Are you a good neighbor?

Well, here in College Park, students don’t have the best reputation for being neighborly with long-time city residents (If you didn’t know this already, just wait until city council elections start heating up as November draws near). This contrasts with schools like Penn, Southern Cal, Dayton and Pittsburgh, according to a recent survey by the president of Westfield State College in Massachusetts. Those four school were at the top of “Best Neighbor” Colleges and Universities list, according to an article by Simmi Aujla in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

A group that isn’t being neighborly is the American Psychological Association. They published the sixth edition of their style guide, which is widely used throughout the social sciences, in July. From an article in Inside Higher Education:

The corrections include four pages of “nonsignificant typographical errors” and five pages correcting errors in content and problems with sample papers in the book. The APA also released four corrected sample papers in their entireties. One correction is “Page 88 – Change last line under ‘Exception’ to read ‘Spacing twice after punctuation marks at the end of a sentence aids readers of draft manuscripts.’ ” Another is “Page 64 – First paragraph, line 2, insert a comma after ‘e.g.’ “

Despite the errors (and irony), the association isn’t giving those who purchased flawed editions of the book new copies, upsetting many.

Quick Hits

• A study measuring Twitter use among colleges says George Washington University is the champ, tweeting almost 58 times a day. But the study may be flawed — it claims the university’s twitter account only has 92 followers. It actually has, as of this morning, 426.
• A lobbyist for the Prince George’s County Council is heading to jail on DUI charges, the Washington Post reports.

What’s Happening Today

• The Student Government Association is hosting a forum for free speech from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Prince George’s room of the Stamp Student Union.

Hey, you! Yeah, you, stuck in the converted lounge in one of the North Campus high-rises. As you lay in your cozy rock-hard twin bed two feet away from your 4 (or 5?) other roommates, students at Ithaca College in New York state are actually getting paid to defer for a year.

Overall, 31 students took the offer, costing the university about $250,000.

The university ended up enrolling a class 20 percent larger than expected, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported, mainly due to lowering its selectivity after low enrollment in 2008. To deal with the surge of students, Ithaca hired 50  faculty members and erected a temporary residence hall in six weeks.

Temporary housing was erected in the course of six weeks for extra freshmen.

While the surplus freshmen here in College Park are being crammed into rooms that were designed not to be lived in, but for microwaving SpaghettiOs and late night communal studying, Ithaca is offering students forced into lounges a 20 percent room-charge reduction and FREE CABLE TV. So while they may be living in lounges, at least they can catch Rachael Ray on the Food Network or keep up with the nonsense drama on MTV’s The Hills.

Ithaca is also offering $2,000 dollar incentives to move off campus. Your humble reporter, an off-campus senior, got nothing but a ‘See ya!’ from this university after being unceremoniously kicked off campus after her sophomore year.

And this university certainly does have a history of overenrolling as well.

(more…)

Got a case of the Mondays?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Here at The Diamondback, we also loathing waking up for classes on the first day of the school week. But I personally felt a little better this Monday morning when I found out that us everyday college students aren’t the only folks who struggle with the oppressive obligation of showing up for a class on-time.

As it turns out, NBA players wrestle with this issue too. According to a story in The New York Times, 45 professional basketball players took university classes last summer. And apparently, these players did not get special treatment. Russell Westbrook, a second-year guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder, said a professor at UCLA made him sit on the floor when he walked in late for class.

Professors at Harvard might also be fending off cases of the Mondays. The New York Times reports that the school recently stopped serving free cookies at faculty meetings.

In news that might make you smile on this dreary Monday morning, celebrities hate each other. It’s not necessarily news, but this story in The Los Angeles Times offers a hilarious look at how mega-star rivalries are exploding on twitter.

And if that story doesn’t cheer you up this morning, hopefully this will:

University President Dan Mote had the pleasure of playing with panda bears during a trip to China this summer.

Today at Maryland

• Dr. James Loewen will be discussing what history books get wrong and what really happened when Christopher Columbus came to America at 7 p.m. in the Stamp Student Union’s Grand Ballroom.
• A presentation of the “The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later” will take place at 8 p.m. at the Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

Contrary to the popular myth of college students working their way through school, taking on part-time jobs to pay for their education, a new study suggests that working students aren’t paying for tuition. They’re paying for beer.

The study, “Parental Transfers, Student Achievement and the Labor Supply of College Students,” used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Longitudinal Youth Survey. It followed 2,356 students who completed at least one term of school between 1996 and 2004.

