Category Archives: Students

Inside Higher Ed: Homeland Security Montiored Students

As part of continuing litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union involving Pentagon surveillance of campuses across the nation, the organization’s northern California chapter has obtained new information that highlights a previously unknown role by the Department of Homeland Security.

Evidence of surveillance by the Pentagon was first uncovered in December when NBC News ran a report on a 400-page database, which characterized “threats” stemming from military protests and demonstrations at institutions of higher education nationwide as either “credible or “not credible.” New York University, the State University of New York at Albany, Southern Connecticut State University, the City College of City University of New York, the University of California at Santa Cruz, “a NJ Area University,” the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison were all listed in the database.

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The Athens News: OU sends warning letters about plagiarism to former students

Faced with the fact that more than 50 mechanical engineering master’s theses in its library are believed to contain plagiarized material, Ohio University has sent warning letters to the alums who wrote the papers.

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The State: ORANGEBURG MASSACRE: McNair takes responsibility for tragedy in book

In a new biography, former Gov. Robert E. McNair takes responsibility for the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre.

Three black students were killed and 27 wounded at South Carolina State College on Feb. 8, 1968 following days of escalating tensions between students and police.

“The fact that I was governor at the time placed the mantle of responsibility squarely on my shoulders, and I have borne that responsibility with all the heaviness it entails for all those years,” McNair told Philip G. Grose, author of “South Carolina at the Brink: Robert McNair and the Politics of Civil Rights” (USC Press, $39.95).

It is McNair’s strongest statement to date on a subject he has been reticent to speak about publicly.

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Christian Science Monitor:

Jennifer Avilez says her parents, both from Mexico, worked hard their whole lives to get her into a good school. So when she walked out of that school in late March to protest an immigration bill passed by the House, she did it for all those who hadn’t achieved as much.

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Chinese students riot over diploma changes

SHANGHAI, China — College students in central China smashed offices and set fires in a riot sparked by administrative changes that made their diplomas less prestigious, students and school administrators said Monday.

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ACLU: ACLU of Virginia Challenges Regulation Banning Alcohol-Related Advertising in College Publications

The ACLU of Virginia today filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control claiming that its restrictions on alcohol-related advertisements in college publications are unconstitutional. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Collegiate Times and The Cavalier Daily, student-run newspapers at Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, respectively.

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AP: Apple surpasses beer on college campuses

Undergrads rate their iPods as more ‘in’ than beer

Thursday, June 8, 2006 Posted: 1626 GMT (0026 HKT)

SAN JOSE, California (AP) — College life is not just about drinking beer.

In a rare instance, Apple Computer Inc.’s iconic iPod music player surpassed beer drinking as the most “in” thing among undergraduate college students, according to the latest biannual market research study by Ridgewood, New Jersey-based Student Monitor.

Nearly three quarters, or 73 percent, of 1,200 students surveyed said iPods were “in” — more than any other item in a list that also included text messaging, bar hopping and downloading music.

In the year-ago study, only 59 percent of students named the iPod as “in,” putting the gadget well below alcohol-related activities.

This year, drinking beer and Facebook.com, a social networking Web site, were tied for second most popular, with 71 percent of the students identifying them as “in.”

The only other time beer was temporarily dethroned in the 18 years of the survey was in 1997 — by the Internet, said Eric Weil, a managing partner at Student Monitor.

Though beer might soon regain its No. 1 spot, as it quickly did a decade ago, the iPod’s popularity is still “a remarkable sign,” Weil said. “For those who believe there’s an excessive amount of drinking on campus, now there’s something else that’s common on campuses.”

Student Monitor conducted the survey the week of March 6, interviewing full-time undergraduate students at 100 U.S. colleges. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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San Diego Union-Tribune: Chilean high school students resume strikes

SANTIAGO, Chile – Small groups of protesters clashed sporadically with police Monday as more than 600,000 Chilean high school students joined an expanding strike pushing for increased education funding.

The strike, the largest such action by Chilean students in decades, is the first domestic crisis of President Michelle Bachelet’s nearly three-month-old government.

The public high school pupils are demanding free bus fare, free college entrance exams, more teachers, and improved secondary school buildings. They rejected Bachelet’s offer last week of $135 million in additional annual funding for school programs, saying it failed to meet their key demands.

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The Chronicle: In the states

FINGERPRINT BILL: A North Carolina senator has introduced legislation to require fingerprinting and criminal-background checks for all students enrolling at the state’s 16 public universities, beginning in the fall of 2007. Prospective students could be charged for the background checks, which, under the legislation, would be conducted by the state’s Bureau of Investigation or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 2004 two female students at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington were stalked and killed by fellow students who had concealed their troubled pasts. But a lawyer for the university system questioned whether the background checks would reveal much information because all juvenile records are sealed.

