Entries for December 07, 2006

You can do almost anything in Second Life--the online, 3-D virtual community with more than 1.7 million members--including go to college. Thanks to an incentive deal designed by Linden Labs, the community's creators, more than 54 colleges and universities now offer real classes in the virtual space. The deal gives educators a plot of virtual land free for one semester, the California State University-Northridge Daily Sundial reports. Other professions are also benefiting: Two months ago, Reuters became the first news service to assign a full-time reporter to the cover the virtual community.

At least 20 Washington University students spent nights in St. Louis's Cheshire Inn this week, after power outages forced them out of their dorms. Many others stayed with friends to avoid freezing temperatures and no electricity, the Student Life reports. The power went out in St. Louis after a snow and ice storm struck last Thursday.

Oklahoma University is proud to charge the lowest tuition of all its Big 12 conference peers, for both in- and out-of-state students. But, says the Oklahoma Daily, "there is something administrators aren't telling you": At $1,351.75 for 15 credit hours, compared with a conference average of $722.60, mandatory fees at OU are the Big 12's highest.

For a group with annual operating costs of $20,400, that's a big cut. But the money had tied the University of Utah's KUTE to the whims of the group that doled it out: the student government (ASUU). Says the KUTE manager, "ASUU does not know how to run a radio station, [and] they shouldn't run a radio station." The manager's preference: a merger with the student paper, the Daily Utah Chronicle. What's the Chronicle's comment? Either it doesn't have one, or its reporter forgot to ask.

The Villanovan tracked down former English majors--and discovered a JPMorgan investment banker, an owner of two companies, a medical student, and a trial attorney. "Yes, I am an English major," said the banker, "but the communication skills, research skills, and analytical skills that I developed as a result of that make me a good candidate in this . . . field." Even the business owner says English skills help him run his real estate company. "My words," he explained, "are my product."

• Before graduation, University of Arizona students will be searched--for tortillas, which students traditionally toss into the air, the Daily Wildcat reports . "A tortilla, especially if it is dried, can really injure someone," the associate dean of students explains.
• The Daily Pennsylvanian wants to know: Is its president, Amy Gutmann, considering leaving Penn for Harvard?
• Grad students at Colorado State University raised nearly $2,000 for domestic violence prevention by not shaving their faces or legs for an entire month, the Rocky Mountain Collegian reports.