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| RIAA Complaints Surge, Bad Timing for Students |
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As the academic year winds down, the Recording Industry Association of American has amped up its efforts to crack down on illegal downloads, and its biggest target is students. Over the past few weeks schools have received hundreds of notices regarding illegal downloads on campus – many schools saying they have gotten more notices in the past week than throughout the rest of the year. While students and campus officials speculate on possible reasons for the dramatic up-tick, RIAA officials claimed it is a simple matter of new detection software. Because many schools are currently entering finals week, students’ abilities to study and write final papers could be seriously affected by RIAA litigation and potentially losing network access. More from Wired More from the University of Illinois More from Whitworth University More from UWIRE More from Inside Higher Ed |
| Issue: Student Governance and Campus Administration |
| As Democratic Primary Continues, So Does Youth Participation |
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Exit polls from Tuesday’s Democratic primary elections in Indiana and North Carolina indicate continued strong youth voter participation. The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning Engagement estimates that 434,000 young voters cast ballots yesterday. Exit polls also showed young voters heavily supporting Senator Obama, 74% to 25% in North Carolina and 62% to 38% in Indiana. In Indiana, anecdotal reports demonstrated the effects of Indiana’s voter identification law, recentlyupheld by the Supreme Court, as nuns and students were turned away at the polls for lack of proper identification. More from CIRCLE More from the Wall Street Journal More from USA Today More from the Indiana Daily Student More about the Indiana ID law effects from the AP Check out an audio slide show put together by the NC State Technician |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Campus Newspaper Staff Take Stands on Campus Safety |
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Following the recent sexual assault of a student, the staff of Trinity College’s newspaper, The Tripod, released a statement calling for the university administration to step up its safety policies and provide students with better, more comprehensive safety on campus. The Tripod staff collected and printed 742 signatures from students who said they were concerned about the current status of safety on campus and even proposed solutions for safety on campus, including relieving the Office of Campus Safety of its transportation duties, increasing the budget for the Campus Safety Department and holding individual Campus Safety Officers accountable for their interactions with students on campus. At nearby University of Connecticut, the campus paper The Daily Campus featured an editorial written by student editor Melissa Bruen who was recently sexually assaulted on campus. Her first-hand account of the sexual attack on campus, as a crowd of onlookers watched, provides a chilling look into the growing need for comprehensive safety programs on campus. Melissa says she wrote the account to raise awareness among students, and to urge students to take action when others are in peril. More from Trinity College More from the University of Connecticut More about the UConn Daily Campus editor’s assault |
| Issue: Student Media Culture |
| UNC Student Protestors Arrested 3 Weeks Into Protest |
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The student protest at the University of North Carolina asking Chancellor James Moeser to sign the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP) – a pact requiring the university to buy 75 percent of its licensed apparel from factories that pay living wages and allow collective bargaining -- ended after its third week. Members of Student Action with Workers, a chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops, started a sit-in April 17, occupying a section of a UNC administrative building. When an administrative committee rejected the DSP, students moved into the chancellor’s office, resulting in 5 arrests. 44 universities have already joined the program, including nearby Duke University. More from the University of North Carolina More from the Charlotte Observer Read a previous NSNS Post about similar arrests on 3 other campuses |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Students, Tomato Pickers Want it Their Way |
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Last week the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based organization that represents immigrant farm workers in Florida, and their student partners, the Student Farmworker Alliance (SFA), presented Burger King with a petition asking for a penny per pound pay raise for Florida tomato pickers. The CIW and SFA collected over 80,000 signatures from 50 states and 43 countries urging BK to join other fast-food restaurants such as Taco Bell and McDonalds in boosting the wages of Florida’s tomato pickers. The same day activists delivered the petitions, it was discovered that Burger King Vice President Stephen Grover had used his daughter’s email address to spread malevolent misinformation about the CIW. Since then, further evidence has emerged that Burger King officials posed as students in attempts to infiltrate the SFA. More from the University of Central Florida Watch a video of student protests at Florida International University More about the petition served to Burger King and Grover’s online activity More about Grover and others attempts to vilify and infiltrate CIW and SFA |
