July 30, 2008

Earthquake Lecture on Riverside Campus Is Interrupted by the Real Thing

Science educators are constantly searching for ways to make their lessons more relevant to students, so a professor at the University of California at Riverside must have felt particularly fortunate on Tuesday when his lecture on earthquake waves was disrupted by a 5.4-magnitude temblor.

David Oglesby, an associate professor in the department of earth sciences and an expert on earthquake physics, was telling students the difference between “P” and “S” ground waves when the quake hit at 11:42 a.m., Pacific time. He and 17 students in the Community College Internship program, sponsored by the UCR Graduate School of Education’s Copernicus Project, took cover under their desks.

“The timing was so perfect that participants may have thought that we had installed special effects,” said Raymond Hurst, education and business liaison for the Copernicus Project. “But when it really started shaking and the professor went under the table, they realized it was serious.”

The lecture resumed after the shaking subsided. No damages were reported on the campus.

“We were talking about it, and the next thing we experienced it,” said Thalia Torres, a student from Pasadena City College who was attending the lecture. “What a great way to learn.” —Don Troop

July 28, 2008

Princeton Review Ranks Happiest and Greenest Campuses -- and Top Partyers

In the Princeton Review’s annual college rankings, released today, Princeton University topped the list of students happiest with their financial aid, a notable feat in a year in which student debt has drawn a lot of attention. Princeton, which is not connected with the Princeton Review, was followed by Stanford University and Pomona College in that category.

Students were least happy with their financial aid at New York University, Emerson College, and Pennsylvania State University, the survey found.

This year, the Princeton Review, best known as a test-prep company, introduced a new Green Rating for colleges. Eleven institutions received top honors in the category.

The rankings are based on a survey of 120,000 students at 368 colleges and are included in The Best 368 Colleges, the company’s annual book.

And, if anyone was wondering, this year’s top party school, according to the survey, is the University of Florida. —Beckie Supiano

July 14, 2008

Coyotes, Not Curiosity, Are Killing These Campus Cats

Campuses can be havens for stray cats — until coyotes attack.

At California State University at Long Beach, recent food-chain activity has left campus officials siding with the predators and many staff members defending the prey, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

The officials say Long Beach’s population of about 100 feral cats — fed and tended by volunteers — is attracting coyotes, and the cats must go. But cat lovers have protested, waving “Save the Cats” signs on the campus over the weekend, the Times reported.

“Why would you kill perfectly healthy cats just to save two coyotes?” Leslie Abrahams, leader of an animal-assistance program at the university, asked the Times.

“If a predictable source of prey is removed, the coyotes will typically move,” said university officials, citing the California Department of Fish and Game.

Neither group has recommended bringing roadrunners to the campus to foil the coyotes. —Sara Lipka

July 11, 2008

Fresh Artistic Controversy Hits Yale U.

Yale University’s School of Art is in the news again, this time for expelling a student who says she plans to sue the university for age discrimination and seek reinstatement.

The student, Annabel Osberg, was admitted to the school’s M.F.A. program in painting last year as an 18-year-old after being home-schooled through high school and enrolling as an undergraduate in California at 14. In interviews with the IvyGate blog and a local TV station in New Haven, Conn., she acknowledged that professors at Yale had criticized her work and even had given her a midterm warning. Ms. Osberg said she had then changed her style.

But recently, Yale officials told her she was too immature to continue in the program — even though, she said, they knew she was several years younger than most M.F.A. students when they admitted her.

“It cost a lot of money,” Ms. Osberg told WTNH-TV in an interview. She said Yale’s decision had caused “a lot of heartache and hopes that were shattered.”

Now she wants a court to force Yale to readmit her and is poised to file a lawsuit. Yale officials declined to comment, citing the privacy of student records.

Ms. Osberg’s drama follows another controversy surrounding an art student at Yale last spring. The university refused to display a controversial project by an undergraduate art major, Aliza Shvarts, who said she had induced her own abortions and wanted to put images of them on display as part of her senior art project. The project caused a media uproar, and Yale declined to display the work because, it said, Ms. Shvarts had refused to acknowledge that the abortions were faked. —Robin Wilson

June 30, 2008

President Wraps Up 34-Year Stint at U. of Louisiana at Lafayette

Today is the last day in office for Ray P. Authement, president of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and very likely the nation’s longest-sitting public-university president. After serving as interim president for a year, Mr. Authement took the helm at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1974, 25 years before the university assumed its current name. Mr. Authement will be succeeded on Wednesday by E. Joseph Savoie. —Paul Fain

May 29, 2008

British Students Flip Their Lids at Crackdown on Mortarboard Tossing

Throwing one’s mortarboard to the sky at commencement is an exhilarating gesture, a hallowed tradition, and according to one British university, a risky activity, and in a statement issued on Wednesday, it asked graduates to hold onto their hats this year.

