Entries for February 2008

For students who get accepted to Abilene Christian University in Texas this spring, there's one more perk to enrolling: The college plans to give all first-year students an iPhone or an iPod touch. The university says "freshmen will use an iPhone or iPod touch to receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors' offices, and check their meal and account balances." Ummm...yeah. And, also, maybe to text their friends, download the latest episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and make phone calls when they could be studying. (BTW: No details on what that calling/data plan will be.)

Let's not forget Duke experimented with giving iPods to its freshmen four years ago. Of course, U.S. News investigated:

"Indeed, Duke dove headfirst into podcasting last year, giving every incoming freshman an iPod for educational purposes. But according to student surveys, they used the devices more for listening to audiobooks and their favorite hit songs. Lynne O'Brien of Duke's Center for Instrumental Technology insists the test was a success. But this year, the giveaway is confined to students enrolled in courses using the hip product—like Sally Schauman's environment and community class, which uses the iPods to record field notes."

Maybe Abilene knows something Duke doesn't? Regardless, looks like incoming Wildcats will score some hip swag.

—Kenneth Terrell

Anyone who's anyone knows that JuicyCampus.com is the anonymous college gossip site that has allegedly been ruining lives coast to coast. Student governments have tried to ban it (Pepperdine and Texas Christian University, to name a few), and sororities, newspaper columnists, and university administrators have called it "repulsive" and "classless," as well as the "pinnacle of depravity."

Yet while fiery rhetoric may only be helping JuicyCampus attract visitors, Google, which removed its ads from the site, may actually hurt it. TCU's Daily Skiff reports the search giant pulled its ads "because the Web site violated Google's terms of use." No word yet on what that specifically means, but coeds around the nation who have been JuicyCampus targets are clearly rejoicing.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he will push for state funding to tear down the building where the Northern Illinois University shootings occurred and to erect a new building in the center of campus, the Northern Star reports.

The building will cost $40 million and will be called "Memorial Hall," the governor said. It will not be at the same site as Cole Hall and could be in use by 2010.

"We are committing the funds needed to build Memorial Hall, to replace Cole Hall, a building now burdened by tragedy and loss. We will tear that building down, not to erase the memory of what happened, but to remind us that the human spirit, the will to learn, to build, to grow, to give back—that spirit lives."

A controversial safe-sex brochure—which depicts two illustrated men engaged in sex acts—has had two University of Massachusetts-Amherst student groups at odds with each other for at least a week, with the Daily Collegian chronicling the details. The fliers, titled "Safer Sex Can Be Fun!" and put up by the Radical Student Union, drew the ire of the Republican Club and later the school administration, which told the RSU to take them down. True to its anarchist roots, the RSU refused to remove all the fliers, calling it a "clear-cut free speech issue."

Not easily defeated, Republican Club members held a "Rally for Public Decency," which attracted both counterprotesters and ad hominem attacks directed toward the Republican Club president, who called the brochures pornographic. "These disturbing pictures of male genitalia represent sexual harassment," he said. "The Radical Student Union is hiding behind the promotion of safe sex to push forward its own agenda."

Most recently, the university took down the posters from the RSU's office window, and once again the group defied the ruling, reposting a lone brochure. "We have one flier up right now, and we're going to leave that one up," said an RSU member. "We're just going to continue doing what we're doing."

Since the resignation of men's basketball coach Kelvin Sampson, Indiana University has increased security at school President Michael McRobbie's office and Assembly Hall, among other locations. Although no specific threat was received, officials cite as a precedent the tumultuous 2000 exit of infamous coach Bobby Knight, which led to the arrest of a number of protesters as thousands rushed the then president's home, setting trees afire and burning effigies of the school official.

With $30,000 in loans, an anthropology degree, dreams of communicating with primates via sign language, and almost no current job prospects, one Indiana University alum is trying to auction off her loans on eBay, the Indiana Daily Student reports. She's already made $50. Only $29,950 plus interest to go!

About a dozen Yale students discovered a swastika and the "SS" insigne sculpted in snow on the trunks of two trees early Saturday morning. Since then, a flurry of outraged E-mail has been sent to and from students and administrators.

Authorities at Yale have yet to determine who is responsible for the symbols and have condemned the incident as "immature," "ugly," and "disgusting."

Between the "Yale sluts" sign and a number of other cases of hate graffiti, the Yale campus has not had its best year for public relations. "I've been at Yale for two years and have seen acts of hate against Muslims, homosexuals, African-Americans, women, and now Jews," one student told the News. "And that's at the very least."

