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Grade-Changing Graduate Caught in the Act
Tweet Share on Facebook June 15, 2007 Comment (1)Martin Sedigh receives an F in execution. The 24-year-old financial analyst for Merrill Lynch broke into American University in an attempt to change the grades he received while in school, reports Washington City Paper. If that failed attempt is any reflection of his official grades, it's no wonder he broke in with such flawed desperation.
A D.C. Superior Court judge handed him a suspended sentence and six months of supervised probation, probably figuring Sedigh would suffer enough punishment being remembered as that guy who tried to change his grades three years after graduation. He, however, thinks he can avoid a "paper trail" from following him throughout the rest of his career.
Sorry, Mr. Sedigh, but you just made this one. --Jackie Mantey
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Kentucky Concedes Thanksgiving Defeat
Tweet Share on Facebook June 15, 2007 Comment (1)How considerate of the University of Kentucky to approve a one-day extension of Thanksgiving break. Officials are eliminating class (which no one attends, anyway) the Wednesday before the holiday, the Kentucky Kernel reports--in theory giving "students time with their family as well as a chance to be better prepared for finals." And if by "finals," UK actually means the traditional night-before-Thanksgiving booze fest back home, then students and hard-partying professors are no doubt eternally grateful. --Christina Mueller and Alison Go
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Alabama Bans Fireworks, but Not on the Senate Floor
Tweet Share on Facebook June 14, 2007 CommentYouTube has ruined many a life, but the reputation of a whole state? Bringing new meaning to the motto "We dare to defend our rights," two Alabama state senators came to blows on the Senate floor last week (which was of course recorded and widely viewed online). Soon afterward, a sense of shame befell students at the University of Alabama, the Crimson White reports.
But a reputation as "fighting rednecks" could be the least of Alabama's problems. The most severe drought the state has ever seen has forced the forestry commission to ban fireworks, sending a handful of Alabamians into despair. The commission has even asked residents to keep an eye on the usual suspects: "Parents should take this serious and advise their children to stay away from fireworks until the ban is removed." —Jackie Mantey and Alison Go
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Trail Mix
Tweet Share on Facebook June 14, 2007 Comment* The fastest way to get state law enforcement to crash your party at Louisiana State: Get 10 kegs, a case of Jägermeister, and 53 miscellaneous bottles of alcohol. Also, don't forget to advertise the rager openly on Facebook, charge a $5 cover, and encourage guests to "drink all you want," according to the Daily Reveille. Then watch the undercover and uniformed officers flock to your apartment complex.
* An old tree has lost a fight to the death against a dental school at the University of North Carolina, the Daily Tar Heel reports. Why this is interesting: Apparently, an E-mail goes out to "people in the vicinity" every time the university plans to cut a tree down for any reason. University E-mailing is officially out of control. —Alison Go -
Game Over for Antioch?
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2007 CommentSounding more like news from the U.S. auto industry than from higher ed, Antioch College announced that its main undergraduate college would close up shop July 2008 because of dwindling enrollment and falling revenues, the Dayton Daily News reports.
At its height in the 1960s, the small, private liberal arts college enrolled around 2,000 students but currently houses only 400 in its undergraduate program. That combined with lackluster fundraising has limited the school's ability to modernize its campus, which happens to be another obstacle to increasing enrollment. A photograph of Antioch College can now be placed next to the dictionary entry for "vicious cycle."
School officials hope to reopen a new and improved campus in 2012, but in the meantime, dozens of faculty members and hundreds of students will be left behind in the Ohio cold. —Alison Go
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Prospect of New Hooters Falls Flat for Some Locals
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2007 Comment (1)Local murders and a drunk-driving epidemic pale in comparison with the atrocities committed by a restaurant that serves "two kinds of buns"—or at least that's what one sarcastic Texas A&M Battalion columnist argues.
Hooters, the popular chain restaurant famous for its busty, scantily clad waitresses—and tasty wings—is opening a restaurant near the school, much to the dismay of local petition and letter writers who prefer their meals sans potential wardrobe malfunctions. —Jackie Mantey
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The Grrreat Debate: Time to Tame the Real Tiger?
Tweet Share on Facebook June 12, 2007 CommentLouisiana State University is mourning the kidney failure death of Mike V, the university's live tiger mascot. The search is on for a new one to live in the school's man-made jungle, complete with room service and free medical care, reports the Daily Reveille
Animal activists, however, are urging the school to spike Mike, saying that university captivity is not the proper place for a tiger. The same cannot be said for students, nearly 500 of whom have joined the pro-Mike Facebook group, "F*** PETA, we want Mike the Tiger."
Despite the protests, LSU plans on continuing its search, which has progressed at a leisurely pace because the school doesn't want to encourage "irresponsible tiger breeding." –Jackie Mantey
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Trail Mix
Tweet Share on Facebook June 12, 2007 Comment (1)* Michigan State is prepared for a tuberculosis outbreak, the State News reports. But can anyone really be prepared for an errant attorney exposing his cooties all around the world? We think not.
* You know that genial milk man you see on TV? Well he doesn't work at Louisiana State University, where the school's bookstore claims one milk man has stolen $138,940.81 from it, according to the Daily Reveille. –Alison Go -
Science, Schmience. We'll Make a Museum Anyway
Tweet Share on Facebook June 11, 2007 CommentLook! Is that Fred and Wilma Flintstone cavorting with a robotic velociraptor? Oh, just kidding. It's actually Adam and Eve (of Bible fame)—and, no, you haven't stepped into a tribute to Hanna-Barbera but rather the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky. An intrepid Daily Mississippian columnist ventured into the vast anti-evolution abyss (otherwise known as the Creation Museum's website) and reports how the newly opened, $27 million museum has been "embraced by evangelicals far and wide as their latest b*tch-slapping of evolution." More important, the writer also discovered that the Special Effects Theatre features vibrating seats,which "will titillate the puritanically neglected loins of visitors." —Alison Go
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Like That Angelina Jolie Flick, Minus the Action and Adventure
Tweet Share on Facebook June 11, 2007 CommentA troop of aspiring Lara Crofts has raided an Indiana farmhouse lot and discovered what appears to be the structure of a guesthouse, replete with broken ceramics and bottle glass, the Daily News reports. The Ball State University anthropology students will most likely not get a video-game franchise, two movies, and an action figure in their honor, but they will have a chance to work as lab assistants analyzing old, dirty, and broken things. —Alison Go