Public high schools in a handful of states, including nearby Pennsylvania, are testing a pilot that will allow sophomores in high school to graduate two years early and enroll in community college right away — provided they pass a battery of tests on a number of subjects, of course.

The new program, funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to cut down on the millions of high schoolers who need remedial classes once they get to college. With prominent backers like the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, early-college programs like this one are expected to spread around the nation.

As if we needed more underage kids at the Route One bars.

Students who pass the board exams but want to attend more selective colleges would be allowed to take college coursework throughout their junior and senior years. And students who fail the 10th grade tests can always try again.

The commissioner of education in Kentucky, one of the states where the program will debut, said the new system will transform the typical route to high school graduation — by accumulating enough credits in a wide range of dull subjects.

“This would reform that,” Dr. Holliday said. “We’ve been tied to seat time for 100 years. This would allow an approach based on subject mastery — a system based around move-on-when-ready.”

Evidence suggests that similar fast-track programs helps at-risk students stay in school, reports Tamar Lewin of the New York Times Academics note that high expectations tend to lead to better overall performance in school.

“As a nation, we just can’t afford to have students spending four years or more getting through high school, when we all know senior year is a waste,” said Hilary Pennington of the Gates Foundation.

Hopefully part of the new educational reform sweeping the nation will also include tutorials for drunk college boys on asking if the new crop of freshman are over 18.

University of California San Diego officials publicly spoke out against a fraternity and students who threw a “ghetto-themed” party in “honor” of Black History month.

Organizers of the so-called “Compton Cookout,” urged guests to wear gold chains, gold teeth and rapper-style clothing.

The women? They were instructed to dress as “ghetto chicks.” Whatever that means.

The invitation apparently read:

“For those of you who are unfamiliar with ghetto chicks — Ghetto chicks usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama, and wear cheap clothes. …”

And for refreshments, the invite advertised watermelon, chicken, malt liquor, cheap beer and a purple juice drink they called “dat Purple Drank.”

The obvious racism and mockery of a month that is supposed to celebrate black culture instead of insult it has brought criticism from university officials and students. But the black community on the campus is small, making up only two percent of the undergraduate class.

“These are the people I go to school with, and knowing that they’re mocking my culture and the history of black people is really offensive,” sophomore Elize Diop told the San Jose Mercury News.

Though the university condemned the party, there will most likely be no disciplinary action taken against students involved since it was not a university-sanctioned event.

“We were distressed to learn that over the weekend an offensively themed student party, mocking the commemoration of Black History Month, took place off campus,” Campus chancellor Marye Anne Fox said in a statement. “We strongly condemn this event and the blatant disregard of our campus values.”

Right now it is thought that the fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha was involved.

Talk about sportsmanship: a Florida State band member claims a Boston College assistant coach shoved him after the Seminoles’ 62-47 win over the Eagles on Sunday.

Allegedly, the band geek — er, student — found himself stuck between the media table and the one reserved for the basketball team when he was attempting to leave the court after a performance. After trying to inch around Coach Bonzie Colson, the student said the Eagles’ assistant coach grabbed him by both shoulders and shoved him, hissing “Get the fuck off my court.”

No one knows for sure if the incident took place, but an Orlando Sentinel reporter said a member of the BC coaching staff appeared agitated at the FSU band before the game, reportedly shaking his head and waving them off.

Despite the skeptics, the band member intends to file battery charges.

As much as University President Dan Mote’s retirement announcement has shocked campus, an even more surprising presidential announcement happened today down in Waco, Texas.

The often controversial Kenneth Starr has been named president of Baylor University.

Starr, 63, is most known for his investigation into President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and other Clinton Administration abuses during Starr’s term as Independent Counsel. He later published the Starr Report.

Starr defended California’s Proposition 8 as lead counsel. The controversial California law banned same-sex marriage in the state.

This isn’t Starr’s first time holding a prominent position at a university. He has served as dean of the School of Law at Pepperdine University since 2004.

And no word yet on whether the Waco university hired Starr just so Clinton could be reminded of all the bad things about his presidency.

A Portland State University professor accused a student in the middle of class of being an FBI informant.
John B. Hall, a tenured economics professor, also declared that the student had worked for the Israeli army and had sold weapons to other classmates.

The student Zaki Bucharest stood up after the accusations were made during class, said that he had in fact been in the Israeli army, but denied the other accusations before walking out.

In a letter to the student newspaper, The Vanguard, the professor had this to say:

“I decided to take a stand,” Hall said in the letter. “I observed the situation becoming extremely dangerous, not only for me but for about eight of my very finest students. I felt that what I had to do should not have been my responsibility.”

Hall’s lost his teaching responsibilities, but the university is still deciding on a punishment for the professor while they investigate.
Bucharest had this to say in a statement:

“I have never been affiliated with the FBI in any way, and I have never been an informant. I have never in any way done anything to incite violence at PSU. I have admired Professor Hall since I first took a class from him and cannot imagine what I did or said to cause him to treat me the way he did.”

Google turned heads when it drove up and down the streets of campus and its environs in 2008, making College Park one of the first parts of the D.C. area to appear on its “Street View” tool.

But if Google’s pictures aren’t good enough for you, Microsoft’s Bing Maps has boldly gone exactly where Street View has gone before.

The latest campus-view photos are available on Bing’s “Streetside,” and College Park was once again one of the first parts of the region to go online.

Hunt for yourself in Bing’s and Google’s campus photos.

