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Arizona Continues to Battle Window-Breaking Vandals
Tweet Share on Facebook March 26, 2008 CommentA glass-abundant expansion at the University of Arizona architecture school has been victim to repeated window-damaging vandalism the past two years, the Arizona Daily Wildcat reports. Earlier this month, four windows were broken by someone using a semiautomatic BB gun, according to the police report, ending a three-month period of relative calm.
In the past 20 months, 41 panes of glass have been damaged; each window costs around $3,000 to replace. No one has been hurt yet, but the incidents sure have "scared the heck out of people," said the architecture dean, who keeps a cup of broken glass in his office. The school has enlisted students—who will presumably partially bear the financial brunt of the repairs—to keep an eye out for the vandals. "The students are really mad," said the dean. "The students are more determined than anyone. They're not going to stand for it."
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Instructors and Students Plan Walkouts
Tweet Share on Facebook March 25, 2008 CommentIt's getting warm out, which can mean only one thing: College strike season is here! At the University of Michigan, graduate student instructors began a two-day walkout Tuesday, after negotiations over a 9 percent salary hike fell apart, the Michigan Daily reports. The two sides had made progress over other issues regarding part-time instructors earlier.
The union that represents these instructors has told members to picket in front of major university buildings, cancel classes, and cease any communications with their students. Not only will students not hear from instructors via E-mail and office hours, but they won't be harassed by them from the picket line, the union president assures. "Our picket is not meant to be a confrontational thing at all."
At the University of Louisville, students plan to walk out of class at 1:11 p.m. Wednesday in protest of tuition increases, the Louisville Cardinal reports. The school's student government did not endorse the walkout, which will be followed by a rally, but organizers still expect at least 100 students to join—optimistically hoping for at least 700 to show. "The best thing that could happen with the walkout is for the administration to realize the power of the students."
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Penn State Offers Joe Pa Class
Tweet Share on Facebook March 24, 2008 Comment (2)Joe Paterno is such the towering figure at Penn State that the communications department has cooked up an entire course dedicated to the famed longtime football coach, the Daily Collegian reports. The class, "Joe Paterno, Communications & the Media," will address the 81-year-old coach's growing distrust of the fast-evolving sports media.
"[Joe Pa] is a great benchmark for the growth and development in sports media in the last six decades," said the lecturer who created the class. Six decades!? [Insert JoePa age joke here.]
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Harvard Halts Transfers for Two Years
Tweet Share on Facebook March 21, 2008 Comment (8)In an effort to combat dorm overcrowding, Harvard won't be accepting any more transfer applications for the next two years, the Harvard Crimson reports. According to the university, every housing facility is already above capacity, while last month, the admissions dean said the school would be accepting fewer freshmen next year and wait-listing more.
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UCLA's Undie Run Was Pretty Boring This Year
Tweet Share on Facebook March 21, 2008 CommentUCLA's sometimes contentious Undie Run was mostly uneventful this year, the Daily Bruin reports, marred only by an orange traffic cone thrown through a library window and a small spike in alcohol poisonings. "It encapsulates the beauty of UCLA," said one runner. "Not only is it a social experience but an expression of our happiness as a rigorous quarter comes to an end."
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TCU Moves Event Honoring Obama's Pastor
Tweet Share on Facebook March 20, 2008 Comment (3)Texas Christian University has decided to move an event honoring Sen. Barack Obama's controversial pastor to an off-campus location because of security concerns, the Daily Skiff reports. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's appearance at the TCU campus is part of a national black church summit held by the nearby Brite Divinity School.
"Threats to a safe and secure campus end up eroding everything we are trying to accomplish in higher education," TCU's chancellor said. "Therefore, when concerns arise in this area, I take them very seriously." Neither the school nor local law enforcement would elaborate on what those concerns were.
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Students Arrested at Protest of California Regents
Tweet Share on Facebook March 20, 2008 Comment (2)Ten people were arrested Wednesday after locking themselves to doors outside the University of California regents meeting in San Francisco, the UCLA's Daily Bruin reports. More than 80 people converged on UC-San Francisco Mission Bay to protest student fee hikes, the process of appointing regents, and the UC's nuclear weapons labs, among other issues. A smaller group—many of whom were arrested—latched bicycle U-locks around their necks to affix themselves to the glass doors, forcing the police to dismantle the doors to apprehend the protesters.
"When Rosa Parks refused to give up a seat on the bus, it was illegal," said the first of the protesters to be arrested, responding to the lieutenant governor's statement that illegal protests were inappropriate. "When white and black students sat in at segregated lunch counters, it was illegal. So when an oppressive situation does not provide for normal channels of dissent to be effective, protesters are left with no choice but civil disobedience."
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For Campus Fixes, West Virginia Turns to Disposable Cameras
Tweet Share on Facebook March 20, 2008 Comment (2)A program at West Virginia University that sends students with disposable cameras to snap photos of safety issues on campus has proved relatively successful, the Daily Athenaeum writes. Students report problems such as bad lighting or cracked sidewalks and also leave captions on photos that are serious and upfront ("Cracks in the foundation seem to be dangerous"), plus what I can only assume are a subtle criticisms ("Nice fence").
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Michigan Under Fire Over Athletes' Academic Integrity
Tweet Share on Facebook March 19, 2008 Comment (7)The University of Michigan has come under the harsh glare of its local paper, the Ann Arbor News, whose four-day journalistic bonanza investigates the eyebrow-raising activities of the school's athletic department as they pertain to student-athletes.
According to the News:
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Firebombing of an Employee's Home Leaves Brown Shaken
Tweet Share on Facebook March 19, 2008 CommentThe weekend firebombing of the residence of an Israeli Hillel employee at Brown University has shocked students, faculty, and community members enough to get them to gather and discuss the attack and its aftermath, the Brown Daily Herald reports. Early Saturday morning, two molotov cocktails were thrown at the off-campus apartment of an emissary from the Jewish Agency for Israel, a group that facilitates immigration to Israel.
The police have not arrested a suspect and won't confirm or deny that the attack was motivated by the victim's ethnicity or nationality. The Jewish and Israeli community—local, national, and international—has responded aggressively, offering a $10,000 reward, moving the victim to a secure location, and promising to find the perpetrators of the attack. University officials were similarly outraged: "What we do know is that this was a serious and reprehensible act of violence that affected a member of our community," said Brown's vice president for campus life and student services. "It is important that we acknowledge that and in doing so stand together as a community and repudiate any acts of violence in any place at any time, on our campus or off."
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