Religion, smoking and drinking: Yup, looks like a roundup.
I know I haven’t shown College Ave much love this week. I’ve been in Atlanta, home of GTech, Georgia State, U Georgia, Spellman College … greek life mayhem … the list continues.
Starting next week I’ll have a roundup every Sunday, but here are a few items to get us back on track.
Academic Freedom? Anyone?: The University of Southern California recently removed text from Islamic scripture from its Muslim Student Association’s Web site. The school’s newspaper, the Daily Trojan, reported the text contained excerpts called hadiths, sayings from the Prophet Muhammad not included in the Quran. The school’s provost, C.L. Max Nikias, said the passage advocated violence against Jews, and the DT indicated it called on Muslims to “kill jews.”
The DT reported Nikias took down the site without consulting the group first.
Here’s where it gets good: Nikias learned about the passage when a Jewish human rights group approached him about the language. And David Horowitz, a conservative activist, (whose exact connection to this whole scenario besides being an activist is unclear) said this was his first “concrete victory” against student associations he said are tied to radical Islamist thought.
What action, if any, the MSA will take isn’t clear either. But this raises a few interesting questions.
- The USC religion index has around 75 religious student organizations, give or take a few. If the hadith had been a passage from the torah or the bible, would it have been removed immediately?
- The Provost was contacted by an outside, and influential, advocacy group. Are the students on campus actually bothered by this? Would his actions have been so quick if concerns were submitted by fellow students, and not a potential donor religious organization?
I don’t have the answers to any of those questions — but maybe by the week’s end the Provost, or the students, will.
Hookahs are the new Camels: Hey there, hookah friends. Looks like you may be in trouble. A study by the University of Pennsylvania showed about 40 percent of college students had smoked tobacco from a hookah.
More than 200 hookah cafes have opened in the U.S. during the past decade.
The interesting side note: One third of the students who smoked using water pipes hadn’t smoked a cigarette.
You can vote, go to war and get married. Now, you might be able to drink, too, thanks to the Amethyst Initiative . The initiative is a pact signed by the presidents of about 130 colleges and universities who are asking lawmakers to
“To support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21 year-old drinking age.
To consider whether the 10% highway fund “incentive” encourages or inhibits that debate.
To invite new ideas about the best ways to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol.
We pledge ourselves and our institutions to playing a vigorous, constructive role as these critical discussions unfold.”
The last time the U.S. drinking age got this much attention was 1984, when Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. It didn’t set the drinking age per se, but essentially imposed a penalty of “10% of a state’s federal highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age lower than 21.” The presidents who have signed this initative believe the age has encouraged binge drinking, and hope to start a conversation about the issue — not necessarily change it.
The outcome of this initiative and legislation that follows could dramatically alter the experience of college students nationwide. Stay tuned throughout the year to see how this unfolds.
The shadows of April 16
Virginia Tech students mourn the victims at a candlelight vigil.
The New York Times reported earlier this week about the quickly convened Senate hearing about the state of services for students’ mental health. Russ Federman, the director of counseling and psychological services at the University of Virginia, brought in a recent study that found that 94 percent of all college students feel overwhelmed. Not surprising but sad nonetheless.
But 50 percent of students also reported that they became “so depressed that it was difficult to function” at some point in the year. The study, the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment, also shows that of that 50 percent, 10 percent of females and 8 percent of males felt this way 9 or more times. That’s out of a sampling of 94,806 college students nationwide.
That’s scary.
I actually took this year’s survey just yesterday through our health center (mainly for a shot at the $100 bucks prize), and I couldn’t help but think, “Wow, I wonder how many people answer that question like that?” And now in the long shadow of the Virginia Tech massacre, college campuses are going to be paying close attention to this. In a live chat with Katherine Newman on the Chronicle’s Web site, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University speculates:
My guess is that universities will become more proactive in reaching out to parents and risk that liability because it is far less damaging and easier to explain than the reticent response. But that’s sheer speculation on my part. It does seem to me that anyone who has been declared a danger to others has to be excluded immediately.
