Campus Informer - May 11, 2005

The campus round-up with Confederate controversy, the Great UnGraduation, multi-million-dollar student bank fraud and more.

Another Confederate Legacy
Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University has to come up with a hefty amount of money if it wants to remove the word “Confederate” from the name of a dorm built in honor of Confederate soldiers nearly a century ago. In 2002, Vanderbilt chancellor Gordon Gee announced the word would be axed from the dorm because of its negative associations. But Gee’s plans were halted by a Tennessee court ruling that said the school must pay the United Daughters of the Confederacy the current value of the $50,000 the group originally paid for the building in 1935. That could amount to over $700,000. The UDC says the school is trying to rewrite history. "Apparently they don’t want anything to do with the Confederacy on any part of their campus," said Deanna Bryant, Tennessee Division president of the UDC. "But that is history. And our great, great grandmothers started this as a memorial to the Confederate soldiers—and that is what it is. It is a memorial." The school has not decided if it will appeal the decision to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

The Great “UnGraduation”
California State University

Students throughout California staged a mock graduation ceremony at the California State House this week to protest cuts in higher education funding. The ceremony consisted of 1,000 empty chairs symbolizing the students who will be denied access to California public colleges and universities due to the funding cuts. “The universities of California are an economic tank that has run empty,” one of the participants said. “We must keep the universities of California’s doors open.” The event was coordinated by both California State University and University of California students, teaching assistants and labor unions. Event planners say the group wants the state to fully fund enrollment in accordance with the Master Plan of Higher Education, providing full funding for the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates to attend a UC school, and for the top 33 percent to attend a CSU school. A group spokesperson said May 13 is the last day for the Governor to make his final budget revision, and the mock graduation was the coalition’s last chance to get its message out.

NYU Student Busted for Fraud
New York University

College can cost a lot. With tuition, room and board, and other life necessities students can be paying upwards of $45,000 a year. Students can come up with pretty creative ways to pay this down without taking on serious debt. One NYU student, Hakan Yalincak, decided to earn some extra money by undertaking a $43 million bank fraud scheme. He deposited fake certified checks in bank accounts in Connecticut and Switzerland. A separate lawsuit alleged that Yalincak conned Connecticut investors into investing $2.8 million in a non-existent hedge fund. Unfortunately for Yalincak, his plan didn’t go as planned. By the time he tried to withdraw money from the accounts, the bank realized what was going on and froze his accounts. Now the NYU senior could face up to 30 years behind bars and up to $1 million in fines. But the story doesn’t end there. Turns out that Yalincek’s parents are major benefactors of NYU and have pledged $21 million for university building projects and academic programs. The family’s foundation has only come up with a little over a million dollars of the pledge so far, but universities now say they are going to be checking to see if the money is really the family’s to give.

No to ROTC Return
Columbia University

In the continuing debate over allowing ROTC programs on campuses across the country, the Columbia University Senate voted overwhelmingly late last week to reject a measure to allow the military program back onto campus. Columbia joined other schools across the country in banning the ROTC program due to the military’s stance on gays and lesbians, saying that the stance violates their anti-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation. The vote followed a report by a special ROTC task force that outlined a measure to bring back ROTC in the event the military no longer bans gays and lesbians from openly serving. The Senate rejected that measure, saying it was too vague. Columbia administration officials say they are leaving the debate up to the students. "We in the central administration took the position that [a decision on ROTC] is something that should arise out of the community," University President Lee Bollinger said at the start of the debate. "It is appropriate that the Senate should be the body … that comes to some sort of conclusion."

Another Group of TAs to Walk
California State University

The semester might be winding to a close, but teaching assistants throughout the California State University system may be walking our before their students start finals. Last semester, members of the California Alliance of Academic Student Employees/United Auto Workers began negotiations with university officials, but members say the continued talks have produced little to no results. The issue at stake concerns wages. Union members say they currently earn an average of $520 a month while the same employees at University of California schools make $1200. The students are also asking for health benefits. Many of the students are new to the labor world. "This is our first time organizing," one student said. "This is our time to get to the level of everyone else. We’re working at substandard conditions." The students would be following TAs at Yale and Columbia who went on strike recently over similar concerns.

Hocus Pocus 101
Columbia College

A recent Columbia Chronicle headline reads “Witchcraft Class in Consideration at Columbia College.” To the average reader this might conjure up images of a class based on magic spells, boiling cauldrons, and turning people into toads. Instead, the class focused on a rather intriguing period in American history during the Salem witch trials. Witchcraft in Colonial America, a one credit, two-day class offered on a trial basis in March, examined witchcraft in 17th century America. The course explored religious beliefs and gender issues while attempting to establish an understanding of the culture of the society. Professor Teresa Prados-Torreira created the class and says it teaches an important part of women’s history. She added that she doesn’t believe in witches and that is the first thing she tells her students. The university is looking to make the class a full term course. Currently, witchcraft classes are taught at ground zero for American witchcraft, Salem State College, and at Wheaton College, a small Christian school in Illinois. If Pat Buchanan and other right-wingers think universities are bastions of Marxism-Leninism now, one can only image their reaction when they find about the presence of pagan witchcraft in the college classroom.