Entries for October 2008

In what could be a scary omen of financial troubles students nationwide will face in 2009, more than 180 George Washington University students are searching for emergency funding mid-year after National Education, a lending company, could not obtain funding for loans it promised, the GW Hatchet reports.

The company is one of around 200 that have been affected by the frozen credit market and have stopped processing Stafford loans "due to difficulty in obtaining financing from the capital market," according to an E-mail to students from the school's financial aid office.

"They had been telling us since July that they had funding, and we were under the understanding that they just needed a signature," said Dan Small, the executive director of financial assistance. "But we were told on Friday that the issues in the credit market prevented them from securing funding. It is a problem because some students depend on funding not only for tuition but for living expenses as well."

The university will not penalize affected students for their missing Stafford loans and also will not charge any late fees. The school is also now turning to the federal government to offer direct lending, bypassing private lenders. The application process may take months and would certainly lead to long hours for the university staff (although students would mostly be shielded from the legwork).

"With the way things are going, direct lending might be a good option," Robert Chernak, senior vice president for Student and Academic Support Services, said. "There were times where there were advantages to dealing with private lenders, but they might not be there anymore."

The man who might or might not have tricked hundreds of students in Massachusetts and California into thinking they would get free flights to campaign for Sen. Barack Obama in swing states is already being investigated by Minnesota police and the Airlines Reporting Corp. for fraud, the Daily Californian reports.

Over the past month, a man had promised Harvard, UC-Berkeley, and other students free flights to swing states, supposedly bought with frequent-flier miles donated by expats in Italy. But just before they were to embark on their travels, the students found that no such flights had been booked andthat the man, who said he lived in Italy, was nearly impossible to reach.

Now the Californian reports that police in Minnesota have been investigating a man who has the same name as that campaign trip organizer, who worked for a small travel agency in Savage, Minn., as a subcontractor in January 2007. At that time, he told the travel agency that he arranged hotel reservations, flights, and bus tours for university students. He received a monthly sales commission from the agency.

But after a year, the agency grew suspicious when the man began requesting more commission, and later his credit card payments bounced back to the agency. Police began investigating him in April.

In addition to the Minnesota incident and the more recent campaign fiasco, a man with the same name as the campaign trip organizer is wanted for at least one felony parole violation in Colorado, the Californian reports.

Officials believe the man's plan with the Obama campaigners fell through after his application to be an independent contractor for TravelQuest, another Minnesota travel agency, was rejected more than a week ago. They suspect he would have used his position to book flights for the students and later to steal the sales commission from the agency. "He has 700 names and flights to book that he could use to parlay and try to scam another travel agency," said an organizer from Harvard.

Minnesota police have contacted authorities in Italy but do not know where the suspect lives.

A former employee of the University of Washington in Seattle poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire in the middle of campus Thursday afternoon, the Daily reports. The man, 61, later died of his injuries at a nearby hospital.

Police did not identify the man, except to say he had not been a professor. He had been employed at the university as recently as two weeks ago, but there were no details of the circumstances of his resignation or dismissal.

Passersby described the scene to the Daily:

Justin Norman, a UW alumnus and cartoonist, was walking through Red Square before the police were on the scene and said he noticed a group of three to four people huddled and crouched around the blocks in the middle of the square.

Norman said that the group looked inconspicuous until suddenly a 10-foot high flame shot up, filling the entire center of the Square.

"It didn't look like it was intentional at all," Norman said. He said that when the flames shot up, several people screamed and scattered from the center of the square, one with a sleeve on fire, before turning back to assist a man stuck [sic] the center of the flames.

"It wasn't until the flames died down that you could tell it was a person," Norman said, who was taking photographs of the event. "Then [you could] see a guy engulfed in flames" and "people trying to put him out."

Norman's camera was later confiscated by authorities at the scene.

...

Jason Chen, a senior, was in Odegaard Undergraduate Library when the fire occurred. He said he heard some commotion, then a man "wearing boxer shorts" and nothing else ran in yelling, "Someone is on fire, get help now."

...

The unclothed man then grabbed a fire extinguisher before running back out, followed by a small crowd, Chen said.

Two people have been arrested in connection with the Obama figure hanged in effigy on the University of Kentucky campus, the Kentucky Kernel reports. Joe Fischer, a current student and former football walk-on, and Hunter Bush, a Lexington resident, were charged Thursday with second-degree burglary, second-degree disorderly conduct, and theft by unlawful taking.

