A study examining the history of mass violence on college campuses has found more than half of the attacks have happened in the past 20 years, reports The Washington Post’s Dan De Vise. The report, a joint effort by the Secret Service, the FBI, and the federal Department of Education, was written in the wake of the shooting at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people. Of the 272 attacks the report examined, 79 occurred in the 1990s and 83 occurred between 2000 and 2008.

Quick hits

• Gov. Martin O’Malley will officially announce his re-election campaign next Tuesday, April 27.
• The Richmond Times-Dispatch is reporting that Virginia law enforcement officials raided the offices of James Madison University’s student newspaper, The Breeze, and seized 900 photos. The raid was related to a riot that occurred at Springfest, an annual JMU event at which 42 people were injured and 30 were arrested.
• The College Republicans at Duke are ousting their leader, and he says it’s because he’s gay, The Duke Chronicle reports.
• Colleges should be required to reveal the number of judicial hearings they have on sexual assaults each year and those hearings’ outcomes, activists said at a congressional hearing Friday, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Western Maryland’s tiny Frostburg State University was rocked by violence Sunday after one student allegedly shot two others, leaving one dead and another seriously wounded early Sunday morning.

According to an account from the university’s press release, the suspect in the shootings had allegedly assaulted a woman at an off-campus party a few hours earlier, then shot two students who followed him home to confront him.

Brandon Michael Carroll, 20, of Waldorf, was pronounced dead; the second student, Ellis Eugene Hartridge Jr. of Washington, D.C., remained hospitalized Sunday afternoon but is expected to survive, the press release said. The two had been fired on with a 12-gauge shotgun, the release said.

The student suspect, Tyrone Brent Hall, 21, of Glen Burnie, remained jailed without bond in connection with the shootings as of Sunday evening, The Washington Post reported.

Although College Park is more known for its crime than rural Frostburg — a town closer to Pittsburgh than to Frederick, a hundred miles from either — this crime would have been unprecedented even here.

Our sporadic sexual assaults are nothing to boast about, but our only recent double shootings have been between police and alleged shoplifters.

The 2010 class of Syracuse University is protesting this year’s commencement speaker, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon

Due to JPMorgan’s role in the financial crisis, many students feel that the choice of speaker is insulting, especially to a group of college kids trying to find jobs in today’s economy.

A petition titled “Take Back 2010 Syracuse University Commencement” has been circulating among students and already boasts almost 900 signatures.

Student Matt Sheehan wrote next to his name:

This is a slap in the face to us students. As we enter the work world in this economy, it is an insult to have as a speaker one who bears the responsibility of why we will struggle to gain employment.

Dimon told Business Week that he understands where students are coming from.

“I gather that this was a group of students who made the selection, but I also completely understand that some people may be opposed to it,” he said. “People should stand up for what they believe in. I applaud that some folks there want to stand up for something different.”

Chancellor Nancy Cantor had this to say:

It is rare that a university is able to bring a speaker with a bird’s-eye view of, and extensive on-the-ground experience with, a major global challenge, and that was in the forefront of my mind as I made my selection this year.

JP Morgan was one of the first banks to pay back federal loans and today reported first-quarter earnings up 55 percent from last year.

Syracuse, protestors, however, still plan to hold a rally April 16.

Rioting is back in the news today, with multiple media outlets covering yesterday’s revelations (or really, obvious accusations) that Prince George’s County Police officers may have engaged in brutality against university students during the riots following the Terp basketball team’s victory over Duke last month.

The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, and CBS News were among the myriad of organizations who reported on the video. Most students who participated in the post-game revelry wouldn’t be shocked by what the video shows – there were widespread complaints of police brutality the very next day.

But we aren’t the only local university whose students have clashed with cops. Students at James Madison were fiercely scolded by their university’s president after police had to use tear gas and rubber bullets to break up an unruly crowd of 8,000 at Springfest (which seems to be their equivalent to Art Attack). The Post and The Breeze – JMU’s student paper – have the details.

From The Breeze:

President Linwood Rose left no questions regarding his response to the JMU community via e-mail on Sunday evening, addressing those students who attended Springfest.

“Your collective behavior was an embarrassment to your university and a discredit to our reputation,” Rose said. He plans to handle similar situations even more seriously in the future.