SGA Vice President for Finance Andrew Steinberg is striking out on his own to raise money for Haiti, asking student groups to each donate $100 for an ultimate goal of $10,000— an amount Steinberg plans to ask the state of Maryland to match. But SGA President Steve Glickman is keeping all hands off.

“I think it’s a great idea, what Andrew’s doing,” Glickman said. “But I think he’s doing it as Andrew Steinberg, not as SGA.” (It’s worth noting Glickman and Steinberg aren’t the best of friends.)

Steinberg said he’s still trying to get the green light from administrators before being able to work with the state of Maryland, but many student groups have already pledged their share, including MaryPIRG, the Equestrian Club, the Latino Student Union, and the Black Student Union.

“It’s a work in progress, certainly,” Steinberg said.

According to Steinberg’s press release, hundreds of thousands of dollars are annually left unspent after the end of the fiscal year that cycles through the student group financial system.

Though a press release Steinberg put out announcing the effort used SGA letterhead, Glickman says the effort is unaffiliated.

He added: “It can’t have anything to do with SGA, because he hasn’t even told me about it.”

Meanwhile, the SGA launches its own Hearts for Haiti nearly month-long event today. While the majority of events is run by other organizations under the name’s umbrella, the SGA’s contribution a meal point donation drive this Friday, Feb. 12.

A full list of Haiti-related events can be found here.

This post was written by Anna Isaacs, The Diamondback’s SGA beat reporter. She can be reached at aisaacs@umdbk.com.

Attention beer-lovers! Improvements to the way you procure and consume your favorite beverage are on the way.

For all you fitness junkies still laughably committed to New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, you’ll soon be able to crack open a cold one without feeling guilty. Budweiser has just released Select 55, the “lightest beer in the world” at just 55 calories, beating out Miller Genuine Draft’s MDG64. It probably tastes like water with a slight beer flavoring, but that won’t stop Budweiser from announcing it with a bang during the Super Bowl.

In a move likely to resonate among students who live too far from Shoppers, Giant may soon be selling beer. The grocery store chain has applied for a liquor license at its new store in the Poconos. If the pilot goes well, other stores may soon stock wine and beer, especially seeing as how customers have made it “abundantly clear” that they would appreciate the convenience, in the words of Giant’s president.

And across the pond, the British government is testing shatterboof beer glasses in an effort to cut down on pub violence. More than 87,000 incidents involved broken pint glasses used as shanks occurred in the UK in 2009 alone, and fights involving jagged glass have cost an estimated $170 million a year. The shatterproof glasses will undergo more testing before being sold to bars and pubs next year.

Happy guzzling!

A british university registrar traded women falsified college degrees for spanking sessions.

Karl Woodgett, 37, who worked at the University of Surrey and the University of Bath started off fabricating degrees to relatives of his Cameroonian wife while he worked at the University of Bath. Woodgett soon combined this business with his own sexual fetishes by luring them to hotel rooms, where he would spank and cane them. He told them that they were subjects in a “pain management study”.

He also videotaped two of the women.

James Ward, prosecuting for the UK Border Agency, told Bristol Crown Court: “[Woodgett] did not want Kah for sex but to indulge his spanking fetish with her because she had a black bottom.”

Woodgett charged £500 for an undergraduate degree and £1,000 for a Master’s with distinction.

He was charged with two counts of possessing articles for the use of fraud. His sentence includes nine months in prison, suspension for a year and 200 hours community service. His wife, who assisted him, was also charged with falsifying documents and was sentenced to four months in prison.

But also turns out, Woodgett is not the only one getting into the paddling trend these days. University of North Florida professor Tayeb A. Giuma will be fired for paddling a contractor outside of his home during a dispute last fall. He was arrested on battery charges and will be tried later this month.

For most students, a class on happiness would be no class at all.

But for 800 students at Harvard, it is very much real, with a syllabus, assignments and exams. Talk about an oxymoron.

Devoted to examining what conditions lead to satisfaction and distress, the Harvard course on happiness is just one of many popping up at colleges and universities around the world — a positive trend, writes former Harvard president Derek Bok at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In his article “College and the Well-Lived Life”, Bok reports that more students than ever are taking “a remarkably materialistic view of what a college education can provide”, given that about 75 percent of entering freshman rank making a lot of money as a top priority. But major research has shown that people whose only goal is to be rich tend to lead less fulfilling lives, Bok notes. (Take it away, Hall & Oates.)

Extracurriculars, designed to broaden a student’s perspectives and interests, reach fewer students now than before, as older undergraduates and commuters — who are less likely to participate in them — make up larger and larger portions of student bodies. So in order to teach students how to live full and satisfying lives, Bok recommends education tailored to that vaguely New-Agey ideal: well-being.

Classes dedicated to the study of happiness are one approach, while the other is more practical: teaching how to express gratitude, say, or perform a good deed. Classes like this one boast claims like “as a result of at­tending this class, you will also experience a personal transforma­tion in which you become a more positive person” and “develop a zest for living a virtuous, satisfying, and meaningful life”.

Yet another way to help students find the path to a meaningful life would be a thorough examination of the long-lasting effects of their chosen profession, beyond salary.

Ultimately, Bok’s argument is this:

Nevertheless, educa­tors and policy makers must recognize that there is much more to education than becoming a productive member of the work­ force—and more to universities than producing “human capital.” Happiness remains the ultimate end to which other goals are only the means. Education cannot tell students what will make them happy. But universities can do their best to supply them with the knowledge, skills, and interests that will aid them in their search.