-
Skype advocate speaks at San Jose State; San Jose State listens
Tweet Share on Facebook September 28, 2006 Comment (1)San Jose State will not ban Skype, the Internet service that lets users make long-distance phone calls free, Skype Journal reports. Skype Journal's editor had traveled to San Jose State University Monday to defend the service in a speech. The speech, delivered in Dwight Bentel Hall, was also "Skypecast," the Spartan Daily reports.
-
Kansas proposal suggests making study abroad mandatory
Tweet Share on Facebook September 28, 2006 Comment (1)The proposal, first made in July by the University of Kansas Board of Regents, would make some kind of "international experience" a requirement for a degree. Right now, 23.5 percent of KU students study abroad. Kansas administrators told the Daily Kansan there's only one thing that could stop the program: money.
-
To turn around state's economy, Michigan governor turns to U. Mich.
Tweet Share on Facebook September 28, 2006 CommentThe school has received $38.4 million so far from Gov. Jennifer Granholm's 21st Century Jobs Fund, which set aside $100 million of state money for investment in emerging fields like biotech. Most of the grants depend on a promise not just to do research but to try to profit from that research--by converting it into a product or a company, the Michigan Daily reports.
-
Trail Mix
Tweet Share on Facebook September 28, 2006 Comment- Videos of lectures given by UC-Berkeley professors are now accessible in one single Google site, the Daily Cal reports.
- The beginning of an outbreak? At Wheaton College, 33 students have been placed in isolation after being diagnosed with mumps. This week, two University of Virginia students were diagnosed, too.
- University of Washington police are battling a "serial exposer." Police launched a crime watch after a 50-ish white male took his clothes off three times in the past two weeks, the Daily reports.
-
Vanderbilt chancellor responds to WSJ report
Tweet Share on Facebook September 27, 2006 CommentHe won't divorce his wife, who allegedly smokes pot, and his high salary is nothing to be ashamed of, Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee told the Hustler, the school's newspaper. The interview follows a front-page report in the Wall Street Journal detailing the chancellor's apparent profligacy (not only did his wife allegedly use pot for medicinal purposes but they also have a personal chef) and the negligent-to-no oversight of his board. "Yes, I am the highest-paid university president in the country . . . yes, we live in a very big home, and we do a lot of entertaining," Gee said in the interview. He also pleaded guilty to something else: "the fact that we have raised lots of money and the university is doing incredibly well."
-
When a woman says mass, does anyone hear it?
Tweet Share on Facebook September 27, 2006 CommentA female lecturer at San Jose State University--secretly ordained as a priest by two male bishops--will deliver mass today at the school's Spartan Memorial church. But will anyone know? The lecturer, Victoria Rue, put up some posters, but several of those "were ripped down, and one was defaced with a sticker exclaiming, 'This is an invalid Roman Catholic Mass,' " the Daily Spartan reports. The mass starts at 5:15 p.m. "Everyone is welcome," Rue says, "even the person who is taking down the posters."
-
Harvard law professor offers course in alternate reality
Tweet Share on Facebook September 27, 2006 CommentThat's right, not about alternate reality. In it. Charles Nesson--the professor whose preclass pot-smoking habits were an object of national speculation in 2002--created a virtual persona, or "avatar," on the virtual reality website Second Life. Now he's having his "avatar" teach a class, "CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion"--the very same course he teaches to actual Harvard law school students, the Crimson reports. The class, which covers the law in cyberspace, is filled to capacity--perhaps owing to this introductory tape, on YouTube courtesy of IvyGate.
-
"Academic capitalism" alive and flourishing!
Tweet Share on Facebook September 27, 2006 CommentU.S. universities are great at exploring ideas. They are also great at exploring ideas that make them money. The Milken Institute produced a list of the 10 schools that "turn. . . knowledge into commercially viable products and companies" best. The top five include the school that brought you Gatorade (University of Florida), Google (Stanford), and the nicotine patch (UCLA). Not a coincidence. According to the Stanford Daily, patent licensing generates a substantial chunk of the schools' earnings--over $1 billion in 35 years.
Here are the top five:
1. MIT
2. University of California system
3. Cal-Tech
4. Stanford
5. University of Florida -
Big fish, big pond . . . big problem? Not for Florida's "Rutger"
Tweet Share on Facebook September 27, 2006 CommentOne University of Florida freshman, Kurt "Rutger" Myers, has a new weapon in the battle against big-state-school obscurity: stickers with his name on them. "I partied with Rutger"; "Rutger cares"; and "Who is Rutger?" they say, among other weird things. His reward? 1,020 Facebook friends and four Facebook groups: two pro, two con. "I don't know why it bothers people," Myers told the Alligator. "I'm just trying to have a good time in college."
-
Trail Mix
Tweet Share on Facebook September 27, 2006 Comment- Princeton has hired its first-ever Muslim chaplain, the Daily Princetonian reports. Meanwhile, at Northwestern, in its Ramadan-inspired coverage, the Daily Northwestern reports that a Muslim rower keeps on rowing--even during the fast.
- At the University of Kansas, nobody's happy about Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings's higher ed report, which many think could lead to standardized testing in colleges, the Daily Kansan reports.
- Walking is lame. At NYU, why not get a free "bicytaxi" instead? At Lehigh, drunk buses are also lame; who needs the university-provided shuttles when the clubs will drive you themselves?
- Georgetown University is thinking about banning kegs, the Hoya reports.
- Thursday nights may soon be very lame at Arizona State, thanks to a potential scheduling change, the State Press is sad to report.
- Even people in Durham don't think Duke is a bunch of racist rapists. A new study says the school's reputation has "rebounded".
advertisement