The study found that 46 percent of students at four-year institutions held jobs, while among students at two-year institutions, 72 percent worked. Four-year college students who worked averaged 22 hours a week of work, while their two-year counterparts averaged more than 30 hours. But most of these students weren’t paying their way through school.

The study found little correlation between parent’s support for tuition costs and the amount of hours students worked. To pay for tuition, students took out loans, the study found. Charlene Kalenkoski, one of the study’s authors, explained:

“We’re not saying there aren’t students who work to pay much of their tuition, we’re just saying it’s more likely they’re taking out loans to make up for whatever isn’t covered by other kinds of financial aid or parents.”

Kalenkoski is an associate professor of economics at Ohio University. Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, the other author of the study, is a research economist in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Division of Productivity Research and Program Development.

Thirsty Thursday has rolled around once again, kids, and we all know what that means. And while everyone would surely like to fend off the latest cold streak with $2 rails from Turtle or Cornerstone (ahem, only those of legal age of course), it’s important to keep safe.

courtesy of russianvodka.com

We’ve reminded you of the potential dangers at the bars before, and we sincerely hope you’ll take advantage of a hard-won Good Samaritan protocol: it allows underage students to call 911 when they fear a friend is in danger from excessive drinking without facing punishment, even though they must subsequently enroll in an alcohol education course.

But while our university enacted the informal protocol, the University System of Maryland’s policies prevent it from going on the books, which means the 12 other universities in the system don’t enjoy the same amnesty benefits.

At least other institutions in the region are following suit: George Washington University recently enacted a similar policy after the tragic death of an undergraduate student from alcohol poisoning last year.

And speaking of policies on alcohol: Metro train operators are automatically fired if they are caught using a cell phone while driving, but not if they are found under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Kytja Weir of the Washington Examiner reports:

Under the new zero-tolerance policy on cellphone use, an operator will be fired on a first offense if caught using a cellphone while operating a bus or train.

An alcohol or drug violation, though, does not automatically translate to firing.

Under a collective bargaining agreement, Metro gives all operators who have been employed there at least six months a chance to undergo substance abuse treatment after a first violation. They are suspended for at least 30 days without pay and must attend rehabilitation. Employees are fired if referred to rehab a second time, according to the agency and the union. But the slate is wiped clean after several years and the cycle can begin again.

So, hope that makes you feel safe the next time you’re riding the Metro. Not to mention the fact that the transit agency has been responsible for 13 deaths and 80 injuries in the past four months.

If you decide to drive however, be careful of those country roads: despite popular belief, more Americans die on rural roads than on urban highways.

Have a safe weekend!

Quick hits:

• A Chinese news report about a Swedish city populated exclusively by sex-crazed lesbians brought the country’s internet to a grinding halt and swamped tourism bureaus with queries.
• Retail sales are on the rise for the first time in 14 months – happy shopping!

(ASIDE: Earlier in the night, our photo editor received a phone call from a 666 area code, which apparently no longer exists. When she called it back, the answer was a dial tone. So we may actually need an exorcism soon.)

Lots of weird things happen on this campus. But have we ever seen an exorcism? Berry College, located north of Rome, Georgia, has. From Christian Boone’s story in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

It was the tidiest exorcism on record — completed in minutes and absent the pungent mess typically associated with demonic possession.

While most everyone at Berry College, located just north of Rome, doubts junior Nathan Mallory’s claim that he cast the devil out of a former student, the alleged exorcism has reignited a festering debate about religion’s role at the liberal arts institution.

Much of the controversy is focusing on the role of the WinShape program, a Christian living-learning program founded by Chick Fil A’s unabashedly Christian owner. (Chick Fil A’s controversial religious and political associations are the topic of a recent Diamondback op-ed.)

The most famous college exorcism tale, however, probably belongs to Louisana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The Republican, who was considered a rising star before his widely-mocked response to President Obama’s State of the Union this year, claims to have witnessed one while he was studying at Oxford University. After the jump, read an excerpt from a piece Jindal wrote for a campus magazine about the exorcism.

(more…)

Is watching porn on campus protected by the Constitution? The Student Government Association rarely deals with sexy matters, but they will tomorrow when they vote on a policy inspired in part by hardcore adult films.

As you may remember, last semester there was quite the scandal over the university administration’s cancellation of the triple-X movie Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge screening at the Hoff Theater. Once the dust settled, the state government called on the Board of Regents to come up with a porn policy for each of the 13 institutions it oversees. But the SGA, undoubtedly influenced by vocal student activists, is concerned such a measure could hinder freedom of speech on campus.

