College shorts

Author: Jaime Fuller

Hurricane Gustav ravages LSU campus

Although Hurricane Gustav passed quickly out of the American mindset in comparison to its predecessor, Hurricane Katrina, it still had the opportunity to cause destruction all across Louisiana, including the State University.

"It's the worst storm to hit Baton Rouge for the past 40 years," said Astrid Merget, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor.

Many people did not expect the storm to hit as hard as it did, and Louisiana State University (LSU) was not able to fulfill its duty as evacuation site as well as it has during Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

"For Katrina, we were almost exclusively an evacuation site. For this one, we were an evacuation site and a victim of the storm itself," said Chancellor Michael Martin. "It's been sort of a double whammy. We were taking on damage trying to protect others from damage."

The University's Emergency Operations Center estimates that damages could be as high as $40 million, and the school is exploring every avenue in order to lessen the effects of the storm.

Over 1,300 volunteers helped with relief efforts, and two funds and being set up in the LSU Foundation to aid the student body in the aftermath of the storm.

-The Daily Reveille


College Dems draw record numbers

The University of Michigan's chapter of College Democrats drew a crowd of over 200 for its first annual meeting on Sunday. The meeting's celebrity guest list, including former Michigan basketball player and Barack Obama supporter Jimmy King and State Senator Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Twp.).

"The excitement on campus is amazing," said Nathanial Eli Coats Styer, the University's College Democrats President. "I don't think that we've ever matched this kind of excitement."

Since Sept. 2, the College Democrats have registered 1,741 new voters, more than half the total number of voters the group registered in 2006.

According to Styer over 300 people signed up for the organization's e-mail list the night of the meeting, a paltry number compared to the 900 who signed up over the past week - the most interest he's ever seen during his time at the University.

King used his experience on the court to draw comparisons to this high-action election season.

"We knew that we could change the environment of basketball from our style of play," he said. "That's what you guys can do right now, you guys can change the game right now."

-Michigan Daily


Library uses online instructional game

Librarians at the University of Florida have created an online game, "Bioactive", to help acclimate students to the library's technological resources. The interactive game gives players the opportunity to learn the ropes of the reserves while saving the University from the deadly Gator virus.
The game took over ten months to create and required the combined manpower of six UF librarians without funding or formal training.

The game has gone through two different versions; the current version is a point-and-click game that uses a Web browser.

Sara Gonzales, a UF librarian and project leader of the game said that the team was working on a generic version of the game for other libraries to use that they hope to present to the American Library Association Conference in June.

-Independent Florida Alligator