human ambition and expectation.

As Moores law reaches the end of its dominion, Myhrvolds laws suggest that we basically have only two options. Either we moderate our ambitions or we go back to writing leaner, more efficient code. In other words, back to the future.

What just happened? Writer and researcher Dan Wang has a remarkable review of the year in technology on his blog, including an informed, detached perspective on the prospects for Chinese domination of new tech.

Algorithm says no Theres a provocative essay by Cory Doctorow on the LA Review of Books blog on the innate conservatism of machine-learning.

Fall of the big beasts How to lose a monopoly: Microsoft, IBM and antitrust is a terrific long-view essay about company survival and change by Benedict Evans on his blog.

Read more here:

Were approaching the limits of computer power we need new programmers now - The Guardian

Jeffrey Epstein in 2004.

Rick Friedman | Corbis News | Getty Images

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Friday that it had placed one of its tenured professors on paid administrative leave after finding that he "purposefully failed to inform MIT" that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was the source of two donations in 2012 to support the professor's research, and that the professor got a $60,000 personal gift from Epstein.

A scathing report released by MIT also found that the decision by three administrators to accept donations from Epstein, who pleaded guilty to sex crimes in Florida in 2008 one of which involved a minor girl "was the result of collective and serious errors in judgment that resulted in serious damage to the MIT community."

The report noted that even as its findings have been made public, "MIT is still without a clear and comprehensive gift policy or a process to properly vet donors." However, the university has begun to develop such a process.

Epstein, a former friend of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, donated $850,000 to MIT from 2002 through 2017 in 10 separate gifts, the report said.

That was $50,000 more than the amount MIT has previously reported to have received from Epstein.

"The earliest gift was $100,000 given in 2002 to support the research of the late Professor Marvin Minsky, who died in 2016," MIT said as it released the report, which comes after four months of investigation of Epstein's ties to MIT conducted by the law firm Goodwin Procter.

"The remaining nine donations, all made after Epstein's 2008 conviction, included $525,000 to the Media Lab and $225,000 to" mechanical engineering professor Seth Lloyd, the report said.

The report also found that, "Unbeknownst to any members of MIT's senior leadership ... Epstein visited MIT nine times between 2013 and 2017."

"The fact-finding reveals that these visits and all post-conviction gifts from Epstein were driven by either former Media Lab director Joi Ito or professor of mechanical engineering Seth Lloyd, and not by the MIT administration or the Office of Resource Development."

Ito resigned last year after revelations about Epstein's donations to the Media Lab.

Lloyd received two donations of $50,000 in 2012, and the remaining $125,000 in 2017, according to the report.

"Epstein viewed the 2012 gifts as a trial balloon to test MIT's willingness to accept donations following his conviction" in Florida, MIT said.

"Professor Lloyd knew that donations from Epstein would be controversial and that MIT might reject them," MIT said.

"We conclude that, in concert with Epstein, he purposefully decided not to alert the Institute to Epstein's criminal record, choosing instead to allow mid-level administrators to process the donations without any formal discussion or diligence concerning Epstein."

Seth Lloyd is a professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Photo:Dmitry Rozhkov | Wikipedia CC

Lloyd was put on paid leave after it was found that he "purposefully failed to" tell MIT that Epstein was the source of the two earliest donations to him.

The report also found that Lloyd had "received a personal gift of $60,000 from Epstein in 2005 or 2006, which he acknowledged was deposited into a personal bank account and not reported to MIT," the university said in a press statement.

Lloyd is an influential thinker in the field of quantum mechanical engineering.

Educated at Harvard College and Cambridge University in England, Lloyd was the first person to propose a "technologically feasible design for a quantum computer," according to his resume. His 2006 book, "Programming the Universe," argues that the universe is a giant quantum computer calculating its own evolution.

