E-Clips, Sept. 15-17

1. The Real Science Crisis: Bleak Prospects for Young Researcher (The Chronicle of Higher Education):  It is the best of times and worst of times to start a science career in the United States. Researchers today have access to powerful new tools and techniques -- such as rapid gene sequencers and giant telescopes -- that have accelerated the pace of discovery beyond the imagination of previous generations. But for many of today's graduate students, the future could not look much bleaker. They see long periods of training, a shortage of academic jobs, and intense competition for research grants looming ahead of them. "They get a sense that this is a really frustrating career path," says Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. So although the operating assumption among many academic leaders is that the nation needs more scientists, some of brightest students in the country are demoralized and bypassing scientific careers. … Stephen D.H. Hsu is just the type of scientist America hopes to produce. A professor of physics at the University of Oregon, Mr. Hsu is at the forefront of scholarship on dark energy and quantum chromodynamics. At the same time, he has founded two successful software companies -- one of which was bought for $26-million by Symantec -- that provide the sorts of jobs and products that the nation's economy needs to thrive.)

2. Faces to know on campus (The Oregon Daily Emerald):  Dave Frohnmayer has been the University president since 1994. He has served as Oregon's attorney general, dean of the School of Law, and been a member of the Oregon House of Representatives, according to an online biography. He completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard University, his study of law at the University of California, Berkeley and was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. Born in Medford, Frohnmayer is the first native Oregonian to be president of a large research university in the state. In the 1970s Frohnmayer was a professor at the law school and was elected to the Oregon House three times. In 1980, '84 and '88 he was elected the state's attorney general. In that position, he argued and won six of seven cases before the United States Supreme Court. In 1990, Frohnmayer ran for governor and lost to Democratic candidate Barbara Roberts. ... Robin Holmes became vice president of student affairs this year. Holmes oversees the Career Center, the Counseling and Testing Center, the Office of the Dean of Students, the EMU, the University Health Center, University Housing, the Department of Physical Education and Recreation and the Office of Student Life, according to an online biography.

3. Alabama plan brings out cry of resegregation (The New York Times, and appearing in the Register-Guard and The Houston Chronicle): After white parents in this racially mixed city complained about school overcrowding, school authorities set out to draw up a sweeping rezoning plan. The results: all but a handful of the hundreds of students required to move this fall were black - and many were sent to virtually all-black, low-performing schools. Black parents have been battling the rezoning for weeks, calling it resegregation. And in a new twist for an integration fight, they are wielding an unusual weapon: the federal No Child Left Behind law, which gives students in schools deemed failing the right to move to better ones. "We're talking about moving children from good schools into low-performing ones, and that's illegal," said Kendra Williams, a hospital receptionist, whose two children were rezoned. "And it's all about race. It's as clear as daylight." … Others see the matter differently. Gerald Rosiek, an education professor at the University of Alabama, studied the Tuscaloosa school district's recent evolution. "This is a case study in resegregation," said Dr.Rosiek, now at the University of Oregon.)