This is a wordle based on the blog’s contents. Oddly enough, it seems we talk about students a lot. And bathrooms.
Below is another one, for the Talking Stick:
Thanks to Josh Goldman, Senior Director at the Central Office, for sending these to me!
ACUHO-I is mentioned in this Cronk of Higher Education article about conference romances. If there’s anyone out there mourning an Annual Conference romance (or friendship, or fling), perhaps this piece will be soothing:
ACUHO-I Conference Romance Ends Abruptly
If you feel like you didn’t represent yourself well, this article may be helpful:
Blistex Executive Makes Fool of Himself at Lip-Balm Conference
I saw that on a bumper sticker this morning and liked it.
It made me think a recent interview of Anthony Bourdain. You’re likely familiar with Bourdain. He’s the “bad boy” chef who has defected from the Food Channel, insulted various food celebrities including Rachel Ray (I happen to agree with him on that; I mean, Ritz crackers may be edible, but they are not food) and sneered at vegetarians. His Travel Channel show, No Reservations, features Bourdain journeying to exotic places, eating the local grub, and having an epiphany by the end of the episode. It’s entertaining, fascinating and positively pornographic for foodies.
Whatever your opinions on Bourdain are, he’s at least given you good grounds for them; he’s forthcoming on any topic.
In this interview, Bourdain seems to have mellowed a bit (Though lately he’s been involved in a war of words with GQ food writer Alan Richman, so maybe not.) He discusses the value of being wrong, including about yourself. This really struck a chord with me. What about you?
The New York Times has a story on the prestige of occupying a residence hall room that was once the home to someone notable. (Perhaps he or she wasn’t notable at the time, but went on to accomplish great–or notorious?–things.)
What famous persons have lived on your campus? Does your institution make the students now occupying those rooms aware of that?
Thanks to the excellent time-waster site Gizmodo, we now know about i-Ramen, the website documenting one man’s eating and evaluation of thousands of varieties and brands of instant noodles. The site is in Japanese (the link above heads to the Google-translated site, which is comprehensible if a bit uneven), so while the author’s name is likely listed in the Japanese text that also serves as an image, I couldn’t find it in the translated text. If anyone out there can read Japanese, let me know who he (or she) is. The reviews evaluate Ramen the way wine is often considered: “moderate sweetness, strong stimulation of pepper,” reads one entry.
Campuses are starting to dig themselves out from the massive snowfall. Well, at least they dug themselves out far enough that they can start to post their exploits to Facebook and YouTube. See below for the snowball battle royal that happened at the University of Maryland, College Park campus.
The snowpocalypse! Snowmaggedon! Whatever you wanted to call it, the storm that moved through the United States late last week certainly gathered it’s share of headlines. Now it’s time to reflect back and share how we weathered the storm.
Use the comment section to share stories about the antics that your sledding (or stir-crazy) students came up with to pass the time other than watching the Weather Channel radar. Tell us how you and your campus managed Mother Nature’s wrath. How did this storm stack up to ones from the past? (Reminiscing about past blizzards will be allowed.)
And for those who work at campuses where words like “snow emergency” are foreign concepts, we graciously ask you to please keep your comments about “mid-60s and sunny” to yourself. If we have to have the snow, we’re at least allowed to vent about it a bit.
You can even e-mail us photos of your campus scenes if you like. Let the flurry of comments begin!
Our apologies to Mr. Wm. Shakespeare for our appropriation of his quote from Macbeth, Act I, Scene I. It seemed so apropos, however, because there’s been quite a few bird-related stories on campuses lately. Check these out:
Fluff-Up at Reed College Over Chicken Dinner During one week at the beginning of spring semester, Reed students can offer and take brief no-credit courses on any topic of interest — striptease, pool, or chokin’ the chicken. No, not that kind of chicken-choking; get your minds out of the gutter! A college senior who raises chickens for eggs and meat, proposed to demonstrate how one of the birds is slaughtered and dressed for dinner. Some students and organizations raised a ruckus, however, because of their distress that ” Reed students are taking part in the killing of live animals.” (I’ve heard it’s really hard to kill dead animals, though.) The course was ultimately canceled.
A Wily Chicken at Glendale Community College An apparently unnamed black chicken at Glendale Community college poses for pictures and accepts food from student fans. But when animal control stops by, he or she (they’re not sure which), crosses the road–natch!–and evades capture.
Turkey Overstays Her Welcome at Harvard Business School This is so ripe for jokes, I’ll let you think of them yourself. Nicknamed Turk Turkee, the wild bird was initially welcomed into the Harvard community, but her esprit de corps is lacking; attempts to roust her from napping in the dean’s garden (a favorite spot) results in pecks and snaps. Her, um, fowl-ness seems to increase when observers don’t offer food. She’s also vain; she’ll stare at herself in the clean, reflective windows of the business school buildings for hours. Some students find her cranky presence entertaining; others have created an “HBS Students FOR THE REMOVAL OF THE TURKEY” Facebook group. Massachusetts state laws regarding wild turkeys make her removal problematic.
