Student Governance and Campus Administration

  As students continue to grapple with the recent tragedy at Northern Illinois University, support for the victims and families of last week’s shooting has been pouring out from campuses all over the country. Several schools are holding forums on campus safety as students become increasingly concerned for their safety, while others, including Virginia Tech, are holding memorials for their peers. Visit the memorial site for the victims from Northern Illinois University

  Crash course: Darfur is a region of Sudan (that’s in Africa) where genocide is currently taking place. Divestment, or pulling money from companies profiting in the situation, is a proven method of forcing change. U Chicago’s chapter of STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) met with their administration about the African crisis and learned administrators were feeling cautious about divestment because of guidelines contained in the Kalven Report, a University document designed (in 1967) to protect academic freedom & neutrality. Now the last living member of the Kalven Committe

  Think a professor not showing up to class for a month would be a breeze?  Students at the University of Southern California are fed up with a professor who has not shown up to class in a month, instead having guest lecturers fill in. 3/5/07  Read More from the University of Southern California

  Two weeks ago Gene Nichols, the president of William & Mary College, resigned under pressure from the University Board of Visitors. His resignation was the culmination of months of controversy and prompted further controversy among both students and faculty, many of whom felt he was pushed out for his support for student free speech.  A new wrinkle was added last week when a member of the Board of Visitors resigned in protest, revealing that the board had in fact not decided unanimously against renewing Nichols’s contract, as had been originally stated by the Board Rector.

  The University of Maryland Department of Transportation Services accidentally printed the social security numbers of nearly 24,000 students on mailing labels for parking brochures. The brochures were sent out on July 1st and the error was not discovered until a week later when students began calling with complaints. A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation Services said that whe

  A recent study conducted by a sociology professor at Augsburg College in Minnesota found that colleges and universities across the country are misrepresenting campus diversity by printing brochures and promotional literature that portray greater campus diversity than actually exists. Professor Timothy Pippert and sociology student Edward Matchett collaborated on the study based on random sampling of material from 371 colleges and universities across the country. The study analyzed the accuracy of racial representation by comparing each school’s population percentages with portrayed p

  A Rutgers University professor has banned cell phones from his classroom, with one notable exception: students who have a cell phone in class can put it on his desk in the beginning of class, to receive it after class is over.  The professor cites privacy concerns over newer technology that can be used to record audio and video.   4/4/07  Read More from Rutgers University

  Miami University’s administration is examining its policies regarding campus surveillance in order to clear up any inconsistencies in its written policy. According to this article from the Miami Student, changes may result in more video surveillance. As American University’s paper The Eagle reports, lawyers and school administrators are debating the use of Facebook as a law enforcement tool. At a recent conference on student policing and privacy held at Stetson University, interested parties debated the implications of a case from DePauw University, in which adminis