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Spartans' Coach Will Stay
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2006 CommentMichigan State University football coach John L. Smith still has a job, an MSU trustee tells the State News--despite rising calls from fans that he be sacked. The fan criticism got so heated last week that a local talk radio host lost his voice screaming about it (listen to the clip here). H.R. Pufnstuf, the host said, would make a better coach than Smith, whose team has lost its last two games. "A lot of coaches have lost two games," the trustee told the State News. But have any psychedelic puppets? Didn't think so.
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At MIT, Like Luther's 95 Theses...but at a Deli Shop
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2006 CommentStudents unhappy with a change in management at a local market staged a protest via Post-it Note last Friday, the MIT Tech reports. The new management at LaVerde's shortened the store's hours, changed its product selection, and took away a suggestion box ("the real kicker," one of the protesters told the Tech). The students, who waged their Post-it Protest on a Friday night, wrote messages including: "Bring back sandwich cards" and "Verde's is my antidrug."
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Best Job Ever? U-Texas Alum Turns Halo Obsession Into Contract With Microsoft
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2006 CommentBurnie Burns spends his days playing Halo, hanging out, and making "stupid jokes" with friends. Then he gets paid. Seriously! Burns uses video clips from all the Halo-playing to produce a weekly animated series that has won him and his friends a contract with Microsoft Corp.'s Bungie Studios, which, in turn, apparently makes it unnecessary for them to have actual jobs, the Kansas State Collegian reports. Burns and his friends write a script for "Red vs. Blue"--available at www.redvsblue.com--and then act it out, using 12 Xbox consoles and between 40 and 50 hours of their week.
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Trail Mix
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2006 Comment- Columbia's club ice hockey team—suspended two weeks ago after explicitly phrased recruiting posters offended administrators—will not be suspended after all. The school's athletic department decided to give another (unnamed) punishment instead, the Spectator reports.
- At Brown, undergrads are no longer allowed to take "primary ethical responsibility" for research on human subjects, the Daily Herald reports. The university contends this is no big deal, but some worry it could make professors too afraid to take on student advisees.
- At Boston College, a volunteer group has found a way to get more applicants than it actually has room for: appeal to vanity. The 4Boston group gives students time to help others, but it also sets aside time for them to talk among themselves—presumably about how very good they are, the Heights reports. Hey—whatever works.
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Nokia.com doesn't have this ring tone
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2006 CommentDavid Baker, a world-renowned composer and music professor at Indiana University, has had a lot of challenges but none so difficult as his "Concertino for Cellular Phones and Symphony Orchestra," he tells the Daily Student. When a close friend asked him to incorporate cellphone ring tones into a commissioned piece for the Chicago Sinfonietta this year, "My first thought was, 'I wonder what he's smoking.' " But Baker did it nevertheless. In the final product, audience members make their cellphones ring at designated points in the piece, according to a New York Times review.
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Does that wedding dress come with pleats?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2006 CommentTwo cheerleaders at Western Kentucky University plan to "live cheer-fully ever after," the Herald reports. Cheerleader Charlie Smith proposed to cheerleader Kinsley Gregory two months ago, and they will wed in May. "To make the day more memorable," says the Herald, "she wants her groom to do a cupie--a cheerleading stunt in which she stands on his hands and he carries her high in the air."
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Yale Law invites military recruiters--but not to recruit
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2006 CommentHe doesn't let military officers recruit his students but talking to them? That's encouraged, says Yale Law School's dean. Harold Koh invited Navy and Army JAG recruiters to speak on campus about the same Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that is his grounds for keeping them out of the school's formal recruiting process, according to the Daily News. Only Army officers accepted the invitation. The Supreme Court ruled against similar policies at other law schools in March, but Yale Law's holdout continues because it has a separate case pending against the military.
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Trail Mix
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2006 Comment- At Indiana State, a company that is actually named Clabber Girl is putting $8 million into constructing a new building that will bear its name, the Indiana Statesman reports.
- Rutgers University has found space for students forced to live in on-campus lounges. Meanwhile, those students seem to have lost their minds, the Daily Targum reports. Many are refusing to take the new space. "It's a bit like living in barracks," said one student, "but we don't want to leave."
- Slippery Rock University is back in session after a shooting threat against black students was deemed a hoax by police. A local teenager apparently started the rumor, but had no means to make it happen, the Rocket reports.
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To comply with Title IX, James Madison cuts 10 varsity sports
Tweet Share on Facebook October 2, 2006 CommentJames Madison University will cut 10 varsity sports teams this July, leaving 11 coaches and 144 athletes adrift, the Breeze reports. Title IX requires a school's distribution of sports resources to match its gender enrollment numbers; at JMU, women outnumber men 61 percent to 39 percent. To match that, the university will cut more than half a dozen men's sports programs, including wrestling, archery, gymnastics, and indoor and outdoor track. "Our hopes and dreams were crushed," a senior wrestler told the Breeze, just after the school's athletic director broke the hard news. "You could see it on everyone's face."
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Plagiarism: not just for students?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 2, 2006 CommentSouthern Illinois University administrators charged with making their school better by 2019 may have plagiarized their blueprint plan for how to do that, a group of faculty and alumni are charging. Much of the material in "Southern at 150"--the school's improvement plan--was lifted from "Vision 2020," a Texas A&M improvement plan, says the group, which was organized by SIU's president. The investigation began after a professor was accused of plagiarizing teaching documents, the Daily Egyptian reports.