Entries for April 2009

A University of Missouri graduate student and his brother, an MU alum, as well as two others, were arrested Wednesday in connection with a massive E-mail spamming operation, the Missourian reports. According to police, the suspects allegedly developed an E-mail extracting program and collected more than 8 million student addresses from 2,000 universities and colleges.

Using spam marketing campaigns, the suspects sold more than $4.1 million worth of products, authorities say.

"Nearly every college and university in the United States was impacted by this scheme," said Matt Whitworth, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri. "Illegal hacking and E-mail spamming wreaks havoc on computer networks. These schools spent significant funds to repair the damage and to implement costly preventive measures to defend themselves against future intrusions."

As a precautionary measure, Dartmouth plans to pull 11 undergraduates, a faculty member, and a teaching assistant from the school's Language Study Abroad program in Cholula, Mexico, because of worries about swine flu, the Dartmouth reports. There have been no reports of sickness in Cholula, and none of the students have exhibited symptoms of the flu.

Meanwhile, more schools like Iowa State and North Carolina State are canceling summer study-abroad programs in Mexico.

Ohio State's student newspaper, the Lantern, is planning to end its print circulation on Fridays, going to an online-only version at the end of the week, the Lantern reports. The paper had already suspended its summer version last year and has cut its overall circulation by almost half over the past three years.

The Lantern is hardly the first student paper to cut the number of days it prints: It follows in the footsteps of papers from Syracuse, Minnesota, Alabama, Texas Christian, and Utah universities.

Swine flu has not hit U.S. college campuses, but campus health officials—aware that colleges are ideal environments for outbreaks—are building contingency plans in the case of an event. Schools are prepared to cancel travel or impose quarantines as local and federal authorities require. Health clinics are on the lookout for flulike symptoms. Officials have told students to "be alert and cautious but not panic" and have offered some very pragmatic advice: Wash your hands.

A handful of colleges have cancelled study abroad programs in Mexico (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Pennsylvania State University-Altoona, Suffolk University), and schools near the U.S.-Mexico border are on slightly higher alert, with schools like University of Texas - El Paso forming flu task forces. At the moment, what's actually more worrisome than the fear of an outbreak is what commuting students from Mexico (UTEP has around 1,500) will do if border controls tighten. So far, much of the action is wait-and-see. "There is no need to panic or to take drastic action," said UTEP's president. "We all need to learn more about this thing."

A club sports governing body at the University of Oregon upheld its decision to cancel the rest of its men's ultimate Frisbee team's season after receiving complaints that some members of the team played naked in a "very informal" intrasquad game at an Oregon State tournament in early April, the Oregon Daily Emerald reports.

The Oregon team, which is ranked third in the nation, plans to appeal the decision again, but it's very unlikely the team will be allowed to play in the regional tournament this weekend, despite letters of support from other Frisbee teams and apologies from team members and its chaperone.

The team was already under scrutiny for several speeding tickets and alcohol-related offenses, including one that resulted in a $1,000 fine from the city and put the team on probation from club sports.

A Saturday night party attended by up to 3,000 people turned into a riot, prompting Kent State police to shoot rubber bullets and tear-gas pellets into the crowd. Police eventually arrested about 50 people, the Daily Kent Stater reports. Around half those arrested were Kent State students. Charges included failure to disperse, underage drinking, disorderly conduct, falsification, and obstruction of justice.

According to various reports, the scene began getting ugly when officers attempted to arrest an attendee at the school's annual College Fest party. Police were pelted with rocks and beer bottles and, in response, fired rubber bullets and tear gas. Instead of dispersing, rioters started a 15-foot fire in the middle of the street, throwing tree branches, furniture, street signs, and a TV into the fire. Cheering crowds gathered around it, filling lawns and climbing onto rooftops.

Students have accused the police of resorting to excessive force when quelling the crowd, saying the use of rubber bullets and tear gas was premature. Police officials deny any wrongdoing.

A similar scene played out at the University of Minnesota's Spring Jam, where six people were arrested late Saturday after hundreds of students became rowdy and threw rocks and beer bottles at police, started fires, broke windows, and attempted to tip cars over, the Minnesota Daily reports. Minneapolis police used pepper spray and smoke grenades to disperse the crowd. However, at Minnesota, students seem to be complaining that police didn't do enough.

At the University of Connecticut, 111 people were arrested over Spring Weekend, more than twice the number of arrests during last year's corresponding event. About 15,000 attended the full-weekend event, including many nonstudents. The vast majority of the arrests reportedly were of non-UConn students.

A dorm was evacuated Saturday night and about 20 Boston University students were trapped in elevators when an electrical malfunction left an entire building without power, the Daily Free Press reports. Some students were freed after just minutes, while others were stuck for hours.

School officials estimate $300,000 in damage, which includes repairing the electrical system and damaged elevators.

MIT is cutting eight varsity sports to trim the university's budget, the Boston Globe reports. The sports that will be cut include men's and women's ice hockey and gymnastics, wrestling, golf, Alpine skiing, and pistol, and will help the athletic department erase a large part of its $485,000 deficit. MIT is cutting spending by $100 million to $150 million over the next two to three years, approximately 10 to 15 percent of its total spending.

