Entries for December 2007

Because U.S. News loves rankings so much, I've indulged in some end-of-the-year, space-filling lists to round out the holiday season. There were no fancy spreadsheets or number-crunching machines involved—just a lone lady self-indulgently judging college news.

10. More Duke lacrosse fallout

The repercussions from the Duke lacrosse scandal trickled into 2007: The Chronicle and Paper Trail marked the ordeal's anniversary in March with a body count (the team's season, coach, 88 angry professors, and racial dialogue are among the wounded), while other colleges pinpointed a "Duke effect," where "every time a high-profile athlete makes headlines for the wrong reason, images of three Duke players are evoked." In April, the charges against the three accused players were dropped, and the team—whose season last year was canceled—saw their comeback "Cinderella season" end at the hands of Johns Hopkins in the national championship game in May.

Duke's law school announced in September a new criminal justice center, while the local prosecutor on the case, Mike Nifong, has been under continuous fire, was disbarred in June, and even spent a day in jail for contempt of court. Next up: lots and lots of lawsuits.

9. Impostor students

Coming out of the California Redwood-work, impostor students from UCLA and Stanford made the headlines. First, a 36-year-old man faced trial in February for posing as a UCLA student for two years, living in a frat house with a roommate, and playing rugby. Next was Stanford's Azia Kim, who duped RAs and roommates by sneaking into dorms via open windows and tricked the ROTC into supplying her with equipment and training. To tie it all up with a pretty bow, there was Elizabeth Okazaki, who faked it as a physics grad student at Stanford for four years, then when caught in May, hightailed it down south to fool the UCLA philosophy department into granting her affiliate status for the semester. Eventually, luck and a dead cat ended Okazaki's charade in the fall.

8. Berkeley tree sitters

These UC-Berkeley activists have been sitting in trees for more than a year now—but between court orders, two naked photo shoots, raining poop, and falling people—these cats keep the Paper Trail pages full. They also happen to do a decent job in cleaning out UC security funds to the tune of $367,000.

7. Tasers

You thought the brutal tasing at a UCLA computer lab was newsmaking last year? A University of Florida student at a John Kerry event did his best to one up 2006 and bring Taser use to the forefront of college security issues. The Oxford English Dictionary named "tase" (as a verb) as runner-up for word of the year—a form most popularly heard in the Florida student's oft-quoted proclamation, "Don't tase me, bro."

6. Ahmadinejad protests

Columbia University hosted the Iranian president in September amid thousands of protesters in New York. His visit highlighted the murky issue of campus free speech and thrust Columbia president Lee Bollinger into the harsh, but familiar glare, of criticism: "Is it OK to invite an odious foreign leader to speak at your campus as long as you make it clear to the audience how despicable he is before you hand him the mike?"

5. Jena Six and hate crimes

Whether deserved or not, the Jena Six case captured the imagination of college students everywhere. It inspired the young to action, and also gave others a new way to be hateful and obnoxious: This year saw an alarming number of nooses hung on campuses. Throw in the Don Imus/Rutgers women's basketball team fiasco and various other blackface incidents, and you've got yourself a notorious year for racial insensitivity.

4. Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg is now a bajillionaire, thanks to Microsoft founder and fellow Harvard dropout Bill Gates, but the Facebook founder is also reeling from the sting of bad public relations. Beacon was a disaster, and users are increasingly unhappy with the networking site's escalating dismissal of privacy concerns. And with great wealth comes great likelihood of litigation—the most alarming of which involves former classmates of Zuckerberg who claim he essentially stole Facebook from them. The legal battles rage on, but if Facebook continues its spotty PR record, these geeks may be soon be fighting over the remnants of a once great empire.

3. Antioch College

It was a close call for Antioch College when its board of trustees decided to shutter the school because of dwindling enrollment and falling revenues. But alumni of the small Ohio liberal arts school don't give up so easily and launched an intense fundraising drive to save the institution. The campaign worked, but other financially troubled schools are still staring down the writing on the wall.

2. Student loan scandal

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo did students everywhere a favor by blowing open a student loan scandal that involved payoffs, kickbacks, and luxury gifts to college aid officials from student loan providers. While the scandal first came to light in October 2006, it wasn't until April when heads began to roll. Among the casualties were aid officials from Columbia, the University of Southern California, Texas, Johns Hopkins, and even the Department of Education. Now what can we do about that pesky rising tuition I've been hearing all about?

