College Shorts Keep Wesleyan Weird

Author: Tom Brant and Brian Fung

Traditionalist students: 'Keep Wesleyan Weird'

To some students at Wesleyan University, the traditionally non-traditional school is losing the things that make it unique, the Hartford Courant reported last week.

Holly Wood, a junior at Wesleyan and founder of a popular campus blog, said that a series of changes made by the administration are changing the university for the worse.

"Tiny rules keep being changed to make us more in line with other institutions and with every new rule, a little bit of old Wesleyan is lost," Wood wrote on her blog, "Wesleying."

Changes include a new crackdown on students who keep pets in their dorm rooms, the removal of colorful graffiti in the basement of one of the dorms and aggressive fire code inspectors that impose hefty fines.

Wood and other students like sophomore Colin McMichael, who wrote a letter of protest to President Doug Bennet, claim that the administration is more interested in keeping up with more buttoned-down NESCAC colleges than preserving its quirky identity.

"Without WesCulture, we are just another New England school," wrote McMichael.

-The Hartford Courant



Howard faculty wants president's resignation

Howard University's faculty senate has called for the resignation of the institution's president, H. Patrick Swygert, after a recent National Science Foundation report was released criticizing the university's use of grant money.

According to the Associated Press, Chairman of the Faculty Senate Theodore Bremner accused Swygert of "incompetence and dysfunction at the highest level" in a letter to the Board of Trustees last week. In addition, Bremner complained that Swygert has failed to insulate the institution's academic budgets from financial issues at the university hospital. Howard's academic programs suffer from second-rate equipment and facilities, according to Bremner's letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post.

Swygert has announced that despite having seen the letter of protest, he does not intend to step down.

"It clearly demonstrates how democratic and how open the university is," Swygert told the Associated Press, "and how free the faculty is to express opinions."

-The Associated Press



Wisconsin women still at disadvantage vs. men

Wisconsin women continue to suffer from gender and racial inequity when it comes to their involvement in the workforce, reports the University of Wisconsin's Badger Herald.

A study conducted by the university in conjunction with the Wisconsin Women's Council found that though the median wage for women in the state has jumped 22 percent over the last 28 years to $12.62 per hour, that number still lags behind men's median wage by 25 percent.

In addition, according to the study's report, Caucasian women with four-year college degrees outnumber similarly-educated women of Latino, African-American and Native American descent two-to-one.

"Wisconsin women, particularly women of color, continue to face substantial economic barriers to equality," said Christine Lidbury, executive director of the Women's Council.

-The Badger Herald