Entries for January 2010

They call it the Sustain-a-Bowl, a fitting name for this time of year. For the second year in a row, students at Auburn University in Alabama are working hard to make their campus cleaner and more environmentally sustainable. Is there a better way to really make a difference than by making it a competition?

Starting February 1, almost 4,000 Auburn students will participate in the contest, which promotes less use of electricity, water, and trash, as well as increased recycling, the Auburn Plainsman reports.

[Read 5 Unique Ways to Go Green if You're Living in a Dorm]

"[Sustainability] is a national trend," Matt Williams, program manager for the Office of Sustainability, tells the Plainsman. "It started at Duke University ... and [soon after] we looked at what had been going on at other campuses."

[Slide Show: 10 Colleges With Green Dorms]

Points are awarded based on water and electricity reductions and recycling. Dorms can also get points for organizing awareness events. Last year's Sustain-a-Bowl saved $5,506 in electricity and $2,785 in water, resulting in a total of $8,291 saved, the report says.

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Paper Trail has been thinking about going to the big Duke University-Georgetown University basketball game on Saturday for months. Tickets on StubHub—as of Friday morning, about 24 hours before the game—started at $124 a pop, so it looks like your favorite blogger will stay home and watch on television. Needless to say, it's the toughest ticket in town this weekend.

But that won't stop Barack Obama from showing up. That's right: Our president will be in attendance to watch the No. 7 Hoyas host the No. 8 Blue Devils at the Verizon Center in downtown Washington, the Hill reports. We had heard rumors that Obama was going, and the Hill report finally confirms it, although the White House has not confirmed the president's plans.

[Read the expanded Whispers coverage of the story.]

The game will raise money for education programs in Darfur, a civil-war-ravaged region of the Sudan, the report says. NBA star Tracy McGrady (can we still call him a star?) will also be in attendance, along with several dignitaries. Obama caught a George Washington-Oregon State game earlier this year. Of course, his brother-in-law coaches Oregon State, but still, Saturday wouldn't be the first time 44 stepped out of the office for some hoops.

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Made famous by his squeaky voice, disdain for reporters, lovable ways, or simply his 394 wins—the most ever by a Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A) coach—Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has plenty of quirks. Perhaps the biggest trademark of Paterno's look—we'll call it "old school coach chic"—is his dark-rimmed glasses.

Paterno's frames are up for auction at the Penn State Public Broadcasting's 18th Annual Connoisseur's Dinner and Auction in February, the Daily Collegian Online reports. This isn't the first thing of Joe Pa's that has been auctioned to benefit charity. The coach's khaki pants and white socks have also been up for bid in the past, the report says, though it's not clear how much money those items brought in.

How much will the glasses go for? Well, it helps that they're autographed by the 83-year-old coach himself—in Sharpie—right on a lens.

The auction runs February 1–17.

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I'm not entirely sure which topic got more buzz yesterday: the introduction of Apple's iPad or President Obama's State of the Union address. Either way, it was pretty clear which one's buzz will last longer: the iPad. Everyone's talking about the tablet computer designed to compete with the Kindle.

Abilene Christian University's student newspaper, the Optimist, hoping to capitalize on the buzz, will be the first student publication to publish using the iPad, the Optimist reports. The gadget will be available in 60 days, and a team of faculty and student researchers is planning for the Optimist to be ready by then. The Optimist wants to expand its reach on campus, where it already publishes a print and an online product in addition to making content available via an iPhone application.

"This is yet another opportunity for our students to make use of a cutting-edge delivery system—the third version of mobile media delivery we have pioneered," Cheryl Bacon, chair of Abilene Christian's Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, said in a release.

"We pay close attention to the way young people consume news," Kenneth Pybus, faculty adviser of the Optimist, said in the same release. "They tend to use all the tools at their disposal to get information. With the iPad, we foresee the potential for an explosion in news consumption."

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A research facility at the University of Wisconsin got a nice gift Tuesday: $8.8 million in federal grant money. It will be used for a new kind of stem cell research, the Badger Herald reports.

Wisconsin's Waisman Center will conduct human clinical trials with stem cells, including a first-of-its-kind spinal stem cell trial, the report says. The tests on patients with spinal injuries will begin in six months. The study will help the push toward the "development of treatments for prevalent diseases using stem cells," the Badger Herald says.

"Our main function is to understand how to manufacture biological products and biotechnology drugs in a way that can go into human clinical trials," Derek Hei, a biochemical engineer who is the Waisman Center's technical director, said in a statement. "We also help investigators follow and interpret Food and Drug Administration rules as they move into clinical trials."

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This is a case that will be followed closely in the Yale University community and beyond: the trial of Raymond Clark III, a former Yale lab technician accused of murdering graduate student Annie Le. And the first big news from the proceedings happened yesterday.

In a short court appearance Tuesday, Clark pleaded not guilty to the murder of Le, the Yale Daily News reports. The prosecution added a charge of felony murder to the case, which would allow a jury to convict Clark of killing Le even if the death happened unintentionally in the process of committing another felony, the report says.

