By Matt Won

Swarthmore College Gould-en age of Islamic Studies

A new $1 million donation from alumnus Bruce Jay Gould will allow for the full realization of an Islamic Studies program at Swarthmore, whose total endowment will eventually total $5 million according to The Phoenix. This pledge follows Swarthmore’s $670,000 share of a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for Arabic language classes. The grant was split between Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr and Haverford. After the 9/11 attacks, the Swarthmore program’s development was accelerated, hiring three tenure-track professors and sending students to the University of Damascus.

St. Olaf College

Study recognizes trend of grade inflation

Recognizing a national trend among colleges, St. Olaf concluded an investigation into grade inflation by a special assistant to the provost that found clear evidence of the phenomenon, according to the Manitou Messenger. The average St. Olaf GPA was 3.3, coincidentally, the cutoff for graduation with honors. A decades-long trend of increasing grades continued last year, when the college graduated over 50 percent of its students with honors. This has led to concerns that true quality work is going unrecognized, but few colleges have taken notable action on the issue yet–with the exception of Princeton University’s substantial effort to curtail grade inflation–and the college is hesitant to make one of first moves.

Wesleyan University

Get your radio fix, but brace for NPR withdrawal

Wesleyan college radio station WESU, the second oldest in the US, has opened its first-ever on-air fundraising drive, with a target of $20,000, according to the Wesleyan Argus. A year ago, the station was forced to accept free NPR programming after budget cuts to its own programming. The station still kept some of its “Free Form” programming elements, and since then has shuffled its board of directors and hired a full-time paid General manager. The station hopes to scale back NPR programming, and will hearken back to the golden age of radio by having local businesses “sponsor” shows to keep the station afloat financially.