In the world of NBC’s “Community,” Chevy Chase walks the university corridors as a who-knows-how-old returning student, Joel McHale (wait, isn’t that the guy from The Soup?) is a washed up lawyer always ready to talk himself out of a mess and Ken Jeong (think crazy Asian mobster in The Hangover) is a self-deprecating Spanish teacher.

And the list goes on to make up the show’s collection of eclectic characters who attend  Greendale Community College in Colorado. The group assembles under the ruse of studying Spanish but inevitably end up in some hair-brained adventure each week.

While it’s no The Office or 30 Rock, the show has its moments and is quickly becoming a decent way to spend a half our before the major primetime comedies hit on Thursday night at 9 p.m.

M. Garrett Bauman, an emeritus professor of English at Monroe Community College in New York, however, doesn’t think so.

In an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bauman argues that the show’s cast of quirky characters (a divorcee, a former football star and a once straight A high school student to name a few) are not representative of students at a real community college. Bauman says the show overlooks people too poor to go to an expensive four-year university, people on welfare, high school slackers etc.

“I suppose students truly shattered under life’s wheel and those seeking technical jobs don’t make for perky television material.”

Bauman concedes that it is, of course, made that way for comedic effect. And in an effort to entertain extorts the assumptions many people make about the institution.

“Community does not capture the real community college—as if there were one. But neither do M*A*S*H, Scrubs, or The Office capture actual institutions. Comedy exaggerates, romanticizes, and deconstructs. Community plays off stereotypes and clichés, reinforcing and puncturing them at the same time.”

All we have to say is, of course its not real. That’s what comedy is. That’s what two hours on Thursday night on NBC is. In the real world, a boss like Michael Scott would have been fired years ago. A doctor like J.D. Dorian would never be able to get away with daydreaming constantly on the job while people are dying around him. And Tracy Jordan would be a washed up self-absorbed former TV star who was once on a sketch comedy series. And no one wants to watch those shows.

University students may not drink wine in the classiest fashion, but obtaining the fine beverages so many students enjoy may get easier next year.

The Baltimore Sun reports (using some groan-worthy puns):

Wine lovers are planning an all-out lobbying offensive in the General Assembly next year for passage of a law that would allow merchants and wineries to ship directly to Maryland consumers.

The issue has fermented for years in the legislature where a bill has been bottled up in committee, but wine producers and connoisseurs see an opportunity in the next session that begins in January. They say they have more funding and support, and they hope to draw votes by casting the bill as a pro-consumer issue that lawmakers can promote to voters before the 2010 election.

Advocates for the bill feel it has an excellent chance of passage. The main group working in support of the legislation has seen its membership grow tenfold over the past year.

In other Annapolis-related news, The Diamondback’s favorite state senator, Eastern Shore Republican Andy Harris, seems to have a primary challenger he just can’t get rid of. Centrist Republican E.J. Pipkin looks ready to challenge Harris in the 1st Congressional District primary, according to The Sun’s Paul West, upsetting Republicans who fear another bitter primary battle. Harris was able to knock off incumbent Wayne Gilchrest in the primary last time, but Frank Kratovil won the seat, with large thanks to endorsements from Gilchrest’s chief of staff and wife.

Quick Hits

• More and more elite high school students are going to community college, largely because of the economy, The Washington Post’s Daniel de Vise reports.
• Someone who stole a radio from a faculty lounge at Iowa’s Clarke College 55 years ago recently anonymously sent $500 and a letter of apology to the school’s president.

While our university scientists investigate teleportation machines, cures for cancer and water on the moon, Leeds University is seeking a lap-dance researcher.

Applicants for the government-funded post within in the School of Sociology and Social Policy must have “prior experience of conducting research in the female sex industry”, and if hired, will delve into the “the rise and regulation of lap dancing and the place of sexual labour and consumption in the night-time economy,” according to the advertisement.

The job will include interviewing more than 300 strippers across the UK to assess their backgrounds and their working conditions in hopes of offering up a picture of how exotic dancing has become mainstream entertainment.

The proposed study has already drawn ire from some anti-government waste crusaders in the United Kingdom, including Susie Squire, the political director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance.

