About half of the 49 professors who will be joining the College of Liberal Arts faculty at the University of Texas at Austin for the 2009-2010 academic year are female. That includes an unprecedented five women coming in as full professors from such schools as Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Southern California. 

The University of Texas at Austin Office of Public Affairs reported, the hires come less than a year after an internal University of Texas at Austin report identified potential strategies for eliminating gender inequity on the faculty. They represent one of the university's biggest successes to date in closing the gender gap.

States cut aid to college students as demand booms

Struggling with budget shortfalls that reach into the billions, several states are making deep cuts in college financial aid programs, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

At least a dozen states are reducing award sizes, eliminating grants and tightening eligibility guidelines because of a lack of money. At the same time, the number of students seeking aid is rising sharply as more people seek a college education and need help paying the tuition bill because they or their parents lost jobs and savings during the recession.

Quinn gives UI trustees 'a few more days' to resign

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn says he will give the remaining University of Illinois trustees "a few more days" to heed his call that they resign before he takes any action, according to the News-Gazette.

Quinn, who spoke Tuesday after a bill-signing in Chicago, would not speculate beyond that, but repeated his belief that all trustees should step down to restore the good name of the university, according to spokeswoman Ashley Cross. He appealed to trustees' sense of public service and "the common good," she said.