Universities Weblog

If you're looking for a university setting that makes you feel like you're back in middle school, consider the University of West Alabama. UWA just instituted a dress code for students, according to the Associated Press. It is one of the only universities in America to have an actual dress code.

The campus in Livingston, Alabama, has banned tank tops in class. Guys are no longer allowed to wear the sleeveless shirts that often get referred to as "wife beater shirts" to class. And "whales tails," the part of a woman's thong underwear that has become fashionable to display above the waistline of a pair of jeans, is also disallowed on campus.

The vast majority of college campuses have rules against certain behaviors, but attire is usually left to be sorted out by social norms, peer pressure, and more subtle forms of authority expectations. According to the AP, UWA is "one of the na­tion's first state-supported universities to enact a dress code for students."

The dress code is not too gender biased. Along with whales tails, saggy breeches on guys that allow their boxer shorts to be seen are also prohibited by the dress code. Jeans and sweat shirts are prohibited at some more formal campus events like career days and job fairs.

Many students are unhappy about the new dress code, put in place at the beginning of the semester. Enforcement is primarily through "gentle persuasion" according to one source…

The Chronicle of Higher Education is among a number of news sources and blogs covering the ongoing battle between the faculty and the president at Southern Illinois University (SIU). Earlier this month the SIU faculty senate voted 45-5 to ask for President Glenn Poshard's resignation over accusations that he plagiarized portions of his doctoral dissertation.

The fight to remove poshard has become somewhat nasty and taken on political overtones. Poshard has been president of SIU since November of 2005. In August of this year a group calling itself "Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU" accused Poshard of plagiarism in his 1984 doctoral dissertation. While the dissertation would not meet current standards for proper referencing of sources, part of the controversy is retrospective; it is unclear whether Poshard's dissertation met referencing and citation standards of the time, but it seems plausible that it did. Poshard took steps to try and placate the faculty members involved, offering to rewrite his dissertation under their guidance.

If "Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU" had stuck strictly to the issue of Poshard's academic integrity, the battle at SIU might seem more righteous. But the group evidently began by trying to Blackmail Poshard into rehiring, Chris Dussold – a former faculty member who had been released for (you guessed it) plagiarism.

I said that the struggle had taken on political overtones. Poshard served in the state senate in Illinois from 1884-88, was a U.S. Congressman for the next ten years, and ran for governor of Illinois in 1998. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is among those who have voiced public support for Poshard.

The blogosphere is filled with opinions on the SIU tizzy. Peter Kirstein calls Poshard a disgraced, fraudulent plagiarist in his blog. Graducator points out that the Chicago Tribune is among those calling for Poshard's dismissal.

The Scripps Howard Foundation has given the University of Tennessee half a million dollars to build a new media laboratory on the campus in Knoxville, according to PR Newswire. UT's College of Communication and Information in Knoxville will manage the lab.

The new lab will be the Scripps Convergence Communication and Information Laboratory. The lab is intended to help students train for work in the media industry. UT hopes to begin building the lab in the summer of 2008. It will be located on the fourth floor of the campus's Communications Building.

The Scripps Howard Foundation is the philanthropic arm of The E. W. Scripps Company. Both the Knoxville News Sentinel and Scripps Networks operate out of Knoxville. Scripps Networks is home to a number of cable channels, including the Food Network and Great American Country.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is among the news sources reporting that the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) has voted to cut spending on financial aid programs in the 2008-2009 fiscal year by a more than half.

The PHEAA will cut state funded financial aid by 58 percent next year if a vote last week is actually implemented. Cuts would include a reduction in the actual number of students receiving state grants, a cut in aid to students pursuing nursing and education credentials, and a reduction in financial aid for job training programs.

The agency's interim president, James Preston, blamed the reductions on cuts in federal subsidies for student loans and on financial markets.

PHEAA is taking heat from the state legislature for bonuses it has given to agency employees and for luxury retreats that it sends employees on. The state auditor recently warned that PHEAA could run out of money after spending almost $4 million on bonuses and retreats, according to Phillyburbs Dot Com.

Socrates got a raw deal. And U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told students and faculty at Valparaiso University this past week that if he had a time machine, he'd use it to go back and fix that verdict…

The statement, according to an Associated Press story, came in response to a question; a woman at the event asked Scalia what he would do if he could go back in time.

Antonin Gregory Scalia is the second most senior jurists on the U.S. Supreme Court. He has served on the court since 1986.

Scalia spoke at Valparaiso University on Thursday, October 18, to a crowd of about 2,000 people. Socrates was the Greek philosopher sentenced to death in 399 BC for questioning Greek religious tradition. He is supposed to have drank hemlock as an alternative to being exiled from Athens.

