College Shorts Food Fingered as Possible Source of BU Illness

Author: Claire Bourne, Nicholas Emery, and Andrea Gissing

Mass Sickness at BU Leaves Some Skeptical of Food

Boston University's Student Health Services reportedly found itself filled with hundreds of students complaining of similar symptoms this weekend. Several students were hospitalized.
Many of the students all reported eating at The Towers Dining Hall Friday and Saturday. Affected students were mostly Towers residents, as large portions of many floors came down with the illness.
The Towers Dining Hall and BU Dining Services officials refused to comment.
Shared symptoms included intense vomiting, fever, body aches and high to extreme dehydration. One diagnosis of the illness, made at the Boston Medical Institute, was viral gastroenteritis.
Dianna Lawrence, a BU freshman, said many girls on her floor got sick after eating in the dining hall over the weekend. She said she is "unsure of what happened" because the sickness seemed to spread among floors. "Saturday morning, the first girl on my floor started feeling sick, and throughout the day my roommate and others also started to feel sick," she said. "By dinnertime Saturday night, at least three girls on my floor were constantly in the bathroom."
However, she said that she ate in the dining hall on Friday night and she did not get sick. Also, people who ate different meals all got sick. As well, people who did not eat at The Towers got sick, some because they had been taking care of their sick friends.
Though the illness seems to have passed for many of the students, those who did get sick are still wary about eating in the dining hall.

Source: U-wire


Md. Public U. Students Required to Pay Full Tuition

Maryland public university students filed a class-action lawsuit challenging a January tuition increase for the spring semester. It was, however recently dismissed by a Baltimore City Circuit judge.
The increase in question was 5 percent, which the state university system leaders passed in order to make up for a $67 million reduction in state appropriations this academic year.
The seven plaintiffs from the University of Maryland at Baltimore and the University of Baltimore in the class-action suit argued that the increased tuition violated the contract that they signed with their universities when the tuition was announced for the 2002-2003 academic year.
They also argued that the increase violated consumer-protection law since they had chosen their universities based in part on cost.
Maryland state university officials acknowledged that more tuition increases are likely on the way for the next academic year as additional cuts in their budgets are expected.
Judge Stuart R. Berger, however, ruled that the plaintiffs had no written contract which specified a set tuition rate with their universities. The students are strongly considering appealing the ruling.
Representatives of the state university system declined to comment on the ruling.

Source: WashingtonPost.com


Stetson's Newspaper Shut Down

Florida-based Stetson University's student newspaper, The Reporter, was shut down and its editorial board fired last Wednesday following the publication of an April Fools' Day edition that contained profanity, racist jokes and a sex column promoting rape and domestic violence.
Staff members were given 15 minutes to vacate the paper's office before the locks were changed.
The Reporter traditionally makes fun of faculty, students and itself in the edition in its April Fools' edition renamed The Distorter. Nevertheless, school officials said they believed the publication went too far this year.
The staff's decision to run the weekly sex column written in Ebonics was among the University's grievances. Sex columnist August Brown admitted, "We pushed some buttons that may not have needed to be pushed."
The newspaper had been under fire in recent weeks to tone down its content. The April Fools' issue proved to be the last straw after upset alumni, faculty and students contacted school officials to express concern.
The school will work to build a new student newspaper next year.

Source: CNN.com