News

News

Italian Embassy to host Kerwin's inauguration

By Jimm Phillips | November 29

rmine whether they will charge for tickets to AU's 2008 Founder's Day Ball, according to Presidential Chief of Staff David Taylor. If there is a charge, it will be no more than Founder's Day tickets have been in the past. Last year, Founder's Day tickets cost $15.

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Overprotective parents impact college success

By Caitlin Hillyard | November 29

College students with helicopter parents, or parents who constantly hover over their children's lives, may be getting more out of their college experiences than those whose parents don't interfere, according to a recent study by the National Survey of Student Engagement.

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Groups unite, display talents for AIDS slam

By Kaylor Garcia | November 29

The three students who make up Hard Hat Area stepped onto the Tavern's main stage and played a musical medley with their guitars and harmonica. Right next to the band, a long row of tables with representatives from several clubs sold shirts, gave out buttons and stickers and served cookies and drinks to entice students and give them information as part of AIDS Awareness Week.

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National brief

November 29

A former student is suing Chicago's DePaul University for designation as an honors student despite not having the qualifying grades. Michael Walters claims he participated in "grade forgiveness," a university policy in which low grades can be removed from the group of grades used to calculate grade point averages, according to the Daily Herald, an Illinois newspaper.

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News

Pa. loan agency exploits subsidy

By Christopher Cottrell | November 29

A Pennsylvania student loan agency exploited a federal subsidy program to receive $34 million from the government, according to an audit report issued last week from the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Education. The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency had been ineligible for the money it received between July 1, 2003, and June 30, 2006, according to the report.

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D.C. boasts top Peace Corps volunteer rate

By Laraine Weschler | November 29

D.C. has the highest per capita number of Peace Corps volunteers currently serving abroad compared to the rest of the nation, according to Stephen Chapman, Peace Corps public affairs specialist. The District has 2.2 volunteers out of every 25,000 residents, surpassing last year's top state, Vermont, he said.

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News

Police blotter

November 29

Tuesday, Nov. 13 Members of a fraternity assaulted a student in his off-campus home. Wednesday, Nov. 14 A tractor trailer ran over a stop sign in the tunnel. A student in Centennial Hall was verbally threatened by her roommate with bodily harm. Friday, Nov.

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News

Tickets can now be sold via new Facebook app

By Howard Perlman | November 29

A company that helps event planners sell tickets online launched Nov. 5 a Facebook application called "Ticketing" that would allow AU clubs and organizations to sell tickets to events posted on Facebook. TicketLeap, the company that created the application, was interested in making the application after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg opened his social networking site to external developers last June, according to Carolyn Daniel, TicketLeap's corporate manager.

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Campus brief

November 29

AU received a Grand Award last week in the Urban University Grounds category for exceptional grounds maintenance in the Professional Grounds Management Society's 2007 Green Star Awards competition. The Green Star Awards program acknowledges grounds with a high degree of excellence in terms of landscape design and construction.

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Campus calendar

November 29

Thursday, Nov. 29 SG Open Forum: Smoking@AU 6-8 p.m. WHERE: McDowell Formal Lounge INFO: The Student Government will discuss the on-campus smoking policy. Free Chipotle burritos will be served. CONTACT: For more information, e-mail secretary@ausg.

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Tech revolutions lead to backlash

By Jimm Phillips | November 19

Freedom of the press and freedom of speech have come to mean the same thing as a result of First Amendment issues raised by the Internet, Mike Godwin, general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, said during a speech Saturday in Mary Graydon Center. While there continue to be concerns about freedom of speech issues on the Internet, the U.

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Facebook offers carpool feature

By Amanda Krause | November 19

For students who want to drive home for Thanksgiving, a new Facebook application called Carpool can help them find rides. The application allows students to post a notice if they are planning on driving and would like to have someone ride with them or if they are in need of rides, according to John Zimmer, one of the co-founders of the application.

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SG brief

By Emily Blanck | November 19

The Undergraduate Senate passed a bill encouraging President Neil Kerwin to sign a national commitment to environmental sustainability at their meeting Sunday. "A Bill to Support the Presidents Climate Commitment," sponsored by School of Public Affairs Senator Andrew MacCracken, passed by a vote of 17-1-3 at the meeting Sunday.

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National brief

November 19

A poll of more than 3,000 students at New York University recently found that two-thirds of respondents would exchange their right to vote for a year's worth of free tuition, according to Washington Square News, NYU's student newspaper. The poll, conducted between Oct.

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Metro brief

November 19

Thousands of people marched from Federal Plaza to the Justice Department Friday morning in response to a recent spat of hate crimes across the nation, including the Jena Six case. The crowd, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, circled the Justice Department building several times to protest what they claim is a slow response from the federal government in dealing with race issues and hate crimes in the U.

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Registration requirement held

By Jen Calantone and Allie Feras | November 19

The offices of Campus Life and Greek Life have suspended a requirement that all of AU's greek organizations provide the university with members' off-campus addresses, according to Student Government President Joe Vidulich. However, Campus Life is considering extending the requirement to all AU students living off-campus, he said.

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Panel: Sectarian violence reduced

By Jeanette Lenoir | November 19

Sectarian violence in Baghdad has decreased, but many significant problems remain, according to military experts at a panel held Friday in cooperation with the George Washington University Elliot School of International Affairs and the Security Policy Studies Program Institute for Middle East Studies.

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