Colleges Nudge Super-Seniors Toward the Door

April 20, 2009 in Access, Administration, Finances, Students, Tuition and Fees | by | Leave a comment

San Jose State University had to turn away more than four thousand qualified applicants this spring. So now, in an effort to make more room for newcomers next year, it’s looking to cull its returning roster.

Fifteen percent of SJSU’s ten thousand seniors have held senior status for at least three years, and three hundred of them have accumulated 150 credits or more. Thirty-five of those have been undergrads at the school for a decade or longer, and two have been there for fifteen years — each of them earning more than 360 credits.

A bachelor of arts degree at SJSU requires only 120.

There’s not much SJSU can do to force these students to graduate, though it does intend to give them a nudge. Students with 120% or more of the credits they need to graduate will be required to sit for a session of “intrusive advising” with a dean, in which they will be shown — and urged to do — what it takes to finish and leave. 

Other colleges are taking different approaches to the problem. California State East Bay is cutting off financial aid for third-year seniors. Baylor University charges full-time tuition to all students, and UNC hikes tuition once you hit 140 total credits.

Is There A Progressive Youth Movement?

April 20, 2009 in Campus Protests, History, Politics, Student Power, Students, Youth | by | 4 comments

Kevin Bondelli of the Young Democrats is exploring what he calls the Progressive Youth Movement in what he says “will most likely be a large series” of blogposts “entitled ‘Lessons from Sociopolitical Movements.'” It’s an exciting project, and I’m looking forward to seeing where he takes it.

I do, though, have some questions. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Follow Us On Twitter!

April 19, 2009 in Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Student Power | by | Leave a comment

I’ll be writing more about the specifics soon, but I’ve got some big plans for Twitter-based activist projects in the works. 

If you’re on Twitter, consider following our feed. If you’re not on Twitter yet, you should sign up — amazing people are doing amazing stuff over there.

Another Groundless “Sexting” Prosecution

April 19, 2009 in Administration, Civil Liberties, Gender, High School, Litigation, Media, Politics, Student Bashing, Students | by | Leave a comment

Last month I wrote about a DA threatening high school students with child porn prosecutions for taking photos of themselves on their cell phones.

Now comes word of another prosecutor abusing his authority in a teen “sexting” case, this time harassing a high school administrator.

The story starts in March 2008: Ting-Yi Oei, an assistant principal in Virginia, is investigating sexting at his school. He confiscates an underwear snap from a student’s cellphone. He can’t identify the person in the photo, so he reports to his principal and closes the investigation.

When he suspends that student for an unrelated offense a couple of weeks later, the student’s mother calls the cops.

Prosecutors investigate, charge him with failure to report child abuse. That charge isn’t going anywhere, because he made a full report to his principal. So they charge him with child pornography. They delay informing him of the charges so they can have him arrested at school on his first day back after summer vacation.

The media run stories, with his photo, saying he’s been arrested for child porn. He’s placed on leave. Television news crews stalk him. Prosecutors press him to resign. He racks up a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in legal bills.

Finally, three weeks ago — even months after his arrest, and nearly a year after Oei first talked to the cops — a judge throws the charges out, finding Oei has broken no laws.

Mounting Tension Over UMass Student Paper

April 18, 2009 in Campus Press, Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Media, Student Bashing, Student Government, Student vs. Student, Students | by | Leave a comment

A dispute over a controversial issue of a conservative student newspaper is boiling over at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The March-April issue of The Minuteman, a right-wing UMass student publication, contained both an investigative article on the budget of a campus group called Student Bridges and an insipid humor piece that ridiculed the appearance of one of that group’s leaders.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has distributed a video in which, it claims, “hundreds of copies of The Minuteman are stolen out of the hands of a student intending to distribute the paper.” The student holding the video does not appear to resist or object when other students take copies of the paper from him, however, and in one of the few clear pieces of audio in the footage a conservative student is heard saying, with amusement, “This is amazing. This is amazing footage, I’ve gotta say.”

Subsequent to that videotaped confrontation, the UMass student government association passed a resolution calling upon the Silent Majority, publishers of The Minuteman, to apologize for what it characterized as “slanderous defamation of character,” and raising the possibility of the suspension of the group’s charter if it didn’t comply.

At the next week’s meeting of the SGA, this past Wednesday, a member of the student government was ejected in the wake of a dispute over whether a second resolution, rescinding the first, could be placed on the agenda. 

This story doesn’t look like it’s done yet. Check back for more in the days to come.

About This Blog

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StudentActivism.net is the work of Angus Johnston, a historian and advocate of American student organizing.

To contact Angus, click here. For more about him, check out AngusJohnston.com.