Entries for September 2006

Epsilon Iota, an unrecognized frat that calls itself the "bad ass" alternative, and Sigma Omega Alpha, or SAMY, are the targets of an American University campaign to push both groups off campus. American has hired a former judge, asked recognized frats to collect names of the unrecognized groups' members, and even designed posters to try to diminish the membership of one of the frats, the Eagle reports. One poster calls EI a health hazard. "The signs actually helped," an EI alum told the Eagle. "People come and say [they] saw the signs and wanted to go to [our] parties."

Ruckus, the new downloading software aimed at preventing illegal file-sharing, arrived at Ball State University less than a month ago--but students have already found a loophole that allows them to break copyright as they like. Ruckus was supposed to allow students to download songs but not play them on an iPod. But by using software that strips files of their "digital rights" coding, students can get around the restriction, the Daily News reports.

Four words on their posters--"Stop being a p - - - y"--got Columbia University's ice hockey team slammed with a semester-long funds cut and suspension last week. The team declined outside legal help, telling the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education that the members wanted to argue their case "within the system." FIRE, apparently, did not care. It sent a letter to Columbia President Lee Bollinger, anyway, the Spectator reports.

U.S. marines stationed at Iraq's Al Asad Air Base addressed Lehigh students and faculty this week via videoconference, the first ever to connect university students and soldiers, the Brown and White reports. "[Violence is] like waking up in the morning and hopping in the shower," one soldier said. "It's a part of life we're trying to correct." Another compared the stress of college with the stress of war. " 'Oh, my God. I've got a paper due in a couple days.' So what? Nobody is shooting at you," he said.

A new dorm at Arkansas State University has finally been given its name: North Park Quad, the Herald reports. "The dorm got its name because of its current location on campus," the Herald helpfully explained in its top news item today. "It is located on the north side of campus; this is where 'North' came from. Parking services also sits close to the dorms; this is where 'Park' came from. Last, the rooms inside these dorms are set up quadrant style, so now you have 'Quad.' When put together, you have North Park Quad."

• Two years after homophobic messages were first spotted, vandals are still scrawling near MIT's Rainbow Lounge, the Tech reports.
• Duquesne will add more police and more security cameras, administrators announced, following the attack in which five basketball players were shot on their way out of a student dance, the Duke reports.
• New NCAA rules eliminating limits on work hours have some students doing triple overtime: school, sport, and a job, the Daily Kansan reports.

California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger gave his support Monday to a Sudanese divestment campaign that began last year with a few students, little money, and even less of an audience. The University of California system holds investments in nine companies with ties to the Sudanese government, which has been accused of genocide. In March, the UC Board of Regents gave the system an 18-month deadline to divest from those companies. Two bills signed by Schwarzenegger Monday cap that effort. Adam Sterling, who helped found the movement to divest, was thrilled: "When we started this campaign, we couldn't even get a meeting with the regents," he told the Daily Bruin. "Now I'm standing side by side with the governor [and] George Clooney."

Sen. Barack Obama was the second high-profile Democrat to speak at the University of Maryland this week. But Hillary Clinton's Monday fundraiser brought nowhere near the enthusiasm Obama's speech generated yesterday, the Diamondback reports. More than 1,000 people watched Obama endorse Maryland's Democratic hopefuls. After a photograph with Obama, one girl even swooned. At Clinton's Monday fundraiser--which charged $75 a head--"student turnout was noticeably lacking," the Diamondback reported Tuesday.

At the University of Utah, frats and bars are no longer the most popular Friday night hangout. "Crimson Nights"--weekly social events that feature carnival games like Velcro walls and themes like "Wild Things" and "Hollywood"--now draw crowds of 8,000, making them the largest late-night student program in the nation, a director told the Daily Utah Chronicle.

University of Illinois officials want to move forward with a "Global Campus" initiative that would expand the school's online course catalog. But students are wary, and last night--after an hour of debate--the Student Senate passed a resolution demanding more consultation, the Daily Illini reports. The Global Campus proposal would make it possible to graduate from Illinois without ever setting foot on campus. That might bring the school money, but students wonder what would it do to the prestige of their degrees.

San Jose State will not ban Skype, the Internet service that lets users make long-distance phone calls free, Skype Journal reports. Skype Journal's editor had traveled to San Jose State University Monday to defend the service in a speech. The speech, delivered in Dwight Bentel Hall, was also "Skypecast," the Spartan Daily reports.

The proposal, first made in July by the University of Kansas Board of Regents, would make some kind of "international experience" a requirement for a degree. Right now, 23.5 percent of KU students study abroad. Kansas administrators told the Daily Kansan there's only one thing that could stop the program: money.

The school has received $38.4 million so far from Gov. Jennifer Granholm's 21st Century Jobs Fund, which set aside $100 million of state money for investment in emerging fields like biotech. Most of the grants depend on a promise not just to do research but to try to profit from that research--by converting it into a product or a company, the Michigan Daily reports.

• Videos of lectures given by UC-Berkeley professors are now accessible in one single Google site, the Daily Cal reports.
• The beginning of an outbreak? At Wheaton College, 33 students have been placed in isolation after being diagnosed with mumps. This week, two University of Virginia students were diagnosed, too.
• University of Washington police are battling a "serial exposer." Police launched a crime watch after a 50-ish white male took his clothes off three times in the past two weeks, the Daily reports.

He won't divorce his wife, who allegedly smokes pot, and his high salary is nothing to be ashamed of, Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee told the Hustler, the school's newspaper. The interview follows a front-page report in the Wall Street Journal detailing the chancellor's apparent profligacy (not only did his wife allegedly use pot for medicinal purposes but they also have a personal chef) and the negligent-to-no oversight of his board. "Yes, I am the highest-paid university president in the country . . . yes, we live in a very big home, and we do a lot of entertaining," Gee said in the interview. He also pleaded guilty to something else: "the fact that we have raised lots of money and the university is doing incredibly well."