You’re probably asking, ‘Why do I care about senate bills, or college debate team coaches who moon tournament officials?’ (It happens — read the next post).

You care because, admit it or not, you’re affected by some of these issues, be it campus crime, inevitable tuition hikes … and yes, even the occasional poor judgement that leads some among us to … I don’t know, sue a university after a jello-wrestling incident gone wrong. (That happened, too).

In two years this blog has covered its fair share of issues: Virginia Tech, Facebook’s control of omnipresence in our lives and random mishaps we all used to think could only happen to college students on (non)reality television series.

Matt and Aaron, the college ave’rs before me, wrote with sass and some flavor, distinctions I can only hope to carry forward. But as this blog’s first female poster I feel like I should also do something crazy … like go a week without writing about beer.

But don’t worry. I get the feeling we’ll always have enough frat-boy-gone-wild headlines to go around.

Media outlets from Fox News to the Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune brought national attention to our little campus, as they covered the tragedy.

Needless to say, it wasn’t the kind of attention we wanted.

Police say they don’t suspect foul play in Willie’s death, but the recently divulged case of the “Smiley Killer gang” was on everyone’s minds as they drove past the police tape on campus. Something about his death just didn’t seem right, friends and other students said.

I never knew you, Willie, but the effect your death has had on your friends tells me everything I need to know. You will be missed.

?I believe in democracy,? Ms. Jia added, ?but I can?t stand for someone to criticize my country using biased ways. You are wearing Chinese clothes and you are using Chinese goods.?

Now, Every Gunshot Shuts Down A University: When shots were fired at an on campus house party at Florida Atlantic University, police shut down the campus and began a massive search for the shooter, who has not been found as of yet.

NIU Scraps Plans To Raze Shooting Site: The plan now is to renovate Cole Hall rather than raze it, wasting a whole ton of state money destroying a perfectly good building in the process. The building was the site of the Valentine’s Day shooting spree where a former student killed five students in a lecture class.

One More Reason To Dislike Philosophy Majors: An NYU student brought a muffin filled with razor blades into his philosophy class as part of a class discussion of absurdism, a theory that holds that the universe is irrational and meaningless. Then someone took a bite out of it.? Luckily, he wasn’t hurt, but let this be a lesson, philosophy majors: leaving the cooking to someone else.

The cops say - although it’s kind of hard to believe - that this killer could be responsible for the deaths of up to 40 academically gifted, well-liked young men enrolled in college. But don’t believe me or the cops: watch ABC Eyewitness News for yourself and decide.

The English Department TAs mostly complain about class size and work loads (something teachers never complain about) and do so in mostly humorous fashion.

The administration, predictably, isn’t very happy. They claim that instead of it being a legitimate expression of free speech, the videos are “offensive” and “undermine the credibility of instruction.”

They’ve also started calling students into private meetings to tell them to take the videos down, which sounds an awful lot like intimidation to me.

All this will do is just make the videos even more viral than they already are. Congratulations, English professors. You’ve discovered the power of the Internet.

Watch the first video here:

Deadhead University: The Grateful Dead recently donated 2,000 square feet of paraphernalia, posters and props to the University of California, Santa Cruz for a research center called “Dead Central.” No, I’m not kidding.

Bad Dean, No Pity For You: Dean of West Virginia U.’s business school resigns after panel declares he awarded the governor’s daughter a degree without earning it. Yup, that’ll get you fired.

Really? Writing tutors at Ivy League school Yale University “overwhelmed” by the amount of students seeking help with their essays, papers, reports. We wonder how they got into Yale.

It seems pretty happy, and has reportedly purchased a beer funnel, a thirty rack of cheap beer, and a table for beer pong, and wants to throw a totally sick party tomorrow night.

But in all seriousness, although officials described the beast as “friendly,” it took animal control officers 3 hours to get it out of the building.

Sounds like the zebra wants to stay for a little longer, guys.

The pamphlet declares “Thomas Friedman’s ‘Green’ as fake and toxic to human and planetary health as the cool-whip (sic) covering his face.”

That’s gotta hurt, Tom.

There’s an uplifting end to the story, though; ten minutes after the pie incident, Friedman returned to the stage sans Cool Whip and gave the rest of his talk.

Brown U. Math Profs Duped: A colleague sent them an intricate e-mail explaining that the school would move toward a new “merit-blind” admissions policy, where 20 percent of the incoming class would be chosen at random. Profs serious considered the implications of this policy before realizing they’d been punk’d. Oh, Academia.

Are Induced Abortions Art?? A Yale student’s video art project depicting her forcing herself to have an abortion has gotten a lot of people and school officials up in arms over the limits of artistic and academic freedoms. Here’s the thing: she says they were her real babies she was pulling out of herself, Yale says they weren’t. I’m inclined to side with her. I mean, she was there.

Oh No, Poor Investment Bankers: New hires at Bear Stearns, the investment bank that recently collapsed, have all lost their jobs, and now have to look for new ways to work 12 hour days and bring home $100,000 a year. **Tear**

I think that like the events of September 11th and the Princess Diana’s death (and Bambi’s mom’s!) we will always remember where we were when we heard the news. I was in Tasmania, glued to CNN and other American television stations, extremely glad that I was in a foreign country. Even there, in an island off the coast of the most isolated continent in the world, the papers were filled with the news for days afterwards. I hope that never happens again.

We are with you, Virginia Tech.