Entries for April 2007

Saving the thumbs of hundreds of top high school athletes last Thursday, the NCAA banned coaches from text-messaging recruits, the Minnesota Daily reports. While the old guidelines limited phone calls, E-mail, and personal visits, the new rules also address and eliminate communication through texts, along with video phones, video conferencing, and social-networking sites like Facebook.

Backers of the ban saw texting as a loophole around recruitment rules, while others were concerned that it was too intrusive and costly for some student athletes, who can receive up to 100 text messages a day, sometimes at 15 cents a pop.--Alison Go

The University of Maryland will offer a terrorism minor this fall, the Diamondback reports, which will be the first of its kind open to civilians.

The minor will likely attract a variety of students, such as freshman criminology major Brandon Patrick, who, the newspaper notes, is a fan of TV shows such as 24, Numb3rs, and Navy NCIS. "I'm really gung-ho, conservative, 'Yay America,' " Patrick said. "I'd be happy with a job at any of the [federal] agencies." Kiefer Sutherland has not been scheduled as a visiting professor. Yet. --Alison Go

Outraged cyclists at Stanford University mobilized in response to fliers threatening more strict regulation of bicycle travel on campus, the Stanford Daily reports. The bike aficionados deluged the school's Department of Public Safety with complaints. But it turns out the fliers are a prank: DPS denies distributing any of the notices, which read, "Out of concern for public saftey [sic] the Stanford police will be less tolerant towards bicyclists in violation of traffic laws." DPS notes many of the notice's claims, such as that helmets must be worn at all times, did not reflect current biking laws. --Alison Go

• A lewd surprise was waiting for those opening a 1957 time capsule for the University of Washington's communications department on Saturday, the Daily reports. Alongside 1950s memorabilia were Hustler and Playboy magazines from the 1980s and a pair of dirty underwear. Also you can watch newspaper editors from the 1980s try to explain the mysterious additions.
• In news that's not really news at all, the Red & Black reports "math anxiety can cause students of all levels to perform poorly in math." University of Georgia clinical psychology doctoral candidate Megan Benoit Ratcliff advises students to tackle the problem head-on. "Put in more effort, and treat math like a foreign language," she says. Ay, caramba, we say.
• Apple has cornered more of the college market by partnering with Texas Tech, the Daily Toreador reports. The school launched its iTunes U, where students can post video and podcasts, while teachers can upload their own work or lectures. UC-Berkeley and Duke are among the schools that already have partnerships with Apple. --Alison Go

The admissions dean at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology resigned this week after revealing that she falsified her résumé when she applied to the university more than two decades ago, the Tech reports. An investigation prompted by an anonymous phone call found that Marilee Jones–who started working for MIT in 1979 in an admissions office secretarial position–had not earned degrees from Union College, Albany Medical College, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as previous sources listed. "She has been the person to yank letters of admission," Chancellor Phillip Clay told the Tech. "We had no choice but to make the separation quickly."

Jones, who became dean in 1998, has issued a brief statement about her resignation. "I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to MIT 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my résumé when I applied for my current job or at any time since," she said. "I am deeply sorry for this and for disappointing so many in the MIT community."

The resignation is the big news today at many campuses with highly competitive admissions. According to this Harvard Crimson article, Jones's "profile surged last year with the publication of Less Stress, More Success, which she wrote with pediatrician Kenneth R. Ginsburg. Among other pieces of advice in the book, Jones warned students against 'making up information to present yourself as something you are not.' She wrote, 'You must always be completely honest about who you are.'" –Kenneth Terrell

Funded by an impressive $200,000 grant from the Justice Department, the Men's Violence Prevention group will work to curb domestic violence against women. "As much as we would like to deny it, violence toward women happens on the Gonzaga campus, and it is time for the men in the community to take a stance to stop it," one of the students who started the group tells the Bulletin. MVP's first activities include an awareness rally on campus next week and a "Walk a Mile in her Shoes" event, for which group members will race a mile in high-heel shoes!–K.T.

• A Southern Illinois University art student has won $20,000 in a competition for glass-blowing art, the Daily Egyptian reports.
• St. Bonaventure University plans to make wireless Internet access available pretty much everywhere on campus over the next year, according to the Bona Venture.–K.T.

Responding to the violence at Virginia Tech this month, the State University of New York–Geneseo has decided that its campus police officers will carry guns at all times, the Lamron reports. Before the decision, announced April 20, officers in emergency situations had to retrieve their firearms from locked boxes in their offices and vehicles. According to University President Christopher Dahl, the change "could make the difference between life and death for the officer or a student."

