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A new addition to the blogroll: Black On Campus.
It’s a great blog, with all sorts of material on black students, black faculty, and other issues relating to African-American higher education past and present. Just a really rich resource. I’ve already spent a chunk of the morning over there, and it’s going to be a regular read for me from now on.
I recently stumbled across an interesting study of hazing in American colleges and universities, released earlier this year. I haven’t had the chance to fully digest it yet, but I thought I’d pass it along.
A few highlights of the executive summary:
55% of college students involved in clubs, teams, and organizations experience hazing.
Hazing occurs in, but extends beyond, varsity athletics and Greek-letter organizations and includes behaviors that are abusive, dangerous, and potentially illegal.
Alcohol consumption, humiliation, isolation, sleep- deprivation, and sex acts are hazing practices common across types of student groups.
In more than half of the hazing incidents, a member of the offending group posts pictures on a public web space.
More students perceive positive rather than negative outcomes of hazing.
In 95% of the cases where students identified their experience as hazing, they did not report the events to campus officials.
Nine out of ten students who have experienced hazing behavior in college do not consider themselves to have been hazed.
The study defines “hazing” quite broadly, and I’m not sure I buy all of its premises, but it’s certainly worth a peek.
The student government of Ottawa’s Carelton University has apologized for passing a resolution withdrawing its support for cystic fibrosis fundraising.
As we noted over the weekend, the Carleton student government had announced that it was dropping cystic fibrosis research as a beneficiary of its fundraising efforts because it had learned that the disease “only affect[ed] white people, and primarily men.” Neither of those statements turned out to be true.
At a packed public meeting on Monday, the president of the student government personally apologized for the resolution. The student government then went on to unanimously pass a resolution of apology, as well as a separate resolution pledging to increase campus cystic fibrosis fundraising going forward.
The author of the original resolution has resigned his position in student government.
Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania is offering free tuition for “individuals who have recently become unemployed due to business or industry plant closing or layoff.”
The program, which has been implemented twice in the past, offers local residents 12 credits worth of classes in career programs, or up to $900 in free non-credit work-related classes.
(Thanks to Bill Shiebler of USSA for the heads-up.)
For Student Power has a meaty new post up on tactics and strategies for organizing around campus budgeting issues in this time of economic crisis. Check it out.
studentactivism.net 
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