‘Father Jack's Tiger’

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, March 14 — Chicago's DePaul University is pulling the plug on what one university board trustee dubbed “Father Jack's tiger project.”

In 2002, DePaul president Father Jack Minogue oversaw the purchase of a $1 million piece of land in southeast Missouri to build an environmental studies program centered on tigers.

Two years later, however, after putting $800,000 more into the project, the university is hoping to sell the 55-acre plot of land located about 400 miles from Chicago.

School officials acknowledge that students have never set foot on the land, the paper reported. Currently the land contains two houses, a restaurant, a swimming pool, a tennis court and five Bengal tigers.

National Appointment

THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE, March 16 — Thomas Aquinas College president Thomas Dillon has been appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity.

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced the appointment in February. The committee's function is to make recommendations on state and national accrediting agencies, oversee criteria for accreditation, and supervise the process of eligibility and certification for schools, a college press release stated.

Dillon's appointment to the 15-member panel is for a three-year renewable term.

Cristo Rey in Boston

THE BOSTON GLOBE, March 14 — The Cristo Rey Network, financed in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is planning to open another Catholic school this fall in Boston.

The Notre Dame School plans to begin classes Sept. 1 in Lawrence, Mass. It is one of the latest in a series of Cristo Rey schools launched in some of the poorest neighborhoods across the country.

Students attend classes four days a week and work the fifth day for tuition. They wear uniforms, go to Mass and attend school for 185 days, the paper reported.

The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur will run the new school.

Single-Sex Schools?

THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, March 14 — Proposed federal regulations could make it easier to create single-sex schools across the nation, and Chicago public school officials are happy to hear it.

At a recent Sun-Times board meeting, officials voiced excitement over the creation of all-girls and all-boys schools.

The new regulations would no longer require districts to create “comparable” schools for each sex but rather, if a district wanted to create an all-boys school, it would merely need to offer girls a “substantially equal” school that could be coeducational.

The rules were demanded by the 2002 No Child Left Behind law.

USF Ups Enrollment

UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, March 2 — For the first time in its history, this fall the University of San Francisco will limit freshman enrollment.

The Jesuit-run university received 5,168 applications for 950 spots in the fall freshman class, according to a university press release. The number represents a 21% increase from last year and a 50% increase from two years ago.

Approximately 300-400 students will be put on a waiting list, according to director of admissions Tom Matos. In the last four years, he said, the freshman class has grown by 190 students.