"In addition to his own donations, Epstein claimed to have arranged for donations to MIT from other wealthy individuals," the report said. "In 2014, Epstein claimed to have arranged for Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates to provide an anonymous $2 million donation to the Media Lab. He also claimed that same year to have arranged for a $5 million anonymous donation to the Media Lab from Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management. Representatives of Bill Gates have told us that Gates flatly denies that Epstein had anything to do with Gates's donation to the Media Lab."

University President L. Rafael Reif had not been aware that MIT was accepting donations from Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail in August after being arrested the prior month on federal child sex trafficking charges, according to the report.

"But the review finds that three MIT vice presidents learned of Epstein's donations to the MIT Media Lab, and his status as a convicted sex offender, in 2013," the university said in a prepared statement.

"In the absence of any MIT policy regarding controversial gifts, Epstein's subsequent gifts to the Institute were approved under an informal framework developed by the three administrators, R. Gregory Morgan, Jeffrey Newton, and Israel Ruiz."

"Since MIT had no policy or processes for handling controversial donors in place at the time, the decision to accept Epstein's post-conviction donations cannot be judged to be a policy violation," the report said.

"But it is clear that the decision was the result of collective and significant errors in judgment that resulted in serious damage to the MIT community."

Reif, in a letter addressed to the university's community, said, "Today's findings present disturbing new information about Jeffrey Epstein's connections with individuals at MIT: how extensive those ties were and how long they continued. This includes the decision by a lab director to bring this Level 3 sex offender to campus repeatedly."

"That it was possible for Epstein to have so many opportunities to interact with members of our community is distressing and unacceptable; I cannot imagine how painful it must be for survivors of sexual assault and abuse," Reif said.

"Clearly, we must establish policy guardrails to prevent this from happening again."

The report notes, "While Epstein made charitable donations before his 2008 conviction, after that conviction he may have had a second motive for his donations: to launder his reputation by associating himself with reputable individuals and institutions."

See the original post:

Jeffrey Epstein scandal: MIT professor put on leave, he 'failed to inform' college that sex offender made donations - CNBC

The new decade will unfurl a bag of seismic shifts, predicts the creator of Cardano and Ethereum, Charles Hoskinson. And these changes will propel cryptocurrency and blockchain solutions to the forefront as legacy systems buckle, transform or dissolve.

In an ask-me-anything session uploaded on January 3rd, the 11th birthday of Bitcoin, Hoskinson acknowledges how the popular cryptocurrency gave him an eye-opening introduction to the world of global finance, and he recounts how dramatically official attitudes and perceptions have changed.

Every central bank in the world is aware of cryptocurrencies and some are even taking positions in cryptocurrencies. Theres really never been a time in human history where one piece of technology has obtained such enormous global relevance without any central coordinated effort, any central coordinated marketing. No company controls it and the revolution is just getting started.

And he expects its emergence to coalesce with other epic changes. In a big picture reveal, Hoskinson plots some of the major events he believes will shape the new decade.

2020 Predictions

Hoskinson says the consequences of these technologies will reach every government service and that cryptocurrencies will gain an opening once another economic collapse similar to 2008 shakes the markets this decade.

I think that means its a great opening for cryptocurrencies to be ready to start taking over the global economy.

Hoskinson adds that hes happy to be alive to witness all of the changes he anticipates, including a reorganization of the media.

This is the last decade of traditional organized media, in my view. Were probably going to have less CNNs and Fox Newses and Bloombergs and Wall Street Journals and more Joe Rogans, especially as we enter the 2025s and beyond. And I think our space in particular is going to fundamentally change the incentives of journalism. And well actually move to a different way of paying for content, curating content.

Check Latest News Headlines

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Liu zishan

See the original post:

Charles Hoskinson Predicts Economic Collapse, Rise of Quantum Computing, Space Travel and Cryptocurrency in the 2020s - The Daily Hodl

Questions about how to best implement breast density notification laws and their overall efficacy have been swirling over the past few years. What do women need to know, whats the best mechanism for informing them, and what language should be used?

