Entries for January 23, 2007

A federal spending law has college students concerned--about its effects on the cost of their birth control. The health center at Indiana University has doubled the costs of many common contraceptives--and students in Ohio, Nebraska, and Wisconsin are also worried. University health centers had been able to sell contraceptives at lower cost by taking advantage of drug makers' group discounts. A federal spending bill passed last February changes the rules on who can get discounts. The president of the American College Health Association acknowledged the concern in a Jan. 5 letter, promising to address it when the group's board of directors visits Capitol Hill next month.

Attendance at prayer services will become a requirement for students in Yeshiva University's Mechinah program this semester, the program's dean announced at a recent meeting. The announcement made some students "furious," the Commentator reports.The Mechinah program was created in 2004 as a way to bring students with little background knowledge of Judaism into Yeshiva and has attracted attention from donors, the Commentator reported in 2005.

• A member of Yale's LGBT advocacy group met with a university dean Monday to discuss a November initiation by the men's tennis team, which the LGBT alleges was homophobic, the Yale Daily News reports.
• The Daily Targum profiles a Rutgers faculty member who just found a meteor in a New Jersey family's bathroom--part of his regular duties as geology professor, the Targum says.
• University of California researchers will take leadership roles in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to slash auto emissions, the UCSD Guardian reports.