| Issue: Social Justice |
| Gun Seller Speaks at Virginia Tech, Advocates Concealed Carry |
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Eric Thompson, owner of the online firearms store TGSCOM that sold one of the guns used by Seung-Hui Cho in the Virginia Tech massacre, and two of the guns used by Steven Kazmierczak in the Northern Illinois University shootings, recently spoke at Virginia Tech in support of concealed carry on campus. Thompson was invited to speak by the student organization Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, and focused the bulk of his speech on ways to prevent campus violence, including strengthening laws that regulate mental illness and offering student discounts on firearms. One student, wearing a shirt that read “Guns Kill,” attended Thompson’s speech but drew little attention. May students, however, have expressed staunch opposition to concealed carry on campus. Read more from Virginia Tech Read more from CNN Read a student’s thoughts on campus safety Read more about Thompson’s efforts to combat violence on campus at TSGCOM’s website |
| Issue: Student Governance and Campus Administration |
| Arizona Rep. Proposes Bill Amendment to “Protect” Western Values |
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Arizona state representative Russell Pearce has proposed an amendment to Senate Bill 1108, originally intended to implement minor changes to Arizona’s Homeland Security advisory councils, that seeks to ban Arizona public schools from using taxpayers’ money to teach subjects considered contradictory to Western civilization or democracy. The measure would also ban students from forming campus groups based on race or ethnicity, like MEChA, a national organization of Hispanic students. The proposal, which was recently approved by the House Appropriations Committee, comes partly in reaction to a controversial ethnic-studies program in the Tucson School District that opponents find “unpatriotic.” Read more from Arizona Central Read more from Arizona State University |
| Issue: Free Speech and Academic Rights |
| International Focus on Tibet and China Provokes Student Response |
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As the 2008 Summer Olympics draw closer and the world’s attention focuses on China, tensions between China and Tibet are intensifying and activists on both sides of the conflict are taking action. Pro-Tibet protests have been a staple on college campuses over the past few decades, and have intensified in recent weeks. Increased media attention surrounding the issue has provoked a strong response from Chinese students who see the attention as a denigration of their country. As most of the Chinese students are inexperienced as activists, many of their actions have been reactive to pro-Tibet speeches and actions and seem focused on drowning out the voices of their opponents. At the University of Washington, where the Dalai Lama recently spoke, students fought to limit his speech to strictly non-political topics. At Duke Chinese protestors drowned out a pro-Tibet vigil and a Chinese freshman who tried to mediate received death threats. Read more from the New York Times Read more from the University at Buffalo Read more from the LA Times Read more about pro-Tibet protests at UMASS Amherst |
| Issue: Social Justice |
| Harvard Institute of Politics Surveys Young America |
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Harvard University’s Institute of Politics recently released their latest Survey on Politics and Public Service, a political survey conducted every election cycle to gage the political prowess and civic engagement of young Americans. The survey revealed a sea change in the way America’s youth engage in politics, marked by record voter turnout. Just this year the youth vote quadrupled in Tennessee, and nearly tripled in Iowa, Georgia, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas. As political candidates and campaigns begin to target young people through the use of the Web and social networking technology, and as the country’s political issues take on growing global significance, 18 to 24-year-olds are growing increasingly politicized and will have a lot to say on Election Day. Check out the Harvard Institute of Politics Survey Read more from the Boston Globe |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Vietnamese Student Union Protests Repatriation Legislation |
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The University of California at Los Angeles' Vietnamese Student Union held a protest last Wednesday in response to the U.S. and Vietnamese Repatriation Agreement, enacted in late January, directed at Vietnamese residents in the U.S. Under the legislation Vietnamese residents will be deported if they arrived on or after July 12, 1995 and received an order of removal because of criminal offenses. President of the Vietnamese Student Union said that many of these Vietnamese residents could be deported on minor criminal offenses, such as writing a bad check – crimes most of them already served time for. Read more from UCLA |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Colorado Governor Proposes New Scholarship Program |
