• Columbia: Historic theater to become Urban Outfitters
• Dartmouth: Departments cutting expenditures by 5%
• Dartmouth: Zeta Psi applying for re-recognition
• Harvard: Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein ’75 to be Obama’s regulation czar
• Harvard: Admissions will embrace Score Choice on SATs
• Harvard: Child abuse suit continues against former Med School professor
• Princeton: Escaped inmate apprehended 80 miles from University
• Princeton: Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80 may join Clinton State Department
• Princeton: University endowment could fall 25%

Sigma Pi’s boozy rush party last Thanksgiving ended with four freshmen at Cayuga Medical Center and the revocation of the frat’s official recognition for what Cornell’s associate dean for Greek affairs called an “egregious” incident. Last Tuesday, the InterFraternity Council voted to allow Sigma Pi to return to campus on January 1st for a year-long probationary period as an associate member, on the condition of a dry rush.

In a controversial move, the decision will forgo the usual restrictions on returning frats that would exclude Sigma Pi from voting in the IFC and participating in rush week. 29 brothers remain on campus and have been pushing for their official return, but not everyone is convinced that they deserve it. After their presentation before the IFC, Sigma Alpha Mu President Ross Freilich ‘09 asked, “Why is the IFC responsible for creating sanctions for their recognition?… They came in expecting to get recognition without a plan to move forward from last November’s event.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Cornellians,

I’m packing my long underwear and trekking up to Ithaca for the weekend with Heywood, a band that’ll be playing at Tammany Nightclub at Risley Hall tomorrow night (details below). I’ve never been to Cornell and need something to do to pass the time while they’re rehearsing — anything fun on campus or off this weekend? Leave your suggestions in the comments. I will document the good times for IvyGate, natch.

And come see Heywood (and, I assume, your friends). This is the schedule:

10:30 – Shadow’s Dance Troupe
10:40 – Rhythmix Break Free Hip-Hop
10:50 – Whistling Shrimp
*intermission*
11:00 – HEYWOOD
*intermission*
12:00 – Sarah Rae Robinson
12:10 – Willis Improv
12:30 – Natalie Masis
12:40 – Ethan Cohen
12:50 – Anders

Now that we’re officially in a recession and everyone’s throwing around words like “death of the middle class,” “what job market?” and “SPAM for every meal”, perhaps you’re having trouble keeping track of all the bad news. We’re here to give you the rundown, Ivy-style. In this afternoon’s installment of Recession Watch ‘08: Harvard is out $8 billion! Brown makes like Dartmouth and Cornell and imposes a hiring freeze! And Columbia looks to sell its private equity holdings (maybe)!

This morning, the New York Times reported that Harvard’s endowment has lost $8 billion, or 22 percent of its value, in the last four months. In a letter to the deans, University President Drew Faust and Executive Vice President Edward C. Forst ‘82 said that the total loss in value will likely be closer to 30 percent by June, the end of the current fiscal year. Harvard’s endowment is the largest in the country, and the $8 billion loss alone is larger than the endowment value of all but four other American universities (Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT). Read the rest of this entry »

• Brown: University-wide hiring freeze is hurting some departments more than others
• Brown: Brown TV is back with Election Night documentary
• Columbia: Students split on whether NROTC ban should be overturned
• Cornell: U.S. News and World Report’s newest list ranks University 15th best in the world
• Dartmouth: Despite budget cuts, construction will continue on new sorority houses
• Harvard: Finals overlap with Obama inauguration; students create petitions, Facebook groups in protest
• Harvard: Students fulfill their Black Friday civic duty in spite of the economy
• Penn: Wharton entrepreneurial program sees increased student interest
  
• Princeton: University has major effect on local, state economy
• Yale: Student returns from break to find squatter living in her room

• 
• Brown: RISD students start campus bike-sharing program modeled after similar European services
  
• Columbia: At least someone’s making a living wage: PrezBo’s salary increased by half a million dollars last year
  
• Cornell: Programming Board is concerned after Howie Mandel sells fewer tickets than Stephen Colbert
  
