From WBRC video

Overeager trademark enforcers at the University of Alabama cooked up another controversy last week, threatening a local baker with legal action for violating the Tuscaloosa institution’s trademark with Crimson Tide-themed cakes and cookies.

But after a few days of sharp protests from critics, Alabama decided it was getting, well, a little too hot in the kitchen. The university withdrew the threat.

The baker, Mary Cesar, owner of Mary’s Cakes & Pastries in Northport, Ala., is once again free to produce her trophy cakes, houndstooth cookies, and other University of Alabama-styled treats.

The controversy began on Tuesday, when Cesar received a letter from the Collegiate Licensing Company ordering her to stop selling the cakes and cookies, according to The Tuscaloosa News. The letter said that if Cesar wanted to continue to bake those sweets, she would need to pay for the right to use the Bama symbols.

The company represents the university in trademark issues, managing the licensing of Alabama-branded merchandise and enforcing rights, just as it does for nearly 200 other colleges and universities.

This sort of enforcement is probably typical, says Megan La Belle, an assistant professor of law at the Catholic University of America, because the burden of trademark protection always falls on the holder. “Trademark owners must ‘police’ their marks, or they risk losing protection,” she adds.

However, in going after a local hero, the company provoked a heated reaction. When Cesar told The Tuscaloosa News that she would stop making UA pastries because she didn’t have the money to pay licensing fees, e-mails and phone calls poured into both the newspaper and the bakery. Outraged fans also defended her in social media and to reporters.

Stewart W. Lewis of Lebanon, Tenn., wrote to the paper saying, “The amounts of money here are peanuts—and she’s paying local/state taxes (I assume) while trying to scrape out a living in this economy. UA licensing should be ashamed, and someone should be reprimanded if not fired for lousy … judgment.”

The university responded quickly with an apology and distanced itself from the Collegiate Licensing Company’s letter. The university’s assistant vice president for university relations, Deborah M. Lane, said in a written statement that Alabama had a special protocol for local merchants that was not followed in this case.

“We have assured Ms. Cesar,” Lane added, “that we will work with her to resolve this issue quickly and amicably so that she can continue to produce pastries that bear the university’s marks.”

Daniel A. Moore’s painting “The Blowout.” Image © 2009 New Life Art Inc.

This wasn’t the first time the university was rebuffed recently over how it was enforcing its rights. In July a federal appeals court ruled in favor of an artist whom the university had accused of trademark violations for his paintings of Crimson Tide football scenes.

The artist, Daniel A. Moore, had argued that his images of the university’s uniforms and colors qualified as fair use, and that the university could not demand royalties or otherwise enforce its trademark on them.

The court agreed, declaring that “Moore’s paintings, prints, and calendars very clearly are embodiments of artistic expression, and are entitled to full First Amendment protection.”

In a letter to The Chronicle, Moore noted that the university’s actions not only were illegal but also cost it an estimated $2-million in legal fees and lost revenue.

As for Mary Cesar’s hand-decorated Bama cookies and meticulously constructed layer cakes, Lane’s carefully worded apology did not state whether Cesar would be required to pay any sort of fee to continue selling them. But if the Moore case is any guide, it might depend on whether the university considers them to be works of art.

We don’t know about anyone else, but in the right light, those frosting swirls look a little like brushstrokes to us.

The list perhaps shows as much about the perspective of its authors as of the subjects in question. To put it another way: Whether there has ever been an era without fabulists and the fame-hungry, or whether the 18-year-olds of today know enough about the singer-songwriter Selena to register that she may still have mourning fans, we’ll leave to our readers.

As it did last  year, the Internet looms large on the list of 75 things that have always been true for the freshmen entering college this fall. They have always lived in cyberspace, addicted to a new generation of “electronic narcotics,” the authors write.