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Colorado ranks close to the bottom in higher education spending, with large spending cuts and tuition increases over the past five years. Last Thursday Colorado Governor Bill Ritter announced a ballot initiative to create the Colorado Promise Scholarship Fund by eliminating tax credits for oil and gas drilling in the state. The chair of the Associated Students of Colorado, a statewide student government association, praised the initiative and commended the state for taking steps to ensure access to Colorado’s Universities. Students and University Presidents were also quick to point out that the scholarship fund is good but will not solve Colorado’s higher education funding crisis. Read more from Colorado State University Read more from the Denver Post |
| Issue: Higher Education Affordability |
| Court ID Decision Burden to Students |
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On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Indiana state law requiring voters to produce state-issued photo identification for eligibility. The law, one of the most restrictive in the country, does not allow students to use college identification cards. The court, in a vote of 6-3, justified the decision as an effort to protect against voter fraud despite no history of such fraud in Indiana. More than 20 states require some form of identification at the polls and the issue is increasingly split along partisan lines. Civil rights and student groups argue the laws will disproportionately deter student, elderly, minority, and low-income voters from voting. The court’s decision fell exactly a week before Indiana’s presidential primary. Read more from the University of Indiana Read more from The Hill |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Earth Day 08 |
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Tuesday marked the 38th annual Earth Day, and campuses across the country used the event to celebrate, educate, and advocate environmental awareness. Some campuses held events over the weekend and some on Tuesday, many including a mix of concerts and information fairs. Union College students and faculty used the day to focus on climate change and the campus’s carbon footprint by hosting an information table and having faculty devote ten minutes of class time to environmental topics. Read more from UC Santa Barbara |
| Issue: Environment |
| Students Turn Out For PA Primary |
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The morning after the highly anticipated Pennsylvania primary, campus newspapers are reporting record student turnout. The Penn State Daily Collegian and a local paper report a turnout of 4,433 voters at student heavy precincts, up from 444 in the 2004 primary, with at least 2,000 students voting at one on-campus polling place. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports around 2,500 Penn students voted, a thousand more than voted in the general election in 2006. As has been the case in most but not all other states, exit polls showed young voters broke heavily to Senator Obama. Read more from Penn
State |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Pennsylvania Student Government Leaders Back Obama |
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In another sign that more young people are paying close attention to the presidential race, and that candidates and the media are likewise paying attention to young voters, the student body presidents from four Philadelphia area colleges cosigned an endorsement of Senator Obama last week – and their endorsement got attention. At Penn, the endorsement stirred a small controversy and Inside Higher Ed profiled the endorsement in the context of a swirl of competing endorsements at Penn. In Scranton, the Scranton High School Senior Class President, Colin Saltry, was told to step down from his position after skipping gym class to meet Senator Obama at a diner across the street. Saltry went so far as to get an excuse slip signed by Senator Obama, but Scranton High administrators did not accept it. Read more from Penn |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Generation Engaged |
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Yesterday’s Pennsylvania primary came six weeks after the last primary vote, making the Keystone State the center of intense campaigning and attention. Over the past several weeks and through Election Day, students demonstrated in myriad ways that they are paying attention, getting active in the campaign and voting. A study by CBS News and UWire found the overwhelming majority of young voters in Pennsylvania paying attention to the race. It also found that 9 out of 10 registered Pennsylvania college students intended to vote. The Swarthmore Phoenix profiled on-campus efforts by students to turn out their peers for their favored candidate and the Saint Joseph Hawk reported record activity and interest on campus. Research shows, however, that non-college youth continue to be disengaged from the presidential election. Read more from CBS |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| UW Milwaukee SGA Elections Clouded with Controversy |
