Entries for November 2008

Although hardly the first to do so, Harvard has instituted an immediate hiring freeze of all noncritical staff positions, the Harvard Crimson reports. At a faculty meeting last week, the faculty dean estimated a freeze would save the university $10 million, which would help chip away at an estimated $200 million budget shortfall for the next fiscal year.

Although the school would not specify how many positions the freeze affects, the Crimson notes that there are currently 102 open positions on a university job database.

The Indiana University athletic department received a bittersweet ruling from the NCAA Tuesday and has mostly escaped sanctions for major recruiting violations starting in 2006 under men's basketball coaches Kelvin Sampson and Rob Senderoff, the Indiana Daily Student reports.

IU accepted three years probation as well as self-imposed sanctions such as the reduction of scholarships and ejection of several players. The NCAA found IU guilty of "failure to monitor" but did not take away any additional scholarship or impose a postseason ban.

The two coaches, accused of making more than 100 impermissible calls to recruits, received much stronger penalties, with Sampson—now an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks—receiving a five-year order that will keep him from any recruiting activity as well as returning to college basketball for that period. Senderoff was given a three-year order and will be barred from recruiting at Kent State, where he is now an associate head coach.

For the super-special Yale-Harvard football game last weekend, the Yale Precision Marching Band rolled out a super-special, profanity-laced replica of the Berlin Wall—and was swiftly reprimanded for the "completely inappropriate and highly offensive" display, the Yale Daily News reports.

On Monday, the band director sent an E-mail to the group scolding the students for the centerpiece of the halftime show that portrayed Harvard as a Communist empire. (Get it? They have a fun czar, those wealth-redistributing socialists.)

"I was personally embarrassed and offended, and professionally compromised," the E-mail read. "I am suspending the Yale Precision Marching Band from all activities and performances, effective as of this very moment."

Although the specifics of the profanity weren't disclosed by the News, at least one indignant member of the Harvard band found the display off-putting—and not just the words written on the wall. There was also the giant phallic missile that accompanied the show. "When I initially heard about the suspension, I thought it was as a result of that giant, ugly, penislike thing that tore down the wall," said one indignant Harvard senior.

The Maryland State Police revealed to dozens of activists, including two University of Maryland students, that they had been improperly labeled terrorists in 2005, the Associated Press reports. Included on the list are environmentalists, peace activists, animal rights activists, and some people who never participated in protests in Maryland.

The two Maryland students held various positions in the school's International Socialist Organization, which had held an anti-death-penalty event in March 2005. According to files handed over by the police, that event was attended by an undercover police officer to see if participants were planning violent protests, the student paper, the Diamondback, reports.

The state police turned over files to 53 people the agency says were spied on over a 14-month period in 2005 and 2006. The ACLU says the files the police provided are too heavily redacted and is pushing for legislation to ban such spying in the future.

The Daily Lobo has questioned the University of New Mexico's sleepover policy in its dorms, asking university officials what it means for same-sex couples. The policy prohibits a person of the opposite sex from spending the night in a student's dorm room, while a person of the same sex can stay over for up to three days as long as he or she checks in with the front desk. According to a school official, the policy is in place to protect roommates' privacy. The school plans to look into the issue, if there even is one.

This year's 32 Rhodes scholars were awarded this weekend—a group that includes three varsity athletes and two students from schools that are new to the honor, one of the most prestigious academic awards, which enables the selected students to study at Oxford for two or three years.

The athletes include Florida State starting safety Myron Rolle, who completed his undergraduate degree in 2½ years, as well as two athletes from UCLA.

Brian Krohn and Noelle Lopez attended Augsburg College in Minneapolis and California's Santa Clara University, respectively—both schools that had not produced Rhodes scholars previously.

Princeton University had three scholars this year, the most of any school. Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, and UCLA had two scholars each.

You can read more student newspaper profiles of scholars from Michigan, Yale, Brown, Duke, and Columbia.

An Illinois Institute of Technology sophomore who had been missing for eight days was found dead in a fraternity storage closet this weekend. The Cook County medical examiner determined the cause of death of Benjamin Collen as asphyxia due to inhalation of carbon dioxide from a canister. Police are still trying to determine how the student's body could have gone unnoticed for so long in the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity house, where about 25 people reside.

Police are not investigating foul play because the 19-year-old's death has been ruled accidental.

Collen was a member of the fraternity and had been a resident there at some point but was most recently living at a nearby university housing complex.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has loosened his opposition to raising tuition rates in the state's public universities, offering a route to relief for a higher education system struggling under severe budget deficits, the Associated Press reports. Crist's plan proposes increases of up to 15 percent a year at all state schools, quite a turnaround from just last year, when Crist vetoed a 5 percent tuition increase for all schools, arguing it put too much financial burden on students and families.

