Entries for March 2007

More than a quarter of the college students hit with music-trading lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America in the last few months have settled, the AP reports. A lawyer for the Ohio University students says the standard settlement is $3,000, though some have gone up to $5,000. One student's potential liability without a settlement could have been as high as $590,000.

Nevertheless, the RIAA's actions have made one group of Arizona State University students sick enough to "BARF." That's the title of the students' anti-RIAA group, Bikers Against RIAA ****-ery, formed after the trade group's vice president visited their campus this week. The student group had a member stand outside a campus building yesterday "with his pants around his ankles, holding a sign that read, 'The RIAA sued my pants off,' " the State Press reports. He has not actually been sued, but claimed to represent the 23 ASU students whom RIAA has targeted for downloading music illegally.

Student-athletes should not be asked to be role models, a pair of University of Michigan alumni told a panel last night. "Current student-athletes have enough pressures around them," a former football player said. Others accepted the extra role-model pressure as a duty. The forum had been planned before three football players were removed from the team last week after being charged with marijuana possession, and assault and battery, the Michigan Daily reports. But timeliness never hurts. About 80 people attended.

Three years after Harvard launched an initiative to improve its students' socioeconomic diversity, the newly admitted Class of 2011 is the most diverse ever, the Crimson reports. Twenty-six percent of students in the Class of 2011 will be eligible for the new financial aid initiative, which waives all fees for families earning less than $60,000 a year. The Harvard class is also the most selective ever; only 2,058 of 22,955 were admitted. Meanwhile, Class of 2011?!? Time moves way too fast.

Students demand more mental health services today than they did just a few years ago, a new survey of over 80 schools concludes. But though most colleges offer mental health services, many don't serve the biggest area of need: anxiety disorders, which college students are reporting in greater numbers since Sept. 11, 2001. "Colleges need to expand the scope of their services," says Jerilyn Ross, president of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, which authored the report. ADAA also offers tips for parents, which we've summarized (and adapted for students) after the jump.

If anyone has seen a reputation boost as a result of the recent U.S. attorney scandal, it may be John Ashcroft, the Patriot Act defender who preceded beleaguered Alberto Gonzales. Speaking to a packed auditorium at Syracuse University on the invitation of the College Republicans, Ashcroft faced relatively little opposition. The crowd that heckled him before his speech numbered only about 15, the Daily Orange reports.

A small liberal arts college on the north shore of Lake Tahoe will stay alive by partnering with two for-profit firms. Knowledge Universe Learning Group and Cardean Learning Group will give Sierra Nevada College $15 million over the next five to seven years, the college announced yesterday. The companies also will help the college develop online learning software. Both companies are affiliated with Wall Street junk bond trader Michael Milken, the AP reports. Trustees at the college began investigating partnerships when they realized endowment funds alone could not help the school survive.

A state-supported program that gave college police money to raid bars in search of underage drinkers seems to be definitively dead, Syracuse University's Daily Orange reports. Operation Prevent backed nine bar raids, confiscating more than 250 fake IDs, between 2003 and 2006. The last happened more than a year ago, in February 2006, when police found under-21 drinkers at Faegan's Cafe and Pub and Lucy's Retired Surfer's Bar.

But university police have "shifted priorities" as state funding for the program has dried up. Meanwhile, underage drinking and extreme intoxication cases have risen 55 percent in the past two years, the Orange reports.

• Oregon university officials want to scrap a program that lets high school students earn college credits before entering college, the AP reports.
• Only 29 of 579 surveyed four-year public colleges and universities maintain public lists of registered sex offenders on campus, a new study finds. See our David E. Kaplan's Bad Guys blog for the ugly details.

Jason Ray, one of the students who portrayed Rameses, mascot for the University of North Carolina, died early Monday morning in New Jersey. Ray, a senior, had traveled with the men's basketball team to support them in their NCAA Sweet Sixteen showdown with the University of Southern California. He was hit by an SUV Friday afternoon as he walked back to his hotel after getting food at a convenience store, according to the Fort Lee Police Department.

The Daily Tar Heel describes Ray as a student who left a bright mark on campus. "He may have performed in the anonymity that comes with playing the mascot," says UNC's athletics director, "but his life has had an overt and lasting impact on the people whose lives he touched."

Students may have to pay for the tardiness of professors at the University of South Carolina, at least 80 percent of whom have missed a bookstore's deadline for ordering textbooks. Late textbook orders make it harder for stores to find books at low prices. "The longer we have to look for [a book], the better chance we get of getting used books," a manager at another store tells the Daily Gamecock.

A group of 13 University of Georgia students faces charges of fake ID possession and distribution, the Red and Black reports. According to the paper, the ring includes one offensive lineman who graduated from high school early to join Georgia's football team. His coaches, says head coach Mark Richt, plan to deal with the issue "in house." "We'll wear him out real good," he tells the Red and Black.

Two University of North Texas students put rocks in their toilet and buy expensive organic food to help minimize their impact on the environment, the North Texas Daily reports. The students say the efforts pay off: Rocks in the toilet help conserve water, and organic foods are considered healthier. "You know you're not gobbling down pesticides," one student says.

• Sixteen pizza places in Lawrence, Kan., have produced a "flooded market"--and caused stores to offer sweet promotions to win students' trust, the Daily Kansan reports . Key takeaway: All the good deals come at the start of the academic year (so they can win you over early). Try to time cravings to the fall.
• A University of Maryland bar's transformation from the former bodily-fluid-stained Rendezvous Inn to today's flat-screen TV-filled Cornerstone Grill and Loft incarnation parallels the improving reputation of the university, the Diamondback reports.
• Flooded dorms greeted some University of Illinois students when they returned from spring break last weekend, the Daily Illini reports. "I just came back and found all my clothes in plastic bags and everything was moved around," a freshman says. "My room was in disarray."

Despite many violent deaths attributed to his regime, Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe still holds the honorary degree he got from the University of Massachusetts in 1986, the Daily Collegian reports. "UMass President Jack Wilson has acknowledged that stripping Mugabe of his degree is not out of the question, but almost no real action has been taken in the 20 years since the degree was given," the paper writes. Last semester, a Zimbabwean student at UMass-Boston started a petition that called for the revocation of the degree, to no effect yet. Mugabe received the degree, an honorary doctorate of law, for his work "to establish racial harmony between blacks and whites" one year before he became president of Zimbabwe.

Books are still books, but the 21st century has brought other changes to college libraries. The 24/7 news cycle is one. Many college libraries, including most recently the library at American University, says the Eagle, are opening their doors all day and all night, even on weekends. Starbucks is another change. "Academic libraries are finally facing the reality that most students prefer to read, focus on, and contemplate ideas over food and drink," Colgate's university librarian tells the Maroon News. "Cafes provide a pleasant social space with food to encourage such exchanges."