DC Digest - April 16, 2010


In Today's Issue:

  • House Passes Resolution Honoring Duke Men's Basketball Team for NCAA Championship
  • Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Recognizes Duke-Brookings Report as Key to Immigration Reform
  • Former Senator Bob Krueger: Duke Sets Standard for Combining Athletics and Academics
  • Twenty-Five Governors - Including NC's - Support President's FY11 Budget Request for NIH
  • Senators Unveil Bill to Allow Discharge of Private Student Loans in Bankruptcy
  • House Panel Approves Extension of NSF Programs
  • Duke Professor Linda Burton Presents at National Science Funding Event on Capitol Hill


HOUSE PASSES RESOLUTION HONORING DUKE MEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM FOR NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP
The House of Representatives voted this week to pass a resolution honoring the achievements of the Duke men's basketball team. The resolution, authored by Rep. David Price (D -NC), congratulated the Duke Blue Devils for their recent NCAA Championship win as well as for their outstanding academic record.

Read More:
Full Text of H. Res. 1242
Final Vote Results


WALL STREET JOURNAL OP-ED RECOGNIZES DUKE-BROOKINGS REPORT AS KEY TO IMMIGRATION REFORM 
Michael Barone writes in the Wall Street Journal that the GOP would be wise to avoid shrill rhetoric when it comes to immigration reform and argue instead for more visas for the highly skilled. This strategy is put forward by a 2009 report of a bipartisan panel assembled by the Brookings Institution and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Noah Pickus, associate research professor of public policy at Duke, is the director of the Kenan Institute.

Read More:
Immigration Reform: The New Third Rail (Wall Street Journal)
Breaking the Immigration Stalemate: A Report from the Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable (pdf)


FORMER SENATOR BOB KRUEGER: DUKE SETS STANDARD FOR COMBINING ATHLETICS AND ACADEMICS
Former Texas Senator Bob Krueger writes in an opinion piece for the San Antonio Express-News: "...Duke has played in the final game for the Men's Division I national basketball championship eight times in the last 24 years, almost twice as often as any other team. But Duke's real sports success lies elsewhere. In 71 years, except for Stanford University in 1942, Duke is the only one of America's academically rated Top 10 universities ever to have competed in the final round of the national basketball championships."

Robert Krueger was a professor and dean of the undergraduate college at Duke before serving as congressman, U.S. senator and an ambassador.

Read More:
Duke Sets Standard for Combining Athletics and Academics (San Antonio Express-News)


TWENTY-FIVE GOVERNORS - INCLUDING NC'S - SUPPORT PRESIDENT’S FY11 BUDGET REQUEST FOR NIH
A bipartisan group of 25 governors, including North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, sent a letter to leaders of the House and Senate budget committees April 13 asking them to craft an FY11 budget resolution that accommodates President Obama’s $32.2 billion FY11 budget request for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  The request is $1 billion, or 3.2 percent, more than the comparable FY10 funding. 
 
The governors’ letter notes that along with NIH’s significant contribution to Americans’ health and well-being, the agency is an important economic engine.  “NIH funding directly supports 350,000 jobs across the U.S.” and is “an instrumental part of the success of the U.S. life sciences industry and its 6 million high wage U.S. jobs,” they wrote.


SENATORS UNVEIL BILL TO ALLOW DISCHARGE OF PRIVATE STUDENT LOANS
 A group of Democratic U.S. senators and representatives introduced legislation Thursday that would once again make most private student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. Borrowers could discharge such loans before Congress changed the bankruptcy laws in 2005, and advocates for students have argued since then that the often high-risk and costly loans should be treated like automobile and other forms of consumer loans, which distressed borrowers can discharge.

Read More:
Durbin, Cohen and Others Introduce Legislation to Restore Fairness in Student Lending (Durbin.senate.gov)


HOUSE PANEL APPROVES EXTENSION OF NSF PROGRAMS
A House of Representatives subcommittee on Wednesday approved legislation that would extend the National Science Foundation's spending authority for five years, approving a slew of new programs as well as affirming lawmakers' intention to continue on a path of doubling the agency's budget. The measure passed by the House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Science Education is part of a package of bills that together would renew 2007's America COMPETES Act. The legislation approved Wednesday would, among other things, direct NSF to spend at least five percent of its research budget on high-risk, high-reward research proposals, give grants to colleges to support fundamental research leading to "transformative advances" in manufacturing, and provide grants to encourage research-based reforms in science education.

The subcommittee is chaired by Congressman Dan Lipinski (G '98) who visited Duke a few weeks ago as part of a broader listening tour on the reauthorization of America COMPETES.


DUKE PROFESSOR LINDA BURTON PRESENTS AT NATIONAL SCIENCE FUNDING EVENT ON CAPITOL HILL
Linda Burton, James B. Duke Professor of Sociology, was a presenter at the Coalition for Nation Science Funding's Annual Exhibition and Reception in Washington, D.C..  The Capitol Hill event highlighted the vital role the National Science Foundation plays in supporting the nation's research and education goals.  Burton, nominated by the NSF, presented a poster titled "Poverty, Marriage and Trust:  New Insights for Policymakers," featuring her path-breaking research on the role of trust in romantic union's of low-income mothers.  While in Washington, Burton also visited several offices of the North Carolina congressional delegation to discuss her work. 

Read More:
Distrust of Men Doesn't Keep Low-Income Mothers from Romantic Unions (DukeNews)