MIT still has 33 varsity sports, more than the average Division III school (the national average is 16 sports) and more than even such high-profile sports colleges as the University of Southern California (19), Alabama (19), and Texas (18).

Another "while I was out" roundup:

New York University will make SAT and ACT scores optional for applicants, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. The school is not going "test optional" but will instead offer students more options to report various test scores like Advanced Placement exams and SAT subject tests.

The coach and some players of the Quinnipiac volleyball team have filed a federal lawsuit against the university over its decision to end its volleyball program. The suit charges that the school didn't provide equal opportunity for female students under Title IX, the Quinnipiac Chronicle reports.

All three University of Michigan campuses will go smoke free by 2011, the Michigan Daily reports.

Ohio State University has finalized its decision to convert its quarterly academic calendar to a semester system, the Lantern reports. One version of the new system placed exams on Saturdays, but after much student complaint, that option was pulled from consideration. The switch would occur no sooner than fall 2012.

Central Michigan Life reports there has been a 27.5 percent increase in the number of full-time adjunct (or temporary) faculty at Central Michigan University since 2003. What kind of negative effect does this have on students? Read the five-part series: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

An administrative error at Johns Hopkins University has accidentally canceled next year's fall break, the News-Letter writes.

The Princeton student government OK'd the plan to donate its entire $60,000 social budget to the school's Annual Giving fund, a portion of which goes to financial aid, the Daily Princetonian reports. "This referendum is a chance to demonstrate that we as a student body are deeply concerned with the economic situation and that we are ready to do our part," the student body president said. The referendum to donate will now go to a student vote.

Lastly, it was inevitable: Collegiate Snuggies.

A speech against illegal immigrants by a former Colorado congressman, Tom Tancredo, ended in chaos at the University of North Carolina after raucous protests led campus police to shut down the event, the News & Observer reports. One protester pounded so hard on a window that it shattered. Police also used pepper spray and threatened to use Tasers to disperse the demonstrators, some of whom were shouting profanities and accusations of racism.

Tancredo was brought to campus to speak against allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition. Hundreds of students and community members went to protest the event.

Another "while I was out" update: The porn film that some Maryland state senators tried to ban at the University of Maryland screened anyway, with students, university administrators, and media members in attendance, the Diamondback reports. The first 30 minutes of the more than two-hour Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge was shown early last week, even as some members of the state legislature added an amendment to the state budget that would have restricted funding to public institutions that showed hard-core pornographic material on campus.

The film screened on April 6, and by April 8, the proposed amendment was defeated by lawmakers. It might not, however, be a complete win for those free-speech-defending students: Lawmakers have required that all public universities submit written reports on their policies of showing pornographic material on campus.

Texas Christian University has canceled its plans to build more themed housing, which included housing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students and their supporters, the Dallas Morning News reports.

The decision was made just a week after news of the gay-themed housing went national, courtesy of debates that raged on blogs and media sites. However, Chancellor Victor Boschini Jr. insists the decision was made not because of the controversy over the gay-themed dorm community but over worries that "living learning" communities overall could create separatism on campus.

"The biggest complaint we got from people was not about any single group but about having these groups in general," said Boschini. "Their theory was, it's splitting students up instead of uniting them." The plan included eight apartment blocks with themes that included patriotism, Christianity, and marine biology.

TCU already has five themed housing units—honors, leadership, environmental issues, health and wellness, and language and international issues—and is hardly leading the way. Texas A&M, Georgetown, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Colorado-Boulder are among the many schools with separate housing options.

Critics of TCU's decision say that students chose the themes themselves and that there has not been any student outcry against the living learning communities. "I had not heard much, if any, complaint from the majority of the student body," said one student. "So whoever it was that changed TCU's mind must be more important than its students."

The Georgia Board of Regents voted unanimously to suspend the program that locked in tuition rates at public colleges for four years, the Atlanta Journal - Constitution reports. The 2006 "Fixed for Four" policy will still apply for students who matriculated under the plan but will be discontinued starting this fall for incoming students.

Other changes include a 25 percent tuition increase for University of Georgia and Georgia Tech students. At the other state schools, students will be charged a la carte for credits above the 12 allotted. In the past, students paid tuition for 12 hours of classes but could take additional credits free. Georgia Tech and UGA students will pay a flat fee based on 15 credits and can take more with no extra charge.

The University of Florida will lift its ban on students forwarding their university E-mail to outside accounts, a practice it prohibited in 2005, the Independent Florida Alligator reports. Previously, the amount of spam made E-mail forwarding cumbersome for both the university's system and outside providers, but improvements in filtering on both ends will allow the university to offer the service to students now.

The university's spam filtering efforts will cost it around $300,000.

Former President George W. Bush and around 20 members of his administration, including Condoleezza Rice, met at Southern Methodist University yesterday for an "informal strategy session" for the policy institute at Bush's presidential library at SMU, the Daily Campus reports. It was the first of many planning meetings, a spokesman said. According to the Dallas Morning News :

One person who attended the private session said it was clear that the Bushes favor an approach that would fuse academic research with real-world case studies.

Bush foundation officials, who will fund and operate the policy institute, have said they will focus on four core principles: democratic freedom, opportunity, responsibility and compassion.

Foundation officials say they hope to launch preliminary programs this year. They are in the early stages of a $300 million fundraising campaign to raise money for the library complex, which is set to open in 2013.