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April brings student government elections to campuses across the country and with them election controversies. The controversy at UW Milwaukee has raised the bar - the Wisconsin ACLU called them a “sham.” The controversy centers around the decision of the Independent Elections Commissioner, who is closely associated with one party and who completely removed the competing party from the ballot for highly disputed and possibly framed elections violations. Read More from the UWM Post |
| Issue: Student Governance and Campus Administration |
| Thousands of Students Rally Against Fee Hikes in California |
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Because of steep budget cuts in the California state budget, students in California face possible large tuition increases next year. Thousands of students- estimates range from one to three thousand - gathered in Sacramento to protest the cuts and lobby their legislators. The effort was coordinated by Students for California’s Future, a newly formed coalition of the statewide student government associations of California’s three higher education systems. Read more from UC San Francisco |
| Issue: Higher Education Affordability |
| 60,000 Freshmen for UC |
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The University of California System
released admissions data this week, announcing a record breaking 60,000
admissions of California
students to begin classes next fall at the system's 10 campuses. While overall admissions were up, the
acceptance rate was down due to a demographic surge of college age
Californians. The UC System highlighted
the increased diversity of its accepted students, with double digit increases
of Latino and African American students.
Since the passage of proposition 209 in 1996 California universities have been forbidden
from considering race, gender or ethnicity in admissions decisions. |
| Issue: Higher Education Affordability |
| Arrests End Student Sit-ins on Three Campuses |
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This week, students staged sit-ins at Appalachian State University, The University of Montana and Penn State, all demanding their university sign on the Designated Supplier Program (DSP). The sit-ins all ended with arrests, the largest at Penn State where 31 students were arrested. A fourth sit-in has started today at the University of North Carolina. When schools adopt the DSP, a program of the Workers Right Consortium and United Students against Sweatshops, they commit to only working with suppliers who meet a set of workplace standards. None of the sit-ins have so far produced results for the students, who have been working on the campaign for several years on all of the campuses. Read
more from Penn State |
| Issue: Social Justice |
| Publishers Bite Back on Course Packs |
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Three textbooks publishers, backed by the Association of American Publishers, are suing Georgia State over its use of digital course packets. The lawsuit claims that the university is distributing copyrighted material to students without permission or paying licensing fees. The lawsuit asks the University to suspend the practice but stops short of asking for financial compensation. Georgia Tech has so for defended its practice as protected under the fair use doctrine, which allows for limited use of copyrighted materials. As legal precedent exists concerning physical but not digital course packs, the case could determine future digital course pack practices across the country. Read
more from the New York Times |
| Issue: Higher Education Affordability |
| 1000 Professors for Open Textbooks |
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The Affordable Textbooks Campaign, a project of the Student PIRGs, Arizona Students Association, California State Student Association, and student governments across the country, announced on Tuesday that over 1,000 professors have signed a statement of intent to use “open textbooks”- free, online and open source textbooks. Because the availability of open textbooks is still relativity small, one goal of statement is to educate faculty and spur the creation of more open textbooks. The announcement marks a new direction for the campaign, which has so far documented publisher worst practices, passed legislation in numerous states and is currently supporting a bill before congress. Read
more from Inside Higher Ed |
| Issue: Higher Education Affordability |
| Virginia Tech: One Year Anniversary |
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Campuses across the country joined Virginia Tech Wednesday to memorialize the 32 students and faculty killed one year ago in the infamous campus shooting. The shooting by a student with a history of mental health problems has prompted a nationwide reevaluation of campus mental health, privacy, security, and firearm policies. Many campuses have adopted text alert systems that are getting their first uses this spring and, while there has been a flurry of debates on campus and in state legislatures concerning the right to bear arms on campus, little has changed in terms of gun policies. Campuses continue to reevaluate their approach to working with students with mental health problems, attempting to find a new balance between security and privacy. Virginia Senator Jim Webb introduced legislation Tuesday to amend the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 to make it easier for educators to release information about troubled students. Read
