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No More Hard Liquor at Harvard Formals
Tweet Share on Facebook April 29, 2010 CommentDon't plan on ordering that Jack and Coke at an on-campus formal event at Harvard University after this semester. Forget about the screwdriver, too. And don't even think about a gin and tonic.
Harvard can no longer serve liquor at on-campus formals after this spring, the Crimson reports. Only beer and wine will be provided at ticketed events taking place in dining halls. The change obviously won't affect off-campus formals. And for concerned students and others who are attending events on campus this spring, there's a chance you can still have your rum, vodka, and whatever other liquor your (legal) heart desires.
Because the change in the policy came so late in the spring semester, the Cambridge (Mass.) License Commission may allow formals to have liquor for the rest of the spring—if an officer of the university—not a student—is the person of record for the liquor license.
"It is unfortunate that we had less time to prepare for this change, but we will make the best of it and comply with the Cambridge Licensing Commission's expectations," Harvard Dean of Student Life Suzy M. Nelson tells the Crimson in an E-mail.
The students seemed to have mixed reactions when the Crimson asked for their thoughts. One student feared that more on-campus formals would move off campus if it meant that they could serve liquor. Others thought it'd be fine to just serve beer, wine, and champagne.
"It's really no one's fault here at the university," says David L. Billing, cochair of one Harvard house's student council. "There's not much we can do about it. We're going to go ahead with our formal planning even if there's no hard liquor."
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NCAA Picks New President
Tweet Share on Facebook April 28, 2010 CommentThe governing body of college sports has a new leader, ending what was a seven-month tenure of Interim President James Isch, who took over for former NCAA President Myles Brand. Brand died of pancreatic cancer in September 2009.
Who's the new guy? The NCAA picked University of Washington President Mark Emmert. Emmert, 57, will assume the post "no later than November 1." The Daily of the University of Washington reports that Emmert's decision surprised the Washington community, where he started as president in 2004.
"[I had] no reservations whatsoever about taking the job, [but] great reservations about leaving the university I love," Emmert said during an NCAA press conference on Tuesday. "It's the difficult challenge of leaving one great job for another great job."
Meanwhile, the university realized the magnitude of the opportunity for its soon-to-be former president and couldn't blame him for taking the NCAA reins.
"We recognize that the NCAA presidency is a unique opportunity," Board of Regents Chair Herb Simon says in a press release. "It is the only organization of its kind, national in scope, and, we feel, the only type of opportunity that could possibly lure Mark away from his alma mater. The nation's gain is our loss."
Emmert has some big shoes to fill. Brand, who took over the NCAA in 2002, worked hard to generate better graduation rates and other academic successes in collegiate athletics, which is still an ongoing hot topic in college sports. He also started sounding the bell on the increasingly unsustainable costs of college sports, particularly football and basketball. Brand is perhaps most famous for his dismissal of legendary basketball coach Bob Knight while Brand was president at Indiana University.
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No College Reunion for Michelle Obama
Tweet Share on Facebook April 27, 2010 Comment (1)First Lady Michelle Obama can't go back to Princeton University and brag about how successful she is—not this year, anyway. Of course, her classmates don't really need any updates at this point: Every time they look at a newspaper, they see their old friend serving in her role as one of the most powerful people on the planet.
Obama, a 1985 graduate of the Ivy League school, can't make her 25-year reunion at Princeton this spring, the Daily Princetonian reports. The First Lady's schedule just won't allow it.
"My general feeling was that while I and my fellow 85er classmates were hopeful that she might attend, we also knew that her schedule has many challenging demands and she might be unable to join us," Class of 1985 Copresident Regina Lee tells the Daily Princetonian in an E-mail. "We are, of course, disappointed that she will not attend our 25th reunion, as the 25th has traditionally been seen as 'the' special time for classmates to reconvene on campus, and our hope is that she nonetheless will connect and reconnect with old and new friends among her classmates and the university in the years to come."
Obama's former classmates did say, however, that they hope the First Lady will reach out to her old school sometime soon. Paper Trail guesses that Princeton will pursue Obama as a commencement speaker at some point, if it hasn't already.