Concordia College Chicken Put to Work A poster on Inside HigherEd offered up this chicken story, with a happy ending (for the college and the chicken). “Rocky,” a small, white hen, selected Concordia College as her home in the summer of 2009. Unlike Turk Turkee, Rocky was a good ambassador, welcoming students to campus in the fall and amassing a number of fans. But as winter neared, Concordia officials worried for Rocky’s safety; they also feared a larger predator would make a chicken dinner of her. So they found her a new home, where Rocky can continue her public relations work in safety.
Has your campus adopted an animal, avian or otherwise? Tell us about it!
Today’s Doonesbury strip mentions retention issues among college students: family, work, children…and the circus?
We’ll see you in 2010!
I’m loving the Pink Glove Dance on YouTube. Employees from many areas of Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, danced to “Down” by Sean Jean in pink gloves to raise breast cancer awareness. This video makes me happy for many reasons; it’s regular people dancing, they’re all so enthusiastic, and it’s for a great cause.
Note the hospital’s librarians (squee!) gettin’ down at 1:14!
Have you collaborated with your students on a project such as this? Was it good for raising awarness? Tell us about it!
This is a just-for-fun sort of day, isn’t it?
A Week Before Christmas, On Campus
(Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)
‘Twas the week before Christmas, all through the campus,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a frat house.
The exams were submitted, with prayers and great care
In hopes that St. Jude would soon be there.
The students were nestled, at home in their beds
while visions of job offers danced in their heads…
What happens next? I’m not sure. Can you folks (on your quiet campuses) supply some ideas?
It’s Friday, so we thought we could share a more lighthearted post this morning. The video below (which we saw on The Chronicle’s Web site who found it on the Ivygate.com site and it all started with the Back of the Class comedy team) shows what it might look like if Harvard University had to run those recruiting commercials that tend to run on television late at night.
Enjoy and share your comments.
Here’s how some institutions are celebrating Halloween for their students, the community, and for the betterment of the world. Volunteering is so much more fun when it involves Manic Panic.
The Transformation of Elliot Hall: Rumored to be haunted by a disfigured World War I pilot who was jilted by his betrothed, Elliot Hall is the ideal place for a Halloween celebration at Ball State University. The building exterior is castle-like, and students transform the interior of the fourth floor for a haunted ball. The dancing, treats and tricks (Ouija playing) drew 300 students last year and raised $1,000 for the Boys and Girls Club of Muncie.
Dorm-Turned Dungeon Gears Up for Zombies, Philanthropy: The University of Arizona’s Yuma Hall will be the place to take shelter from zombies this weekend…or perhaps it’s not. Zombies have taken over the university’s campus, and the basement seems to be the safest place to hide until the persistent zombies batter their way inside. Students collaborated to turn Yuma’s basement into a haunted dungeon; funds for the costumes and sets came from the residence life budget. Entry to the basement costs only two cans of food; all the proceeds will be given to a local food pantry. Last year, students who went expecting a tame walkthrough were surprised–and scared.
Brittany Residence Hall of New York University in the West Village, and Stuyvesant Hall at Ohio Wesleyan University are featured on ghost tours. Jack Stanley at Uncle Sam’s Tours in New York said of Brittany, “Graduates come and graduates go, but the folks in Brittany Hall are very happy where they are.” In Delaware, Ohio, tour participants were steeped in OWU history.“This is perhaps the most haunted university in the United States,” said John Ciochetty, OWU public safety officer. Ciochetty told the tour group a room in Stuyvesant was so notoriously haunted, the then-president of OWU ordered it sealed. It remains this way today.
Share your campus ghost stories, or your haunted happenings in the comment section below.
We all know an untold number of fantastic, life-changing ideas are born in residence halls. Of course, we also know a dramatically smaller number of those ideas make it past the idea phase. (We also know that a good number of those ideas might end up requiring the involvement of local authorities, but that’s a topic for another story.)
A new book, though, has captured the locations where scientific ideas were born and then later flourished into world-renowned businesses, technologies, and products. The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science & Technology Comes Alive shows readers where the world’s largest science museum is or where one can find a descendant of Newton’s apple tree among others. In true geek fashion, the book even includes site latitudes and longitudes for GPS devices.
But beyond that, as part of this techy-tour, the book includes the residence hall rooms of those who would later become common names in the IT world. Among the book’s lists are:
What famous events and/or students once called your residence halls home? Share in the comments section or tell us in an e-mail and maybe your hall will be featured in a future blog post.
Click here for RSS feed