Here’s a sampling of some other items from the list, grouped (haphazardly, non-comprehensively, unscientifically) into a few general categories:

The Internet (14 items):

• If they miss The Daily Show, they can always get their news on YouTube.
• They watch television everywhere but on a television.
• Before they purchase an assigned textbook, they will investigate whether it is available for rent or purchase as an e-book.

People Who Have Died/Fictional Characters They Never Met (9 items)

• A bit of the late Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, has always existed in space.
• Michael Jackson’s family, not the Kennedys, constitutes “American Royalty.”
• Benjamin Braddock, having given up both a career in plastics and a relationship with Mrs. Robinson, could be their grandfather.
• Selena’s fans have always been in mourning.

Politics (13 items):

• For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the United States and the rest of the world has been a woman’s job in the State Department.
• Since they’ve been born, the United States has measured progress by a 2 percent jump in unemployment and a 16 cent rise in the price of a first-class postage stamp.

Sports (5 items):

• Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive baseball games played has never stood in their lifetimes.

General ‘Kids Today’ Grumbling (37.5 items):

• The biblical sources of terms such as “forbidden fruit,” “the writing on the wall,” “good Samaritan,” and “promised land” are unknown to most of them.
• A significant percentage of them will enter college already displaying some hearing loss.

General ‘We’re Old’ Grumbling (37.5 items):

• They have always lived in an era of instant stardom and self-proclaimed celebrities, famous for being famous.
• Ice skating competitions have always been jumping matches.
• They grew up, somehow, without the benefits of Romper Room.

The full list is available on Beloit College’s Web site.

Hillary Diane Rodham, at Wellesley College in 1969.

[Edited 8/21, 10:00 am: We've updated the list below with reader suggestions. To see the official Beloit Mindset List, published Tuesday morning, go here.]

The Beloit College Mindset List is getting a little long in the tooth. First compiled in 1998, the annual list purports to help professors reach students who have grown up, quite literally, in a different world. This year’s iteration, which will be released on Tuesday, is bound to reference online life (rotary phones versus smartphones), fashion statements (midcalf skirts versus bra straps), political figures (dead versus alive), and Jay Leno. That is, if the last several years’ lists are any guide.

As the guide has aged, critics contend that it’s becoming less and less relevant and more prone to knee-jerk, get-off-my-lawn grumbling. They also focus on an unfortunate tendency to pad the list with events and people who are merely historical, dead, or irrelevant by the time the entering class reaches adulthood. This is good for a few laughs, but not so much for true comprehension: What do you learn about people based on their ignorance of Barry Manilow? As Linda Holmes wrote for NPR in 2010, “The fact that we feel old is not the responsibility of the Class of 2014.”

Moreover, the list never seems to include figures who are central to young people’s cultural lives yet fly under the radar of their professors and parents. Here’s a suitable litmus test: Do you know the identity of the Based God?

Since the goal is intergenerational understanding, we wonder if it might not be more illustrative to create a database where various events, celebrities, and objects are compared according to how multiple generations were exposed to them. So, in the lighthearted spirit of the original, we’ve built an ad hoc, unofficial version of the list, to which you’re welcome to contribute. We’ll start with three generations: a midcareer professor, who turns 45 in 2012, and who is likely to have graduated from high school in 1985 and college around 1989; this year’s entering Class of 2016; and the Class of 1962, whose members were born in 1940, just before the baby boom. You may add more generations if you like.

Here’s how that database looks:

The first few (numbers 3-11) were compiled by a Chronicle staffer from the undergraduate Class of 2006: almost smack-dab in the middle of the 2016 and 1989 cohorts. The rest are from readers: we’ve marked our favorites in purple.

Now’s your chance to play: What cultural phenomena should be on the list, and how differently would those generations see them? Polling your teenagers and grandparents is allowed; curmudgeonly grumbling about Twitter is not. Game on: SUBMIT. And check back on Tuesday, when we highlight our reader favorites, and reveal the real contents of this year’s sanctioned, official list.

Commiseration continues with today’s strip on the disproportionately high salaries drawn by for-profit presidents.