1. Virginia Tech

The Virginia Tech massacre was easily the seminal story of the year. It's forced every school in the nation to reconsider security and mental health responsibilities and priorities, and has spawned an entire industry of text-messaging alert systems. The gun control issue saw a small resurgence, as did mostly unfounded fears of retaliation against the Asian American community. The shooting made school administrators especially antsy soon after the event—canceling class or expelling students at almost any hint of trouble. The year 2007 had plenty of important stories in higher education, but unlike most news stories, the trauma of Virginia Tech won't soon be forgotten.

It's still up in the air: Was it the cooked pig's head in the women's bathroom or the giant snow penis (sorry, no picture) that sent University of Toronto officials over the edge? Some time after the two incidents, school administrators decided to disperse the residents of the all-male Gate House in an effort to stop "gross insensitivity...flagrant acts of defiance and behaviour...disparaging and demeaning of women," the Toronto Star reports. The current residents will be relocated around campus, and the Hogwarts-looking building—supposedly an influence for the film Animal House—will be made a coed residence. "We're not misogynists," says a displaced student, defending the dorm. "Ask my sister. She's at U of T, and she's the one who told me, `You've got to get into Gate House.' And now Animal House is dead."

Winning the prize for "Worst Thing to Do With an Orangina Bottle" is a Princeton student who faked an attack on himself in order to draw attention to his "pro-chastity" cause. The Daily Princetonian writes that the man, who expressed remorse for his actions' effects in his interview with the paper, also sent fake E-mail threats to a noted conservative politics professor and fellow members of the Anscombe Society, a student group "dedicated to affirming the importance of the family, marriage, and a proper understanding for the role of sex and sexuality."

The student's story unraveled after Princeton police confronted him with inconsistencies in his account of the alleged attack, and he later confessed to the threatening messages and self-inflicted injuries. As described by Anscombe's president: "He said he pummeled his face; he didn't say what with. He scraped his head against a brick wall [and] broke the bottle...over his head."

The confession has been called "shocking" and a "real tragedy"—not to mention "pathetic." Meanwhile, the outed student awaits disciplinary action.

A Christmas tree decked with condoms is getting the ax from the Boise State University administration because it could potentially make for an uncomfortable work environment, the Arbiter reports. Fearing it may violate the school's anti-harassment policy, the tree—which was originally conceived as a quirky wedding gift—was taken down from the plumbing department and relocated to the health and wellness center. "We weren't putting it up as saying, 'Have sex over Christmas,' " said one of the plumbers. "It's just something colorful we hung on the tree." Martha Stewart would be proud.

Finals week is upon the college crowd, and the obvious, obligatory advice comes from all corners of the country.

From Notre Dame: Eat well, drink water, sleep, relax, and shower.

From the University of Texas: Avoid taking Adderall (it's illegal, tsk tsk).

If you go to Murray State University, get a paraffin wax treatment or massage.

And lastly, if you wasted too much time procrastinating on Facebook and slept through your exams, be ready to beg: At least at UCLA, your fate lies in your professor's sage hands.

One more blog post to add to this Penn State/Virginia Tech Halloween costume media frenzy: In a show of collective contrition, Facebook groups galore have been encouraging Penn State students to wear maroon and orange Thursday, the Daily Collegian reports. At least 1,100 have pledged to do so.

Because nothing in this continuing story is ever without controversy, some students have questioned the authenticity of the Facebook groups, citing an E-mail sent by the Penn State spokeswoman urging "a group of students (maybe student government leaders) to 'spontaneously' put together a Facebook site for Penn Staters to go and show their support for Virginia Tech."

Penn State's student government president also wrote a letter of condolence, published in Virginia Tech's Collegiate Times, doing her part to separate her institution from the two costume-wearing, unapologetic students. "These individuals do not represent the Nittany Lion nation and we fully condemn their actions."

All this compassion, however, might not be enough for forgiveness. At least one Penn State donor has threatened to withdraw funds until a "very, very public" and convincing gesture is offered. Another alum, who endows a Penn State scholarship, wrote that he "will not support a university that condones this type of behavior" and threatened to shut down the scholarship if the two students involved were still enrolled in the fall. And it's not as if the administration hasn't noticed: "We are getting hammered by the Virginia television station," wrote the spokeswoman in an E-mail. "And it's only a matter of time before it takes on a bigger life."

*Free food at the University of Oklahoma! Too bad it took a horrible ice storm and thousands of people without power to get it.