comprehensive coverage from Virginia Tech |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Energy Orbs Gage Energy Consumption at Oberlin |
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Oberlin recently kicked off its first ‘Ecolympics’ by installing energy orbs on campus. The orbs, located in each dorm’s lobby, glow different colors representing that dorm’s energy consumption. Students, faculty, and staff at the college collaborated on the project, basing the energy orb on the 2005 ‘Stock Orb,’ which shifted color depending on fluctuations in the stock market. The goal of the project is to draw students’ attention to and over time cut energy consumption. If the pilot project is successful, Oberlin plans to make the orbs a permanent installation on campus. Read more from Oberlin |
| Issue: Environment |
| Rising Gas Prices Inspire Facebook Organizing |
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As the price of gas continues its steady increase, concerned Facebook users have created more than 500 global groups dedicated to griping about gas and brainstorming ways to lower prices. The University of Alabama Crimson White spoke with a professor who found the majority of ‘solutions’ proposed by the facebook groups impractical and advised that the best way to lower gas prices was to drive less. Read more from the University of Alabama
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| Issue: Environment |
| The Digitized Election |
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As more and more people – especially young people - get their news and watch television and video online, political campaigns and unaffiliated supporters are turning to tools like youtube to get their message out. At Columbia University, the class “The American Presidency since 1898” hosted the creators of the “Obama Girl” youtube series to discuss the creation and reaction to their online videos, including the reaction of Obama Campaign, which found itself in uncharted territory upon the release and popularity of “Obama Girl.” In Pennsylvania, currently ground zero for the Democratic Primary competition, students at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania created short youtube clips on the issues they cared about in the election. C-SPAN partnered with youtube to collect the videos and is visiting eight campuses running up to next Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary. Read more from Columbia |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Students Swap Notes, Tutor Online |
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A group of students from Washington University in St. Louis recently founded Schoology.com, a virtual education website that allows students to earn money while sharing class notes and tutoring each other online. Students who join the website can download available class notes for free, sign up for individual or group tutoring sessions, and even shop around for the perfect tutor. As an incentive for students to upload their notes, the website’s founders will be redirecting 90% of the site’s advertising revenue back to student contributors, based on the popularity of their notes and time spent tutoring. Read more from Washington University |
| Issue: Choose One |
| MIT Student Subpoenaed Over Text Messaging Tool |
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New York City recently subpoenaed MIT doctoral student Edward Hirsch to gain access to text messages sent through TxTMob, a system Hirsch developed to help activists communicate via text messaging. The system, created for protesters at the 2004 Republican Convention in New York, was designed specifically to guard their digital communications from law enforcement. Interestingly, New York City is not asking for records in order to prosecute demonstrators but instead to defend against hundreds of lawsuits filed by people arrested during the convention. Hirsch is fighting the subpoena on privacy grounds and the case could set a precedent for the privacy of online and digital communication. Read more from
MIT |
| Issue: Free Speech and Academic Rights |
| Illinois Student Running for State Rep |
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University of Illinois junior Frank Calabrese recently announced that he was running as the Republican Party nominee for University of Illinois’ State House seat. Nearly half the population of the district is comprised of students, a fact cited by Calabrese when explaining his decision to run. Calabrese, who recently lost his bid for Student Body President said his success would depend on the participation of his peers. Read more from the University of Illinois |
| Issue: Civic Participation |
| Clothesline Project Gives Voice to Domestic Violence Victims |
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In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Students across the country are participating in The Clothesline Project, an initiative to address the issue of domestic violence on campus. The project provides a voice to women affected by violence through decorated T-shirts. The shirts are displayed on campus in the form of a clothesline in an effort to spark discussion and raise awareness about the prevalence of sexual violence against women. On some campuses T-shirts are gathered from local women’s shelters and from students themselves. Read more from the University of New Mexico |
| Issue: Social Justice |