To date, only 38 states have breast density notification laws, and they are all different. That means women nationwide arent receiving the same information in a uniform way. This variation resulted in several recent investigations, analyzing whether this type of legislation is effective.

Research Shows a Lack of Efficacy

A study published in the Jan. 8 Journal of General Internal Medicine revealed the laws and the notification letters are falling short of their intent to increase womens understanding of why breast density is important in catching and combatting breast cancer.

In a survey of nearly 2,000 women, investigators evaluated a womans reported history of increased breast density, her knowledge of the increased breast cancer risk accompanying dense breasts, her understanding of how dense breasts can hide cancers on mammography, and her anxieties over the disease.

According to results, dense breast notification laws did succeed in helping some women understand they have dense breasts. The impact was seen most among women who post-high school education.

However, they didnt improve womens understanding of the dense breast-breast cancer link or that dense breasts reduce mammographys detection capability. In fact, among participants, only 23 percent of women located in both states with and without dense breast notification legislation reported understanding that increased breast density is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer. Sixty-eight percent understood the dense-breast effect on mammograms.

Investigators pointed to the disparity in education as a potential culprit for the limited impact of notification legislation.

We know that women with less education are less likely to receive high-quality breast cancer screening and treatment, said senior author Cary Gross, M.D., a Yale University professor of medicine and member of the Yale Cancer Center, in a press release. Our study underscores one potential mechanism for this disparity. Ensuring that notifications are written in simple language may help improve understanding of breast density for all women.

Additional research also points to another contributing factor. In a recently published study in Academic Radiology, investigators report that online patient education material focused on breast density is largely written at a level too difficult for more patients to fully comprehend and process.

The American Medical Association currently recommends patient education materials be written at a 6th-grade reading level. But, this study of 41 websites dedicated to providing patient-focused, breast-density information including academic, non-profit, commercial, and government sources identified the sites were written at levels ranging from an 8th-grade to advanced-college. Eleventh grade was the average level. Nearly half included diagrams, and very few offered video content to aid in explanations.

The result, researchers wrote, is that patients arent able to find resources online to help them further understand any breast density notifications.

Readability of currently available online patient-education materials on breast density may be written at a level too difficult for the general public to comprehend, which may represent a barrier to educational goals of newly passed federal breast density legislation, they wrote.

A Different Patient Path to Information

JoAnn Pushkin, executive director of patient information website DenseBreast-info.org, disagreed. Instead, she said, the researchers reviewed sources that werent created with patients in mind.

While the challenge of balancing patient readability with the necessity of including medical terminology is one which we appreciate, Pushkin said, the study included and analyzed content from industry publications and manufacturer content which was not necessarily developed for a patient audience.

The conundrum surrounding the efficacy of these patient education websites likely centers on the vernacular researchers used when evaluating resources. Instead of the term breast density, which investigators used to select sites, she said, patient notification letters include the terms dense breasts or dense breast tissue. Consequently, women could be searching for and accessing breast density information differently.

Ultimately, though, she said, patients and providers should not rely solely on online materials and notificaiton letters to ensure women fully understand the risks associated with having dense breasts. They are only part of the solution to educating women about breast density.

While inform laws were intended to raise a womans awareness about dense breasts, they were not intended to be a substitute for a conversation with her provider, Pushkin said. They do, though, result in a need for medically sources, patient-friendly resources to educate and inform that patient/provider conversation.

Read this article:
Breast Density Laws: Are They Working? Do Online Education Resources Help? - Diagnostic Imaging

Improving Your Study Techniques from the University of Groningen. Learn to be better at learning with this class from a Dutch university.

Happier Employees and Return-on-Investment Course from the University of Texas at Austin. Co-taught by famed CEO coach and author Marshall Goldsmith, this class aims to show how happiness can make you more successful.

Fundamentals of Statistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Statistics is the science of turning data into insights and ultimately decisions,"says the class description, and this course will give you the basics to get started.

