Entries for October 2009

Inside Higher Ed has chronicled the intriguing case surrounding Butler University student Jess Zimmerman, originator of a blog that was sued by the university two weeks ago for allegedly making libelous and defamatory statements about school officials. The suit, which had been denounced by faculty members and students on the Indianapolis campus, was dropped today, according to an item in Inside Higher Ed's Quick Takes feature and the Butler Collegian's website.

Zimmerman started the TrueBU Blog in 2008 but wrote it anonymously. According to Inside Higher Ed, Butler did not name Zimmerman directly in its suit, suing instead the anonymous writer. Butler University President Bobby Fong said repeatedly that since Zimmerman wasn't named in the suit, the school wasn't suing him. That caused the uproar on campus.

With the suit withdrawn, the aftermath of the incident and how the parties move on will be in focus, especially after the incident garnered so much national attention from media outlets such as the Indianapolis Star and the Huffington Post.

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He's easily one of the most famous—and controversial—coaches in college sports history. And he's a legend in the state of Indiana. Former Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight recognizes how much hoopla would surround any appearance he makes at his former stomping grounds in Bloomington, which is exactly why he won't be coming to his 2009 Indiana Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony, the Indiana Daily Student reports.

Knight says he doesn't want to take anything away from the other inductees, whose inductions would be overshadowed by anything that included the legendary coach, who led Indiana to three national championships during his time at IU.

"Coach Knight expressed his tremendous appreciation for the support his teams were given by the IU student body and fans all over the state of Indiana and the contribution that support made to the success of his teams," Indiana Athletics Director Fred Glass said in a statement. "Coach Knight also noted that there is no one he appreciates more than his players, who he said were the most responsible for the success the program had during his tenure."

Knight was fired by then Indiana University President Myles Brand in 2000 because of run-ins with players and students. The school and Knight have been on rocky terms since then, and the Daily Student reports that Knight's Hall of Fame induction is the "first move to bring the two sides together." Knight will be represented at the ceremony by his friend and 2008 IU Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Bob Hammel, the report says.

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In its fourth annual Sexual Health Report Card, the condom maker Trojan rated the University of South Carolina as the nation's top university in sexual health, the Gamecock reports.

The ratings are based on the information and resources available for students at each school. There were 141 NCAA colleges and universities included in the survey, which used data from on-campus student health centers and student polls, among other places. More than 6,000 college students nationwide responded to Trojan's Facebook campaign that asked five questions about a school's sexual health resources.

The well-chronicled troubles weighing down the economy have hit colleges and universities across the country, even in the Ivy League. To stay financially afloat, many college students get part-time jobs. And if jobs off campus are scarce, work-study and other on-campus opportunities provide an employment safety net.

That may change at Yale, the Yale Daily News reports. Yale administration officials say there's a chance that they'll reinstate a preferential hiring policy that would ensure that students receiving financial aid get the best shot at on-campus work. If the number of financial-aid students without work surpasses 30—there are 10 now without work—the policy will be reinstituted, the report says. The policy was repealed almost 10 years ago.

Hackers compromised 40 computers in the University of Wisconsin chemistry department, and that's not the worst part. The computers had personal information—like Social Security numbers—of 2,920 people affiliated with the school, the Badger Herald reports.

The hacking is believed to have started in 2001, the report says. The Office of Campus Information Security discovered the breach when it installed new protection software on August 31. But the people whose information was compromised didn't receive notice of the incident until October 12. The report says that although the information was exposed to hackers, it may not have been taken or used. It's believed that the computers were being used more for what the report calls "an underground network" that distributes movies, television shows, music, and software.

At the beginning of the school year, University of Maryland officials decided that they needed to do something about diversity on campus. A panel called the Diversity Plan Steering Committee was charged with "developing a road map to a more multifaceted campus," the Diamondback reported in September.

But when the plan came out, critics came out in droves, arguing that the plan was flawed in nearly every facet. Last night, students, faculty, and staff aired their concerns at a campus town-hall meeting that drew more than 300 people, the Diamondback reports.

Two student reporters have been charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, and noncompliance with a school official by James Madison University and its police department, the Breeze reports. The Student Press Law Center says the school will decide if it will take disciplinary action at a hearing on November 5.

The incident took place on October 18. According to the Breeze's accounts of the story, Breeze reporter Katie Hibson came to Hillside Hall, a residence hall on JMU's campus, to report on a trespassing incident that had occurred the day before. A resident of the dormitory invited Hibson into the building after Hibson identified herself, Hibson says. After she interviewed students inside the dorm, Maria Lane, a resident adviser in Hillsdale Hall, asked Hibson to leave. Hibson says she left immediately.

It's a sensitive subject on all sides, and it's one of the many issues entangled in the ongoing immigration policy debate in the United States. It's the DREAM Act, and some UCLA students want the legislation passed.

Several UCLA students spent last Thursday and Friday lobbying for the passage of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, the Daily Bruin reports. The act would allow undocumented college students to receive financial aid and move along the pathway toward citizenship.

The NCAA officially began its investigation of the University of Michigan football team today, the Michigan Daily reports. The Detroit Free Press originally reported the possible violation, saying the team had surpassed the allotted mandatory workout hours, which prompted the investigation.

A letter sent to the university by the NCAA maps out where the investigation will go, according to the Daily.

Possible violations "primarily involve the matters under review by the institution and the enforcement staff concerning the football program," the report says. The NCAA plans to finish the investigation by the end of the year.

The story of six African-American Washington University in St. Louis students and a Chicago bar that wouldn't let them in has consumed the leafy west St. Louis campus, reports Student Life, the school's student newspaper.