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The Santiago Times: CHILE STUDENTS CONTINUE CHALLENGING BACHELET GOVERNMENT

(May 23, 2006) High school students at the Instituto Nacional – one of the nation’s oldest and best known public schools – announced Monday an end to their illegal occupation (or “toma”) of the school, saying they had “changed tactics” and will no longer attend classes until the government responds to their demands. The students said their school “strike” will continue indefinitely and that they will not call for further street demonstrations.

BBC: In Pictures: Chile student protests

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Inside Higher Ed:

The American Council on Education has released a new analysis looking at students who hold jobs while enrolled in college. The analysis is based on data previously released by the Education Department and found that nearly 80 percent of undergraduates work, with the average time per week hitting 30 hours. One-third of these students consider themselves employees who are also enrolled in college, not students paying for college. One surprise noted in the study was that many affluent students also work long hours while in college.

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The Chronicle: Students Plan to Sue U. of Colorado at Boulder for Publishing Photos of Them at Marijuana Rally

Lawyers representing some of the students who were photographed by campus police officers at a pro-marijuana rally last month at the University of Colorado at Boulder plan to sue the university, saying the university violated the students’ federal civil rights. The police had posted online photographs of about 150 students — some of them smoking, others not — and offered $50 rewards for their identities.

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Daily Princetonian: Referendum’s success comes as a surprise

In the wake of yesterday’s passage of the Student Bill of Rights, both liberals and conservatives students on campus have been left scratching their heads, asking themselves a simple question: How did this happen?

Few observers — including those who proposed the bill — expected the undergraduate body to approve the measure in this weekend’s referendum after opposition groups launched a campaign to sink it. Indeed, the bill passed with a slim majority, with 51.8 percent of students voting in favor.

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The Chronicle: 17 Students Are Arrested at U. of Virginia After Sit-In Outside President’s Office

Seventeen students taking part in a sit-in at the University of Virginia were arrested on Saturday night after spending four days in the lobby to the president’s office in a “living wage” campaign on behalf of university workers.

A similar protest on behalf of workers at the University of Vermont ended Friday night when two dozen demonstrators were evicted from a tent city on the university green.

The Virginia students want the university to raise the wages of its lowest-paid workers from $9.37 to $10.72 per hour.

In a statement, John T. Casteen III, the university’s president, said he had met with the students several times and felt that the protest had gone on long enough: “The university takes no pleasure in having to arrest its own students, but it was time for the disruption to come to an end.”

The president said the protest was interfering with the work of university administrators and was costing them time over the holiday weekend.

The students were charged with trespassing. One of the students was also charged with resisting arrest, and another was charged with vandalism.

Abby Bellows, a senior at the university and an organizer of the Living Wage Campaign, told the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, that she was “very disappointed that this is how the university has chosen to respond to the critical thinking and constructive compromises of students standing with workers.”

In Vermont, members of the Student Labor Action Project had put up tents on Tuesday after a failed attempt to occupy the president’s office. The protest ended peacefully after university and Burlington, Vt., police officers surrounded their tents and told them they had to leave.

The university’s lowest-paid workers earn $9 an hour and have health benefits, a university official told a local newspaper. The student group is seeking a $12-an-hour wage for the workers.

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The Chronicle: What’s in a grade?

A study showing that conservative and liberal students do equally well in courses with politically charged content casts doubt on conservative activists’ claims that liberal faculty members routinely discriminate against their conservative students.

Inside Higher Ed: Grading Edge for Conservative Students

In debates over the Academic Bill of Rights, supporters of the controversial legislation have suggested that conservative students are the victims of classroom bias — and receive lower grades or even failing grades because of their political views.

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MRZine: Expand the Mobilization on 4 April, A New Day of Mobilization

The success of work stoppages and strikes and the power of the demonstrations of 28 March, their unity and intergenerational character as well as the movement’s duration and magnitude in high schools and universities, prove to be a historic mobilization, to demand the withdrawal of the CPE and the opening of negotiations.

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Le succès des arrêts de travail, des grèves et la puissance des manifestations du 28 mars, leur caractère unitaire et intergénérationnel, tout comme la durée du mouvement et son ampleur dans les lycées et universités montrent une mobilisation historique, pour exiger le retrait du CPE et l’ouverture de négociations.

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The Daily Collegian: PSU students disrobe in sweatshop protest

As Ben Brewer expressed his disapproval of Penn State’s link to sweatshops, his jockstrap was just as effective as the protest signs and rally chants.

With only a set of pom-poms tucked inside the front of his jockstrap, Brewer (junior-philosophy) demonstrated alongside 20 other students yesterday, most of them also minimally dressed.

“The theme is ‘nothing to wear’ — mostly because we would really like to wear Penn State clothing, but we are not given that option by administrators,” Theresa Haas (senior-biology) said as she held a well-placed rally poster over her Saran-wrapped chest. “It may seem very radical and extreme, but conditions in sweatshops are extreme, too.”

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