Education

The Southern University System is hosting a series of town hall meetings across Louisiana to discuss concerns about the effect of budget cuts on the system's three schools.

The town halls will be held Friday in Lafayette and Alexandria, Saturday in Shreveport and Monroe, on July 24 in New Orleans, on July 25 in Baton Rouge and on July 26 in Franklinton.

SU System President Ronald Mason Jr. is expected to attend the meetings. A news release on the town halls says "enrollment challenges" and increased retirement and health care costs also will be topics for discussion.

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And we're here next about a new educational partnership with Silicon Valley. It's what the University of Virginia. You may recall last month, UVA's board of governors fired and then rehired President Teresa Sullivan. One reason some board members say they called for her ouster in the first place was that she had not moved quickly enough to expand the university's online courses. That has prompted new initiative being announced today, as NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports.

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