The FBI and several other groups are investigating an incident that occurred earlier this month at the Original Mother's nightclub in the Windy City. The six students, who were traveling with some 200 other seniors from Washington University, were denied entry to the bar on October 17, the report says. One of the students, Regis Murayi, is the treasurer of the Senior Class Council, the group that arranged the trip to Original Mother's. Murayi filed complaints with the Chicago Commission on Human Rights, the Illinois attorney general's office, and the U.S. Department of Justice, the report says.

Business leaders complain that engineers don't have enough practice working with others to finish projects in a timely fashion. So, being the world's top engineering and IT school, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology naturally responded to these complaints with a solution: a program tailored for students who want to learn how to operate and apply their skills in the business world.

The plan is for the two-year leadership program to add 30 juniors each year, the Boston Globe reports. So far, students and faculty alike are touting the positive results of the program, which was launched last fall.

"A lot of MIT graduates go out into the real world and fall on their faces because they don't know how to work within a company,'' Tanya Goldhaber, an MIT engineering student tells the Globe. "They expect their bosses to be impressed by their creativity, but they don't deliver the product on time.''

The students in the program meet three times a week. They work in labs that test their leadership skills, the report says. One recent project required the students to come up with an innovative idea and put together a presentation to pitch to the MIT Sloan School of Management. Projects like that allow students to see the other side of product development, something that's important in a business world where contracting, cutting budgets, and efficiency are prized.

"I literally thought two years ago that I'd be an engineer sitting in a cubicle cranking out equations for the rest of my life,'' Goldhaber tells the Globe. "Now I've discovered that I'm good at people as well as machines, and I never would have had the gumption to explore that without this program.''

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A group of wealthy donors wants to give the University of Kentucky $7 million to build a dorm for the school's basketball team, which is widely considered one of the top teams entering the 2009-2010 college basketball season. But there's one caveat: The dorm's name must include the word "coal" somewhere in its title.

That stipulation by the group called Difference Makers has caused controversy on the Lexington campus, the Kentucky Kernel reports.

"My opinion is pretty much that coal has been a foundation of Kentucky's economy for many decades, and it's going to be the foundation for many decades to come," says Stephen Gardner, chairman of the UK Mining and Energy Foundation. "Coal research is very important to UK. All of the colleges do a lot of research into coal, and coal supplies a lot of the money for the research."

Opponents of including "coal" in the dormitory's title say that the school would be selling out to the coal industry. Martin Mudd, a UK student and member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, tells the Kernel that the university shouldn't allow a free advertisement for the coal industry on its campus.

"My personal opinion is that the University of Kentucky has to choose whether it's going to be a friend of big coal or a friend of Kentucky and Kentuckians," Mudd tells the Kernel. "With this announcement, it's clear what the administration feels about that, but I don't think that that view represents everybody on this campus."

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Six researchers at Harvard University were admitted to the hospital in August after drinking tainted coffee from a coffee machine in the New Research Building in Boston, the Harvard Crimson reports. The coffee was found to have sodium azide in it. At least one of the people poisoned was a Harvard student, according to the Boston Herald.

The story came to light in recent days after the Harvard Medical School on Friday released a memo detailing the incident. It was originally reported by the Herald, which is now reporting that an expert says the poisoned coffee was no accident.

"An accident? Sodium azide is a poison," David M. Benjamin, a toxicologist, tells the Herald. "Absolutely not."

According to the memo, the researchers were taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston with dizziness, fainting, and ringing in the ears, the Associated Press reports. The Herald says the victims also had low blood pressure.

An investigation has been ongoing since the incident occurred, but no details have been released.

"What I know at this point in time is that all options and potential avenues for how this could have happened are being very thoroughly and intensely investigated," David Cameron, a spokesman for Harvard Medical School, tells the Crimson.

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Two weeks ago, Hampton University crowned its first nonblack Miss Hampton University. Saying that the news caused a stir on campus probably doesn't capture the full mood at the historically black university.

In fact, the new Miss Hampton, 22-year-old Nikole Churchill, wrote to President Obama and asked the first black president to speak to her classmates about racial tolerance, the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., reports. Churchill, who is from Hawaii, told the newspaper that her father is from Guam and her mother is Italian. The senior was selected by a panel of judges over nine other Hampton University students for the coveted crown, and she'll move on to the Miss Virginia pageant.

"I am hoping that perhaps you would be able to make an appearance to my campus, Hampton University, so that my fellow Hamptonians can stop focusing so much on the color of my skin and doubting my abilities to represent," Churchill writes in her letter to Obama, "but rather be proud of the changes our nation is making toward accepting diversity."

Pageant Director Sheila Maye told the Daily Press that she was surprised at the outpouring of both support and protest in the Hampton community. "We have all kinds of people on our campus; we are not in a cocoon," she says. "As far as I'm concerned, we need to get her ready to serve HU and to move on and represent us at Miss Virginia."

After a family member recently fell ill, 19-year-old Georgetown sophomore Charley Cooper realized he was running on fumes. His schedule, jampacked with schoolwork and a part-time job, made completing the simpler, everyday items on his to-do list difficult. Cooper's solution? Hire a personal assistant.

Cooper's ideal assistant will help him with "everyday tasks" like doing laundry, filling up his car's gas tank, and giving him rides to and from work, the Washington Post reports. Cooper's advertisement on Georgetown's student employment website says the job has flexible hours, which can range from three to seven hours a week, and good pay—$10 to $12 an hour.

The Post contacted Cooper through Facebook. Cooper tells the paper that the posting is not a joke and that the work could be appealing to a student who needs extra cash.

"I know that if I didn't already have a job, I would definitely be interested in a job that pays $10 to $12 per hour and is flexible in terms of hours," he tells the Post.