Hacking Exercise for Health. The Surprising New Science of Fitnessfrom McMaster University. This one promises "hacks to get fit and strong (and healthy!) in less time than you ever thought possible,"

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) from IBM. A primer on one of the hottest topics around for the complete beginner.

The Language of Design: Form and Meaning from the California Institute of the Arts. Designed to give novices the vocabulary and concepts necessary to talk effectively and offer feedback about design.

Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking from Harvard University. Learn how to change minds with your words from instructors at one of the world's best universities.

The Future of Work: Preparing for Disruption from the World Bank. Technology is replacing more and more jobs. How can you thrive in this new world? The World Bank offers some ideas to help you think through change and prepare.

Mindfulness and Resilience to Stress at Work from the University of California, Berkeley. "80 percent of workers feel stress on the job, and nearly half say they need help learning how to manage it,"says the course description. "This course offers research-based strategies for building resilience to stress."

Managing People: Understanding Individual Differences from the University of Reading. Bone up on personality and learning differences so you can get the most out of all of your people.

Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills from the University of Michigan. "We all negotiate on a daily basis," points out the course description. "Discover and practice the four steps to successful negotiation, and learn strategies to do it better."

Ethical Hacking from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Learn to think like a hacker so you can better protect yourself and your company.

Data Analysis: A Practical Introduction for Absolute Beginners from Microsoft. Know nothing about data but want to learn more? This course might be for you.

Critical Thinking: Reasoned Decision Making from Tecnolgico de Monterrey. Learn to think clearly and without bias (or at least with less bias) in a complex world.

Agile Leadership Principles from the University System of Maryland. Command-and-control leadership is going the way of the dinosaurs. This class will bring you up to speed on what's replacing it.

The Neuromarketing Toolbox from Copenhagen Business School. Just asking consumers what they like is so last century. This course will introduce you to more advanced ways of determining what motivatesthe people who buy your products.

Empowering Yourself in a Post-Truth World from the State University of New York. Clearly (and sadly) self-recommending in our current world.

Introduction to Self-Determination Theory: An Approach to Motivation, Development and Wellness from the University of Rochester. Self-determination theory "is an empirically based theory of motivation and psychological development that is especially focused on the basic psychological needs that promote high quality motivation and wellness,"explains the course description. Sounds fascinating.

Developing a Systems Mindset from the University of Colorado Boulder. Working on a complicated project with many stakeholders and interlocking factors? This course aims to help you make sense of it all.

Food and Mood: Improving Mental Health Through Diet and Nutrition from Deakin University. Learn how to eat better to feel better, not just physically, but mentally too.

The rest is here:
20 Online Courses That Will Make You More Successful in 2020 - Inc.

Alison Yin/EdSource

UC Berkeley students at the campus student union.

UC Berkeley students at the campus student union.

Californias public colleges and universities would receive more state funds to help improve graduation rates, expand online education for older students and lower textbook costs under Governor Gavin Newsoms budget plan for 2020-21 unveiled Friday.

However, Newsom offered higher education significantly less than its leaders sought and notably did not propose any large financial aid increases to help pay students housing and food costs. As a result, months of lobbying for more money and legislative negotiations are ahead.

The governor proposed 5 percent increases for the basic operating budgets for each of the states university systems: the ten-campus University of California and the 23-campus California State University. That would amount to $217.7 million more than last year for UC and $199 million more for CSU.

Those additions were less than half of what the two universities were seeking. But Newsom noted that the increases would total more than 12 percent over two years if his plan is approved by the State Legislature. That, he said, was not too bad and would be the largest amount over any 24 months in recent memory.

As a member of the two university governing boards as governor and, before that, as lieutenant governor, Newsom said that he knew the appetites of my colleagues and former colleagues at the UC regents and the CSU board of trustees in wanting more state money. But he signaled that they should be happy with his plan.

Newsom proposed an increase of 3.9 percent to the community college systems general fund well short of the 7.5 percent increase requested by the systems governing board. Among other items, the community college system had requested $250 million in extra financial aid to help students cover non-tuition costs. Newsom did not include that.

