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The decision has given her a sneak peek at the way students are experiencing the new facility, a 31,000-square-foot space that includes 18 suites. Each suite has four bedrooms, a shared living space, a kitchenette, and bathroom. The dorm is designed to give students a sense of autonomy while still living together on campus.

During the early months of 1998, newly appointed President Ray Ferrero Jr. and new Executive Vice President George L. Hanbury, had performed a thorough fiscal and operational review and realized that they faced a major budgeting and financial challenge if Nova Southeastern University (Fla.) was to thrive and prosper. The South Florida-based university, best known for its distance education and graduate online programs, needed more stringent fiscal discipline to ensure long term-financial health.

Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus

Cambridge University Press (www.cambridge.org), 294 pp., $28.99

The title is available through<a href='http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=57'&gt; The Independent Institute.</a>

Download the PDF of Moody's report from http://www.universitybusiness.com/uploaded/pdfs/Hi-Ed_Retir_comms.pdf

If you have recently taken a look at the faces of the students on your campus, you have probably noticed that they are looking older than they used to. That's because the fastest growing segment of the higher education market is reported to be non-traditional working adults.

In fact, since this group now makes up more than 50 percent of the postsecondary student population, they are an essential consideration for curriculum design, enrollment, and marketing efforts.

Already popular with websites looking to offer visitors the ultimate browsing experience, live chat support has gotten a major makeover of late, offering universities a number of new sophisticated online tools to interact online more effectively.

Indeed, going beyond the basic, pop-up text chat window--which a university rep uses to communicate with a customer in real time by exchanging text messages--the latest round of chat programs enable university reps to effortlessly perform advanced cyber-acrobatics while engaging with current and prospective students.

University Business surveyed 160 chief information officers and IT directors from colleges and universities nationwide to find out how and where their IT dollars were being spent. (For UB's companion feature story see "Smart IT Spending Strategies," December 2005.)

With decreasing funding and increasing demand from students and faculty for the latest technology, smart spending of technology budgets is crucial at colleges and universities today. But IT decision makers are working hard to keep costs down and savings up while helping to further the missions of their schools.

Risk management personnel at institutions don't think twice about insuring school buildings and inventory like computers. Catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina make an even bigger case for insurance policies that can replace these assets, despite the costs involved.

But what about protecting the property of students? Covering the "personal property of others" in an insurance policy may not be a priority for higher ed officials--particularly those who have priced out this extra coverage.