• Dartmouth: ARSON!!!!!
• Dartmouth: Alumni file the most boring lawsuit ever against the College. Again.
• Harvard: Former University President and lovable misogynist Larry Summers to lead Obama’s National Economic Council
• Penn: Frugal students graduating in three years to save money
  
• Princeton: Adorably dorky engineer asks, If ∂[female]/∂t > 0, then [female] = :-) ?
• Princeton: University cuts capital plan funds by $300 million
• Yale: Marching band suspended after portraying Harvard as a “Communist empire”
• Yale: Nine students hospitalized at The Game, down from 30 in 2004

Everyone has those moments where your mom gets a screen name or your high school frenemy pokes you and you think, Man, technology is the worst. Along those lines, did you know that the terrorists use social networking sites too? True story! It appears that Al Qaeda has been distributing training manuals with instructions for would-be terrorists on how to use digital platforms to accomplish their, erm, goals.

Columbia will use any excuse to throw a capital-S Summit, so in a few weeks the Law School will host Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Access 360 Media and the U.S. State Department to discuss the “best ways to use digital media to promote freedom and justice, counter violence, extremism, and oppression”:

These young leaders will form a new group, the Alliance of Youth Movements, which will produce a field manual for youth empowerment. The field manual will stand in stark contrast to the Al Qaeda manual on the basics of terrorism, found by Coalition Forces in Iraq… [It] will form the cornerstone of a much larger online “hub,” where emerging youth organizations can access and share “how-to” guides and tips on using social-networking and other technologies to further their causes.

The Howcast press release doesn’t provide details on what exactly in the terrorism manual requires an in-kind response, but the forum was specifically inspired by an anti-FARC Facebook group that helped organize millions of Colombians to demonstrate against the guerrilla organization. Whoopi Goldberg, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and MSNBC’s Luke Russert are scheduled to speak. Read the rest of this entry »

• Brown:  Richard Holbrooke ‘62 on short list for Obama cabinet position
• Columbia: Bring back NROTC, says our favorite campus Republican
• Columbia: Area around campus is more gentrified than the rest of Harlem, sophomore is shocked to learn
• Cornell: Ithaca College TV debuts Laguna Beach-like “reality” show
• Dartmouth: ‘Men of Dartmouth’ discuss masculinity
• Dartmouth: Greeks of Dartmouth discuss role on campus
• Harvard: Don’t tell Larry Summers, but female comp sci majors are still pretty rare
  
• Penn: Former Econ professor sentenced for killing his wife
• Yale: Student drug use on par with undergrad stats nationwide

Mark your calendars, Princetonians: it’s poverty simulating time. A tipster forwarded us an email to the class of 2011 that included this upcoming event:

“Experience” the frustrations and obstacles of living in poverty in a Poverty Simulation cosponsored by the Student Volunteers Council (SVC) and the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton. Participants will “experience” poverty for a month (four 15-minute weeks), and then a discussion about community service, public policy, and the myths of poverty will follow. Free lunch will be provided.

Hey! You don’t get free food in poverty! 100 people have signed up so far to go to “Realville,” where they will roleplay welfare recipients, people with disabilities and old folks living on Social Security, and go to jail and the pawnbroker.

If you’ll recall, Dartmouth just hosted a similar event, the Two Dollar-a-Day Challenge. And that Dartian from Zimbabwe said, “As a person who lives and sees poverty at home, I think it’s sort of a stupid exercise. I mean, fasting for a day isn’t going to tell you what hunger is like,” remember? I miss college. Read the rest of this entry »

• 
• Brown: Over-enrolled students finally move into freshman housing, are not amused
• Columbia: Founder of student porn mag thinks Columbia is “sexually stagnated” relative to other colleges
  
• Cornell: Greeks dance for children (disclaimer: not as awesome as it sounds)
• Dartmouth: $220 million in endowment lost in stock market collapse
  
• Penn: On-campus violent crime drops, property crime increases from 2007
• Yale: Illegal Casino Night replaced by “the sickest party planned in 24 hours that Yale has ever seen”
• Yale: As we’ve long suspected, baby talk destroys one’s will to live