At Northern Illinois University, Geology 101: Intro to Ocean Science—the class where five students were fatally shot by a gunman who later killed himself—on Tuesday had its first session since the shooting two weeks ago. The return may have been bittersweet. Monday was the first day back for many courses, and for at least one student who walked out of a lecture, that return to class just "didn't feel right."

But normalcy is what many of the students sought—and to be among their peers, who are all going through the same thing. "I will feel a lot better when I see some of my classmates and my professor," another student said.

• The school has provided all classrooms with counselors for the past two days and will continue to provide them for the ocean science class for the remainder of the semester.

• Because of the overwhelming response the school has received for fundraising and manufacturing requests, NIU will not sell memorial items referencing the February 14 shooting.

• Support continues to pour into the DeKalb, Ill., campus: from Virginia Tech and in the form of abundant cookies (55,000) and ribbons (40,000).

Another day, and another school offering a new "strengthened" financial aid program. Brown University says it will increase by 20 percent the amount it spends on financial aid, to a total of $68.5 million. Families with incomes below $60,000 will not have to contribute to tuition, and families that make less than $100,000 won't have to pay student loans. Brown has also pledged to reduce loans for students across the board.

The money for the financial aid upgrade (ironically) will partially come from a 3.9 percent tuition bump, but was mostly made possible by last year's "extraordinary endowment returns." Brown's endowment totals $2.3 billion.

*A small chemical spill in a University of Wisconsin engineering building elicited a "full response" from the both the school and the Madison Fire Department, the Badger Herald reports. The spill prompted a full evacuation, but no one was hurt and the threat was easily diffused.

*Louisiana State University held a rock-paper-scissors tournament to hype up the school's men's basketball game against Mississippi, the Daily Reveille writes. A two-time high school champion and current sophomore won the tournament with the highly predictable rock.

A week after a gunman killed five Northern Illinois University students and then himself, thousands gathered in the same commons on campus to commemorate the dead, support each other and the community, and listen to the university president speak, the Northern Star reports.

"It has been just one week, just one week since we lost five vibrant people," he said. "Some have suffered physically, we all have suffered mentally.... Know where we stand now will always be hallowed ground. We will turn that spot into a vibrant place of learning."

A day after UCLA officials filed suit against a group of animal activists, a judge issued a restraining order prohibiting the groups and individuals who have been accused of targeting faculty involved in animal research from coming near those researchers, the Daily Bruin writes.

According to UCLA press releases, a number of researchers have been attacked or harassed since 2006. One professor had a molotov-cocktail-type device ignited at her home, which also was flooded when a garden hose was stuck through a broken window. Another faculty member was a victim of an attempted car bombing, and a package rigged with razor blades was mailed to another professor. The suit accuses these groups and individuals of "invading the privacy of researchers, causing emotional distress and interfering with business practices."

The activists in the case have called the "nonsensical lawsuit" an "obvious act of desperation."

Thirty-eight former lacrosse players have filed suit against Duke University for "emotional distress and other injuries" caused by the infamous rape allegations in 2006, the Chronicle reports.

"We will seek recovery for the treatment—the really shameful treatment—that the players received throughout the ordeal," the players' lawyer said.

The school is already addressing two other civil suits, one by three other unindicted players and another from the team's former coach. The three formally indicted players settled with Duke for an undisclosed amount in June 2007.

In hopes of giving students a financial break and using the school's facilities more efficiently, Keene State College in New Hampshire is considering paying students to take early morning and Friday classes, the Equinox reports. "We are spending millions of dollars on these buildings, and...to utilize our buildings in the mornings and also on Fridays, we came up with the idea of maybe offering students a little bit of a break to get students to classes a little bit earlier during those days," said a student trustee. Keene State officials thus might join the University of Iowa in the quest to tame the push for more "thirsty Thursdays."

The Daily of the University of Washington gives us a glimpse of bathroom stall poetry "unlike any graffiti I've ever seen in a restroom," describes one student. Appropriately, the wall art is in the art building. Examples:

On the brick wall in purple marker: "I met the nicest boy in town, but I want to marry a man."

"I wish I could get an A in Art History." Response, in blue pen: "Maybe you should study."

"I want to be anywhere but here!" Response, in pencil: "You must not have to pee too badly, then."

"I am having an affair with a married man. He just left her for me!" Response: "And he'll prob[ably] leave you for someone else. Once a cheater always a cheater." The response: "Life is not that black and white."

"I love reading this door."