Graduate Students

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University recently announced advances in the creation of a synthetic vitamin D, which could be used as an anti-cancer or anti-psoriasis drug, and a new class of biodegradable polymers for controlled drug delivery and in orthopedics. They also said they have identified two enzymes that can withstand high temperatures.The findings were presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in August.A synthetic vitamin D could alter the makeup of natural vitamin D so that it does not assist the growth of cancer cells but also does not disrupt other properties, such as helping the body absorb calcium.

The University of Maryland, College Park will use a $1.1 million grant from defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. to establish a new honors concentration in cybersecurity, school officials announced Monday. With the program, which will accept its first students for fall 2013, the university is attempting to gain a foothold in a growing discipline already taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Maryland is considered rich ground for cybersecurity training because of the presence of the National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade and the plethora of government and private technology offices in the region.

Thank you for your portrayal of the recent downtown Baltimore sit-in ("'Occupy' protesters gather," Sept. 5). Reporter Peter Hermann 's account of a 53-year-old former real estate broker who quit her job to sell costume jewelry and now complains about not being able to afford "a bookkeeper" and a "web designer" brought home the degree of self-absorption, entitlement, neediness and sheer dweeb-iness of the assorted suburban PTA moms, tenured sociologists,...

For years American educators have worried about the small number of black students going on to receive Ph.D.s, the degrees that make them eligible to become the professors and researchers of tomorrow. In particular, they have been unable to explain why the number of black men who get their doctorates, small to begin with, has been cut in half since 1975.The numbers are sobering. Of the 36,027 Ph.D.s granted in 1990, only 320 -- less than 1 percent -- were awarded to black men. And 508, or just over 1 percent, were given to black women.

FOR GRADUATE students, money habitually is in short supply. And by now, the pool of scholarships and grants to help ease that need for next school year largely is drained. According to FindTuition.com, a fee-based scholarship search engine, only about 20 percent of scholarships for graduate students carry deadlines through December. Still, several options exist, even this close to the start of the fall semester: First, if you're working and attending school simultaneously, see if your company offers tuition reimbursement or tuition assistance.

WASHINGTON -- A former graduate student at Yale writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education that she has purged her shelves of certain professors' books because she can no longer read them "without literally becoming nauseated." What sickens her is that the professors resisted recognition of a graduate-students' union. That is just one form of the strife that is depressing the quality of increasingly expensive college educations.Last year, to protest what they consider "exploitation," Yale graduate students who are teaching assistants conducted a "grade strike," refusing to turn in grades for the undergraduates they had taught.

In its "Pledge to America," Republicans in the House of Representatives proposed to roll back discretionary federal spending to 2008 levels. In the wake of the recent midterm elections, the American Association for the Advancement of Science released a report indicating that if the Republican-led House followed through with this proposal, it would lead to nearly $3 billion in cuts to the National Institutes of Health and more than $1 billion in...

THE UNITED States was once the leading destination for smart and wealthy foreign students in search of top-notch higher education. Then 9/11 happened and Americans learned that two of the hijackers had entered this country on student visas. This country's relationship with foreign students has not been the same since. Strict screenings are now required of all student visa applicants, and the rules for staying have been significantly tightened, as have requirements for colleges to track foreign students.

Monsignor Robert R. Kline, president emeritus of Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, calculates that over the course of his career he taught more students -- 13,000 -- than anyone else in the school's 189-year history.It is one of those claims that might be hard to check but impossible not to believe. Kline spent 46 years teaching at the school, leading generations of students through courses in philosophy, psychology and sociology. In addition, he was president from 1961 to 1967.Yesterday Mount St. Mary's awarded him an honorary degree in recognition of his long service.