Clark also waived his right to a probable cause hearing, at which prosecutors would have had to show that they had enough evidence to proceed.

"In any hypothetical homicide, felony murder ensures the prosecution won't get boxed in," Beth Merkin, one of Clark's public defenders, tells the Daily News. "It provides for alternate theories to be made about the crime."

Clark was arrested on September 17 after the discovery of Le's body hidden in a lab building shocked Yale's New Haven, Conn., campus.

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If you use Twitter, you know about hash tags. If you don't, here is a below-average explanation: Hash tags categorize topics of tweets and allow Twitterers to follow that specific issue—like #haiti or #NFL. The most popular hash tags are identified as "trending topics," which are listed on the main page of your Twitter account when you log on. 

Haiti has been one of the most popular trending topics since the tragic earthquake hit the island nation on January 12. On Twitter, if you click on the trending topic Haiti, you'll see comments from all over the world, with people expressing support, pledging money, and discussing the tragedy. It's turned out to be a great way for people to communicate about the relief effort, too. 

A University of Colorado graduate student teamed up with Project Empowering the Public with Information in Crisis to create a Twitter-based system that aggregates information for everything going on in Haiti, the CU Independent reports. According to the report, there are two types of hash tags that EPIC uses in its tweets: main hash tags and data-based hash tags, based on the content of the post. 

Haitians in need of assistance can text a family member from the ground who can then translate their needs into a tweet with hash tags. These tweets are then organized into a list where the name, need, and location of the person are clearly read and sent to sources where they can be accessed by relief efforts, the student behind the movement, Kate Starbird, tells the Independent. 

"The hash tags let the computer know the next three words will be a location or a contact and, if it knows that the word 'need' came before it, it's easier to classify things and make it easier for the computer to help," Starbird says. "It can process them in near real time." 

Read more about Tweak the Tweet on EPIC's website. 

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Let's take a break from the doom-and-gloom economic stories that grab headlines in college news. Let's step back from the intense athletics stories that we talk about all the time. Let's get bugged out instead.

A Howard University student said he found a new six-legged friend crawling out of his sandwich on Sunday night, prompting possible legal action and a whole lot of nausea, the Howard student newspaper, the Hilltop, reports. Lamar Smith, a freshman, plans to contact the Department of Health and the corporate offices of Sodexho, the dining company that operates on Howard's campus. Smith also wants out of his meal plan.

(Can you blame him? I doubt he ordered a bug sandwich.)

"This is nasty. There are over 2,000 students that eat here everyday," Smith tells the Hilltop. "If there's one bug, there's more."

Meanwhile, Howard's Sodexho contingent is conducting an investigation of the incident.

"We do have a pest control service that does come and service the cafeteria," Sodexho General Manager Eric Brown tells the Hilltop. "It's hard to say where it came from and if in fact it was an insect. We will take greater cautions to identify the source of where it came from, and it will be eliminated."

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Call it a casualty of the times: The University of New Orleans is leaving NCAA Division I athletics.

Citing financial constraints related to both the struggling economy and the region's slow recovery from Hurricane Katrina, the school will move to Division III, leaving the Sun Belt Conference, ESPN.com reports. The university suspended most of its athletics programs as it rebuilt after the hurricane, the report says. New Orleans got a waiver to stay in Division I despite the limited number of sports, but that has expired. A charter member of the Sun Belt Conference, the university held out hope when a donor left the school money in his will, but the cash wasn't enough to continue competing in Division I.

"It is unfortunate that UNO finds itself in financial constraints that have necessitated such drastic measures, but there is a time when tough decisions must be made," New Orleans Chancellor Tim Ryan said in a statement. "While we are proud of our past membership in the Sun Belt Conference, the university has to make changes that will allow NCAA-sanctioned athletics to continue at the Division III level."

New Orleans's departure leaves the Sun Belt with 12 members. Nine teams will compete in football, while men's and women's basketball and women's volleyball will keep the current divisional structure of the conference, only with six teams in each division.

"The last several years have been unquestionably difficult on the university and the athletics department," Sun Belt Commissioner Wright Waters says in the same statement. "The university's assessment that has led to its withdrawal from the Sun Belt Conference has assuredly also been another difficult chapter for UNO. UNO is our third-longest tenured member, and [it] will be sorely missed. The hard work put in by Chancellor Ryan and numerous other administrators on campus over the last several years of uncertainty is to be commended."

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In an effort to combat what its members call "Islamaphobia," Northwestern's Muslim-cultural Students Association brought in someone who knows a lot about the struggles that Muslims face around the world.

A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and a former Army chaplain at Guantánamo Bay, James Yusef Yee shared his experiences with a crowd of 300 people interested in fighting faith-based stereotypes, the Daily Northwestern reports. While working at Guantánamo Bay in 2003, Yee, a Chinese American, was imprisoned for 76 days after being accused of aiding the Taliban and al Qaeda. He called his experience a prime example of Islamaphobia.

"Profiling is a violation of national standards against racial discrimination," Yee, who is Muslim, said at the event. "It is not something that our country was founded on."

