Author Archives: Xarissa Holdaway

Missouri Southern State U. and Its President Part Ways

Bruce Speck is no longer president of Missouri Southern State University, the institution’s Board of Governors announced in a terse statement on the university’s Web site. The board’s chairwoman, Sherry Buchanan, says in the statement that Mr. Speck is leaving “by mutual agreement” of the parties. According to The Joplin Globe, he had two years left on his contract. Neither Mr. Speck nor the university provided any details on the reasons for his departure or information on any severance package he will receive.

Mr. Speck had an early clash with the faculty during his five years in office. In 2009, a year after he was hired, the faculty voted no confidence in him, citing budget cuts and accusing him of withholding information from the faculty. Later, however, he received praise for having formed an agreement with the Red Cross, which resulted in the campus’s being used as a temporary refuge for people affected by the 2011 tornado in Joplin, which killed more than 150 people.

Filed under: Governance, Leadership, Southern Missouri University

David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Speech Is Revived, This Time in Video

Not many commencement speeches survive the day they’re given. Even fewer are active well beyond the lifetime of their author. The speech that the writer David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005 breaks both rules.

His address, informally titled “This Is Water,” was never filmed. However, it has been circulating on the Internet for years in transcribed form, particularly after Wallace’s suicide, in September  2008. Unlike his heavily footnoted, fractal-like novels, the speech was relatively straightforward, focusing on the “capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away.”

In breaking many of the conventions of “motivational” or “inspiring” commencement speeches, it gained hundreds of thousands of devotees over time, who e-mailed transcription links to their friends, printed out copies to give to graduating relatives, and posted quotes on their social-media pages. Hard-core fans could find audio recordings of the speech on YouTube.

In the spring of 2009, Little, Brown and Company attempted to crack down on the Web-based transcripts. The company, Wallace’s publisher during his lifetime, was printing a book that capitalized on the speech’s popularity. The book, which contains only an edited version of the speech, runs 134 pages: one sentence per page.

Now there’s a new version, designed for the attention-deficited. The Glossary, a video-graphic company in California, has stripped the speech down to its main story line, of a hypothetical grocery-store trip, and runs audio of Wallace’s speech over a re-enactment of the scenario. The original audio from Kenyon clocks in around 25 minutes. Glossary’s bowdlerized version takes nine. No doubt, there’s an audience for the core message, though fans of Wallace’s real talk—about privilege, prestige, and the difficult value of a liberal-arts degree—may miss the part where he talks about bumper stickers.

Take a look at the latest version below:

THIS IS WATER – By David Foster Wallace from The Glossary on Vimeo.

Filed under: Tweed, commencement speech, Kenyon College

The Terror of Student Debt, in B-Movie Form

Ever get that tingly feeling that you’re being followed? Not by a turnip-wielding serial bludgeoner or an animated rocking horse—because those are just this reporter’s own personal nightmares—but by the specter of your student-loan payments? Then The Red, a new short film released online last week, is for you.

Borderline Films, the partnership behind the award-winning thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene, directed The Red. All the classic tropes are in place: There’s a shivering, defenseless young woman, misbehaving electronic devices, and somebody’s eyeballs going all demon-colored.

The plot is pretty basic. Two young graduates live together in an unfancy apartment, working their first jobs after graduation. While one girl is doing well—she gets a promotion early in the video—her roommate, Kate, can’t stay on top of her debt despite having a professional job. Her parents are unsympathetic, and her boss won’t pay her for overtime.

Anxiety over the looming debt takes over Kate’s life until—well, I’ll let you watch it for yourself. Just try to make sure no one walks up to your desk at the exact moment that a door slams, because I can confirm the coffee is never coming back out of those pants, no sir.

The short horror-flick-cum-PSA is brought to you by the nonprofit group American Student Assistance. Once all the fun terrorizing is out of the way, the film directs viewers to ASA’s Web site, which features resources for young borrowers like an online loan-management tool and internship searches. Three lucky people can win a sweepstakes prize of $10,000, which could help pay off some of that debt. Though, as the video itself points out, that might cover only a fraction of some students’ loans. And if they weren’t already aware of that fact, then surely the video will make it clear. You’re not nearly scared enough, kids.