The aftermath of Saturday’s block parties consisted of more than 30 arrests, a stabbing, extensive property damage and injured police and partygoers. The Harrisonburg community has not experienced a riot this serious in 10 years, when civil disobedience units responded to a crowd of more than 2,000 students.

And from The Post:

Rocks, beer bottles and cans flew, hitting and injuring dozens of people and shattering car and house windows, according to police, witnesses and video of events. Dumpsters were set ablaze.

The response eventually involved about 200 police officers from several different agencies, many outfitted in riot gear and fighting back with canisters of tear gas, rounds of pepper spray and foam projectiles. A Medevac helicopter arrived to take a casualty to a trauma center, and about three dozen others went to the local hospital.

By the time it was over, Harrisonburg police said they had arrested at least 17 people and were studying uploaded YouTube videos for more suspects. Other law enforcement agencies made arrests, but the total numbers are still being tallied.

Quick hits

• On Sine Die yesterday, Maryland lawmakers reached compromises on just about everything, according to The Post.
• A former Brown University student is suing the school, claiming he was suspended without due process after the daughter of a major university donor falsely accused him of rape, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
  

If you’ve been paying attention to the Student Government Association elections, you may have noticed a few similarities between the SKYY Party’s logo and a certain alcoholic beverage:

But, SKYY party Presidential Candidate Andrew Steinberg insists that his party is simply playing off of a “recognizable brand” and is “not condoning or supporting any kind of alcoholic activities.” Steinberg says that they chose the name for the message they wanted to send:

“It’s like the sky’s the limit in terms of the issues that can affect students on this campus,” he said.

Maybe someone should tell him, that the “sky’s” the limit and not the “SKYY.” Unless you are at The Thirsty Turtle on a Thursday. Details.

And the striking similarities raise a few questions.
First of all, does the logo break copyright laws by obviously mimicking the brand logo of the high-end vodka?

Well, according to the U.S. Copyright Office,

Copyright protection may be available for logo artwork that contains sufficient authorship. In some circumstances, an artistic logo may also be protected as a trademark.

And, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, “SKYY” is a registered trademark.
The official trademark even specifies the trademark as:

The mark consists of the word SKYY in stylized form.

And, as you can see from the pictures above, the logos use the same “stylized form”
The trademark also qualifies the trademark’s silver writing:

All of the wording on the bottle and label appears in silver.

Not that it needs to be said, but the SKYY party’s new logo is also in that same silvery shade.

A copyright infringement lawsuit can be filed if the mark is deemed “famous.” Factors that determine if the trademark is famous include:

(1) the degree of inherent or acquired distinctiveness; (2) the duration and extent of use; (3) the amount of advertising and publicity; (4) the geographic extent of the market; (5) the channels of trade; (6) the degree of recognition in trading areas; (7) any use of similar marks by third parties; (8) whether the mark is registered.

Let’s just say that the brand of SKYY Vodka is very distinct (I mean, what college student wouldn’t recognize those stylized silver letters?), has been in use for almost two decades, is widely advertised (do we even need to go into the number of SKYY Vodka ads in magazines, and on billboards and TV?), is sold across the country and is a registered trademark.

And, hey, while they are at it, if the SKYY Party is looking to drum up some student support, here are a few ideas for an ad campaign:

Or

Though this may university may hold the record for longest mall, Iowa University now boasts the country’s tallest garden gnome.

The gnome constructed in Wisconsin travelled to Iowa via truck.

The 15-foot tall, 3,500-pound garden sits in the university’s Reiman Gardens and is part of the year-long “Celebration of Garden Ornamentation.” The giant gnome (oximoron?) cost around $8,000 to build. As part of the exhibit, other garden decor will be on display along with a crowd of other small gnomes to be built by local organizations. A gnome kingdom, if you will.

The world record for tallest gnome is currently held by an 18-foot gnome in that Poland erected a month ago.

Quick Hits:

>> The 4th U.S. District Court of Appeals upheld a Virginia law banning alcohol ads in student papers. The lawsuit was brought by Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times and the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily.

>> Metro and D.C. commuters beware of increased security and rerouting in the capital for the Nuclear Security Summit. A large grid of roads will be blocked off from traffic and parking and the Mount Vernon Square metro station is closed.