With any luck, Friday’s strip will address the rate at which for-profits market to low-income, minority, and nontraditional students, a population that might be just right for the absurdly-leftist Walden College, where preppies are suspicious, a Glossary of Safe Speech is mandatory reading, and grades are administered under an “A+ only” policy.

However, according to the registrar’s office at Idaho State, there is no typo. Kerry Larsen, an administrative assistant in the office, says, “That’s a traditional Old English font, which many students are not familiar with, with a long serif on the left-hand side that makes a ‘v’ look like a ‘b.’”

According to Larsen, the university had just moved to a new printer, and while the fonts used by both printers are classified as Old English, the variations between the two have caused some confusion.

A close comparison of an older diploma (in the back) and the spring 2012 version (in front) makes the difference clear. While the “v” is the only big difference, there are other modifications: The top of the “d” in “Idaho,” for example, has a much smaller serif in the new version than in the old, and the new “y” is closed at the top where the old one is not.

Not everyone was convinced, as both the registrar’s office and The Chronicle have fielded questions from perplexed graduates. At least one person has accused the university of trying to cover up a failure.

Luckily for the dismayed students, the university will be changing vendors for a second time in October. Then they’ll be able to order a new diploma–for a fee, of course.

This month in the Windy City, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators held its annual meeting, “Winds of Uncertainty: Navigating the National Commitment to College Access and Affordability.” And through the agenda, many a fitful breeze doth blow. The abstract for one session asks, “Does a private student loan provide just enough wind in their sail or blow them off course with another debt burden?”

It’s a noteworthy contribution to the financial-aid genre, but the risk managers are nautical miles ahead. In September they’ll muster in Providence, R.I., for the annual conference of the University Risk Management and Insurance Association, featuring a lighthouse logo and the tag line “Guiding you across the ocean of risk.” Sessions include: “Charting a Course Through the Storm of Contracts and Insurance Requirements,” “The Choppy Waters of Regulatory Compliance: No Calm in Sight,” and “Ahoy Matey: Take the Tiller and Maintain Due Course Through Exposure Identification.”

Among their own kind, even sober functionaries are prone to nerd out. “They are kind of a creative group in general,” says Jenny Whittington, Urmia’s executive director.

In 2008 the group’s conference was in Washington, and Donna McMahon, risk manager at the University of Maryland at College Park, dressed as Uncle Sam. For the past couple of years she has served as chair of the annual meeting’s programming committee. “I like to kind of make it interesting,” she says. Last year in Portland, Ore., Urmia went with an Oregon Trail/Lewis and Clark theme, “Expedition Risk!” Sessions formed tracks: Trailblazing, Happy Trails, Trail Mix.

Urmia has a proud metaphorical tradition. In 2010 in Pittsburgh, members bridged the rivers of risk. In 2009 in Nashville, they tuned their risk-management skills. And in 2007 they achieved “peak performance” by scaling the future of risk, in—yes—Denver. For this fall’s meeting, Ms. McMahon consulted a sailing glossary. The annual conference co-chair, Anne Gregson, risk manager at the University of Rhode Island, thought about literally taking to the high seas. “But logistically,” she says, “it wasn’t going to work out.”

Alas, maybe it was too risky. But now we’re wondering: Which other associations are harboring bold wordsmiths? In May, for instance, a coalition of community colleges called Rebuilding America’s Middle Class met in Indianapolis. The agenda invited participants to start their engines in the “race for talent, skills, and knowledge,” round the S curve of education and politics, and rev their engines by using students’ voices to tell their story.

What creative or overwrought language have you seen on the conference circuit? Tell us in the comments, and we may feature particularly stunning metaphors in a coming print issue of The Chronicle.

Image from Flickr user tonynetone.

