USM Student Council Chair Brady Walker

As the university system continues to develop a “porn policy,” student leaders throughout the system are trying to make sure the policy isn’t too restrictive.

“I think we’d be hard-pressed to find a group of students who want a policy,” said Brady Walker, a second-year law student at the University of Baltimore and the chair of the USM Student Council.

Walker said students have two main concerns: first, how restrictive the policy will be; second, how much freedom will individual campuses have to create and implement their own indiviual policies.

Students want a policy that has “the least chance of interfering with student activities, and of course, the least chance of abridging academic freedom,” Walker said, raising the possibility that in future years, the policy could be used to restrict the showing of non-pornographic films. In general, he said, the eventual rules should “apply to the fewest number of films possible.”

At the Board of Regents meeting Friday, both Walker and Student Regent Sarah Elfreth seemed more concerned than the rank-and-file (i.e., adult) regents about how the policy was developing.

Walker said he hoped individual campuses would get to create their own policies, because students were more likely to be able to influence campus administrators compared to system ones.

Student Government Associations from throughout the system are expected to take positions on the guidelines, and Walker said he wouldn’t be surprised to see some of them reject the policy entirely. Here in College Park, the SGA has tentatively scheduled a forum on the subject for mid-October, but is still hammering out details, Press Secretary Joel Cohen wrote in an e-mail.

Know how I know you’re gay? From looking at who your Facebook friends are. That’s the message of this Boston Globe article by Carolyn Y. Johnson, which details the research of two MIT students who made a surprising discovery:

The discovery raises all sorts of questions about online privacy. Later in the article, Johnson discusses researchers here at College Park who were able to discover Flickr users’ hometowns and Facebookers’ gender.

Meanwhile, as The (Baltimore) Sun points out, Gov. Martin O’Malley apparently faces a relatively easy road to re-election. His approval rating is at 48 percent, high for a governor during a recession. The new poll also shows him beating former Gov. Robert Ehrlich and former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele in hypothetical match-ups.

Quick Hits

• Prince George’s County is potentially going to lay off 125 employees, the Post says.
• For the first time in decades, the United States’ foreign-born population dropped last year, according to USA Today.
• Want to ride Michael Jackson’s Ferris wheel? You can, if you’re in the midwest.

What’s happening today

• Men’s soccer is playing at 7:30 p.m. at Ludwig Field against St. Peter’s.
• The Public Policy school hosts a forum on China and the Environment at 12:15 p.m. in 1113 Van Munching.
• Terpoets hosts an open mic tonight at 8 in the basement of Dorchester Hall as part of Radical Rush week.

A delicious, sugary cereal - available since 1991!

This year’s incoming freshmen class has never used a card catalog in a library, seen Saved by the Bell (not rerun) on TV or known a world without condom commercials or cookie dough ice cream.

Each year Beloit College assembles a list of pop culture, political and global landmarks they consider significant from the year that the new college generation was born. The Beloit College Mindset List is released for the Class of 2013 this year and lists 75 cultural references important for the babies of 1991.

Incoming freshmen, according to the list, are a generation of blue jello, Cartoon network, Planet Hollywood and Berry Berry Kix. Kevin Kostner has always been dancing with wolves, Ozzy Osbourne has always been making a comeback and Madonna has always been talking sex.

But on a more serious note, babies have had social security numbers, there has always been a European Union and racial differentiation has always been banned in South Africa.

While enjoying a new variety of sugary snacks in front of 24-hour cartoons, however, freshmen have heard debates about healthcare and gays in the military since they were born. Conflicts in Ireland have always been winding down and NATO has always been seeking a role for itself. There has always been the question: “Was Iraq worth a war?”

So while this year’s freshmen have always had flat-screen TVs, they have also seen and asked themselves about some of the same questions we are still asking each other today.

While eating a bowl of Berry Berry Kix, of course.

University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan

WBAL-TV in Baltimore had University System Chancellor Brit Kirwan on as a Sunday guest. Here’s a link to the video, which we (unfortunately) can’t embed. In it, Kirwan talks furloughs and the tuition freeze (it is continuing for now, but tuition will go up in the future).

College students have a friend in the U.S. House of Representatives, who on Thursday passed legislation that will expand federal aid to college students and cut private banks out of college lending. Tamar Lewin, of The New York Times, reports:

By shifting to direct federal lending, the Obama administration said [the bill] would save more than $80 billion over 10 years, which would go into higher Pell grants for low-income students, new investments in community colleges, early-childhood programs and other education efforts.

In Japan, where some people aren’t lucky enough to have such good friends, the private sector is stepping in. Hagemashi Tai (I Want to Cheer You Up), is one of ten Japanese rent-a-friend companies, according to The Guardian. These companies send best men, relatives, friends, colleagues, boyfriends and girlfriends to folks who aren’t lucky enough to have friends of their own to call on.

And if you have a high school friend in Milburn, New Jersey, looking for a… erm… “special friend,” the seniors at Milburn High have made that search a little easier. In a decade-old hazing ritual, the seniors have published a slut list ranking freshman girls. Many parents and students say the list is humiliating, while some even complained that they weren’t on it. Either way, the school’s principal is searching for the perpitrators, promising suspensions.

Milburn High School - From The New York Times

Quick Hits:

• If you’re in need of a few bucks, and the banks are denying you, turn to a friend. “With banks tightening their lending standards and credit cards raising interest rates,” The Washington Post reports that an increasing number of people are relying on everyday citizens for loans.
• And if you’re still stewing over missing your shot at the Ivy Leagues, take solace this Post column from Jay Matthews. In the column, Matthews points out that while the last four presidents graduated from Columbia, Yale, Georgetown and Yale, the four before that attended more modest institutions: Eureka, the U.S. Naval Academy, Michigan and Whittier. He goes on to cite examples of many heroes who never enrolled in “elite” institutions.