Entries for September 2009

Yesterday, we chronicled the scary weightlifting accident that crushed USC football player Stafon Johnson's throat and forced him into emergency surgery at the California Hospital Medical Center. Today, Johnson has come through surgery that repaired his larynx and vocal cords and is in stable condition, the Daily Trojan reports.

The senior running back was apparently awake and communicating after surgery. Had he not been in peak physical shape, he would have died, Dr. Gudata Hinika, the hospital's trauma medical director, told ESPN.

"Had that been any one of us, meaning me, we would have not survived," Hinika said. "His neck was so solid, so muscular ... and the discipline that one learns from being athletic also really helped him to calm down and just do what he needed to do. He took instruction very well. All this combination and his physical fitness contributed to his outcome."

Tragedy brought the Yale University campus to a halt when graduate student Annie Le was brutally murdered in a Yale lab facility. An investigation resulted in the arrest of Raymond Clark, a lab technician in the same lab, and it prompted new concerns about workplace violence.

Well, during the hubbub surrounding Le's murder and the ensuing investigation, Yale University police arrested a retired Yale employee, John Petrini, when he came to campus with a rifle and a butcher knife. According to the Yale Daily News, officials believe the man's actions were related to a dispute Petrini had with Yale human resources.

So, with two significant incidents in the same month, Yale is taking action, the Daily News reports. The university published a short article in its human resources newsletter asking for suggestions on carrying out a workplace-safety campaign on campus. The campaign will aim to ensure that workplace safety remains a priority, the report says.

"It's an unfortunate occurrence that both [incidents] happened in the same time frame," Yale's Director of Human Resources and Administration Communications Hellen Hom told the Daily News. "The combination of the two just brings to light the need for more awareness."

Knowing that Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, and so many other websites offer free E-mail accounts, the University of Nevada has cut its free E-mail service for students. The service, which lasted some 20 years, gave students E-mail addresses through the school's database.

Infrequency of use and the need to cut costs made the decision to close the service rather easy for the school, the Nevada Sagebrush reports. "Best we can tell, only about 20 percent of existing [university] E-mail accounts assigned are used," Steven Zink, the university's vice president of information and technology, tells the Sagebrush.

University of Southern California football player Stafon Johnson had a scary moment last night. While working out at Heritage Hall on campus, Johnson lost his grip on the weight bar of his bench press. The bar landed on his neck, crushing the 5-foot-11, 210-pound senior's neck and larynx.

Johnson underwent surgery on his throat yesterday, the Daily Trojan reports. ESPN.com reported this morning that Johnson is in critical but stable condition after surgery. Doctors realigned Johnson's vocal cords. Although the injury threatened the 21-year-old's airway and will force him to miss the 2009 season, ESPN reports that Johnson is expected to make a full recovery.

Last week, the G-20 summit rolled through Pittsburgh like a tornado on the plains of Kansas, leaving behind a path of destruction. According to The Pitt News, more than 10 businesses were damaged and more than 40 people were arrested. Now, the city and its namesake university are left to pick up the pieces.

On the University of Pittsburgh's campus, students are still angry about the way police treated them during G-20 protests late last week, The Pitt News reports. Police used tear gas to disperse crowds, but The Pitt News editorial board says that more force than necessary might have been used. In fact, for possibly the first time in the United States, police used a long-range acoustic device as a weapon of last resort when protesters didn't follow commands. The LRAD emits a "piercing sound" that immobilizes those in its path. (If you've seen the show Whale Wars on Animal Planet, you are familiar with the intense power that these devices possess.)

"Several city departments" will investigate the circumstances of the arrests made at Pitt, and students who were arrested will face the university's Judicial Board. The board, which consists of undergrads, graduate students, staff, and faculty, will review the arrests and determine if any students violated the student code of conduct.

We heard about the inevitable uptick in swine flu cases once school began again this fall. Well, it's safe to say that flu season has arrived in Fort Collins, Colo.