[Interactive Map: 2010 Commencement Speakers]
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Reed College President Told to Rein in Drug Use
Tweet Share on Facebook April 27, 2010 Comment (2)Reed College has some work to do. Law enforcement agencies say that the Portland, Ore., school has a drug problem on its campus, and it's time for Reed President Colin Diver to lead a fight against drug use.
The drug war will commence this weekend at the school's Renn Fayre Festival, where undercover agents plan on cracking down on drug dealers and users, the New York Times reports. The festival is a Renaissance fair of sorts, but officials say that it has turned into a massive drugfest. The fact that a Reed student tragically died of a heroin overdose last month only makes matters worse.
"They said Renn Fayre has a reputation in Portland that draws people from outside the college who are users and dealers and distributors of drugs," Diver tells the Times. "They suggested undercover agents because they said we wouldn't be able deal with large, well-organized criminal networks on our own."
The student's death last month was the second heroin-related overdose at Reed in recent years.
"It's a complicated issue, but two drug deaths in two years on a campus of 1,300 students, something has to change," Dwight C. Holton, the United States attorney for Oregon, tells the Times.
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Inside Iraq's First Independent Student Newspaper
Tweet Share on Facebook April 26, 2010 CommentIf you think being a college student in the United States is hard, try getting your degree in a war-torn country. It's hard to imagine a tougher environment to go to school and produce a student newspaper than Iraq, but one of Paper Trail's favorite blogs, College Media Matters, has the inside scoop on life at Iraq's first independent student newspaper.
The newspaper, AUI-S Voice, publishes weekly at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani, a private liberal arts college in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq. The student reporters are advised by Jackie Spinner, a former Washington Post reporter. The publication has come out nine times as of April 26.
"Students want a newspaper," Editorial Page Editor Baker Alhashimi tells College Media Matters. "This is a newspaper. This is a newspaper. It avoids politics. This is from students to students. All of the editors are part of the campus so you have to talk with them. Every issue is free for everybody. And the person who is in charge of it was part of the Washington Post, so nobody will say that it is not accurate and it is not quality journalism."
Sounds good to Paper Trail. This will be an interesting story to follow.
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Joe Pa Says Yes to Growing Big Ten
Tweet Share on Facebook April 26, 2010 Comment (8)When legendary Penn State Football Coach Joe Paterno weighs in on anything, people listen. That's why proponents of Big Ten expansion have to be happy that Paterno likes their idea.
Paterno says he's in favor of adding three teams to the Big Ten, the Daily Collegian reports. The Big Ten, which already has 11 members, has been openly looking to add at least one new school to its conference. A more recent rumor circulating is that the league may want to add three schools.
"I've been pushing that for several years and we haven't really gotten much response," Paterno said before Saturday's Blue-White game at Penn State. "I would like us to get two teams from the East and one team from the West so we would be at 14."
Still, Paterno's athletics director, Tim Curley, wasn't ready to wholeheartedly agree with Paterno's assessment that expansion was imminent.
"I can't predict when or if anything will happen," Curley said at Saturday's game. "There is really no timeframe we are aware of."
Several schools have been mentioned as potential members, almost all of which are members of other Bowl Championship Series conferences. Rutgers University, Syracuse University, University of Missouri, and University of Pittsburgh, along with the University of Notre Dame, have all been mentioned regularly.
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Gnome Burglary Rattles Popular Yale Dorm
Tweet Share on Facebook April 23, 2010 Comment (3)Phew, that was a close call. There was a chance that a chunk of Yale University's student body wouldn't be able to function for some time if a popular dorm's mascot hadn't been returned.
The giant, nearly 300-pound gnome that represents Davenport, which the Yale Daily News calls Yale's most popular dorm, has finally returned home, the Daily News reports. But the most exciting part of the story was how the gnome went missing in the first place.
The gnome was stolen from Davenport's dining hall early on Wednesday morning. The suspects—six to eight students from Davenport's rival dorm, Pierson—then placed the gigantic gnome on Pierson's roof.
In response to the gnome's disappearance, Davenport inundated Pierson's E-mailing list with spam, demanding the gnome's safe and sound return. It worked—Pierson's E-mail service crash in 15 minutes.
The tit-for-tat cooled what had been warming relations between two of Yale's most well-known dormitories.