Now, however, "things evolved," Crist said at a press conference, as a worsening state economy has forced the Legislature to dramatically cut funding to higher education. In late 2007, Crist OK'd a 15 percent tuition hike for three schools, then early this year, for two more institutions. This week's proposal would allow all 11 universities to raise tuition.

The costs of going to state schools in the Sunshine State, such as the University of Florida or Florida State University , are some of the nation's lowest, averaging $3,808 a year for full-time, in-state undergraduates. The national average is $6,585.

If all universities impose the full 15 percent, it would generate $72 million a year. Under the plan, 30 percent of those funds would go to financial aid, with the rest being used to recruit and retain faculty.

In an effort to cut student enrollment, the University of Georgia will raise the required grade-point average for transfer students with 60 or more credits from 2.5 to 2.8, the Red and Black reports.

According to an admissions official, the university is at an all-time-high enrollment of 34,100, and the change—which would take place in spring 2010—is designed to address the glut of students. The number of transfer students has grown by 31 percent since 2004, an increase of more than 500.

Harvard police cut short a pep rally and Girl Talk concert Thursday after the crowd became unruly, crushing bodies to the front of the stage and eventually throwing glow sticks at event organizers, the Harvard Crimson

reports. At least one person reported hyperventilating in the mob, and several others crawled under the stage to escape harm.

Hundreds of fans braved the sub-freezing weather to attend the pre-Harvard-Yale game event, ultimately dubbed by one student to be the "most unsuccessful successful show ever."

In the wake of statewide budget problems, the University of California regents approved an enrollment cut, the Daily Californian reports. The regents voted 8 to 2 Wednesday that without additional state funding, the 191,000-student system would have to reduce its number of students by an unspecified amount. The UC 2009-10 budget calls for an additional $815 million in revenue.

The announcement could be a clarion call to state legislators about the status of higher education in California. "What we have to do as regents is clearly state to the public and the legislature and governor what it takes to run this university at a level that is acceptable," said Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who voted for the motion. UC president Mark Yudof added, "No one wants to curtail the opportunity, but how do we keep absorbing 5,000 more possible students a year when no one is giving us the money to pay for them?"

The UC's announcement came a day after the California State University system—the country largest high education institution—confirmed it would cut enrollment by 10,000 students.

Around 50 nursing students at Howard University picketed Tuesday, protesting the shoddy education they say they've been receiving for years, the Hilltop reports. Their efforts prompted the administration to hold a town hall meeting on Wednesday evening where the students' concerns were discussed but no specific action was undertaken.

Last year, students organized a walk-out of exams, which threatened the school's accreditation. The protesters' list of demands includes improvement in teaching, testing standards, and overall organization of the school's priorities.

Representatives from around a dozen minority student groups at the University of Michigan met Wednesday night to discuss a response to alleged racial bias at a local nightclub, the Michigan Daily reports.

According to leaders from the Chinese Student Association and the Filipino American Student Organization, nightclub staff allegedly tried to stiff the two groups of their cut of a fundraiser's cover charge, generally treated them poorly, and also spat on one of their members. The club's manager has denied the accusations.

The students have accused the club of undercounting the number of customers the groups brought in, saying staff counted only those they perceived as Asian—and not non-Asian members or friends who also attended as affiliates of the groups. Later, when the students confronted the club's manager and staff, the argument turned ugly.

The students have suggested a boycott, and university officials, student government, and other minority groups have expressed support for whatever action the Chinese and Filipino student organizations plan to take.

Boston College will no longer offer E-mail accounts to incoming students starting next fall, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. Instead of the traditional account, students will receive E-mail forwarding that will pass messages from a "johndoe@bc.edu" address to personal accounts, such as Google's Gmail or Microsoft's Hotmail.

The school considered pairing up with one of the two E-mail behemoths as other schools have done, but ultimately decided against it—worried that contract talks would be unnecessarily lengthy or that the free services may one day turn for-pay.

Around 1,900 students fled a Ball State University dorm—the largest complex on campus—after a basement fire set off alarms at 4 a.m. Wednesday, the Daily News reports. Police do not suspect foul play, but the fire did cause a pipe burst, flooding hallways and classrooms near the fire. The 100 classes that used the building's basement have been relocated.

Students were moved to a nearby arena and were allowed back into their rooms at 8 a.m. For their troubles, they were offered free food, hot cocoa, and a free pass to coast in their classes the next day because the poor things "lost a lot of sleep in addition to the trauma they experienced," a university memo noted.