This came first: Brown University

Then this showed up: The University of Alabama in Huntsville

“The copyright for this material rests with Pentagram Inc and Brown University. You may not alter this information, repost or sell it without prior permission.”

Umm. I don’t think that the University of Alabama in Huntsville got the message. Jump to UWebD and eduStyle for additional commentary. This is definitely more than just a case of borrowed design ideas, colors, grid, etc. Brown’s stylesheet is named “master.css”. UAH’s is named “master2.css.” The HTML looks like a badly synthesized genetic clone.

I’m a huge fan of Brown University’s home page design. It’s too bad that UAH took their fandom a bit too far.

PS: Brown’s site is so hip that it is even prepped and ready for iPhones! I found this little gem in their source code: sets width for iphones.

Iowa Flooding Could Be An Act of Man, Experts Say

Kamyar Enshayan, director of an environmental center at the University of Northern Iowa, suspects that this natural disaster wasn’t really all that natural. He points out that the heavy rains fell on a landscape radically reengineered by humans. Plowed fields have replaced tallgrass prairies. Fields have been meticulously drained with underground pipes. Streams and creeks have been straightened. Most of the wetlands are gone. Flood plains have been filled and developed.

“We’ve done numerous things to the landscape that took away these water-absorbing functions,” he said. “Agriculture must respect the limits of nature.”

[S]ome Iowans who study the environment suspect that changes in the land, both recently and over the past century or so, have made Iowa’s terrain not only highly profitable but also highly vulnerable to flooding.

via the Washington Post

In 1942, xenophobic U.S. officials enacted policies that resulted in the internment of over 100,000 Japanese American citizens. 42 Japanese American students at Oregon State University were forced to leave the university and sent to internment camps. Most did not ever return to OSU. On Sunday, June 15th, OSU awarded honorary degrees to every Japanese American student who was unable to complete their degree.

via the OSU Admissions Blog

(continue reading…)

The flooding at the University of Iowa has been intense. Officials are saying that Hancher Auditorium (the university’s performing arts center) could have water up to the stage! Unbelievable. I remember seeing Othello there when I was in high school.

University of Iowa’s President, Sally Mason, “has been in contact with the presidents of Iowa State University and the University of Illinois, who have offered their assistance. Don Guckert, UI vice president for facilities management, reported that technical and trades personnel from these schools are already en route to Iowa City.” via the UI Flood Blog.

(continue reading…)

The University of Iowa will be closed for at least a week due to flooding in Iowa City. The U of Iowa’s website has been stripped of almost all images and is providing important updates to university students and personnel. The University of Iowa News Services Department is using a combination of Blogger and Flickr to conserve the university’s bandwidth.

For more information, please consult the University of Iowa Flood Information Site hosted on Blogger. Photographs from the U of Iowa’s New Services Dept can be found on the UI News Flickr site. KSUI 91.7 on Iowa Public Radio is providing extensive regional news, flood and emergency updates for Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and other locations in eastern Iowa that are and will be heavily impacted in the coming days by flood waters.

(continue reading…)

Life@Lane is a “student moderated blog” at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. I happened to stumble upon the site while checking out some summer classes at LCC. The blog is prominently advertised on the Lane Community College homepage.

I scrolled down through several posts and was intrigued by a post titled “Would The World Be Better With Women As Leaders?” The post basically says that women are emotional and therefore are not capable of being leaders. Jeffrey, the writer of the post and student at Lane, states in a response to a comment that “i don’t think my gender is superior i just don’t think women would be a good world leader.” Unbelievable. How can Lane Community College support this blog? How can Lane Community College stand behind this overtly sexist post/comment?

Here is the initial blurb about the blog via the LCC Marketing and Public Relations Office:

LIFE@LANE, A STUDENT MODERATED BLOG, launched from Lane’s homepage. Topics are generated by Lane’s Student Service Associates. Student blogs are common at four-year institutions. Lane is among the first community colleges to host a student blog. The purpose is to provide a communication tool primarily for current and prospective students and to increase “community” access.

How in the hell does this blog “increase ‘community’ access”? Student blogs are a common method of providing student insights into the student experience at a college/university. Student blogs are supposed to build community. They are not supposed to perpetuate stereotypes. It seems that Jeffrey, the student blogger at Lane, wanted to generate controversy and not build community. Marketing and Public Relations officials at Lane Community College should post an apology on the Life @ Lane blog, fire Jeffrey, and start moderating the commentary of the Life@Lane blog. I highly doubt that this is how they want life at Lane Community College to be represented.

The Oregon State University Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures is expected to undergo significant budget cuts for Fall 2008. The OSU Foreign Language department courses are extremely popular and classes are usually filled each term. It’s probably easier to get a one-on-one meeting with President Ray than it is to get into a 100 level Spanish class!

Students will find it increasingly difficult to register for language classes, a situation which deeply upsets the whole faculty and staff of this department.

Furthermore, since most language classes are offered in sequence and only once a year, underfunding will make it even harder for students who need to complete foreign language requirements to graduate on time. It also means larger class sizes and less personal attention, factors that are especially detrimental to learning languages.

This situation is all the more absurd since the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures makes money for the university. Under a budgeting model where tuition dollars follow the students, we see that Foreign Languages’ finances are completely in order: We generate more money than we need to operate at current capacity. Instead of which, through the use of an unfair budget model, we find ourselves with a deficit of $250,000 and threatened with job losses.

via the Corvallis Gazette Times.

(continue reading…)

Oops.

The University of Oregon is steering hundreds of freshmen to off-campus apartments next fall because its dorms lack sufficient room to handle an unexpected surge of enrollment.

The university expects 3,800 freshmen next fall, a 400-student increase, which will exceed dormitory space and force the university to provide more classes and services.

Some parents are anxious, angry and disappointed, and some students have chosen to go elsewhere because of the housing shortage, says Robin Holmes, vice president for student affairs.

A silent protest against the FDA policy that prohibits gay men from donating blood was held at Oregon State University this week. Several students and faculty members stood in silence in front of the Memorial Union.

It would be wonderful if OSU President Ed Ray would do what San José State University President Don W. Kassing did at the SJSU campus. President Kassing suspended all campus blood drives in protest of the FDA’s homophobic policy citing that the policy violates SJSU’s non-discrimination policy.

Oregon State University’s Institutional Policy on Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action states that OSU as “an institution of higher education and as a community of scholars, is committed to the elimination of discrimination and the provision of equal opportunity in education and employment.”

I hope that part of our institutional commitment to the elimination of discrimination would include prohibiting campus blood drives until the FDA removes their current policy.

(continue reading…)

Newberry College was recently forced by the NCAA to “retire the use of ‘Indians’ as the school’s athletic nickname, effective with the end of all team’s current playing seasons.”

It’s appalling to me that the Newberry College press release uses “retire” to describe the termination of their racist nickname. Newberry College should have gotten rid of their nickname a long time ago. I decided to write them a letter:

Dear Newberry College,
It is time to remove your nickname, do not retire it, delete it. Listen and learn, using Native American imagery/names, unless tacitly approved by a Native Nation, is racist and harmful.

Please disband the “Indian Club” and the “Rowdy Reds.” Stop using arrowheads and spears as derogatory accessories to your racist nickname.

(continue reading…)