"I don't know if anything is going to happen" in terms of revenge, one Davenport student tells the Daily News. "Our dining hall staff is really upset and wants us to do something," she joked. "If we did anything, it wouldn't be a big deal. We wouldn't steal anything from Pierson because there's nothing to steal there."
Stay tuned. This might just be heating up.
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California College Loses Second Life for a Second Time
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2010 Comment (29)Second Life is a world of its own. It's a virtual universe that allows participants to operate cyber versions of themselves. A lot of colleges use Second Life for myriad purposes, from online classes to research projects.
It was a pretty big deal, then, when Woodbury University, a small school in Burbank, Calif., got booted off Second Life for the second time in four years on Tuesday, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. Woodbury was kicked out the first time in 2007. Linden Labs, which owns and oversees Second Life, didn't give a specific reason for the ban, but the Chronicle story suggests that it had to do with accusations of vandalism and Woodbury's ongoing dispute with another group on Second Life.
"Linden Lab has decided to no longer support Woodbury University in Second Life," said an E-mail notice from Linden Labs sent to Edward Clift, the dean of media, culture and design at Woodbury. "We are making this decision based on historical and recent events that constitute a breach of the Second Life community standards and terms of service. We ask that you please respect the decision and do not take part in the Second Life platform in the future."
Woodbury was originally kicked out of the virtual world for ignoring Linden Labs' warnings to control digital characters affiliated with the school's virtual region. Those characters were involved in some "disruptive and hostile behavior."
Either way, Woodbury is disappointed by the decision. Clift says Woodbury doesn't support vandalism or any other kind of misbehavior, but he did acknowledge that Woodbury's "virtual campus" didn't comply with what Linden Labs preferred for college campuses on Second Life. Clift tells the Chronicle that Woodbury wants a more open facility for students and faculty than the traditional setup, which often featured online lecture halls.
"Woodbury is sick of this," Clift tells the Chronicle. "Our brand is being maligned, and our 125-year mission is being trampled on."
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NCAA Tournament to Expand—but Only to 68
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2010 CommentThank God. The NCAA Tournament is expanding, but only by three teams—from 65 to 68. There had been talk about expanding the greatest sporting event on the planet (in Paper Trail's humble opinion) to 96 teams, which would have been as good of an idea as Heidi Montag making music.
The NCAA, CBS, and Turner Sports agreed to a nearly $11 billion broadcasting contract that will last through the 2024 season, USA Today reports. The deal will allow every game to be broadcast on four channels—CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV. (Think about that for a second: Your viewing desires will no longer be controlled by CBS producers and Duke's schedule. You'll actually be able to watch games you want to watch as opposed to watching whatever CBS deems worthy of your viewing.) And it keeps college basketball fans around the world from enduring a ridiculous 96-team tournament, at least for now.
"This is an important day for intercollegiate athletics and the 400,000 student-athletes who compete in NCAA sports," NCAA Interim President Jim Isch says in the NCAA release. "This agreement will provide on average more than $740 million annually to our conferences and member schools to help student-athletes in 23 sports learn and compete."
The NCAA Division I Basketball Committee passed the proposal unanimously, ESPN.com reports. The NCAA Board of Directors will review the proposal next week.
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Student Fights to Pay Ticket With Pennies
Tweet Share on Facebook April 21, 2010 Comment (3)There's a fantastic story in the Daily Kansan today. Back in March, a University of Kansas student named John Ready wanted to pay his parking ticket. It was only $10. Ready showed up at the school's Parking and Transit Office with 1,000 pennies. Needless to say, the office turned Ready away—policy didn't allow tickets to be paid off using coins.
So, Ready did his research. He spent the next two weeks reading websites and books trying to find any answers as to whether or not there was a legal precedent for the office's policy. There wasn't. After a chain of E-mails with the Parking and Transit Office's director later, Ready was finally allowed to pay his ticket in pennies.
Ready's persistence and research broke down a policy that the school no longer follows. Everyone can now pay their ticket with coins.
"Legal precedent has been set; they let me do it," Ready tells the Daily Kansan. "Now they have to let everyone else do it."
Now that is sticking it to the man.
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