Filed under: Student Debt, Tweed

Niagara Falls, N.Y., to Pay Student Loans for a Few New Graduates

The City of Niagara Falls, N.Y., will contribute toward student-loan payments for 20 recent college graduates who promise to live downtown, The Niagara Gazette reports. The city, which is struggling with population loss, hopes that the program will help entice other young residents and make the downtown area a more attractive place to live. Graduates accepted into the program will be eligible for $7,000 each in loan-payment reimbursements over two years. The city will spend $200,000 on the effort, called Live NF.

Similar projects, such as Kansas’ Rural Opportunity Zones, also aim to keep young people in economically depressed areas by offering to pay parts of their student loans.


Bobbie Thoman, one of the first awardees, said she is excited to collaborate with fellow participants in the program and has already started to explore the idea of establishing a community garden in the designated area. “Anything you can do to get involved in the community, it makes you, I feel like, live a fuller life,” Thoman said.

Read more at: niagara-gazette.com

Manhunt for Marathon Bombers Follows Shooting Death of MIT Police Officer

Officials search an area at Massachusetts Institute of Technology following reports of a shooting, Friday, April 19, 2013, in Boston. State police say a campus police officer at the school has died from injuries in a shooting on the campus outside Boston. State police spokesman Dave Procopio says the shooting took place about 10:30 p.m. Thursday outside an MIT building. The injured officer was described as a male but no further information about him was released. The city continues to cope following Monday's explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Officials searched an area at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology early Friday, following reports of a shooting. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

[For more on this story, see this Chronicle article. Last updated: 11:51 a.m.]

The authorities identified the MIT police officer shot dead by the Boston Marathon bombing suspects as Sean A. Collier, 26, of Somerville, Mass. They said Officer Collier had been found in his car, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, roughly 10 minutes after the police received reports of shots fired on the MIT campus, around 10:20 p.m. on Thursday night.

In a written statement, the university said Officer Collier had been a member of its police force since last January. John DiFava, MIT’s police chief, lauded Officer Collier’s service, saying he “looked at police work as a calling” and was highly involved with the university’s students.

Elsewhere in Massachusetts, the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth said on Friday morning that its campus was being evacuated, “in response to information that the person being sought in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing is a registered student.” The university’s statement did not identify the student in question, but reports in The Boston Globe and other news outlets said that the authorities were searching for Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19.

A spokeswoman for Bunker Hill Community College confirmed that the suspect’s older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a firefight with the police early Friday morning, was a part-time student at the college for three semesters, from 2006 to 2008.

An earlier version of this post, last updated at 6:53 a.m., follows.

A campus police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was shot and killed Thursday night, by what are thought to be the Boston Marathon bombers, and SWAT teams and other law-enforcement officers from multiple agencies killed one of the suspects in a firefight and were searching for the remaining gunman early this morning in nearby Watertown, Mass., according to authorities cited in reports by The Boston Globe and other news outlets.

A message posted on MIT’s emergency-information Web page shortly before 2 a.m. said the police had determined that gunmen were no longer on the campus, adding, “It is now safe to resume normal activities. Please remain vigilant in the coming hours.” But shortly after 6 a.m., the university canceled classes for today and told employees that they could take excused absences.

Boston University, one of whose graduate students was killed in Monday’s bombings, also canceled classes. Boston and Emerson Colleges and Harvard University also have closed. And with the manhunt and shutdown of the regional transit system, other colleges are likely to do so as well.

The officer, who was not identified, was shot multiple times in his car following a reported robbery of a local store, the authorities said, and a manhunt quickly commenced.

Shortly after the shooting, which occurred about 10:30 p.m., the university sent out a text alert and tweets warning students to stay indoors and asking people to stay away from Building 32, the campus’s well-known Stata Center, where police officers and SWAT teams were gathering:

mit

Around an hour and a half after the shots were reported, the Massachusetts State Police confirmed to NBC that a campus police officer had been killed by multiple gunshots. Rumors about the shooting had already been circulating on social media after MIT’s student newspaper, The Tech, published a photo of the scene.

nbc

Filed under: Campus Safety, Students, guns, MIT

Pseudo-Academic Journals Proliferate Online

A New York Times article takes a look at the new wave of conferences and journals that have sprung up along with the open-access movement. Capitalizing on academics’ need to publish, some of the journals seem willing to print nearly any research for a “hefty fee,” and use prominent academics’ names for recruitment. Some experts estimate there are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of the journals.