Unlike last year when he was adamant that UC and CSU tuition should be kept flat, Newsom on Friday did not explicitly mention tuition levels. However, his budget insists that the state funding is provided to improve or maintain college affordability, access and improved graduation rates for all students, especially underrepresented groups such as African-Americans. When asked whether the governor would flatly rule out even a modest tuition increase, his budget staffers Friday, during a briefing with EdSource, emphasized the importance of keeping college affordable and said they would wait to see what the two universities propose.

Online programs for adults to complete their bachelors degrees and professional certificates won special attention from Newsom. He offered $4 million in one-time funds for UC and $6 million to CSU for such efforts at extension and continuing education programs that will help adults improve their long-term economic and social mobility, the budget document said.

Newsom specified that he expects CSU, which enrolls about 410,000 students, to continue with its efforts to substantially improve graduation rates by 2025. CSU recently announced that 27.5 percent of those who began as freshmen graduated within four years, up two percentage points over the previous year but still well short of the 40 percent goal. The six-year graduation rate was 62.1 percent, up one percentage point, closer to the 70 percent goal.

For UC, Newsoms budget noted that a funding boost last year would continue to allow enrollment to grow in 2020-21, by 1,600 in-state undergraduates from the current 185,600. (Those Californians comprise 82 percent of the undergraduates, with students from other states and nations the rest.)

The budget comes at a time of considerable uncertainty about the leadership of Californias public higher education systems. Both UC president Janet Napolitano and CSU chancellor Timothy White have said they will be leaving their posts later this year and searches for their replacements are underway.

Leaders of UC and CSU thanked Newsom for the proposed increases yet clearly indicated that they hope more will be forthcoming as budget talks stretch out over the next five months.

UCs Napolitano and UC Regents Chairman John A. Perez said in a statement that they will continue to work with the governor and Legislature for funding to improve on-time graduation rates, particularly for students who are low-income or first in their families to enter college. UC appreciates the governors strong continued support of higher education and looks forward to our ongoing partnership, their statement said.

While appreciating the additional funding, White, in a statement, pointed out that it covers a portion of the universitys needs. As the budget process continues, we look forward to joining with students, faculty, staff and other stakeholders to advocate on behalf of the CSU. Newsoms plan contains an additional $31 million for CSU retirement benefits costs.

For community colleges, the budget proposal includes significant investments in apprenticeship programs as well as spending to improve faculty diversity, establish food pantries, lower textbook costs and provide extra support services for immigrant students.

On financial aid, Newsom proposed an additional $21.6 million in aid to parents who are students at a community college or public university building on last years budget that included $96.7 million in aid for those students. Newsom also proposed $5 million to convene a workgroup that would study student loan borrowing patterns and educate student borrowers about their loans, lending practices and repayment options.

However, the governor proposed no significant boosts in aid to help students with non-tuition costs such as housing and food, disappointing advocates who have called for a reform of the Cal Grant system to address the total cost of attending California colleges and universities.

It is disappointing that the Governor did not take this opportunity to provide a meaningful down payment on an urgently needed expansion of the Cal Grant, said Jen Mishory, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, in a statement. We hope the legislature will recognize this shortfall and work to include greater student aid in the final budget.

Newsoms budget proposal notes that the California Student Aid Commission has convened a workgroup that is studying the states financial aid programs and will soon make recommendations to the Legislature to better address the total cost of attendance. Newsoms education staff said they are eagerly awaiting the report.

Newsoms budget does propose significant investments in apprenticeship programs: $83.2 million to create and support programs in such fields as advanced manufacturing, hospitality and life sciences across the community college system.

The governor also proposed spending $15 million for a pilot fellowship program aimed at improving faculty diversity at community colleges and $10 million to support office hours for part-time faculty.

Newsoms other community college proposals include $11.4 million to support food pantries on campuses, $10 million to lower textbook costs, $10 million to provide immigrant legal services on campuses and $5.8 million for other support services for immigrant students.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the chancellor of the states community college system, said in a statement that the proposed budget represents a strong start for the California Community Colleges and the students we serve.

