College Shorts Hate for Escalades, Hip-Hop Gets Accolades

Author: Andrea Gissing

Sounding Off Against SUVs
A group of students from Stanford University is starting a campaign to raise awareness of the contributions made by sport utility vehicles (SUVs) to environmental and political problems. The campaign, named "SUV SOS," plans to educate faculty and students about automobile consumption and especially SUV oil consumption among the Stanford and broader national community by tying it to global climate change and dependence on foreign oil.
Seniors Jonathan Neril and Josh Bushinsky, an international relations major and an earth systems major respectively, are leading the campaign.
Neril thought that the issue of SUV use was especially pertinent to the university community because of the large number of SUVs owned and driven by Stanford students. "We want to make people aware that SUV consumption is a national security issue and a global environment issue, not just a personal choice," Neril said.
"The idea is that the technology to make these cars more efficient is out there and it's been sitting on the shelves for decades," said Bushinsky, continuing that since the automotive industry has focused on things like car size and horsepower instead of emissions, there has been a decline in average fuel efficiency since the late 80s. He has been amazed by the student response that the campaign has had since the group's first meeting on Jan. 29.
So far, the group has concentrated on gathering student attention through e-mails. They are currently planning a protest on Feb. 14 at the Burlingame auto mall where students will try and raise media attention through speeches, chants and spoken-word protests.

Source: U-Wire.com
Modern Technique Mixes Things Up
Stephen Webber, a professor of music production and engineering at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, has been trying to integrate a more modern musical style into the college's curriculum: turntablism. Webber has designed a course that would teach students the technical and musical basics of hip-hop turntable techniques, which involves manipulating a record against the needle to create percussive sounds and beats.
The college turned down the idea of the Class in 2000 because the provost disapproved and again in 2001 when the executive vice president rejected it because of budget constraints.
Despite the opposition to the course, Webber wrote and published "Turntable Technique: The Art of the DJ," the first musical method book for aspiring hip-hop DJs. He used interviews, photographs and traditional musical notation to create a series of lessons and exercises that anyone wishing to learn could practice. The book became one of Berklee Press' best-selling titles, which encouraged college's administrators to reconsider the course.
If Berklee approves the course, it will be the first hip-hop performance class to be offered at a conservatory, applying Western notation and theory to an oral tradition. Courses on hip-hop music and culture have become increasingly common at colleges in the past 10 years. However, they are predominantly cultural or analytic in their approach, not instructional or practical.

Source: The New York Times
Harvard To Return Donation From Jane Fonda
Harvard University has announced that because of the continued downturn in the stock market, along with new university rules regarding research centers, it would return most of a donation that Jane Fonda pledged to the Graduate School of Education. The $12.5 million donation, which was made two years ago, was going towards the establishment of a major research center on sex and education. The university is also giving up its plans for the center. The decision to discontinue the project and return the donation was a mutual decision between Harvard and Fonda.
A spokeswoman for the School of Education said that Harvard would return a large portion of the $6.5 million that Fonda had already given to the university. The stock market slump has also prevented Fonda from completing the second half of the gift.
The portion of the donation that will be kept by the university will be used to support a curriculum development project that will address teachers' understanding of sex, race and class, and the impact those have on the educational experience of students.
Fonda's donation was the largest single donation in the Graduate School of Education's 83-year history.

Source: The New York Times