More than 800 students and more than 30 employees at Colorado State University have reported flulike symptoms to CSU's Health Network and the university's self-reporting website since the website went live on September 4, the Rocky Mountain Collegian reports. The story also says that more than 170 possible cases of swine flu were reported directly to the school's Hartshorn Health Center. The CDC believes that anyone with the flu most likely has the H1N1 strain, saying that "99 percent of flu-like illnesses test positive for swine flu," according to the Collegian.

Hospital authorities have encouraged people to get flu vaccines this fall as the health community prepares for the swine flu's return.

University of Pennsylvania student Kenneth Nwannunu was found dead on Wednesday in his dormitory while studying abroad in China. Nwannunu, a senior, was a philosophy, politics, and economics major at Penn. But the University of Pennsylvania and Nwannunu's family still don't know how or why the 21-year-old died, the Daily Pennsylvanian reports.

Nwannunu, a New Jersey native, was studying in Shanghai. Because of language barriers and the 12-hour time difference, communication with Chinese officials has been difficult, according to a previous Pennsylvanian report.

"It's being handled by the authorities [in China], and it could be weeks before we know anything," says university spokeswoman Lori Doyle.

No autopsy has been scheduled yet, but the university has already hosted several grief counseling meetings for friends of Nwannunu.

Thousands of veterans who risked their lives battling insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan are still waiting on the Department of Veterans Affairs to deliver the Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits they were promised, the Associated Press reports.

Under the new GI Bill—the most significant expansion of education benefits since the original 1944 bill—eligible students receive funding for college tuition, housing, and textbooks. But the VA has been slow to distribute this money, leaving veterans like 27-year-old father and Purple Heart recipient Brandon Thomas scrambling to borrow from family members or take out loans to pay their bills.

The VA only began making payments in August, and some 70,000 eligible veterans who filed claims for this school year are still waiting for their first checks. More than 275,000 claims for benefits have been filed so far, the VA says.

Military men and women have been trained to be patient, says Thomas, because patience often means success on the battlefield. But, he says, "Patience only goes so long."

Read more about this issue here.

Bedbugs have caused administrators at New York's John Jay College to shut down one of the school's academic buildings, the New York Times reports.

All classes scheduled to take place in North Hall were postponed until Monday so that exterminators could work on the building. "The college is taking it seriously and moving as quickly as possible to treat the building," said Jim Grossman, a John Jay spokesman.

But he insisted the college's bedbug problem does not constitute an infestation. The college has classified the situation a "bedbug condition," according to Grossman. "Infestation is when you can see them swarming."

College staff members began reporting rashes in mid-August. In response to a growing number of reports, the college brought in an inspection team with bug-sniffing dogs. The inspectors confirmed the bedbug problem on North Hall's first and second floors. The "bed" descriptor aside, the bugs can survive in many locations, including buses, trains, and movie theaters.

Do you have bed bugs? Find out how to get rid of them in this U.S. News video.

• Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of America's Best Colleges.

Tufts University has taken a bold step toward regulating sexual activity in dorm rooms. The school, whose main campus is in Medford, Mass., instituted a new policy for students with roommates in on-campus housing: No sex while the other roommate is in the room, and no sexual activity should interfere with a roommate's privacy, study, or sleep.

The Office of Residential Life and Learning is behind the rule, the Tufts Daily reports. The office says it is responding to a large number of complaints in recent years about roommates' sexual activities.

University of Arkansas basketball coach John Pelphrey says at least one of the three Arkansas players included in a rape investigation that did not lead to charges will be suspended for two to three games in the 2009-2010 season, the Associated Press reports. The players' names have not been released, and won't be, but they will be punished for not adhering to what Pelphrey called student-athletes' "higher standard and code of conduct."

