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Media Banned From Palin's Speech at College of the Ozarks
Tweet Share on Facebook November 17, 2009 Comment (13)Don't expect to read any reports about Sarah Palin's visit to the College of the Ozarks in Missouri. The former governor of Alaska's agreement with the school stipulates that no media members are allowed to cover her December 2 speech, the Springfield, Mo., News-Leader reports.
Elizabeth Andrews, public relations director for the college, tells the News-Leader that the agreement was mutual. There may be a few members of the Fourth Estate in attendance, however: Members of the media could cover the event if they acquired free tickets to the speech in October, when they were made available on a first-come-first-served basis. No video or audio recordings will be made by an independent news organization, the report says.
Palin will be signing copies of her new book, Going Rogue, at the Borders store in Springfield before her speech. Maybe the media can catch her there.
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GW Becomes First College to Offer Squash Scholarships
Tweet Share on Facebook November 17, 2009 CommentSomewhere in TV land, Frasier and Niles Crane are extremely disappointed that they missed the boat on squash scholarships—especially when they're being offered at a brand-name school.
To attract talent through a different channel, George Washington University has started offering scholarships to squash players, the Washington Post reports. The 188-year-old university is the first school in the country to offer scholarships for squash, a game similar to racquetball.
"These are also students that happen to be outstanding academically, and it's the kind of students we want to attract to GW," Bob Chernak, the school's senior vice president of student and academic support services, tells the Post. "It's not rocket science why we're giving support."
Both men's and women's programs are offering scholarships. The sport has grown over the past few years, but many schools just have club teams, which means the teams receive very little help—if any—from the school.
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Maryland Regents Reject Porn Policy
Tweet Share on Facebook November 17, 2009 CommentThe University of Maryland Board of Regents rejected a proposal that would require all films shown on campus to have "educational content," the Student Press Law Center reports.
The rule, proposed by a Maryland state senator, came in response to the planned showing of a pornographic film on the College Park, Md., campus, the report says. (Students showed parts of the video despite the outcry and spoke about freedom of speech at the same event.) The policy proposal sparked a fierce debate on campus over the freedom of speech and the First Amendment. Opponents of the screening idea applauded the regents' decision.
"The students couldn't be happier," Sarah Elfreth, appointed student member of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, tells the SPLC. "We really feel like this is a victory for free speech . . . . What the board said is that we're going to follow the laws of the land."
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Fairfield Student Newspaper Faces Harassment Charges
Tweet Share on Facebook November 16, 2009 CommentThree months ago, a column published by the student newspaper at Fairfield University more than ruffled some feathers. Now, because of the controversy surrounding the "He Said" column about one-night stands, the university may stop funding the Mirror .
The Mirror faces harassment charges before the Fairfield University Student Conduct Board, the Boston Herald reports. Fairfield University's dean of students, Thomas Pellegrino, told the Mirror staff that it had violated the ethical and procedural guidelines of the newspaper's funding agreement with the school, the report says.
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Student Journalists Under Fire
Tweet Share on Facebook November 16, 2009 Comment (1)Attacking student media is all the rage these days—at least it seems that way. Northwestern University's student journalists are the most recent characters in a legal fight.
Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism has a reputation as one of the top J-schools in the world. Its students receive a ton of training in investigative reporting and produce plenty of solid work, including a recent discovery that calls into question the guilt of a convicted murderer. But Illinois prosecutors think the student journalists may have gone too far in their investigation, and the Medill students are suddenly in the legal spotlight. Cook County prosecutors have asked to see all investigative materials, E-mails, course outlines, syllabi, training materials, and grades, the New York Times reports. The prosecutors argue that the school "conducted a private criminal investigation by using students in a journalism class." And because the students didn't produce a single article from their findings, the prosecution says that they are not journalists and cannot protect their work, the report says.
This all started after Medill's Innocence Project uncovered evidence that suggested that a convicted murderer was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, the Times report says. The director of the Innocence Project, Prof. David Protess, tells the Times that he will not hand over any of the investigation's materials.
That's not the only case that has carried student journalists into the spotlight. We've chronicled several other recent instances where student journalists have come under fire, from James Madison University and the University of Pittsburgh to Northern Illinois University and Butler University.
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Syracuse University Scraps Kindle Use
Tweet Share on Facebook November 16, 2009 CommentSyracuse University will no longer purchase Kindles for its students. That decision came after complaints from advocates for the blind poured in, the Daily Orange reports. The advocates claimed that the Amazon E-readers are inaccessible to blind students.
