Entries for October 19, 2006

On Tuesday, Michael T. Ronan told his Physics 8A class that the day would be his last; he was suffering from depression and could not go on teaching. The next day, Ronan was discovered dead behind a UC-Berkeley building. The paper had contacted Ronan just after he made his announcement Tuesday. "I wanted to say goodbye to the class," he said. "I had troubles and just couldn't handle it and just came to the point that I just had to give up. I'm just depressed." The interview happened about two hours before he apparently fell to his death, the Daily Cal reports.

Penn was not actually founded in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin, as the university has long claimed--and now a Wikipedia writer has let the world know it. The Daily Pennsylvanian even got the university's archivist to confirm that a 60-year-old software engineer named Dan Smith is more accurate than most Penn tour guides.

The first Texas Tech student ever to serve on the school's board of regents has now admitted to two incidents of plagiarism. He offered his resignation Tuesday in response to one charge, and yesterday he admitted to another--his Daily Toreador column headlined "Student Regent Loves America" that borrowed heavily from an article on Townhall.com, the Daily Toreador reports.

Ivy League blogs like IvyGate and IvyLeak are banal, self-indulgent, surly, and sensationalist, says one Yale Herald writer. What's the blog reaction? IvyLeak calls the takedown "dryer-than-dust", while IvyGate calls upon irony, describing the story as "well written, carefully organized, and irrefutably argued". Meanwhile, both blogs still stubbornly refuse to acknowledge each other's existence. Maybe that "self-indulgent" point is onto something...

Today's Daily Gamecock has photos taken inside the University of South Carolina's admission office. Their find: admissions officers are just like you: They spend most of their time talking on AOL Instant Messenger and breaking the hearts of thousands of high school seniors every day. OK, well, at least sort of like you.

• A Kentucky state legislator has introduced a bill that would prevent state universities from offering special health policies for gay couples, the WKU Herald reports.
• Students across the country are fighting back against smoking bans. At the University of Mississippi, students staged a silent smoking protest, while three University of Kansas freshmen started a "Men's Room" where smoking is actually legal.
• UCLA students who oppose affirmative action held a bake sale yesterday to illustrate their reasoning, the Daily Bruin reports. Prices varied according to race and sexuality; gay students and Native Americans, meanwhile, were told, "We pay you!"
• A new energy drink called Cocaine has sparked a lawsuit--filed by Cleveland State University law students on behalf of an antidrug group--as well as several product bans, the Daily Collegian reports.