In an e-mail message to faculty today, Associate Provost Betsy Beise addressed the weekend snowstorm’s effects on graduating students and those who are at risk of academic dismissal following the fall 2009 semester.

Graduating students who receive grades of ‘I’ in required courses due to the rescheduled final exams and later pass those courses will have their graduation date recorded as December 2009 regardless of whether a final grade has been assigned before the Jan. 24 graduation ceremony.

Students who receive grades following the Jan. 30 exams that would normally lead to academic probation or dismissal will be allowed to complete the spring semester.

Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:30:13 -0500 (EST)
From: "Betsy Beise, for Provost Farvardin"
To: "UM Faculty"
Subject: Information on Impact of Delayed Finals

The rescheduling of the last day of final exams to January 30th has a
number of ripple effects through our campus academic services.  Below
are answers to come of the questions that have arisen in the past few
days.  As you might expect, there are likely to be a wide variety of
special cases resulting from the unavoidable change in the schedule;
whenever possible, the Registrars office will work with students to
resolve their issues on a case-by-case basis.

COURSE EVALUATIONS:

We have committed to students that faculty will not see the results of
course evaluations until after final grades are calculated.  Therefore,
the posting of fall semester CourseEvalUM results will be
correspondingly delayed until Friday, February 5, 2010. We are unable to
selectively post results.  For administrators who use course evaluations
from the prior semester to make hiring decisions, we ask that you try to
use Spring 2009 evaluations for this purpose whenever possible.  Please
direct any questions to Renee Baird Snyder at: rbsnyder@umd.edu.

GRADUATING STUDENTS:

Students who intended to graduate in December will still be certified
with a December 2009 graduation date.   Records for non-graduating
students taking the final on January 30th will show the course as a Fall
2009 course.  College administrators should use their discretion as to
whether and when to certify for graduation those students in their
programs who have received an Incomplete as a result of a delayed final
exam.  The Registrars office will begin posting degree information to
student records on January 18th and will continue until necessary.
Mailing will start in late January.

SCHEDULE ADJUSTMENT PERIOD:

The end of the Spring 2010 schedule adjustment period is 4:30 p.m. on
February 5, 2010 and will remain so.  Students who need to make
adjustments to their schedule as a result of the outcome of a Jan 30th
exam may be granted an exception.

ACADEMIC PROBATION/DISMISSAL/READMISSION:

There may be some students who are in danger of academic dismissal from
the University and whose evaluation will rest on the result of a final
exam to be given on January 30th.  These students will likely have
already registered for courses for Spring 2010.  Any student whose grade
records are not complete because January 30th grade results are not
known, and who faces probation or academic dismissal as a result, should
be allowed to register and complete the Spring 2010 semester.

Betsy Beise
Interim Associate Provost for Academic Planning and Programs
on behalf of Provost Nariman Farvardin

                          ********************

             This note was authorized for distribution to
                   University of Maryland Faculty by:
                       Nariman Farvardin, Provost

Looks like the the ivy-leaguers got themselves into a bit of a tiff this week, over, you guessed it, a squash match.

The Big Green squash team

We know, we know, it’s shocking that it’s not something like Polo. Or crew. Or chess.

Now before you picture the flying fists and mob scenes blurred by flashes of Harvard crimson and Dartmouth green, remember we are talking two of the most prestigious schools in the country here. And we are talking squash.

Apparently during a squash game between the universities on Dec. 2 Dartmouth fans got a little out of control, yelling “profanity-laden” jeers at the Harvard team.

The most scathing of these jeers? The crowd apparently asked Harvard player Franklin Cohen if he liked bagels. Cohen, and his parents are now calling the comment an anti-Semitic slur.

Dartmouth, however, claims they were referencing the zero or “bagel” on the scoreboard.

Administrators are now issuing statements of dissappointment and Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim apologized to Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust.

So all we are saying, ivy leaguers, if you are going to get into a fight. Do it right.

Our advice? First, go play a real sport. Squash, really? Leave it to the ivy leagues to get all lathered up over a sport that only 40-year-old businessmen play on the weekends.

This, my friends, is that this is a real college sports fight:

Fight that broke out between Miami University and Florida International University

I mean even Bucky the Badger from University of Wisconsin Madison and Sparty from Michigan State know how to throw down.

