Entries for March 09, 2007

That's what the Michigan Daily editorial board has to say about a new study decrying a marked rise in college students' narcissism. "The level of change we have effected is truly remarkable, worthy of the great reformers of all time," the staff writes. One of their examples: "the Facebook group "David Beckham > Superman" set the record straight on a common misconception that catalyzes many of the world's most explosive conflicts, baffling even the most qualified of international relations theorists." Another example: Time magazine's December special issue, which declared the Person of the Year 2006 to be "You". "Considering out [sic] groundbreaking work in lip-synching songs on YouTube, and writing ourselves in as the current James Bond on Wikipedia, the award was well deserved," the staff writes.

Sports Illustrated's decision not to send its Swimsuit Edition to school libraries this year has left some college librarians fuming, the Library Journal reports. "Libraries of all types have suffered from the 'Sports Illustrated swimsuit disappearance syndrome'," LJ reports. But that doesn't mean the librarians don't want a copy! Sports Illustrated's spokesman says the company decided to withhold the issue based on complaints in previous years.

"It seems to me that if one has a subscription to a title, all issues for that subscription--period--should be sent," a librarian at Randolph-Macon Woman's College wrote on a discussion list, according to LJ. "It is up to the recipient to decide what to do with the issue once it is received." The libraries can obtain their issue through a call to customer service or a visit to the Web site.

PHOTO: CLIFF WATTS--SPORTS ILLUSTRATED/AP
Beyonce on the cover of the 2007 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, shot in Key Biscayne, Fla.

Universities almost certainly will not have to report learning outcomes to the federal government, Inside Higher Ed reports. The Department of Education announcement pulls back from earlier plans, reported by Inside Higher Ed, to make a "huge" expansion of the data the government collects every year from colleges in an online survey.

A University of Texas-Austin faculty adviser will no longer have final say over what goes in the Daily Texan, starting at an undetermined time in the near future, the Student Press Law Center reports. The announcement, from the Texas Student Media Board, which voted last week to scrap a "prior review" policy created in 1971, is the latest stop in a long and bumpy fight. Another milestone came in January, when the board replaced the "Declaration of Trust" agreement that originally wrote prior review into practice, the Texan reported.

The prior review policy last made headlines at the University of Southern California, where administrators overruled the Daily Trojan staff's choice for editor in chief. As of last November, no Texan advisers had ever exercised their censorship right, the paper reports.

White football players at the University of Southern California have left a Facebook group called "White Nation" after their USC peers protested with a countergroup. "The football players are ambassadors of our university," one of the protestors says. "It is offensive that they could blindly espouse hateful language and demeaning images." The White Nation group featured a picture of a black baby in handcuffs and the caption, "arrest black babies before they become criminals," the Daily Trojan reports. One football player, who was the target of the countergroup, sent a formal apology. "A source from the athletic department said Matthew's apology said he was sorry, and that the group was not serious and had no racist intent," the Trojan reports.

Gary Birdsong, better known to University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill students as "the Pit Preacher," was removed from his preaching spot after over 20 years, the Daily Tar Heel reports. Police escorted him away yesterday after he refused to leave the spot--one of the campus's free-speech zones that is a venue for radical speakers--when asked. An adventure group that had reserved the area said Birdsong, who was there preaching about the evils of homosexuality, interfered with their program. Birdsong plans to appeal a trespassing warning that says he'll be arrested if he goes to the Pit any time within the next two years, the Tar Heel reports.

• More than 40 percent of black students at Ivy League schools are first- or second-generation immigrants, a study of 1999 data has concluded, the Crimson reports.
• The University of Nebraska is offering a cool class on the meat industry, the Daily Nebraskan reports.