M.Bare lives in Valparaiso, Indiana, and said this in his blog post about Scalia's visit: It was a pretty big deal. People on both sides of "the aisle" politically were equally enthused at the opportunity we had to have him here. As I've read many cases so far while in school, I think I can honestly say that Scalia's are the most entertaining…"

Scalia visited Valparaiso University as a guest judge for a Moot Court competition.

PACE (an acronym for Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education) has made a gift to the University of Cincinnati – an in-kind contribution that's being valued by the university at $420,687,132. According to a university press release, that makes it by far the largest gift ever received by UC.

The donation will help in the creation of a new academic program that merges engineering skills with art and architecture. The university's College of Engineering will work together on the new program with the College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning.

PACE was founded in 1999. It has made contributions to 39 academic institutions in 10 countries. The contributions are usually in the form of computer-based engineering tools. PACE works to help provide academic programs in mechanical design, engineering, analysis and manufacturing the equipment they need to impart professional skills to their students. Some 21 U.S. schools have receive PACE donations. Among the corporations involved in Pace are: General Motors, Inc., EDS , Hewlett-Packard Co., Siemens PLM Software, and Sun Microsystems.

The University of Cincinnati has about 35,000 students.

Would you bid on a nerd? A computer geek?

The Linux Users Group, the largest computer club at Washington State University, has teamed up with some campus sororities for an event they're calling "Nerdy and the Greek." The sorority girls will give a make over to seven of the computer club members who will them be auctioned off to raise money for a new scholarship – a computer science scholarship for girls.

"You can buy a nerd and he'll fix your computer, help you with stats homework, or if you're really adventurous, take you to dinner!" club president Ben Ford said on the group's website. Several news sources have picked up the story, including Seattle Times and CNN. Less than five percent of computer science students at Washington State are female. That reflects a national trend.

Not everyone is happy about the event. "This is offensively stereotypical and outrageously insensitive," was one of many anonymous comments. But the university doesn't seem to agree.

The auction is scheduled for October 26th.

Richard Robert, president of Oral Roberts university and son of evangelist Oral Roberts, has asked the board of ORU for a leave of absence in the face of a lawsuit from former faculty and variety of accusations that are being made against Roberts and his wife.

The Associated Press carried the story today about Roberts' request for leave.

Roberts has been accused of "lavish spending at donors' expense and illegal involvement in a political campaign," according to the AP. Three ORU faculty members claim they were released from the university for questioning Roberts' expenses – expenses they say included a trip to the Bahamas for his daughter on the university's private jet.

The lawsuit by former faculty also alleges that Roberts' wife, Lindsay Roberts, has been using university resources to phone and text message underage males and that she has "spent the night in the ORU guest house with an underage male on nine separate occasions," according to the AP story. Lindsay Roberts has denied any inappropriate relationships.

They've beat up I-AA Youngstown State; terrorized teams in the MAC like Akron and Kent State; beaten conference foes Northwestern (4-3), Purdue (5-2), and Minnesota (1-6); and managed to overcome one of the PAC-10's worst teams in Washington.

Is there anyone who really believes that Ohio State is the best football team in America?

Dan Wetzel and Terry Bowden both argued this week that there just has to be something better than the Bowl Championship Series to determine a national champion in football. I agree.

Before this week I was skeptical about a playoff system. But I think I'm coming around.

Wetzel makes the observation that the current system penalizes good conference and rewards bad ones. The Big 10 beats up on the MAC each year; the SEC hires whipping boys from the Sun Belt. But when it comes to out of conference games with BCS rivals, while the Big 10 has been piddling around with out of conference foes like 2-4 Washington, 1-6 Syracuse, 1-6 Notre Dame, and 1-6 Duke, SEC teams are playing Louisville, 9th ranked West Virginia, 10th ranks Cal, and 11th ranked Virginia Tech. So far this year, nobody in the SEC has lost to a 1-AA team…

I remember Ohio State being ranked #1 last year. I remember once-beaten Florida kicking the living crap out of them in the title game. My personal thoughts are that Florida should have played someone else for the title.

This much I'm sure of: it's time for the BCS to go the way of old lettuce and freezer burnt chicken. Throw it out and we'll live with whatever comes next…

Fraternities at St. John's University in New York City have been banned from inducting new recruits after the hazing of a Sigma Chi Upsilon pledge resulted in nine days of hospitalization – four of them on kidney dialysis.

The pledge's mother spoke to the NY Times about the incident.

The incident occurred on the Staten Island Campus of St. John's. The pledge's mother described how he was made to carry heavy objects while on his knees and stomped on while doing push-ups before being "pummeled." He son was taken to the emergency room on September 23rd.

A Sigma Chi Upsilon connected blog, Sanguine et Purpure, said that no arrests have been made, although police are investigating the incident. Sanguine et Purpure describes itself as "Unofficial, Unauthorized, Unfettered – A Balanced Blog for Sigma Phi Epsilon."