“This is the ultimate non-job and will both anger and bemuse taxpayers,” she said. “It may be a dream job for some men, but it’s just another nightmare of public sector waste for the ordinary people who pay for it.”

But sociologists from the school insist that the research project will provide insight into the growing commercialisation of women’s bodies and sexuality. Sounds like sexy research with serious implications to us.

We’ve already told you that Lincoln University, the country’s first historically black institution, was also one of the first colleges to mandate a health class for fat students. As it turns out, they’ve decided two dozen critically overweight students won’t graduate for ditching the program.

Located in Oxford, Pennsylvania, the university established a program a few years ago called “Fitness for Life”, a semester-long course aimed at educating students with a high body mass index about the risks linked to obesity as well as on how to obtain a healthier weight. But about two dozen students who tipped the scales as freshman opted to ditch the class, sparking a contentious debate on how large of a role the institution should play in the health choices of its student body.

While the black community suffers disproportionately from nutrition-related illnesses and diseases (for example, about 12 percent of African-Americans over 18 have been diagnosed with diabetes, compared to 1.8 percent of whites), the Daily Beast’s Elizabeth Gates argues the university should grant its fatter students a degree:

Without implementing educational health resources in primary and secondary inner city schools, collegiate-based programs like “Fitness for Life” will always be questioned—or in the case of the two dozen students at Lincoln, downright ignored.

Lincoln University is an HBCU (historically black college) where much of the student population is uninformed about health and nutrition. To mandate the program strictly for overweight students is both short-sighted and insulting. In other words, thick-headed.

Speaking of fat in higher education, George Washington University will grant the first-ever doctoral degree in fat studies to a student whose thesis examines why authors choose to make certain characters overweight, leading some academics to wonder when fat studies will come to a university near you.

With only two days left until Thanksgiving, your dorm might be feeling a little empty as people head home for heaping portions of mashed potatoes and stuffing. But here at Campus Drive, we’re sticking around to get you through these two last rainy days of classes.

And while students are intentionally flying, bussing and driving home right now, an increasing number of young adults are going home – and staying – when they don’t actually want to. One in ten adults under the age of 35 has been forced to move back home because of the recession, The New York Times reports.

Here’s something to be thankful for. The Lumina Foundation has given Maryland and six other states up to $9.1 million to increase efficiency in higher education. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports the foundation has set a goal of 60 percent of American adults having a college degree by 2025.

When you do head home, don’t worry about playing too many video games. Apparently, they can teach you science and math skills. The Obama administration announced a $260 million partnership with corporate sponsors to design math and science-friendly video games.

Quick Hits

• Is your crazy uncle going to start a fight at the dinner table on Thursday? Newsweek has five ways you can quickly change the subject.
• University of North Texas students have rejected having same-sex couples run for homecoming courts, The Dallas Morning News reports.
• Gov. Martin O’Malley defended the state slots program’s bumpy rollout during an interview on WTOP.
• Towson University’s marching band will be the only collegiate band to play in this year’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, according to The Sun.

Turns out students at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania should think twice before going for that extra helping of fries or extra cheesy pizza at the dining hall. Students who are found to be “to heavy” must fulfill a physical education requirement.

During each freshman’s fall semester, health educators at the university weigh students and calculate their Body Mass Index (BMI.) If a student’s BMI is above 30, then they have to take a course for one credit called “Fitness for Life.”

So its kinda like the Biggest Loser. But for credit.  And involuntary.  And without world-renowned trainers. Or a $250,000 cash prize.

As if it wasn’t enough to think about grades, classes, jobs and that cute guy/girl you met at the bar last weekend, whose name still manages to escape you, you now need to make sure you maintain your lbs at a certain level.

The requirement has been in place since 2006 and has gone without a hitch. Until this year when the university found out that 80 seniors (16 percent of the class) have yet to complete the fitness course.

“I didn’t come to Lincoln to be told that my weight is not in an acceptable range,” Lincoln University student Tiana Y. Lawson wrote in a column in the student newspaper The Lincolnian. “I came here to get an education which, as a three-time honor student, is something I have been doing quite well, despite the fact that I have a slightly high Body Mass Index.”

