Campus Informer – May 8, 2006
Congressional frat parties, illegal peace chalkings and more news from schools across the country.
By Annika Carlson, Hope College
Monday May 8, 2006
New York Congressman carries on at frat party
Union College
Any college student will tell you there’s nothing like a big frat party to finish out your school year—and apparently, one politician agrees. Upstate New York Congressman John Sweeney made a big splash by showing up at a fraternity party at Union College in New York. Students attending the party report that he was drinking and acting openly intoxicated. According to attendee Kenneth Falcon, who also managed to get pictures of Sweeney on the scene, “He was clearly not in the normal state of mind. He had definitely been drinking, there is no question about it.”
The Representative’s office maintains that Sweeney attended the party as part of his commitment to visit with constituents, saying, “Where better to receive feedback than on their own turf at the college itself?”
The story, which was originally reported in Union’s student newspaper, was picked up by multiple media outlets including the New York Times, which published one of the pictures taken of Sweeney at the party. Political opponents attacked Sweeney’s college partying, wondering “What is a 50-year-old congressman doing at a frat party at 1 in the morning, cavorting with students 30 years his junior? Teaching them how a bill becomes a law?”
Students arrested for pro-peace chalk writing
Wellesley College
Chalk messages are a cheap, easy way to advertise on campus—but don’t let your messages get too political, or you’ll risk a run-in with local cops. That’s what happened to senior Hadley Smith and her friends who wrote messages of peace on local sidewalks as part of the Wellesley College Peace Coalition. She and her friends were called by the local police and told to return to the scene of the chalkings and were told to clean them up or they would be arrested. When Smith asked for more information about the offense, “he said it was not up for discussion. We told him, ‘We’re going to clean it, but we’re trying to understand why we’d be arrested.’ And he was like, ‘Nope, you’ve lost your chance.’”
The officer arrested the students, who were later charged with defacement and tagging public property. While the charge is legitimate, the methods of the officer and police department are being questioned. Student Kate Recchia, who was also arrested, said “It was upsetting to try to talk with police and end up being handcuffed… They tried to intimidate us. I certainly didn’t feel like I was being treated like an adult.” The students were sentenced to three months of probation and twelve hours of community service each.
Harvard Profs say "keep it simple, students!" to FAFSA
Harvard University
With their school already making headlines for their revised, simplified stance on student aid (it can’t get simpler for many students than not having to pay anything at all), Harvard professors Susan Dynarski and Judith Scott-Clayton have proposed simplifying the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the annual multi-page nightmare for thousands of students across America. "We would like to see federal aid based on a much smaller subset of financial information," Scott-Clayton told the University of Missouri student paper The Maneater. Scott-Clayton believes a simpler form will make explaining the process to high school students easier and increase the likelihood of students applying for needed financial aid.
Submitted by August J. Pollak, Campus Progress
Janitors end strike after University agrees to contract settlement
University of Miami at Coral Gables
After months of stalemates and lack of cooperation from school administrators, a resolution was reached with striking janitorial workers at the University of Miami. Originally started to demand higher wages, healthcare and permission for workers to unionize, workers and student activists employed hunger strikes, sit-ins and various other methods to get their voices heard.
The strike began gaining national attention as politicians and activists across the country joined ranks with the strikers, supporting their struggle—most notably, John Edwards and Teamsters President James Hoffa pledged their support in late April. Edwards tied the Miami strike to other wages battles across the country, saying that “This struggle is about earning a wage, about having health care benefits, about everyone in America, not just a few, having a shot at the American dream.”
Student group Students Toward a New Democracy (STAND) celebrated announcement of a settlement with excitement palpable even through a statement on their website: “We fought for the workers’ rights to organize in a safe environment and to choose their own electoral process, and despite vicious, almost-unrelenting, well-funded and well-publicized opposition, we won…Or, more appropriately, the workers won, and we share their victory.”
New York students protest McCain as graduation speaker
The New School
And you thought his appearance at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University was controversial. Whether or not he’s in crazy base land, as Jon Stewart calls it, students at New York ’s progressive New School don’t want Senator John McCain to speak at their graduation and they’re not being quiet about it.
Students have organized an online petition and have been vocal about their opposition to school President Bob Kerrey’s choice of speaker. Keenan Harper, a sophomore who is helping organize against McCain’s speech, noted that the school’s progressive curriculum helps prepare students to speak out against decisions they don’t like. “In all of our classes we’re taught the value of inclusion of all people,” he said, “and we’re taught to question our leaders.”
Others are bothered that McCain’s presence will politicize what should be a celebration of student achievement. According to Gregory Tewksbury, a New School faculty member, “John McCain is a conservative politician who supports South Dakota’s ban on abortion, and he’s avidly pro-Iraq War…People feel like [inviting McCain to speak] made commencement into a political platform.”
It seems the only person who hasn’t heard about the student opposition at New School is McCain himself. As he told the Washington Post, “The New School is a very liberal institution, which I have no criticism of, but it’s a liberal institution…I haven’t heard anyone aroused about me speaking at the New School.”
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Students arrested for pro-peace chalk writing
A few years back 2 students at the University of Texas were not only arrested for chalking but also beaten by the action-starved local campus cops, who also slammed one of the evil chalker’s head into a rocky wall, cutting his face and head. There was some backlash against the cops after the incident, but of course nothing was ever done.
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