In the Lamron's online poll of nearly 700 people, 58 percent supported the decision, while 34 percent were opposed. "I agree with [the decision] because if a situation like what occurred at Virginia Tech should happen, [the police] need to be armed and ready," one first-year student tells the paper. But a sophomore disagrees: "They shouldn't change the logistics just because of one event and assume we have the same risk."–Kenneth Terrell

For her final column for the East Tennessee State University newspaper, Summer Carr offers three nuggets of wisdom she has gleaned from her college days.

1.Don't make excuses: "If your homework is late, just own up to it," she writes in the East Tennessean. "Tell your professor that you made a mistake and then remedy the situation immediately. And then never do it again." Her exceptions include "missing a test because you got a traffic ticket on the way to school or suffering serious bodily injury that requires hospitalization."

2. If you're a woman, don't pay on the first date: "If you pay for the entire bill, you will find that you assume the traditional role of the male in the relationship, and your boyfriend will expect you to pay for every dinner from that day forward," Carr writes. "Remember, women: What we want is equality, not to switch traditional roles."

3. Work hard, but have fun, too: "Sure, you don't want to wake up one day in 30 years and realize you never got to do the things you wanted to do because of inadequate preparation, but you also don't want to wake up on that morning and realize that your only memories of your teens and early twenties are of long nights spent studying alone."–K.T.

• The Kentucky Kernel takes a look at the emerging trend of coed dorm rooms. It's an option intended to help transgender students feel more comfortable on campus.
• A University of Southern California Trojan photographer caught a great picture of a student flipping for parkour, the extreme sport of urban gymnastics.
• The Daily Illini takes a look at technology recycling on campus, with a slide show featuring piles of computers.–K.T.

It's hot and uncomfortable, you have to lie down to drive it, and it costs about $250,000. This is the car of the future? A group of engineering students from the University of Arizona hope so, as they put the finishing touches on a solar-powered car they plan to enter in a biennial competition that requires the automobiles to drive about 2,500 miles and be able to reach speeds up to 80 mph, the Wildcat reports.

In addition to figuring out the mechanical problems of making a solar-powered car work, the group also has had to raise the funds to build it from sponsors, such as Boeing and Tucson Electric Power. Not an easy task in a gas-guzzling world. "People are more interested in power and luxury rather than being environmentally friendly," one student says.–Kenneth Terrell

• A program that allowed medical students to spend two years at Dartmouth then two years at Brown is ending, according to the Brown Daily Herald.
• Students at Occidental College in Los Angeles can stock up on late night snacks at Galco's Pop Stop, a store that offers hundreds of flavors of soda, retro candy, and a deli, the Occidental Weekly reports.
• The Parthenon, student newspaper of Marshall University in West Virginia, did interviews with 280 students about their feelings on the Iraq war. Only 30 percent of those students support the war, the paper reports. –Kenneth Terrell

Budget cuts from the student government association and the university could next year reduce the famed Florida A&M marching band to a mere fraction of its current size, the FAMUan reports. The band, which received $130,147 from student government this school year, was told this month that it has been awarded only $30,000 for next year, according to the paper.

That cutback could reduce the band from its now customary size of 400 members to its namesake Marching 100. The student government "didn't want to solely fund the band. We want to explore the opportunity of the university administration providing supplemental funding," one student representative told the FAMUan. The band's leaders are looking to meet with university administrators soon to try to get more money. It's either that or high school band-type fundraisers. "Should we be washing cars and doing things like that for a class?" says Julian White, director of bands and chair of the music department. "We don't need the publicity of being on the street selling candy to save the band." –Kenneth Terrell

• Bowling Green University's SpringFest party ended in a brawl that police had to break up with pepper spray, according to the BG News.
• The University of Alaska–Anchorage is excited about a return performance of the band Sleep Machine, a duo that creates the effect of a quartet thanks to modern technology, the Northern Light reports.–K.T.

Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama continued to woo campus support over the weekend. At Boston University Friday, nearly 6,000 people packed an arena to hear him speak, according to theHeights, the paper of rival school Boston College. Apparently, students at both schools are able to put their competition aside in support of the senator, who is just as eager to get them involved in government. "When the American people pay attention, things happen. That's the incredible thing about our democratic process. It doesn't work when people aren't involved, when people give up," the Heights quotes Obama as saying. "But when we decide to make it work, then things start happening."

Also over the weekend, at the University of Iowa, while a U2 song played over the loudspeakers, Obama entered and spoke about the threat of global warming for an Earth Day crowd. "When our energy policy is the absence of an energy policy–that diminishes us as a nation," he said, according to the Daily Iowan. "That diminishes the patriotism of all Americans."–Kenneth Terrell