College Shorts

Author: Andrea Gissing

MIT Shares Art With Students

Through a unique student loan program started up in the 1960s, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) brings a wider appreciation of art throughout campus and into student dorms. Instead of locking up valuable works of art, MIT allows students to borrow original works to hang in their dorm room and apartment walls.
MIT's List Visual Arts Center has more than 300 pieces available for student loans. All are original works, mostly limited editions of prints, silkscreens or lithographs, though some are unique pieces. The art collection began in 1966 with a donation and now includes Chagall lithographs, Miro print and Rauschenberg silkscreens.
The pieces, which are appraised at between $250 and $2,000, are signed out to students at the beginning of the year. Officials say that aside from "bumped or scuffed frames" every piece ever loaned out has been returned in good condition at the end of the year.

Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

Georgetown Locked Down

Since the beginning of the 2002-2003 school year, students at Georgetown University no longer have 24-hour access to campus buildings other than their own on-campus residences.
The Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) has raised several safety concerns associated with the new policy, which they posed to the president of the university, John J. DeGioia, on Friday evening.
The lockdown came as a result of security evaluations conducted after Sept. 11, 2001 last year. University officials said that the measures taken to "confront a new reality in terms of emergency preparedness" have been developed in order to best protect the safety and security of the campus community.
GUSA representatives argued that the new safety policy not only fails to protect students' safety but that it creates safety hazards on campus. These include doors being propped open, non-residents of dorms sneaking in, and emergency access to buildings being cut off. "Without 24-hour access to all buildings," claim the GUSA, "students being attacked or mugged on or near campus will have no place to go."
Additionally, the lockdown cuts off student access to laundry facilities, resident housing offices, computer labs, practice rooms and places of worship, such as the Muslim and Protestant prayer rooms. Administrators have considered the idea of granting limited access to the Muslim prayer room, however the GUSA replied by saying that that only added to the bureaucracy of the system.
According to GUSA, student input was not sought in the process of forming the new safety policy though administrators and students alike say that cooperation on the project is likely in the future.

Source: The Georgetown Voice

Rise in Anti-Semitism in Harvard Yard?

Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers, in a quiet prayer meeting on the first day of classes, condemned what he called growing anti-Semitism at Harvard and elsewhere.
The remarks, made off the record, have provoked strong reaction from the university community where earlier this year, almost 600 professors, students, staff members and alumni from both Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology signed a petition urging Harvard and MIT to remove all Israeli investments from its endowment.
Some members of the Harvard community have praised Summers for taking a stand while others claim that his remarks closed the door on discussion. One response was that Summers painted critics of Israeli action against Palestinians as anti-Semitic.
"Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent," said Summers in his remarks, referring to both the support for divestment and to actions by student organizations at Harvard and other campuses to raise money for groups suspected to have ties to terrorist groups. Summers said that his comments represented the view of a "concerned member of [the] community" and not the view of the president of the university.
Summers statements, however, have been his most explicit on the issues surrounding Israel to date. When the calls for divestment first appeared last spring, Summers rejected them saying that "political advocacy is not the proper province of the university." Advocates for divestment, however, say that calls for divestment is not a protest against the State of Israel itself, but against the Sharon government, Israel's actions against the Palestinians, and the Bush government and their policies.

Source: The New York Times and The Harvard Crimson