But what do you do when the object of your affection is one of the popular kids? Someone who you normally don’t stand a chance of getting? Or even worse, what if your special someone is celebrity basketball player Jeremy Lin?

Lina Yeh, a senior at the College of William and Mary in Virginia found herself in this position. Her senior formal dance was quickly approaching, and all Yeh wanted was to go to the dance with the famous basketball player. Obviously, the odds of Lin showing up on Yeh’s doorstep on the night of the dance were a little slim, so Yeh decided to take matters into her own hands.

Yeh made a hilarious video to convince the basketball star to go with her to the dance. What qualifications does Yeh mention that should convince Lin to go with her? According to the video, Williamsburg is a great party city, she’s a fantastic student, and she’s “kind of a baller,” as in basketball. Sadly, none of these claims are proven to be true in the video, but it really is pretty funny.

Check it out for yourself and then decide if you think Lin should accept Yeh’s invitation to her senior formal.

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In the last week of March, Harvard offered a student-run program of all things sex, including panel discussions, lectures and information tables.

Sex Week provides a balance of education on sexual health and pleasure. Students can listen to panels on bondage, gay and lesbian sex, and the ethics of pornography. Traditionally, sex education’s main focus has been on the transmission of STDs, safe sex, and rape prevention.

“I think that what our generation is doing is really trying to address these issues in a way that respects individual experiences and beliefs and identities,” said 23-year-old Samantha Meier, one of the two student planners of the event at the university. “And I see Sex Week as a part of that.”

At a time when surveys reveal students are having less sex than past generations, college campuses across the country are trying to prepare them for the experiences to come.

“I think there’s this hook-up culture at Harvard where people assume that everyone’s having sex all the time, and that’s not necessarily true,” said Suzanna Bobadilla, a 21-year-old junior at the university.

Brown University, Northeastern University, the University of Kentucky, Indiana University and Washington University have also followed the trend. Sex Week has faced hostility from students and alumni from all these colleges.

Some don’t like the idea of colleges using its resources to promote sex, while others believe that Sex Week puts to much emphasis on pleasure and not enough on health.

What do you think? Is Sex Week an event that every college campus should provide, or does such an affair promote a careless, pleasure-first approach to sex?

Via The NY Times

“Hilter and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care,” Jenky said in his sermon. “In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda – now seems intent on following a similar path.”

In addition to being a Catholic Bishop, Jenky is also a member of the Board of Fellows at the University of Notre Dame. In response to the Bishop’s sermon, members of the faculty at Notre Dame have created and signed a petition that asks Bishop Jenky to either “renounce loudly and publicly this destructive analogy” or resign from the Board of Fellows.

Some are arguing that Bishop Jenky’s quote is being taken out of context, but that he was just stating his political and religious belief that Obama should not be re-elected and that Catholics should not vote for him.

“Based upon the current government’s threatened infringement upon the Church’s religious exercise of its ministry, Bishop Jenky offered historical context and comparisons as a means to prevent a repetition of historical attacks upon the Catholic Church and other religions,” said Patricia Gibson, the chancellor of the Peoria Diocese and a support of Bishop Jenky. “Bishop Jenky gave several examples of times in history in which religious groups were persecuted because of what they believed. We certainly have not reached the same level of persecution. However, history teaches us to to be cautious once we start down the path of limiting religious liberty.”

The members of the faculty who are petitioning to have Bishop Jenky removed from the Board of Fellows feel that his “comments demonstrate ignorance of history, insensitivity to victims of genocide, and absence of judgement,” according to a letter that 49 professors wrote to the University President and the Chair of the Board of Trustees. “We request that you issue a statement on behalf of the University that will definitively distance Notre Dame from Bishop Jenky’s incendiary statement.”

Via The Huffington Post and The Chicago Tribune

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On April 8, 2012, I. S. 318′s chess team – which is composed of mostly 8th grade students – traveled to Minneapolis to compete in the tournament against high schools that are notoriously good at the game. They won the tournament, which is great for them, but it is far from being their first major win. In every stairwell at I. S. 318, you can find a chess trophy from various tournaments. The kids are good.

One of the best chess players at the school is James Black Jr., who is only 13-years old. Black is a certified chess master and one of the most popular kids at school. When he is not playing chess himself, he likes to watch others play and correct others when they need his help.

In my opinion, what’s even more impressive about these chess-geniuses is that they are still in middle school. Evidently, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

“The difference in mental development between a junior high school kid and a high school kid is impossible to overstate,” said Elizabeth Spiegel. Spiegel is the full-time chess teacher at I. S. 318. A few years ago, the school only had an after-school program who students who wanted to learn to play chess, but Spiegel saw the interest the students had in the game and worked hard to transform them into national champions. Chess is now a required subject for 6th grade students, while 7th and 8th graders can choose to take the class as an elective.

It seems that teaching chess as a mandatory class has worked out well for the students at I. S. 318. We wish them a huge congratulations and best of luck at their next tournament!

Via The New York Times

Sadly, the family’s lawyer says that they still have the right to sue the school. The lawyer, Wick Sollers, says that there hasn’t been any sort of settlement reached between the school and Paterno’s estate.

“However, there has been a straightforward payment of moneys indisputably owed to the Paterno estate,” he said. “The university had requested that the family agree to a full release in return for the payments under the contract. That request was declined and no release was signed.”

So it seems that Penn State was not trying to just be nice to the Paterno family. They were trying to reach a settlement and release so that they would not be sued.