Newsom also proposed an additional $17 million to support the Fresno Integrated K-16 Education Collaborative, an initiative that helps students in the Fresno region go to and graduate from college and get jobs in fields such as accounting and nursing. That investment is part of a larger $50 million investment by Newsom to improve economic mobility in the Fresno region.

The budget plan also contained $50 million for UC Davis to expand its veterinary programs over five years to provide expertise, support and local assistance to help communities develop no-kill animal shelters that would ensure that any adoptable or treatable dog or cat would not be euthanized.

Originally posted here:
Newsom proposes funding boost for colleges and universities but education leaders wanted more - EdSource

This Insights article was contributed by Dr. William Sackley, Director of BB&T Center for Global Capitalism and Cameron School of Business Professor of Finance Last summer my colleague, Dr. Adam Jones, Chair of the Department of Economics and Finance, and I finally got serious about a project that we had contemplated for quite a while the development of an online course in Personal Finance. We are both passionate about the strong need existing for enhanced exposure to these topics. We speculate and certainly not because we are the developers that this could easily be the course which provides the most value added during a college career.

The online aspect of this course was for two reasons: 1) the rapid growth in demand for online offerings, especially for courses not in the students area of concentration, and 2) the desire to make the course more convenient to all students as opposed to those only in the Cameron School of Business. We launched the course during the now completed Fall Semester. Certainly, we have many revisions in order to improve the course, but our opinion is that students received precisely the exposure we had hoped for within the multitude of topics covered under a basic course in personal finance. This could be the end of the story and, if so, Dr. Jones and I would be very happy with the outcome. But we incorporated one more aspect into the course design, and we could not be more excited with the results. Under the premise that some variety in course delivery could help students retain their enthusiasm for the course, we attempted wherever possible to bring practitioners as well as other experts into our fairly sophisticated Cameron Recording Studio. The School of Business also has shared access to a (very) professional film editor. Mr. Jack Horn has worked on numerous television programs during his career, and he can make anyone look good on video (I am testimony to that!). Dr. Jones and I called upon several of our contacts, asking them to consider becoming an integral component in the delivery of course material. While each of them would be considered an expert in their area, few if any were initially comfortable with offering lectures or being video recorded. We developed and offered initial scripts to each of the guests, with the intention of guiding their initial direction while welcoming personalization of content, thanks to the experiences of all our guest speakers. What message do I attempt to deliver with this narrative? For some of the practical-based courses offered in a university, the potential may exist for partnerships with professionals from within the community. The Cameron School of Business prides itself on engagement with the Cape Fear business community. This includes placement of students with local companies and opportunities for business leaders to come to campus in guest teaching roles. Even though the impact of guest lecturing in an online environment might not be immediately perceived, the end results can be very rewarding. Wilmington definitely has its share if not more than its share of true professionals who have something to offer in augmenting the educational process in distance learning courses.

Robert T. Burrus, Jr., Ph.D., is the dean of the Cameron School of Business at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, named in June 2015. Burrus joined the UNCW faculty in 1998. Prior to his current position, Burrus was interim dean, associate dean of undergraduate studies and the chair of the department of economics and finance. Burrus earned a Ph.D. and a masters degree in economics from the University of Virginia and a bachelors degree in mathematical economics from Wake Forest University. The Cameron School of Business has approximately 60 full-time faculty members and 20 administrative and staff members. The AACSB-accredited business school currently enrolls approximately 2,000 undergraduate students in three degree programs and 200 graduate students in four degree programs. The school also houses the prestigious Cameron Executive Network, a group of more than 200 retired and practicing executives that provide one-on-one mentoring for Cameron students. To learn more about the Cameron School of Business, please visithttp://csb.uncw.edu/. Questions and comments can be sent to[emailprotected].