Obesity among young people is a topic America has been obsessed with finding an answer to for at least the past decade. But it remains true that one in six kids between 6 to 19 (right around that freshmen age) are overweight.

“There’s an obesity epidemic,” Mr. DeBoy says. “The data are clear that many young people are on this very, very dangerous collision course with heart disease, diabetes, and stroke—health problems that are particularly bothersome for the African-American community.”

But for now, Lincoln University sits in a precarious position as the only university to partake in mandatory weight testing and law experts remain unsure if the enforced fitness course is legal.

And you thought your Kaplan LSAT class was rough.

New York City’s four- and five-year-olds have no sympathy for you. There, nearly a dozen test-preparation agencies have cropped up aimed at training tots for kindergarten entrance exam, according to a recent story in the New York Times. New York’s gifted-public schools and private schools often require the tests, which ask youngsters questions about shapes, numbers, pictures and words.

And where there is testing, there are pushy parents willing to doll out the big bucks to prepare their children for them.

One of the test-prep programs Bright Kids, has about 200 students receiving tutoring, most of them for the gifted exams, which receiving tutoring which can cost up to $145. The agency has 80 children on a waiting list for a weekend “boot camp” program.

A student works on a question about which object doesn't belong - Courtesy The New York Times

If you’re stressed by a never-ending parade of tests and group projects, listen up. There’s another way to relax that won’t result in your liver giving up by the time you hit 30.

According to a study in the December American Journal of Hypertension, transcendental meditation can lower stress and anxiety among college students. Reuters’ Joene Hendry reports:

“Blood pressure fell among college students who spent about 20 minutes at least once a day to reach the “restful alertness” state of transcendental meditation, Dr. Sanford I. Nidich, at Maharishi University of Management Research Institute in Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, and colleagues report.”

Transcendetal meditation was introduced to the United States in 1959 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru who taught the Beatles.

Practioners spend 20 minutes twice a day seated with eyes closed, reciting a sound or phrase.

So the next time your stressing during an exam, close your eyes for a minute and find your happy place. Just don’t fall asleep — that’s bound to raise your blood pressure later.

—Diamondback Assistant News Editor Derby Cox wrote this blog post.

Student activist Malcolm Harris and friends made a stink in September when they discovered that the university allotted $5 million for student services consulting fees in the fiscal year 2009.

It remains to be seen how that money was actually spent, but Harris (who writes a column for The Diamondback) should be thankful he doesn’t attend University of North Carolina, the University of California – Berkeley, or Cornell University. The three universities have hired the consulting firm Bain & Company to help with painful budgets cuts, according to a story in The New York Times last week.

California spent $3 million on Bain, but the university’s chancellor, Robert J. Birgeneau, said he hopes the firm will save them much more.

“If we could save $30, $40, $50 million for an investment of $3 million, I’d be ecstatic,” Birgeneau said. “I’m a physicist, not an expert on organizational structures. But I believe we can be more efficient.”

Some of the potential savings Bain found for UNC include the revelation that more than half of the officials in management postions at the university have three or fewer people reporting directly to them.

Bain also reccomended reining in the more than 100 centers and institutes that have sprouted up aross the university, many with their own finance, information technology and human resources departments.

If the university follows all of Bain’s reccomendaitons, it will save $160 million.

Just to reiterate, all you soon-to-be college grads: your chances of employment are slim to none! But there might be a silver lining to the plummetting college labor market — if you’ve got a fondness for new drugs and old people, that is.

The Daily Beast has the good news in the form of the top 10 Hot and Not Jobs. The rankings are crafted from three years of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for more than 750 career fields, and adjusted for total employment and median wage shifts. By some miracle, print journalist doesn’t figure into the latter category, although fine artists, textile workers and engine repairmen might want to start checking the classifieds. Oil and gas drill operator took the crown of highest-growth job, followed by disease researcher, movie producer, food scientist and pharmacist.

For those of you who didn’t center your career goals around the energy boom or America’s aging demographics, cheers to bong rips in your parents’ basement until the economy improves.