Here's part of the statement that Pelphrey released on arkansasrazorbacks.com:

While I am not permitted under federal privacy laws to disclose specific actions involving individual student-athletes, I know Razorback fans want to be confident that these matters have been dealt with seriously. I can assure you that there will be meaningful consequences for those individuals who have violated team rules and have not met the expectations of conduct required of our student-athletes. These sanctions and corrective measures will be applied on an individual basis but include suspensions from multiple athletic competitions, supplemental mandatory educational programming, community service requirements and additional conditioning and training regimens.

Move over, YouTube. There's a new problem at Brigham Young University.

The University of Utah's scheduled production of a classical Greek play at Brigham Young University was canceled at the last second by BYU officials who said its content was inappropriate for BYU students, the Daily Universe reports.

The play, Euripides's tragedy The Bakkhai, presents "difficult material," says the statement from BYU.

The House of Representatives approved legislation Thursday to overhaul the federal government's student lending policies. This is a major legislative victory for President Obama, who considers signing the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 into law a top domestic priority, Inside Higher Ed reports.

If approved by the Senate, the student aid bill will cease all lending from the bank-based Family Federal Education Loan Program and reroute the savings from this shift to a wide range of programs, including some outside of higher education.

"This legislation provides students and families with the single largest investment in federal student aid ever and makes landmark investments to improve education for students of all ages—and all without costing taxpayers a dime," Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said in a news release. "Today the House made a clear choice to stop funneling vital taxpayer dollars through boardrooms and start sending them directly to dorm rooms. This vote was a historic triumph for America's students, families, and taxpayers—and will ensure that their interests never again take a back seat to lenders and big banks."

Among other things, the legislation would:

• Provide $40 billion over 10 years to increase the maximum Pell Grant to $5,550. The maximum grant level would increase annually by the rise in the Consumer Price Index plus 1 percent.
• Greatly expand and alter the criteria for the Perkins Loan Program.
• Pour $10 billion into community colleges to support Obama's American Graduation Initiative, designed to produce 5 million more two-year college graduates by 2020.
• Spend $8 billion over 10 years to strengthen early childhood education.
• Create a College Access and Completion Fund that would give grants to states and institutions that have innovative approaches to increase the number of students going to college and their graduation rate.
• Provide $4.1 billion to modernize and repair school and college facilities, including those damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
• Make the interest rates on federal student loans variable, beginning in 2012. They are set to rise to 6.8 percent that year.
• Simplify the federal financial aid form.

Many lenders oppose the proposal to end lending through the FFEL program, saying the change will eliminate jobs and competition. Though Democrats claim the bill had bipartisan support, it garnered just five Republican votes in the 253-to-171 tally in the House.

• Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of America's Best Colleges.

The New Jersey attorney general has filed a lawsuit against the Stevens Institute of Technology, its president, and the chairman of the board of trustees, accusing the school of fiscal impropriety, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

In an effort to force the state into confidential arbitration, Stevens, a research college known for its engineering programs, filed its own suit against New Jersey a day earlier.

Attorney General Anne Milgram's 16-count civil complaint accuses the college of spending its endowment excessively, mishandling investments, failing to maintain accurate records and giving too much money to President Harold Raveché. In 2007, Ravaché's compensation topped $790,000, placing him among the most highly paid presidents of private research institutions.

The state's lawsuit seeks the removal of Ravaché and the chairman of the trustees, Lawrence Babbio Jr.

The Hoboken school's suit claims that Milgram overstepped her legal authority when she met with Stevens's board of trustees in early September and threatened to file a lawsuit that she told them would be "devastating to Stevens" unless the board agreed to new leadership.

• Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of America's Best Colleges.

Law enforcement officials have charged animal lab technician Raymond Clark III with the murder of Yale graduate student Annie Le, who was strangled to death last week, the Yale Daily News reports.

Police arrested the 24-year-old this morning at a Super 8 motel in Cromwell, Conn. Clark had been staying there since yesterday morning, when police released him from custody after serving him with two warrants—one to search his Middletown, Conn., apartment and the other to take samples of his DNA. Clark is being held on $3 million bond and is expected to be arraigned within 24 hours.