Collegiate Press Roundup

We present our regular review of selected student journalists and editors.  In this edition, they reflect on admissions policies, the continuing turmoil in the Middle East, reaccreditation bureaucrats and how to mobilize student political activism. 

1. The editors of the Harvard Crimson take note that the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have been buoyed by the telling influence of youthful activists. They really wish that American counterparts were similarly engaged.
2. At Rutgers, the editorial staff of the Daily Targum are also focused on the Middle Eastern political caldron, but think that President Obama needs to be more forthright in supporting Libya’s democratic movement.
3. An MSU Muslim student explains the practice of his faith to readers of the State News.
4. Expanding the legal parameters for carrying handguns would foster a significant deterrent to violent crime, says a columnist for the Daily Nebraskan, and he provides the statistics in support of his case.
5. At Syracuse University, the editors of the Daily Orange express concern about the effects of recent admissions policies on the school’s academic standing. In response, the university’s president argues that “inclusive” undergraduate admissions policies have actually made Syracuse much stronger academically.
6. A regular writer for UNC Chapel Hill’s Daily Tar Heel ponders the significance and probable long-term influence of Black History Month.
7. Apparently, Auburn University is about to undergo another periodic review by the regional accrediting organization, the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges (SACS).   Oh please, not again, shudders an op ed staffer for the Auburn Plainsman.
8. A columnist in the University of Arizona’s Daily Wildcat doesn’t have much stomach for the message of an evangelist preacher who comes to campus every year. But she’s got to hand it to him: he really knows how to mobilize his followers, something her activist peers just can’t seem to do.
9. A North Dakota law purporting to prohibit housing discrimination needs to include sexual orientation as well, says a writer for the Dakota Student. 
10. The recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington is described for readers of the University of Washington, Seattle Daily, by a student who attended.
11. A writer for the OSU Lantern has some comments on the Center for Equal Opportunity’s recent study indicating that the school’s admissions policies are significantly skewed in favor of minority applicants.
12. A forwarded e-mail message from her grandmother sets an ecology-minded columnist for the Stanford Daily to thinking about how to get an accurate message out there, with so much misinformation circulating.