>> The state Senate is preparing to make a final decision this week on a bill allowing the use of medical marijuana. Preliminary approval was given last Friday and the Senate is set to make a final decision as early as Saturday.

Last semester, students at this university faced a jump in their mandatory fees of around $180. If we were in California, a new bill would make such an increase illegal.

Under the bill introduced by California Democratic state Sen. Dean Florez, that state’s annual fee increases would be capped at 5 percent — last semester’s increase here was 12 percent — and apply only to incoming students.

“The goal is to take the erratic nature out of student fee increases so that families can budget for college and the universities get better at their own budgeting,” Florez told the Associated Press.

At this university, Student Government President Steve Glickman had accused administrators of raising fees to circumvent Gov. Martin O’Malley’s tuition freeze, which had still been in effect at the time. (O’Malley has since allowed tuition to grow 3 percent for next year.)

“If I were O’Malley’s office, I’d be up in arms. … This is exactly what he was trying to prevent,” Glickman said in October.

The increased student fees at this university funded the increased cost of library materials and to replace state cuts to the University Health Center. Officials at California universities told the AP that blocking increases in their own student fees would put their services at risk.

Student fees at this university are low compared to Californias’, at least, and have risen less rapidly. Students at California State University pay $4,900 in fees, according to the AP; students here pay around $1,670. That $4,900 was an increase of 68 percent over last year.

Perhaps the greatest question of our time is not how to save the planet, the health care system or even the economy, but the following doozy: does oral sex count as sex sex?

Most of college students don’t seem to think so, according to a recent University of Kentucky study. Researchers found that only 20 percent of the hundreds of undergraduates surveyed thought that going downtown was the same as going all the way. That’s about less than half the amount of people of responded the same way in similar sexual definitions studies in the ’90s.

So what’s the cause? Bill Clinton, apparently.

The main difference between this generation and the previous ones, researchers said, is that college kids today became teenagers after Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” line became part of the national lexicon – even though, as we all know, he did get a blowjob.

“Like President Clinton, adolescents and young adults often interpret these words with a degree of latitude, depending on whether they want to maintain an image of being sexually experienced or inexperienced,” the report explained.

The study authors are dubbing the phenomenon the Clinton-Lewinsky effect. And although previous generations are more likely to consider oral-genital contact as a notch in a bedpost, there’s no consensus on the definition of sex among the old folks either.

A recent study conducted by the Kinsey Institute found that 95 percent of adults think that penile-vaginal intercourse counts as sex, which of course begs the question of how the hell the other five percent define it.

For most of us mortals, there is no way to avoid the deadly, but dreamy vampires in books like Twilight and TV series like The Vampire Diaries and True Blood the vampire craze is literally impossible to ignore (just ask Robert Pattinson).

And now, not only have they infiltrated our movies, TVs and gossip magazines, they have taken over the classroom, as well. The University of Hertfordshire is hosting a conference about vampires in literature.

The conference, titled “Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture” will stretch over two days and examine every possible modern presence of vampires in pop culture.
So get out your 10 lb. Twilight collection and your “I <3 Edward Cullen" shirt, but leave your silver daggers at home. Oh, and no werewolves allowed. These classes may just be the next best thing to getting bitten by your hunky vampire soulmate.

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The votes are cast. The results are in. The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg has selected a new mascot and it is… A griffin!

Head of an eagle, body of a lion -- It's a griffin!

In a process alarmingly similar to that which this university is using to select a new university president, the College of William & Mary charged a committee of students, faculty, alumni and staff to determine what mascot would be the best fit for the campus.

Among the finalists were: a King and Queen, a Phoenix, a Pug and a Wren. Looking at that lineup, it’s clear the committee made the right decision.

The griffin is a creature from old legends and myths that has the head of an eagle and the body of a lion, is known for being majestic and guarding treasure. The College of William and Mary jusified their selection as representative of their rich history:

The coat of arms of King William and Queen Mary was adorned with lions, and the lion’s body of our mascot evokes our historic royal founding and early history. The eagle’s head of the Griffin suggests the national symbol of the United States and represents the presidents, leaders, and productive citizens whom William & Mary has trained for centuries.

But you can’t please everyone — DCist.com referred to the new mascot as “the Philadelphia Eagle’s kid is wearing khakis for his internship.” Ouch.

The school’s athletics teams will still be referred to as “The Tribe.”