Entries for September 18, 2006

• After 23 years, Boston University's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender group has gone totally apolitical, the Daily Free Press reports Daily Free Press.
• A letter to the editor, published in Friday's Brown Daily Herald, has stirred up online debate about campus racism. The letter calls students who marched against police brutality "snotty students foaming at the mouth for a cause in which they can 'fight the man.'"
• A month before his second election battle, Arnold Schwarzenegger has given UCLA $9 million to build a new public-health center, the Daily Bruin reports .
• New, horrible details have been revealed in a Wharton student's murder trial, the Daily Pennsylvanian reports. The student is charged with killing her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend.

The Saudi Arabian government's project to send its citizens to American universities–at no charge–has gained momentum, American University's Eagle reports. So far, about 5,000 Saudi Arabian students participate each year, American's director of international students told the paper. The program, a joint effort of President Bush and Saudi King Abdullah, began last January as a kind of cultural diplomacy.

Ending early decision and lowering annual price tags? That is so last week! Arizona State University President Michael Crow has a new idea for how to make college more accessible: light rails. Crow wants to connect his school's four campuses with Jetsons-style transportation technology. And then he wants to connect the world, the Web Devil reports.

"My hope would be that public light-rail infrastructure will ultimately, over time, be connecting all of our educational institutions," he told the paper. "That will break down yet another barrier to access to those institutions."

Officials at San Jose State are thinking about banning Skype, the long-distance Internet phone service that lets users call just about anywhere in the world nearly free of charge. Even San Jose State faculty members use the service. But, the Spartan Daily reports, administrators worry Skype use might violate state law and contravene the university's desire not to get computer viruses.

The five Duquesne University basketball players who were shot early Sunday morning on their campus seem to have been leaving a dance when they were wounded, the Duquesne Duke reports. Duquesne's Black Student Union held its College Bash 2006 late Saturday for students across the Pittsburgh region. The dance was scheduled to end at 2 a.m.; the players were shot at about 2:15. "There was a big group, and there was yelling, and people were [chanting] 'Fight! Fight!'" a student witness told the Duke. "All of a sudden, like, you see a guy in a white shirt, button-down. I jumped from the bench, I grab the girl who was next to me, and start telling everybody to get down." Pittsburgh police do not believe a Duquesne student is responsible for Sunday's violence.

Today is the first day back for students at Montreal's Dawson College, where a shooting closed classes last week, the Globe and Mail reports. In that case, a Dawson student shot himself after attacking his classmates.