*Penn State's student government asked students what they were "pissed" about, the Daily Collegian writes. Of the 2,500 surveyed, 161 said they were annoyed with the student government organization itself. High tuition and football ticket allocation topped the list.

*If you can't get enough of horrible dorm food, go to Yale University, where the options are so limited that housing officials are considering a takeout program to "to catch up with 'more contemporary' dining programs," the Yale Daily News reports.

Stormy weather has been wreaking havoc on middle America this week, canceling classes at the University of Iowa and forcing the University of Oklahoma to reschedule its Monday finals because of widespread power outages and safety concerns. But Madison's 20 inches of December snow wasn't enough for Wisconsin officials to cancel school, and the ice sheet that covered Lincoln has made the trek to classes at Nebraska a slow and slippery process. Said one Husker who had two slip-and-falls: "We should've been canceled."

The University of Wisconsin College Republicans are crying foul over $1,300 in security fees for an October David Horowitz event, the Badger Herald reports. The student group is refusing to pay the "absolutely ridiculous" amount for beefed-up security services at an appearance by the controversial conservative speaker—an event that ended peacefully. Some, such as a Republican state senator, claim the fees are effectively silencing right-wing voices, while school officials defend the security fee policy. The two sides plan to talk it out in the near future.

The education world is agog with excitement/fear over Harvard's new financial aid plan, which would ease the burden of middle- and upper-class families and make their costs competitive with typical in-state tuition, the Harvard Crimson reports. Poorer families will be expected to pay a smaller portion of their annual income (less than 10 percent), while those that make between $120,000 and $180,000 will pay 10 percent.

While Harvard has been getting the most press, other schools like Duke, Williams, Princeton, Davidson, Amherst, Colby, and Wellesley have decided to phase out loans in favor of grants for certain groups of students (either low-income and/or in-state). And in its never-ending game of catch up, Yale's president promises his own "major announcement" in January regarding financial aid overhaul. Better late than never.

*Boys in dorms like to punch each other for fun, Inside Higher Ed reports. Tyler Durden would approve.

*Proving environmentalism loses to laziness every time, the University of Maryland has seen a huge drop-off in its recycled mug program—originally designed to discourage the use of Styrofoam cups, the Diamondback reports.

Calling it a "bad costume choice," one of the two Penn State students whose Halloween get-up was a bullet-ridden and blood-stained Virginia Tech shirt remains mostly unapologetic, the Daily Collegian reports. He says he will "never ever ever" apologize. "I will die before I do."

Apparently unaware that the Internet has officially killed any sense of real privacy, the student was surprised to see that his costume—reserved for the eyes of a small group of friends—had gained national media attention.

"This has been blown way out of proportion. Students live in an ivory tower. The real world is a lot worse than these people realize. They are whining and crying, but there is a lot worse going on right now in our world than what happened at Virginia Tech. It wasn't even the first mass killing at a school."

The pair has since received an "endless" stream of threats, according to the Collegian, which include plans to run over the female student with a bus and also the threat of lynching. With a story like this, looks like neither side comes out looking any good.

Wesleyan University weighs the pros and cons of movie stardom as a number of Connecticut colleges profit from a statewide film-production boom (the Wesleyan Argus calls the state "Hollywood East"; I kind of think New York is more deserving, but whatever). A school official, David Pesci (any relation?), says movie sets are disruptive without providing much monetary benefit, an attitude that will do little to diminish the school's already exasperating reputation. "In short, there's not a lot of money to be made from this."

A George Washington University theater group has been butting heads with its cast and crew over a brief nude scene in its production of Hair, the GW Hatchet reports.

But in reality, what's worse? A handful of thespians shedding their clothes or 9,000 people running in their underwear at UCLA? Concerned about damage to university property and student safety, school officials in California are warning students to avoid high heels, flip-flops, and booze during its annual Undie Run, the Daily Bruin writes. The history of the event has been relatively peaceful (a broken sprinkler head, here and there), so we hope the school's new and improved Taser policy will be a nonissue.

Check out this bizarre Triangle story about the Drexel University student whom the Philadelphia Police Department has charged with identity theft, conspiracy, unlawful use of a computer, and forgery. Apparently relevant to the arrest is a Facebook group created in her honor, along with commentary from a former best friend, an anonymous high school acquaintance, and a friend of an ex-boyfriend. The story also mentions breast implants, a nose job, a pole-vaulting accident, a fake South African accent, and a narrative into who did what to whom and where in high school.