Police say the pair broke into a fraternity house to steal the items used to make the display.

According to the police, the two said they made the effigy after seeing a news reports of a life-size representation of Gov. Sarah Palin hanging from the front of a West Hollywood, Calif., house. Bush and Fischer told police they regretted their actions, officials said.

In protest of the University of Wisconsin's school-sponsored, highly organized, and downright tame Halloween party, Freakfest, some Badger students attempted to organize their own antiestablishment block party on Mifflin Street—the site of the school's annual spring boozefest. But students' attempt to have a non-school-sanctioned party fell through after residents and police voiced strong criticism of their plans, the Daily Cardinal and Badger Herald report.

"I understand what [organizers] are trying to do, but I don't want crazy, drunk people in masks running around my house," one Mifflin resident said.

Police at the University of Miami have arrested a 16-year-old in connection with the slaying of a beloved campus crocodile, the Miami Hurricane reports. Donna, the almost 10-foot-long crocodile, was killed on October 1. "We were all emotionally attached to the croc, who lived here for years," the campus police chief said. "That set us off on our investigation,"affectionately named Operation Donna.

One other minor as well as three adults was also involved in the incident. According to police, the adults at the scene acted as lookouts, while someone lured the beast to its death and later severed its head and tail.

Three Quinnipiac students have been arrested for charges that include disorderly conduct, intimidation, and harassment in connection with hate speech left on dorm room doors and harassing phone calls directed to several black student-athletes, the Chronicle reports.

The messages were left on the doors last week, which prompted school officials to send out a campus-wide E-mail over the weekend. Then the same victims received several racially charged and threatening phone calls on Monday.

Since the beginning of the week, the university has held an open forum to discuss the events of the week, while students have publicly rallied against the incidents.

All three students have been dismissed from the university.

Texas A&M agreed to a $2.1 million settlement over the 1999 bonfire tower accident that killed 12 people and injured at least 27, the Austin American-Statesman reports. The 59-foot-tall log tower was part of a 90-year-old tradition that preceded the football team's annual contest against the University of Texas Longhorns. Since the accident, the university has banned the bonfire from its property, and the event is now held off campus by students and alumni.

The university will be responsible for $500,000 of the settlement, with the remaining money provided by insurers. The settlement, which involves the families of four students killed and several of those injured, is the first time the university has had to pay money for bonfire litigation.

On Tuesday, 11,538 people received flu shots on the University of Minnesota campus, impressively destroying the previous Guinness world record of 3,721 shots administered in a day, a record set in 2006 at Centra Care Hospital of Sanford, Fla., the Minnesota Daily reports.

The record is not yet official (lots of documentation and paperwork to come), but health officials hope the mass inoculation will reduce the impact of this year's flu season.

And how did the college get so many people to show up to get their arm pricked? Visits by a couple of Minnesota Vikings didn't hurt, but maybe this ridiculous video did:

University of Kentucky police cut down a likeness of Sen. Barack Obama that had been hanged in effigy Wednesday morning, the Kentucky Kernel reports. The likeness, which was found hanging from a tree between a parking lot and a school building between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., wore khaki pants, a blue sports coat, and a mask of a black man, according to one of the students who first saw the figure. "I was disgusted and hurt someone would deface the university and put something up of this magnitude," student A. J. Mertz said.

UK President Lee Todd said he would personally apologize to the Obama family on behalf of the university. He said he was "outraged and hurt" by the display and "personally offended and deeply embarrassed by this disgusting episode."

Federal authorities have been notified of the incident, and UK police have the effigy as evidence. Police believe it was placed in the well-trafficked area on the Lexington campus overnight and are searching for witnesses.

The incident is the second one of its kind on a college campus this fall. In September, officials at George Fox University outside Portland, Ore., discovered a cardboard cutout of Obama hanging from a tree.

In a strange, too-good-to-be-true episode of campaign zeal gone awry, hundreds of eager students who were promised flights to swing states are now making alternate plans to campaign for Sen. Barack Obama, the Daily Californian reports.

As part of Dan's Delegation, 700 students—more than 200 from UC-Berkeley—planned to travel to Indiana, Colorado, Nebraska, Georgia, and Missouri using frequent-flier miles supposedly donated by Obama-loving Americans living abroad.

Just this week, though, as students were finalizing their plans, everything began falling apart.