Newman also was one of the authors of Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings. Obviously, no one would accuse Newman of exploiting these tragedies with her book, but plenty of profiteers have come out of the wood works, accused of prices gouging and selling outdated technology to college administrators scared of their own April 16.
The Chronicle has another really interesting article [sub req'd] of the rejection of the flood of media on Blacksburg. (Officials had already banned reporters from academic buildings as the students go back to class.) Obviously the irony is not missed, but after seeing Dateline interns trolling for interview prospects on Facebook walls, I’m inclined to agree: “Media Stay Away.”
Who’s to blame for college students’ narcissism?
Generation Y is all grown up, in college and more self-absorbed than ever, according to a new study presented today. Who’s to blame? Everyone, apparently. Parents who smother their children with undue praise and give less authoritarian punishment, elementary schools bent of teaching how special and unique we all are, YouTube confessionals and MySpace profiles that thrive off of exhibition and exposure, blogs (yes, blogs) and the Internet as a whole in giving everyone media access like never before, reality television, Anna Nicole Smith/Britney Spears/any other CrazyCelebWatch 2007, etc. etc.
While narcissism is nothing new, the trend behind is troubling to the study’s lead author, Jean Twenge. With 30 percent of college students surveyed displaying high levels of elevated narcissism, Twenge believes we could be heading to a world where people are too into themselves to be emotionally available and think nothing of treating each other like dirt, even in public places.
As if on cue, Inside Higher Ed looks into the Pit Break Up drama at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The set-up (and it was set up): boy dates girl, girl cheats on boy, boy invites girl to romantic spot on Valentine’s day on campus along with over 1,000 other students via Facebook, a Capella group sings kiss-off song, boy dumps girl with the crowd, cameras out, cheers on. The video is pretty long, and honestly it only gets interesting/scary when the crowd starts chanting “Slut! Slut! Slut!” at her as she tells him off for being a coward. Students ate this drivel up, writing letters to the Daily Tar Heel demanding coverage and joining Facebook groups proving they were there, man.
747,000 hits on YouTube later, the du(m)per comes clean with an explanation for the hoax: the Internet is extremely powerful and amazing and the media doesn’t really get us college kids cause we’re so complex and oh, by the way I’m starting this busine… hey, where’d you go? Come back! (The Facebook group is already sad they’ve been had, LonelyGirl15-style.)
Here’s the solution: follow Warhol’s advice and limit the total amount of video clips to 15 minutes total. With guys like this, that’s plenty more than they deserve, but maybe they’ll value it a bit more. If everyone’s listening, they should say try saying something a little more interesting than “I’m awesome.”
(The whole reason for the post was to justify using that picture of the cat wearing sunglasses. Indulge me, please.)
Roundup: Who’s next?
Meeting of the minds: Emory University had already announced His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama starting as a professor. Now add Salman Rushdie to the roster. He’ll be donating his collection of manuscripts and writing to them as well. Why Emory? “[B]ecause they asked me and nobody else ever had,” Rushdie said. The 18th anniversary of fatwa against Rushdie is on Valentine’s Day, interestingly enough.
Feared outbreaks: Baylor University is dealing with a single case of meningococcal meningitis, but Cheney University in Cheney, PA, is dealing with another, scarier problem. An HIV-positive prostitute claims she had sex with 10 male students and can’t confirm how many of them used condoms. The university is encouraging any of the men to get tested as soon as possible.
Sold: The coverage does not stop here at College Ave. The final bid for a year’s worth tuition at OWU: $18,669.99. Not really a steal, but I’m sure there’s a T-shirt involved. More interesting: an eBay auction for “College tuition, room, and board… is so expensive I have to sell my hat.” Clever. Check for gratuitous shots of Hatty McHatterson.
Feed for College Ave.