Welcome to public school, bitch.

I mean what can we expect, even Harvard’s mascot is one of the worst mascots of all time

Second of all, get some real taunts. See: The Crew for Maryland soccer. How about University of Florida’s Gaitor Bait accompanied with jaw-clamping hand motions. Or University of Alabama’s Rammer Jammer, Yellowhammer, give ‘em hell, Alabama! Trust us, take a tip from these guys. Forget overly-clever references to bagels. And the veiled references to people’s religion, oh wait, we mean the scoreboard.

You may not believe that we squeezed into the top twenty of the Daily Beast’s list of the smartest college towns, given the downtown bar scene and the vast majority of the students who raise their hands in lecture. But our very own College Park landed at the 19th spot in rankings, thanks to our research prowess as well as our parternships with NASA and federal departments like Homeland Security.

A "Tar Heel" allegedly "studies" on campus. We're coming for you next year, UNC.

The Daily Beast awarded College Park an overall grade of C (given that we didn’t study for this test, we’ll take it!) by crunching numbers like bachelor’s and graduate degrees per capita for the over-25 population, student SAT scores and voter turnout, an indicator of higher intelligence.

Chapel Hill took the gold, followed by Ann Arbor and Boulder, Colorado. Athens, Georgia, home to the University of Georgia, finished dead last. Other students that might want to study harder next year include the Notre Dame students living in South Bend, Indiana, which, despite boasting the second highest median SAT score, has the fewest bachelor’s degrees per capita.

Judging from the commercials, an iPhone can be many things to many people. For a musical group at the University of Michigan, it’s an instrument, and not one reserved solely for booty calls.

Students in the Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble, founded earlier this semester, use their iPhones to put on musical performances. Wednesday marks their finals project concert for what may be the first class ever on using cell phones to make music — beyond ring-tones.

The Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble

The Ann Arbor engineering professor who masterminded the orchestra and the course got the idea after using his iPhone’s microphone as a wind sensor, essentially turning it into a flute.

After that initial discovery, he experimented with the screen, GPS, wireless sensor and accelerometer, programming them to produce musical notes from touching, tilting or shaking the device.

“The mobile phone is a very nice platform for exploring new forms of musical performance,” said computer scientist and musician Georg Essl, who has dual appointments in Michigan’s engineering and music schools. “We can do interesting, weird, unusual things.”

But while the class may be blazing trails, the mobile phone ensemble is nothing new: cell phone orchestras and symphonies have performed at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., and at the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland.

This week, universities across the country are dealing with the question of intolerance on their campuses and what they should do with groups whose message does not necessarily open their arms to everyone.

Can an advocacy group for Palestine raise money and support on campuses if it supposedly has links to Hamas? Can a law school in California deny a Christian group recognition for refusing to admit gay and lesbian members?

A group of universities have possibility had a pro-Palestinian group called Viva Palestina USA advocating on their campus. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) is urging the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the  organization that has supposedly been linked to Hamas.

Controversy arose at the University of California, Irvine last May when the group appeared on campus at an event hosted by the Muslim Student Association. Viva Palestina USA was founded by George Galloway, a British Parliament member.  The group’s ties to Hamas are still in question, but while it is not illegal under U.S. law to provide funds to Gaza, it is against the law to donate to Hamas, which is considered a foreign terrorist organization.

Meanwhile, at another California university, the question of a Christian groups rights to deny gay and lesbian students memberships has come under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.

The Christian Legal Society at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law requires that members uphold their beliefs, which means only accepting relationships between a man and a woman.

“However, CLS voting members and officers must affirm its Statement of Faith,” a press release from the society said. “CLS interprets the Statement of Faith to include the belief that Christians should not engage in sexual conduct outside of a marriage between a man and a woman.”

The university argues that all groups under campus funding cannot exclude people, while the Christian group maintains that its right to freedom of speech and religion has been violated.  Federal courts rejected the groups lawsuit, but the case has now been taken to the Supreme Court.