The man with whom campus representatives were in contact seemingly fell off the face of the earth. Later, another man informed them that the original contact had been in a car accident.

Despite receiving an E-mailed confirmation a week earlier, the students discovered no tickets had been purchased. They were later told by their contact that all the flight information was destroyed in the aforementioned car accident.

The tale reads like the classic Nigerian E-mail scam, except for the fact that so far none of the students has lost any money. Just maybe a sense of goodwill.

Now, the students are piecing together their own swing-state caravans, with some Harvard students heading to New Hampshire and Berkeley students off to Nevada. Students have already contacted Americans in Italy for Obama, the group that was supposedly donating the frequent-flier miles, while those stateside are left to wonder: Was it really a bad accident, a scam, or just a cruel, elaborate joke?

Arizona State University announced it will lay off 200 or more faculty associates and will most likely increase some class sizes, from about 300 to 1,000 students, for example, the Arizona Republic reports. ASU currently employs 991 "faculty associates," employees who often work part time and are neither tenured nor tenure track.

At one ASU campus, walls have already been removed in some buildings to accommodate larger classes. ASU expects $25 million or more in additional state budget cuts (on top of the $30 million already made), which is the largest amount of the state's various public universities.

Officials did not announce which departments would see the greatest reductions.

Classes at the University of Central Arkansas were canceled today after two students were shot dead and one nonstudent was injured along a narrow alley between a dormitory and a fine arts center Sunday night, the Echo reports. Ryan Henderson, 18, died on the scene, Chavares Block, 19, died at a nearby hospital, and nonstudent Matrevis Norman was treated for a gunshot wound to the thigh and was released from the hospital Sunday night.

Local police have brought in two suspects for questioning and are searching for two more; none of the four suspects is a student, and police do not believe the shooting was random. At a press conference Monday morning, the campus police chief added, "Twelve hours into this case, we have a pretty good picture forming of what occurred."

Residence halls were on lockdown for most of Sunday night, but President Tom Courtway reassured students this morning that the campus was safe and that classes would resume Tuesday.

The highly hyped Penn State-Ohio State game this past weekend left ecstatic Nittany Lions crying in State College Saturday night, thanks perhaps in part to pepper spray police used to quell the crowd of 4,000 raucous celebrants that converged downtown, the Daily Collegian reports. By the way, it wasn ' t even a home game.

Penn State's 13-6 win inspired hordes of fans to take to streets, "pounding on cars, tearing out bushes, and pulling down streetlights." State College police said fans tore down two lampposts and at least two parking meters during the night. At least six cars along Beaver Avenue were damaged, including a police cruiser, police said.

No one has been arrested—yet—but authorities have said they expect to make several arrests over the next weeks. Although officials are still calculating the damage, repairs could cost the city around $10,000.

As is often the case when police use pepper spray or tear gas, students weren't too happy—especially the guy who decided to pour milk into his eyes: "This is not a good look for me."

More endowment numbers have come in, and it is not looking good at all.

Northwestern lost more than 14 percent of its nearly $7 billion endowment. According to university President Henry Bienen, the school's investment situation is "the worst since the Great Depression," a position that may affect faculty hires and future construction.

The University of Wisconsin reports a staggering 20 percent drop in its endowment, a loss of at least $300 million since the stock market's rapid decline this fall. Plus, the Badger fundraising campaign is also feeling the hurt from the economy, with the number of gifts to the foundation down 12 percent from last year.

The University of Maryland has lost about $63 million since the beginning of the year, a 15 percent drop. On the bright side, Maryland has seen relatively steady fundraising returns, with its capital campaign running slightly ahead of schedule.

Michigan State's $1.4 billion investment portfolio declined by about 10 percent for the quarter that ended September 30. MSU's president, however, did not betray much panic; some maintenance may be delayed, but no major plans will be stalled, so far.

"You put together reserve and contingency funds and we've done that," she said. "You have to keep them for this kind of storm. We've tried to plan in a way that we minimized vulnerability to shorter-term issues. Now obviously if this lasted for a very long time, everyone is going to be in trouble."

Seattle University also lost 10 percent of its endowment, which now sits at $200 million.

On the good news front, following the trend of other well-situated schools, Princeton's endowment grew 5.6 percent last fiscal year (although not quite as impressive as the previous year's 24.7 percent), while the University of Michigan saw 6.4 percent growth in its $7.6 billion endowment as of June 30.