The Kindle is equipped with a text-to-speech feature that allows the user to convert the desired reading text into spoken words—which can be picked up with headphones—but in order to use that function, the user has to be able to navigate through the Kindle's settings to get there, the report says. Syracuse, which had orchestrated a partnership with Amazon to provide the E-readers, had purchased several Kindles and made them available in two campus libraries.
Amazon is in the process of creating a more accessible Kindle for the blind, the report says.
The University of Wisconsin will also stop buying Kindles for the same reason as Syracuse, according to a release from the National Federation of the Blind.
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Famed Northern Illinois Police Chief May Be Forced Out
Tweet Share on Facebook November 13, 2009 CommentA student newspaper is sitting in the national spotlight after calling for a praised police chief's resignation.
The Northern Star, the Monday-through-Friday campus newspaper at Northern Illinois University, published a scathing editorial demanding the removal of Donald Grady, the head of the university's Department of Public Safety. The editorial accused Grady of berating Justin Weaver, Northern Star's editor in chief, and said Grady's relations with area enforcement agencies had soured.
Because of the accusations, the university created a four-person panel to investigate the police chief. Grady was placed on paid leave on October 9, and the school recently extended his leave. The panel expects to make a decision regarding Grady's future by Thanksgiving.
Grady gained national recognition in February 2008 when he was seen sprinting to the scene of a campus shooting at Northern Illinois. Though Grady and his officers didn't arrive in time to stop the shooter, they did receive praise for their bravery during the incident, the Associated Press reports.
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Record-Setting Harvard Student Starts Charity Club
Tweet Share on Facebook November 13, 2009 Comment (1)A Harvard University freshman is making waves on the Cambridge, Mass., campus.
Laura D'Asaro holds the world record for the fastest mile crawl, a mark she set as a high school junior. Her feat, which involved her literally crawling on her hands and knees for a mile, helped her raise more than $5,000 for the American Cancer Society. Now, D'Asaro wants to earn more cash for charities by starting a club at Harvard that will raise money by breaking more world records, the Crimson reports.
D'Asaro's money-raising past is littered with success. She sold lemonade and cookies in 2006 to raise $13,500 to help fund a playground in a park near her home in Washington state. In 2007, she and her classmates recorded and distributed 150 books on tape to disadvantaged children, the report says.
It was only natural for D'Asaro's charitable hunger to make its way onto Harvard's campus. She has already initiated the process of creating a record-breaking group, one that she hopes will set 38 new world records.
"I want my life to mean something," D'Asaro tells the Crimson. "When I die, I want [the world] to be a better place because I was in it. Each day is an opportunity to do that."
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Michigan Holds Forum on Smoke-Free Campus Initiative
Tweet Share on Facebook November 13, 2009 Comment (100)The University of Michigan wants to be smoke free by July 2011. To explain the process for reaching that goal, university officials held a forum last night for students.
The forum discussed one concern about how such a large change in campus policy will be regulated, the Michigan Daily reports. Officials said that instead of giving out citations, the school will give those caught smoking on campus an invitation to a smoking-cessation workshop.
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Muslim Students Hold Forum at Syracuse
Tweet Share on Facebook November 12, 2009 Comment (11)One week ago, the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas rattled the nation. The massacre, carried out by Muslim American Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, prompted a multitude of questions about Muslims in the armed forces and, on a much larger scale, Muslims in America. Lots of discussions on television and around the country have tried to address the complex issue, and Syracuse University had its own conversation on the topic Wednesday.
At its regularly scheduled meeting, the Muslim Students Association at Syracuse discussed the media's coverage of the shootings and how to move forward, the Daily Orange reports. A significant part of the conversation revolved around being Muslim in America.
"I think that in recent years, Arabs and Muslims have had a bad reputation. Incidents like these perpetuate the stereotype," Haifa Jedea, a Muslim and the president of the Society of Arab World Affiliates, said at the forum. "We need to highlight that he's an individual and not representative of his culture or heritage."
The group spoke about concerns that acts of violence perpetuated by Muslims and Arabs would foster more negativity toward the groups.
"This murderous rampage was inexcusable. We stand with everyone in condemning the attack. But we must keep these things in perspective," said Suhaib Ahmed, an Army veteran who spoke at the event.
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