Paterno had been the longtime football coach at Penn State, but he was fired last November after child molestation charges were filed against his assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky. Paterno had planned on retiring at the end of the season, but he was let go by the university trustees because they did not think he had been a good leader, under these circumstances. However, the school and trustees did decide to honor Paterno’s contract and act as if he had retired. In his contract, Paterno was promised a $3 million career bonus upon retirement, and this is the largest chunk of the payments that his family is now receiving.

Via The New York Times

“This is a question of values,” Obama said. “We cannot let America become a country where a shrinking number of people really do well while a growing number of people struggle to get by.”

One of Obama’s plans to keep education attainable is by extending a current law concerning federal student loans for low- to middle-income undergraduates. The current law is set to expire of July 1, 2012. If it does, interest rates on these popular student loans will double, forcing students to pay 6.8 percent instead of the current 3.4 percent. On average, this will cause an increase of $1,000 that each student will have to pay back on their loans.

Obama says that the Republicans have been voting against this act and others that would make college less cost-prohibitive for the general population.

“In America, higher education cannot be a luxury,” he said. “It’s an economic imperative that every family must be able to afford.”

Obama plans to travel to the University of North Carolina, the University of Colorado, and the University of Iowa this week. These schools are all in states that are not yet aligned with Obama or Mitt Romney in the upcoming election. He also plans to make an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in order to appeal to more students in other states.

Via NPR.org

This is not the first time that student groups have gone on strike in Quebec due to proposed tuition hikes. There have already been several protests that caused the police to intervene and break up the protest; several dozen people have been arrested.

So these tuition hikes must be quite a large amount of money, right? The proposed increases will raise current tuition costs by 75 percent, making the yearly cost for attending college in Quebec $3,793 instead of the current $2,168.

Whoa, wait a second? Less than $5,000 to attend college for a year? That sounds fantastic to me! However, for around 130,000 students who have walked out of their classes, having a cheap and affordable education is a matter of principle.

Quebec Education Minister Line Beauchamp told the students who were striking in Quebec that their actions would have consequences.

“The semester could be extended for weeks [if the students keep striking and not attending classes],” she said. “It also means making up classes in the evening.”

Although I understand why the students would want to protest tuition hikes on principle, I really think they should stop protesting and be grateful for what they have. If they really want to see what expensive tuition is like, they can come on over to the USA and attend school in New Jersey.

However, on the other side of the argument, one could say that these students are trying to prevent their higher education system from becoming like that of their southern neighbor’s. Perhaps if students in the USA had started protesting like this when our tuition costs first started raising, a college education in the USA would not land students in thousands dollars of debt or filing for bankruptcy upon graduation.

What are your views on the matter? Share them with us in the comment section below.

Via The Sudbury Star and Winnipeg Free Press

The all-boys charter school is happy to report that all 85 members of the Class of 2012 have been accepted to colleges and universities across the country. There were even some standout students, like Vernon Cheeks, who were accepted to multiple schools; Cheeks was accepted to 14 different schools.

“It taught me how to be resilient,” Cheeks said about his time at Urban Prep Academy. “It also taught me how to be accountable for my own actions.”

The school is located in a neighborhood with a very high crime rate and is the middle of gang terrorizes. However, that hasn’t stopped the school or its students from succeeding. Founded in 2006, Urban Prep Academy has taken young men and helped them transition from barely reading at grade level to excelling and being accepted to university.

“No other public [school] in the country has done this,” said the founder of the school, Tim King, about his schools accomplishment of sending all of its graduates to college.

So, it’s very cool that the students get accepted to college, but what happens to them once they get there? Do most give up on earning a higher education and drop out? Surprisingly, no. More than 80 percent of the students who graduated from Urban Prep Academy in 2010 are still in college. The national average for African-American men who continue their education past their first year is only 35 percent.

I’d like to be one of the many who are sure to be congratulating these young men and give them my best wishes for bright and successful futures. Congratulations to Urban Prep Academy‘s Class of 2012!

Via The Huffington Post

“4/20 damages the reputation of the university and of every students enrolled here,” said CUSG Vice President for External Affairs Brooks Kanski. “Do any search online of CU-Boulder and what will invariably pop up is an image or video of 4/20. Questions about 4/20 plague CU graduates in job interviews. It’s time for all of this to end.”

The school plans to take several measures to enforce its new policies. For example, school officials will be patrolling parking spaces and enforcing parking rules to keep people from smoking in parking lots. They also plan to have enhanced patrols and presence from the state police. The school’s student government is also backing up this new stance against marijuana smoking on campus.

It seems that the school has made a pretty strong stance against marijuana usage on its campus. However, in an interesting move, they have also hired Wyclef Jean – a recording artist who often sings about legalizing marijuana – to perform at a free concert for students on April 20th.

“We are asking students to support us in the effort to protect the reputation of our institution – and do it by attending a great free concert,” said Carly Robinson, the school’s vice president for internal affairs.

Not everyone is in favor of this new enforcement. Many students have created memes that mock the new policy and have posted them online. In a state where medical marijuana is legal and many people support legalizing the drug, I am not surprised that there is some discontent on this subject and would not be surprised if many students still take a hit from a bong come 4/20.

Via The Huffington Post

 
Facility managers were to inspect the student lounge on Monday, and more inspections are to come. Physical Plant employees have already replaced the window.
 
At Pew’s high school, where they hold daily assemblies, Fayroian encouraged students to keep her in their thoughts.
 
“She’s a wonderful kid and we’re looking forward to her recovery,” he said.

Via The Lansing State Journal