Freedom of speech for students is hardly something that only affects those of us at this university. At James Madison, the administration recently expanded the section of their Student Handbook to prohibit “lewd, indecent or obscene conduct or expression” not only on campus but off of it as well. According to their student paper The Breeze:

Essentially, this minor change limits free speech anywhere from the streets to the Internet.

…the change is due to an off-campus incident last semester that left the judicial council unable to charge the student offender. The student in question was reportedly as peeping into off-campus students’ windows and masturbating in front of them.

Since the incident occurred off campus, under the previous policy the violator could not be punished.

The re-wording of student policy drew fire from FIRE, or The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Further southwest at University of Arizona, university police arrested a student late last month for protesting budget cuts by writing in chalk on campus sidewalks, and then arrested another student for chalking in protest of his arrest. After the student body expressed overwhelming support for the protesters, including passing out thousands of chalk sticks on campus, the university president asked police to drop the charges.

In the upcoming session of the Supreme Court, two freedom of speech cases will be scrutinized right off the bat. And both of them have to do with movies. Today, the nation’s highest court heard United States v. Stevens, which involves the legality of selling photographs and films that depict the maiming and killing of animals. Jonathon Turley of the Los Angeles Times has the details:

Robert J. Stevens of Pittsville, Va., was convicted under the law for selling videotapes of fighting pit bulls and sentenced to 37 months in prison. However, the appellate court struck down the law as unconstitutional, holding that there is no exception to the 1st Amendment for animal cruelty as there is for obscenity. The government is seeking to get the court to create another exception to the 1st Amendment, in what free-speech advocates fear will be part of a continued erosion of this fundamental right.

The other case, which has already been debated in a rare advance convening of the justices, examines “Hillary: The Movie”, a 90-minute film released by the conservative group Citizens United during Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run.

The country waits with baited breath at these crucial tests for Sonia Sotomayor, who drew criticism from first amendment defenders for a ruling she made while serving as a judge in Connecticut that, of all things, limited student free speech. In 2007, a Connecticut high school student was barred from running in a student election after school officials found out that she had called them “douchebags” on her blog. Ultimately, Sotomayor ruled in favor of the administrators in the case of Doninger v. Niehoff. Turley again:

Sotomayor was opposed by some free-speech advocates, in part because of her vote in Doninger vs. Niehoff, in which the appeals court upheld the right of school officials to punish students for out-of-school speech — in what some considered a major blow to both the 1st Amendment and student rights.

Notably, the panel acknowledged that it was not bound by existing precedent from the Supreme Court in denying free-speech protections to students.

We take the College Park City Council election seriously at The Diamondback. We’ve written many articles on it already and will write many more. Our tone will likely criticize student turnout for being low; even if four times as many students vote this year than in 2007 — as the Student Government Association predicts — that would still represent a tiny fraction of the student population here. On the city election day in 2007, our staff editorial implored students in giant type simply to “GO VOTE!”

But is the staff at The Diamondback planning to lead by example? Not really.

Our editor in chief forgot to register his address change before yesterday’s deadline. So did our managing editor and one of two reporters who will be covering the election. The other election reporter didn’t know she would have needed to report a new address. (It’s not as if we wrote about it or anything.) Our news and photo editors are registered at home instead of in College Park. Our deputy Diversions editor is registered but won’t vote because he doesn’t plan to follow the election.

Our staff hero is our “features enterprise” reporter, who is correctly registered AND plans to vote. She also understands complex city issues perfectly — after all, she reads all the newspapers and can see District 2 Councilman Bob Catlin from her house.

She’s correctly registered because unlike so many of us at The Diamondback and on campus in general, she hasn’t moved since the last election.

Summer Raza, who organized the SGA’s voter registration drive, said “most” SGA members are now correctly registered to vote in College Park. If so, theirs is a better example to follow than ours — it definitely is important to vote for the people who will be setting the rules about how you can park and determine how much you will be fined when you’re noisy.

But next time you hear someone suggest that the media is out of touch with the everyman, you can know that The Diamondback will be sitting out the City Council election with you.

The year: 2006.

The spectacle: A 5,000-pound strawberry shortcake.

The occasion: Technically, the university’s 150th anniversary.

The catch, though, is that, while the university received its charter in 1856, classes didn’t actually start at the good ol’ Maryland Agricultural College until three years later — making 2009 the 150th anniversary of the start of classes here in College Park, and October 5 – or  150 years ago yesterday – was that first magical day.

So the big sesquicentennial celebration, The Diamondback series on the university’s history, and all the other hoopla back in 2006? Maybe we should do it again this year. We weren’t here at the time, but it seemed fun.