Photo by Flickr user cattias.photos

That creepy photo of Obama mashed up with Heath Ledger’s Joker? A UIC student did that. Firas Alkhateeb says he made the image last winter while bored at home. The Trib talked with him last week. He says he had nothing to do with the “Socialist” tag or the posters that appeared across Los Angeles this summer.

A growing number of universities, including DePaul, are finding ways to quantify the personalities of prospective applicants. The idea is to gauge things like leadership and creativity. One way: ask applicants to write responses to a few short prompts, then have admissions officers read and score them. About 150 of DePaul’s 8,500 freshman this year got in based on their responses to the newly added questions. 

Community colleges can make good television, NBC has decided. A new sitcom called “Community,” centered on a fictional CC in Colorado, premieres Sept. 17 but the pilot was on Facebook recently. Inside Higher Ed talked to some community college administrators, faculty and students to get their reactions: mixed, so far.

The New York Times took a look at the trend of laid off white-collar workers returning to community colleges in search of new career directions. A growing subset of CC students already have bachelor’s and master’s degrees but are returning to take a few specific classes and maybe earn a certificate – not another degree.

North Carolina’s statewide community college board may lift its year-old rule blocking illegal immigrants from enrolling. The state board has changed the rules four times since 2000. If the latest change is approved, illegal immigrants could enroll if they already have a high school diploma. They would have to pay higher out-of-state tuition rates.