Current GRE : Stupid :: New GRE : ____

A. Changing

B. Probably still stupid

C. All of the above

The folks at the Educational Testing Center, which administers the Graduate Record Exam, thought they were keeping questions from a newly formulated version of the GRE secret. Well, the cat just might be out of the bag. Test administrators insist the new version — which does not yet have a release date — will not include analogies, but we’d recommend you study the question above just in case. In case you do happen to trust the Education Testing Center (which probably means you’ve never studied for the GRE), ETC officials say they will also be eliminating questions on antonyms and a non-calculator portion of the math test.

In other changes related news, officials at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, who once considered adding a weight loss requirement for obese students, are now backing off their controversial proposal. Ivory V. Nelson, president of Lincoln, said in an interview with Inside HigherEd Saturday that the faculty “wanted to keep what we were doing, but wanted to send a message that we were not singling out any group.”

And speaking of changes…

Want a job?

You better know something about engineering, or computers, or math, or technology, or dealing with bitchy customers.

The Daily Beast compiled a least of ten cutting-edge jobs for the 21st Century and between — network architect, system software designer, data engineer, network administrator, applications designer, database manager, avionics specialist, technology theorist and computer programmer — nine of jobs focused on the left side of the brain.

One high-growth job that sticks out: tech support specialist. Turns out that with all this new technology, the world needs patient, calm folks to deal with people’s inane questions.

Another interesting note: eight of the Daily Beast’s jobs have high concentrations in Virgina, Maryland and D.C.

It's a wonder how this tech-support specialist is smiling.

Most of the Maryland football program’s many critics were satisfied simply with calling for football coach Ralph Friedgen’s firing. But for Washington Post columnist Norman Chad — who was editor in chief of The Diamondback three decades ago — such a move simply wouldn’t have been in enough.

In a column on Monday, Chad called for the end of Maryland football, and for the end of big-time college football and basketball in general.

Now Chad wasn’t just fed up with the program’s sorry state. Rather, he argued that the football program is a drain on university resources.

Which is  funny, because it takes up absolutely none of them. Between donations and ticket revenue, Maryland athletics is 100-percent self-supported, and yet it’s become a media cause celebre of late to push the university (and the state that ultimately funds it) to limit football spending.

The (Baltimore) Sun questioned Gov. Martin O’Malley last week on whether public funds should be used to pay out Friedgen’s contract, leading him to make the statement:

“Were they to decide that there needed to be a change, I would hope that they not use public funds to buy out that contract.”

Once again, the problem is: Maryland athletics isn’t supported by public money.

Moral of the story: mainstream press, shame on you. Before you write, next time do your homework.

Ralph Friedgen wasted donors' — not the state's — money with his football team's dismal performance this year.

As more and more states ease penalties on medicinal marijuana usage — 13 so far have legalized its use with a doctor’s note — an entirely new type of higher learning is growing fast.

Med Grow Cannabis College sprouted up in Detroit in September and offers a five-week semester for prospective dealers to learn the basics of growing and selling weed to the ill. There are 60 students currently enrolled, and we can only imagine what their course titles look like: The metaphysics of munchies? How to build a bong from household items? Looking like a productive member of society: Visine, towels under doors and Axe body spray?

All jokes aside, the trade school prepares students to become caregivers and break into the marijuana industry the legal way. And Med Grow isn’t the only school dedicated to the sticky-icky and its many, many therapeutic uses: Oaksterdam in California, founded in 2007, is considered the Harvard of cannabis colleges, with three campuses, 50 employees and over 5,000 alums.

Pretty dank.

First, we worried about catching the flu. Then, we worried about the swine flu. Now, loneliness?

Yes, hypochondriac Campus Drive readers, new research suggests that loneliness is contagious, and you should probably start worrying about it now.

The research, conducted as federally funded analysis of data collected from more than 4,000 people over 10 years, found that lonely people increase the likelihood that someone they know will also start to feel alone. And the worst part is, according to the research,  loneliness can skip more than one degree of separation. So even if you don’t run in lonely crowds, friends of friends can get you starting to feel blue.

Rob Stein summarized the study’s findings in today’s Washington Post.  While some experts question the study’s findings, we recommend you stay away from Roman Polanski (who is on house arrest), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (who is having trouble finding 59 friends to join his party), and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (who is losing support from his only friends — conservatives).

You should probably also avoid the notoriously lonely second floor of the McKeldin Library. Otherwise, you might end up looking like this guy: