Entries for February 26, 2007

Villanova was in an uproar last week after the school's dining services announced they would ban trans fats. "The bigger issue is what I would call a lack of mutual respect for other people, and that concerns me," the Rev. John Stack, the school's vice president for student life, tells the Villanovan. The debate is not whether students can be trusted to make their own eating decisions but rather whether they can be trusted to wield E-mail with restraint. After an initial mass E-mail was sent reporting the decision, hundreds of students replied--apparently not realizing their comments were being sent to the entire school. The Villanovan reports that responses ranged from "obscenities and personal attacks" to "roommates trying to order a pizza."

They play as many drinking games, reports UC-San Diego's Guardian; therefore the girls are just as wild. But the studies conducted by Loyola Marymount University researchers found girls also face more consequences for their binge drinking than college guys. According to the Guardian, these include unsafe sex, missed classes, and personality changes.

A black student group at Kent State is fighting to keep its permanent seat on a student government committee after a student senator proposed removing spots guaranteed to three student groups: the All Campus Programming Board, the Inter-Greek Programming Board, and Black United Students. A Black United Students member who holds the spot now tells the Daily Kent Stater the permanent designation guarantees minority groups some representation. The opposed member said earlier that he believes diversity will be preserved without guaranteed spots "because qualified minority students exist."

An undecided committee member proposes studying the history of permanent seats before getting rid of them. "If you don't know why these positions are here," he says, "you don't know the effects of removing them."

That's the conjecture made in today's Yale Daily News. As bans in Michigan and California displace minority students, the argument goes, those students will seek refuge in private colleges like Yale. But Yale's dean of admissions doesn't buy the theory; he says Yale competes with only a small number of other private schools, not the big state schools affected by recent bans.

• Wesleyan University's new Campus Fire Safety Department has collected $40,700 in fines since last September, and students are not happy, the Argus reports.
• Florida could be the next innovator in renewable energy, says a University of Florida professor who met with President Bush Friday. The Alligator reports that Karl Rove was also present.
• An Indiana University senior has entered the race for mayor of Bloomington, the Daily Student reports.