The event was designed to provoke further discussion of the sensitive topic.

"Islamophobia is a kind of xenophobia that's going on in the United States and throughout the world," Dulce Acosta-Licea, external relations vice president for McSA, tells the Daily Northwestern. "It is a lack of understanding for Muslims, this population which some people think is foreign or strange, and as a result, there are many misconceptions."

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Yale was taken aback after seeing its name on a blacklist released by an Iranian intelligence agency. The blacklist includes 60 groups that are allegedly part of an anti-Iran conspiracy backed by Britain, Israel, and the United States.

Experts say the whole thing is product of Iranian paranoia, the Yale Daily News reports, and school officials are shocked at their institution's inclusion. Yale President Richard Levin says he has no clue why Yale is on the list. Officials say they hope it doesn't hurt Iranian students' chances of matriculating to Yale—although it's already difficult to get a visa to the United States from Iran, the report says.

"We don't have any official explanation," University Secretary and Vice President Linda Lorimer tells the Daily News, "since obviously the Iranian authorities are not indicating the basis for the inclusion of certain organizations and not others."

A fun fact about the list: Yale is the only entire school listed. Certain programs at certain schools are named, but no other entire institution made the list.

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The University of California may be on the brink of a radical change.

For the first time in the history of the University of California system, prospective students in the near future may be put on a wait list, the Daily Californian reports. The idea is that a wait list will give the 10-school system more flexibility during the admissions process, a necessity given its financial instability. The ability to increase or decrease enrollment depends on state funding.

The University of California Board of Regents met in San Francisco yesterday and expressed the need for a "coordinated lobbying effort" directed at the state Legislature to get the funding the university needs.

"I think, once again, you have a budget you can't believe in," UC Regent Richard Blum tells the Californian. "I don't think half the stuff is going to come true. We have to be up there [in Sacramento] as regents, as administrators, and as students."

There's interest from at least one regent in rolling back the 32 percent fee increase if the university gets its desired funding, the report says. Others said that the rollbacks should wait until the system's finances are on stronger ground.

In all, the takeaway from the regents' meeting was simple: The University of California has to make its presence felt in Sacramento.

"We should be in touch with every legislator, particularly those who are up for re-election," Blum says. "[We need to] find out who is on our side and who is not on our side and, if they are not on our side, find out how we can support their opponent."

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Notre Dame's student newspaper is in some hot water. And the Observer has a not-so-humorous comic strip to blame for it.

The comic strip, called The Mobile Party, featured a saw with eyes, feet, and hands telling a human a joke. The saw says, "What's the easiest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable?" The answer: "a baseball bat." The original version of the comic strip had the same two characters, only the saw's punch line—if you can call it that—was "AIDS" instead of a baseball bat. The newspaper editors rejected the first version but published the second. (Visit College Media Matters for a view of the strip and its original version.)

It's pretty obvious why the strip might offend people. And the Observer is trying to do some damage control. An editorial published on Friday apologized.

"The burden of responsibility ultimately lies on us for allowing it to go to print," the editors write. "There is no excuse that can be given and nothing that can be said to reverse the damage that has already been done by this egregious error in judgment."

The paper's assistant managing editor resigned on Monday, announcing her move in an open letter to the Notre Dame community.

"As assistant managing editor, I have failed in my duties to protect the quality and uphold the standards of the Observer," Kara King writes in the letter.

The comic strip's writers, a trio of seniors at Notre Dame, wrote a letter to the editor that gave the reasoning behind the strip and apologized.

"We want to apologize for the offensive, distasteful, and completely humorless joke that was made and acknowledge the grave error in its production," the comic strip authors wrote. "We cannot begin to express how apologetic we are for everyone who has been hurt by our comic and its implied message."

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The tragedy in Haiti hit home for South Dakota State University basketball coach Scott Nagy, whose 6-year-old adopted daughter is Haitian. Nagy and his family have not been able to contact his daughter's birth mother since the earthquake.

To help the disaster-stricken Caribbean nation, Nagy will coach barefoot this weekend when his South Dakota State Jackrabbits host Oakland University of Michigan, the Associated Press reports. Nagy hopes to raise $30,000 and collect 2,000 pairs of shoes for Haitian relief.

Nagy is working with Samaritan's Feet, a charitable organization that provides footwear for those who need it. The organization has gained attention because of Indiana University-Purdue University—Indianapolis (better known as IUPUI) basketball coach Ron Hunter's work. To donate to Samaritan's Feet, text "shoes" to 85944.

[Read what colleges are doing to provide aid to Haiti.]

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Well, that was fun. Two weeks of voting for the annual Paper Trail awards prompted some interesting results but no real surprises in terms of winners. The closest vote came for the Best Alternative Media Outlet, where some voiced concerns over the inclusion of the blog Club Trillion, a popular journal kept by Ohio State basketball player Mark Titus. I'm not here to argue those points—we'll cross that bridge next time around if we must. Instead, I'm here to deliver the goods.

Here are the winners: