Entries for November 08, 2006

Robert Gates, Bush's recommended Rumsfeld replacement, has filled the shoes of a big-footed predecessor before. In October 2002, he replaced Ray Bowen as president of Texas A&M University, taking on not just the legacy of the eight-year-term president but also his Vision 2020 plan to make Texas A&M a top 10 public university by the year 2020. Not everyone has liked Gates's bold moves: One student argued Gates's pitch for change was "out of touch" with the student body in a 2004 opinion piece. But many have supported Gates. After holding listening sessions with students and appointing a student representative to a dean search committee, Gates was praised for his "commitment to students".

He's also pushed his students to experiment with "global interaction". He made the same pitch to U.S. government leaders in a December 2004 speech on Iran. "Washington should approach Iran with readiness to explore areas of common interest while continuing to contest objectionable policies," he said. "Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had a reliable channel of direct dialogue with both the Soviet Union and China. That channel played a key role at various times in preventing a cold conflict from turning hot".

"It's like Christmas," says a University of Michigan student who supported the winning Proposition 2, which bans some forms of affirmative action, the Michigan Daily reports. The proposition's victory--about 62 percent of voters supported it--came despite the fact that its campaign had only a third as much money as the campaign against it as of last week, says the Chronicle of Higher Education, which also says the ban could have wide-ranging effects. In addition to race-based admissions policies, it could "affect many recruitment, scholarship, or student-support programs geared toward helping minority students get into and through public colleges in the Great Lakes State," the Chronicle says. Inside Higher Ed points out exit polls that show the ban passed because of "support from men."

Young people aren't famous for loving to vote. This year was different in some places, not so different in others. Below, we've got a run-down of the winners and losers in the turnout wars, as unscientifically measured by campus newspaper reports.

Showing up at the polls is one thing. Putting your name on the ballot and actually winning an election, as Northeastern University sophomore political science major Jeff Fontas did yesterday, is a whole other thing. Fontas will serve his Nashua, N.H., district in the New Hampshire statehouse.

• Inspired by Gov.-elect Deval Patrick's higher-ed positions, University of Massachusetts students voted enthusiastically, the Daily Collegian reports.
• Student turnout was "way up" at the University of Pennsylvania, the Daily Pennsylvanian reports.
• A polling manager tells the Montana Kaimin she watched a steady stream of voters flow into her polling station--"something we're not used to here," she said.
• Students at Kent State went so far as to climb into vans to cast their votes, the Stater reports.

• George Washington University students care—but their attention was less on CNN than it was on a fist-to-fist jousting match between the campus presidents of the College Democrats and the College Republicans.
• The Ball State University Daily News manages to find some students who really care, a whole, whole lot. But their main issue: getting more young people to vote.
• A University of Southern California polling station had a consistent line out the door, starting at noon, says the Daily Trojan.

• Some Columbia University students who registered with their campus addresses had to fill out provisional ballots--because they just couldn't find their polling station, says the Spectator.
• Washington University in St. Louis students had trouble, too--so much trouble that the Student Life newspaper calls out the university, arguing that by failing to clear up the confusion it "failed students".

• A Duke Chronicle election blogger saw more students "absorbed in their economics textbooks or their dinner conversations" than by televisions tuned to CNN.
• A Rutgers University voting station had only 12 voters by noon yesterday, the Daily Targum reports, picking "quiet" as the euphemistic adjective of choice.
• A bunch of students tell San Diego State's Spartan Daily that they would vote--they just don't have time.

• In an ASU Herald poll, Arkansas State students list their No. 1 issue by far: "Don't Know." By a depressingly big piece of the pie, as the graphic shows.
• Turnout at on-campus voting sites at Northwestern University did not even scratch into the double digits. The final figure, reports the Daily Northwestern: about 6 percent.
• Vanderbilt's Undergraduate Political Science Association held an election-watching party. Three students attended, the Vandy reports.

• A University of Miami defensive end was shot and killed yesterday, the Hurricane reports.
• Penn State football coach Joe Paterno is coaching--from his hospital bed, the Collegian says.
• Howard University students are debating whether an alternative to the "N" word is just as bad, the Hilltop reports.

• A University of Miami defensive end was shot and killed yesterday, the Hurricane reports.
• Penn State football coach Joe Paterno is coaching--from his hospital bed, the Collegian says.
• Howard University students are debating whether an alternative to the "N" word is just as bad, the Hilltop reports.