In this new, regular installment, Cross Campus reads all the other papers so you don’t have to — all the news related to Yale, and from around the Ivies, summarized in quick bursts.
Trouble in Frat Paradise. Theta Delta Chi fraternity at Dartmouth has been suspended through June 2014 according to The Dartmouth. The sanctions followed a series of hearings regarding five accusations of misconduct levied against the fraternity. Administrators have suggested underage drinking violations to be the cause of the suspension. Incidents of hazing have led to prior suspensions of the fraternity in the past. Meanwhile, on Oct. 12, the College also placed Beta Alpha Omega fraternity on “immediate temporary suspensions” after college administrators reviewed emails that referenced the frat hazing and serving alcohol to minors.
The Bear of Ithaca. This fall’s tryouts for the Cornell Mascot – the Big Red Bear—sparked outrage among LGBTQ community according to the Cornell Daily Sun. One member of the Big Red Bear Club made the comment that the bear must act like a heterosexual male by only performing male mannerisms such as approaching only females. Only during Filthy/Gorgeous – the annual LGBTQ, safe sex positive party—is the bear not a straight male, another of the members said, producing laughter from the audience. This made several attendees uncomfortable and led to cries of outrage among the LGBTQ community at Cornell. This event confirmed results from a recent survey done by the University that showed that 73 percent of self-identified LGBT students felt occasionally to very often insulted or threatened by other students based on their social identity.
Dance Your Way to an A. As the only Ivy without a dance class for credit, the University of Pennsylvania received a recent petition from the student body with over five hundred signatures pushing for a change in the arts curriculum. Dance is the only performing art not represented in UPenn’s courses according to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “As Penn has been expanding its course offerings, it has increasingly focused on interdisciplinary study between our four undergraduate schools,” the petition statement said. “Dance is a perfect avenue to encourage this form of study.” Students hosted a Dance Dance Revolution event to raise awareness for the issue.
A school without spirit is like veritas without lux. Columbia is launching a new spirit campaign coined ‘Our Blue’ in response to the notorious perception that Columbia lacks school spirit. This is the revival of a former campaign in 2007 called “I am Light Blue.” This campaign will feature a video series, giveaways, and events intended to make student groups on campus more interconnected and more closely linking the four undergraduate schools, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator. The organizers said they do not mean for this to be a one year campaign but a long-term process.
Touchy topic. A recent poll performed by the Brown Daily Herald showed that almost one fifth of the student body has never masturbated. On the other side of the spectrum, eight percent of the student body finds the time to masturbate at least once a day. While some students question how their peers even have the time for such activities, others are surprised by the lack conversation about masturbation on their supposedly liberal campus. Thirty percent of females responded to the poll that they never have masturbated, as opposed to only 6 percent of males.
Typo? The Harvard Ichthus, a student-run journal of Christian thought, printed a blog post on Nov. 20 that caught national attention for being offensive because it claimed Jews ‘deserved’ punishments. The piece read “we, the Jews, collectively rejected God and hung Him up on a cross to die, and thus we deserved the punishments that were heaped on our heads over the last 2000 years.” According to the Harvard Crimson, the blog post was written by an anonymous author who told editors prior to his submission vaguely what he planned to write about. The Ichthus has since apologized for the comment attributing the mistake to misinterpretation and “inadequate editorial oversight.”
Meningitis breakout. Since March, there have been eight confirmed cases of meningitis at Princeton University. The eighth case was hospitalized on Nov. 21 according to the Daily Princetonian. The vaccination Bexsero was recently approved by the Centers for Disease Control for distribution to all undergraduates at Princeton free of charge although the vaccinations will not be made mandatory. Prior to the CDC approval, the University’s decision to provide vaccines came under public scrutiny since the vaccine has yet to be FDA approved. The University will not be made liable for any side effects because every student will be mandated to sign an informed consent form before vaccine administration.