Erica Wuenschel, winner of the female division, scored a $1,000 scholarship for her flop. Steven Mitchell/ The Denver Post

Sixteen competitors at Denver’s Water World fought for the title of “biggest flop” last week, in a competition designed to help students pay for college. A park spokeswoman, Joann Cortez, told The Denver Post that it was “one of those things you just can’t look away from even if you want to,” as judges measured the belly-floppers’ technique, splash volume, crowd interaction, and, of course, the acoustics of the flop itself. It’s not as weird as that duck-calling scholarship, but it does sound a lot more painful. This is the 16th iteration of the annual annual Water World Belly Flop Showdown.

While most competitors were in their late teens and early 20s, the day’s champion was a grandfather, Paul Salcido, who attends Front Range Community College. He won a $1,000 scholarship, a laptop, and concert tickets. Well done, Mr. Salcido. We hope it was worth the red belly.

The report, which highlighted the role that the late head football coach and other top university officials played in concealing child abuse for more than 14 years, incited hundreds of posts on various social-media outlets, and the placing of a guard on the statue itself:

Several observers made a connection between Paterno and Saddam Hussein, saying the statue should be pulled down, “Baghdad-style.” Others suggested replacing it with a tribute or a memorial to the victims of abuse. Similar representations of Paterno have been edited recently: notably, the removal of a halo around his head in a mural by the artist Michael Pilato.

Five days after the report’s release, rancor is still high. Around 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday, a small aircraft, of the kind usually used to tow wedding proposals and ads for local car dealerships, circled the campus with a banner saying, “Take the statue down or we will.”

It isn’t yet known who commissioned the plane, or how serious the threat is. But with the NCAA considering the “death penalty” for Penn State football, a continuing grand-jury investigation against Sandusky, and the potential indictments that could still be brought against the former president, Graham Spanier, and others, administrators may feel they have bigger fish to fry. The university has, thus far, declined to commit to any course of action.

In a recent paper published in the university’s Journal of Physics Special Topics, helpfully titled “Trajectory of a Falling Batman,” the students demonstrated that the Caped Crusader could in fact glide from the top of a tall building. But his roughly 15-foot-wide cape, pictured at left in the paper, wouldn’t be big enough to stop him from flying headlong into a losing battle with the pavement.

“He would likely end up getting a bit splattered,” one of the students, David Marshall, told the BBC. Mr. Marshall said if Batman could extend the cape’s wingspan beyond his arms, the gliding strategy would probably work.

For anyone who might try to disprove their findings by flinging themselves off a skyscraper, the students wrapped up their paper with the following disclaimer: “Clearly gliding using a batcape is not a safe way to travel, unless a method to rapidly slow down is used such as a parachute.”

The document, found in a volume at the U. of Munich Library, shows the name "America" applied to the continent now known as South America. (Photo by U. of Munich Library)

In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller first used the name “America” for the New World in mistaken honor of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who he thought had discovered the continents.

Waldseemüller and his colleague Matthias Ringmann produced sets consisting of the large map, an introduction to the principles of geography, and smaller maps. Those smaller maps were distinctive for the novel way in which the globe was depicted, using 12 segments, each tapering to a point that could be arranged on a sphere about 11 centimeters in diameter. About 100 of the sets were produced and only one copy of the original large map is known to have survived. That version was given by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to the Library of Congress in 2007, following its removal at the request of the chancellor’s office from a list of German cultural treasures that cannot be sold or exported.

The map recently found at Ludwig Maximilian, one of only five smaller copies of the segmented map known to exist, was tucked between two printed works on geometry from the 16th century in a volume that had been rebound in the 19th century.

“The newly discovered sheet differs in a number of details from the copies that were already known, and can therefore be regarded as unique,” Sven Kuttner, curator of the library’s department of early printed books, said in the university’s announcement. Those details include differences in style of hatching and lettering. According to Mr. Kuttner, the paper’s watermark indicates that it may have been printed after the first edition of 1507, somewhere in Alsace.

Like many of the older works in the university’s library, the map was removed to a rural storage area for safekeeping during World War II. Although the library was devastated by air raids, the map and other volumes survived. Now, in time for the Fourth of July, the university has placed a digital version online.