In 2012, Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado at Denver, told The Chronicle that he keeps a list of “predatory” open-access publishers, whose main goal is to generate profits. Such publishers, says Mr. Beall, “add little value to scholarship, pay little attention to digital preservation, and operate using fly-by-night, unsustainable business models.”


About two years ago, James White, a plant pathologist at Rutgers, accepted an invitation to serve on the editorial board of a new journal, Plant Pathology & Microbiology, not realizing the nature of the journal. Meanwhile, his name, photograph and résumé were on the journal’s Web site. Then he learned that he was listed as an organizer and speaker on a Web site advertising Entomology-2013.

“I am not even an entomologist,” he said.

Read more at: www.nytimes.com

Roger Ebert Maintained Ties With U. of Illinois and Student Newspaper

Until his death on Thursday, the acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert was one of the most visible and vocal supporters of his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and its student newspaper, The Daily Illini, where he was editor in chief 50 years ago. In 2012, when the paper threatened to fold, Mr. Ebert fought to raise funds to ensure its survival.

“Many, including myself, would say that they owe their careers at least in part to their experience at Illini Media,” Mr. Ebert said in a letter circulated to other alumni. “It’s now time to give back.”

Mr. Ebert also donated heavily to the university and promised to bequeath his papers and other materials to it.

Mr. Ebert had been scheduled to return to Urbana-Champaign this month as host of a film festival known as Ebertfest, The Daily Illini reported. The university, in a statement expressing its sadness over Mr. Ebert’s death, said the festival will go on as scheduled, April 17 to 21.


Last year, he helped the paper raise money as it struggled financially, and worked with students on the guide to the annual film festival he held on campus.

The current Daily Illini editor, junior Darshan Patel, says he and other students are “in shock” over Ebert’s death.

Read more at: www.therepublic.com

Humans vs. Zombies Game Continues on Campus, Despite Killjoys

Napa Valley College officials are the latest to interfere with a popular campus-based game of tag called Humans vs. Zombies. More than 600 campuses in the United States play some version of the game, which originated at Goucher College.

To win, zombie players try to “infect” or tag the humans, thereby turning them into zombies, and the humans must protect one another from being tagged. Sometimes the teams also have missions to complete. In some iterations, the tags are tracked with person-specific ID cards, and then uploaded to a Web site. In others, as soon as you get hit with a Nerf dart, you’re dead. Well, undead. A game can last days or weeks, or merely until there are no “humans” left.

In 2008, The Chronicle filmed one of the games:

The darts seem to be the problem at Napa Valley College. According to the Napa Valley Register, “the sight of students running with blasters through campus has raised concerns among some students and faculty. In the wake of recent school shootings across the U.S., gun violence has become an increasingly sensitive issue, said Benjamin Quesada, student-life coordinator at Napa Valley College.”

Several years ago, students at Bowling Green State University also lost their foam-dart privileges after some students on the campus worried that the brightly painted toy blasters might be real guns. Those players had to compromise by throwing marshmallows at one another. At Napa Valley College, they may have to settle for rolled-up socks, even though students say that would ruin the fun of the game.

Napa Valley students have started a petition asking the administration to restore their guns. They have more than 300 signatures: More students have signed in support than were playing the original game.

Filed under: Tweed, Napa Valley College, zombies

Emory & Henry College Sets the Bar for New Logo Low. Very Low.

Sometimes we spend hours diligently scouring the Internet and checking in with sources to find Tweed items that will entertain, inspire, or horrify Chronicle readers. Sometimes universities are kind enough to send them directly to our inboxes. Today’s example is an email from Emory & Henry College, featuring a tantalizing hint of a new logo, scheduled to be revealed on Thursday:

 

eh

There are also images on the college’s Facebook page showing “rejected” versions: 301580_10151431546693138_215625244_n

734303_10151432494193138_909516416_nWe can only assume this campaign is designed to avoid a public relations debacle similar to the one over the University of California’s recent logo change. If you just set expectations really, really low, administrators may be thinking, you can get away with anything.

Filed under: Tweed, Emory & Henry College, public relations