Students at Anglia Ruskin University were not amused by the institution’s effort to protect them from their hats. Frankie Whiffen, who is 23, told The Guardian: “It’s like banning graduation pictures in the outdoors in case an apple or a conker, or a pigeon, falls on someone’s head. They should be worried about more serious things than the chance that a group of adults can’t catch a hat properly.” A conker is British slang for the hazardous fruit of the horse-chestnut tree.

Rowena Boddington, communications officer for the Union of UEA Students, told the Eastern Daily Press: “It just seems stupid really, if they can trust us with a degree, can’t they trust us to chuck a hat in the air and catch it again?”

Even safety groups were dubious about the university’s precautions, the British news Web site Ananova reported. “It’s a great pity if overzealousness on health and safety grounds leads to people’s fun being curtailed,” said Roger Bibbings, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

After the British news media had a field day poking fun at Anglia Ruskin, the university clarified that it had not imposed an all-out ban on mortarboard throwing. In a written statement it asserted that it had only “advised students to be careful since a student had to be hospitalised after he was struck on the head by a hat several years ago.” —Kate Moser

May 25, 2008

Juniata Alumnus Left the College Everything, Even the Cat

Juniata College has received its largest bequest ever — worth some $6.5-million — and it came with a cat named Princess.

Princess became a ward of the Pennsylvania college upon the death of Larry Johnson, a 1961 alumnus who lived the San Francisco Bay area, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Dr. Johnson, a radiologist, left everything to the college when he died, apparently of a heart attack, last July. Besides Princess, the college got a $1.3-million condo, a Lexus, artwork, a 1,500-CD music collection, a .38-caliber pistol, the food in Dr. Johnson’s kitchen, and rolls of toilet paper that he had purchased in bulk.

The college’s planned-giving director, Kim Kitchen, flew to California to inventory his belongings and arrange for many of them to be sold or given away (a neighbor took Princess), and she also attended a ceremony in which his ashes were scattered over the water of San Francisco Bay. Dr. Johnson, who attended Juniata on a scholarship, stipulated in his will that the college use $1.5-million to create a scholarship for a student from his high school, in Somerset, Pa., as well as another $1.5-million for a scholarship that will let a Juniata graduate attend medical school at the University of Rochester, as he did.

Some of the money left over is to create a scholarship fund for freshmen that will be named for one of Dr. Johnson’s professors. —Lawrence Biemiller

May 19, 2008

New Chapel Hill Chancellor Got His Job Offer at the Gas Pump

The University of North Carolina’s president, Erskine B. Bowles, picked an Exxon gas station as the venue for his hiring pitch for the chancellor’s job at Chapel Hill, the system’s flagship campus.

During a meeting several weeks ago in Greensboro, N.C., university officials discussed the job with H. Holden Thorp, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Bowles made his move on the drive with Mr. Thorp back to Chapel Hill.

As Mr. Thorp related in a university-published account, Mr. Bowles was pumping gas into their tank at the Exxon when “he leaned back into the car and said, ‘I know this probably isn’t the place where you thought you’d get the most important job offer of your life, but I’d like you to be the chancellor at Chapel Hill.’”

Mr. Thorp accepted. With his hiring, which was announced two weeks ago, the university has bucked a trend in which most major institutions choose established leaders as their chiefs. However, Chapel Hill is not alone in promoting from within, as it is following similar hires by Vanderbilt and Harvard Universities.

One of the key selling points for Mr. Thorp, an esteemed chemist, North Carolina native, and university alumnus, is that he is only 43 years old. The ideal tenure for a president is a decade, experts say. But only 8 percent of college chiefs are under 50, according to a recent Chronicle survey. —Paul Fain

Graduating Senior Wins Rich Literary Prize at Washington College

A graduating senior at Washington College was presented with one of the most lucrative undergraduate literary awards at the Maryland institution’s commencement on Sunday. According to The Washington Post, the Sophie Kerr Prize, worth $67,481 this year, was awarded to 22-year-old Emma Sovich, an English major, for her poetry, essays, and entries on her blog, The Composing Stick. —Andrew Mytelka

May 10, 2008

Robert Bork and Yale Club Settle $1-Million Lawsuit Out of Court

Robert H. Bork, the rejected Supreme Court nominee and longtime scourge of liberals, has settled his $1-million lawsuit against the Yale Club of New York City, where he tripped, fell, and hurt himself while stepping onto a dais in 2006.

Mr. Bork’s lawsuit, filed last year, accused the club of “wanton, willful, and reckless disregard for the safety of its guests,” and blamed it for the “excruciating pain” he has suffered since the accident and subsequent surgery.

According to the Associated Press, the terms of the settlement are secret, so it’s not clear if Mr. Bork, who is 81, won justice or the $1-million he sought.

One thing’s for sure, however. The settlement keeps the case out of court, and spares the litigants any further unwelcome moments in the spotlight. —Andrew Mytelka