Go here to see the original:
Collaborative Education In An Online Setting by Robert Burrus | Sponsored Insights - Greater Wilmington Business Journal

BURBANK, Calif., Jan. 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Disney Aspire, The Walt Disney Company's 100% tuition-paid education plan for more than 94,000 hourly employees and Cast Members, welcomes Purdue University Global and Southern New Hampshire University to its network of schools. Eligible employees and Cast Members can now pursue a degree in Cloud Computing, Digital Photography, Legal Studies and Higher Education Administration, among others. This is in addition to the more than 300 programs in the current Disney Aspire network offered by universities and education providers, including University of Arizona, University of Central Florida, Valencia College, Brandman University, University of Florida Online, University of Denver, Wilmington University and Bellevue University.

"We are committed to providing our employees every opportunity to realize their hopes and dreams at the workplace and beyond," said Jayne Parker, senior executive vice president and Chief HR Officer, The Walt Disney Company. "We are excited to add Purdue University Global and Southern New Hampshire University to our best-in-class Disney Aspire program, which now offers even more choices for our employees to create the futures they imagine for themselves."

About Disney AspireDisney Aspire is the most comprehensive education investment program of its kind, offering more than 300 degrees and programs at 13 educational institutions nationwide in concert with Guild Education. The Company has committed $150 million to fund Disney Aspire over the first five years of the program and will add up to $25 million more each year after that. Disney Aspire is designed to remove key barriers to enrollment and support working adults in a multitude of ways, including:

Since Disney Aspire's launch in August 2018, more than 12,000 students have actively enrolled in classes and more than 500 have completed programs and graduated.

Purdue Global, part of the Purdue University system, delivers personalized online education tailored to the unique needs of working adults. Southern New Hampshire University was named one of the nation's Best Regional Universities by US News & World Report, ranking as the Most Innovative School in the northern region.

"Disney Aspire continues to lead the way as one of the most comprehensive employee education programs in the country and we are proud that SNHU's workforce-relevant degree programs will now be available to Disney employees and Cast Members," said Paul LeBlanc, university president and CEO, Southern New Hampshire University. "Our collaboration with Disney will expand access to education for thousands of Disney employees and will allow them to further their career and personal ambitions without taking on any debt."

"We are proud to work with Disney, an organization known for its commitment to quality in everything it does," said Dr. Betty Vandenbosch, chancellor of Purdue University Global. "We look forward to supporting Disney employees on their personal path to a degree with a student experience that combines relevant real-world knowledge, learning flexibility and a strong online community."

For more information or to sign up, eligible Disney employees can visit Aspire.Disney.com.

Follow the conversation at #DisneyAspire.

ABOUT THE WALT DISNEY COMPANYThe Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries, is a diversified worldwide entertainment company with operations in four business segments: Media Networks; Parks, Experiences and Products; Studio Entertainment; and Direct-to-Consumer and International. Disney is a Dow 30 company and had annual revenues of $69.6 billion in its Fiscal Year 2019.

ABOUT GUILD EDUCATIONGuild Education is on a mission to unlock opportunity for America's workforce through education, with a double bottom-line business model that does well by doing good. Guild partners with leading Fortune 1000 employers to help them provide education benefits to their frontline workforce. To do so, Guild partners with the nation's top universities focused on serving working adults. Through these partnerships, 400,000 working adults have begun exploring their path back to school with Guild. Guild has been named a Fast Company Most Innovative Company, Top Woman-Owned Business of the Year, Employee Initiative of the Year and was one of only three female-led companies listed on the Forbes Cloud 100 2019 List.

CONTACTS:Michelle Bergman The Walt Disney Company michelle.bergman@disney.com

Gregory Ten Eyck Purdue University Global gregory.teneyck@purdueglobal.edu

Lauren Keane Southern New Hampshire University l.keane@snhu.edu

SOURCE Walt Disney Company

http://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com

Follow this link:
Disney Aspire Adds Purdue University Global and Southern New Hampshire University to its Network of Educational Providers - PRNewswire