Stanford Review: How have you been received since coming back to Stanford?

Condoleezza Rice: I have been very well received—particularly by students, who come often. They send emails, and ask me when I’m going to start teaching again.

SR: What is the role of politics in the university setting?

CR: I think it would be too much to believe that people won’t have political views, particularly in Political Science or History or Economics. Because generally if you are studying those areas and you have no political views it is a little odd. But the question is how you communicate those views in the classroom. And I think it is very important that the curriculum be balanced in two ways. First of all, every faculty member should have an obligation to entertain alternative views. So it’s not just you have to have a balance in the faculty, though I think that’s a good thing too, I think its good to truly have people that represent those different views. But it’s also important for individual faculty to allow for alternative views both from students and from their colleagues.

SR: Why are conservatives underrepresented in academia?

CR: I’ve been asked that a lot and I have never really been able to come up with a good answer. Some people say that it dates back to the 1960s, when really universities were the epicenter of more revolutionary, activist thought and that [they say that the liberal] people stayed, and the conservatives didn’t. I think it would be an interesting research project to set up to see why that’s the case. I do think there are a lot of varying views. You have people who would be almost 100% liberal in their views and you have people who might be libertarian in their views. But I think if you looked at most faculty you will find that they have eclectic views—you will find social liberals and fiscal conservatives. You will find people who are socially conservative but don’t mind big government. I think it’s probably one of the reasons why it looks that way is voting patterns, but I think it’s more eclectic than people think.

SR: Can you tell us about the toughest decision you had to make as National Security Advisor or Secretary of State?

CR: Let’s take the case of September 11th. Once something like that happens and you’re in a position of authority, the hard question for you is there anything that I didn’t do or could have done? You really do resolve to not let it happen again if at all possible. That means making some very tough decisions concerning the use of force. I look now at, for instance, we hunted [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi for years in Iraq. We knew that he was keen to the sectarian violence, and when he was found and killed, I never thought that I would be someone who would be so gratified by all that: I’m a ministers daughter…

That kind of toughened attitude about the use of force and what you have to do is something that comes with living in an environment in which you have seen Americans jump out of 80-story buildings as the Twin Towers came down. I think it was a difficult decision for the president to finally decide that Saddam Hussein had to be dealt with. One of the things I find very odd is this argument is that somehow people were looking for a reason to go to war. Nobody wants to go to war. But if you’re facing a circumstance in which you’re told and really believe [Saddam] has weapons of mass destruction, and he’s continuing to shoot at American aircraft, [and] he’s been a scourge in the Middle East. He’s dragged you into war several times. It’s a tough decision. Because any decision involving the use of force is very, very hard.

SR: In terms of your foreign policy trainings, you came up during the Cold War focusing on the Soviet Union. Was it a difficult transition focusing on new challenges?

CR: I think those of us who came up during the Cold War believed it was the end of conflict. Because we were so steeped in this bipolar in which you had the balance of terror between the Soviet Union and the United States—and spheres of influence. I remember when Germany was unified people thought “what else could be done” once Germany unified. Obviously people thought about transnational threats, people thought about terrorism. But I don’t think anyone in the country, specialists, or pundits, were prepared for just how much it could transform security threats. Probably, there was almost a little bit of a false lull between the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 and what starts to happen with Al-Qaeda, at least by 1998 when they bombed our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. [At the end of the Cold War] I think there was a little bit of a sigh of relief. The extreme version of it was the book The End of History by Francis Fukayama. It wasn’t quite the end of history.

SR: Do you see yourself getting involved with the move by former Secretaries of State Kissinger and Shultz, and other Hoover Fellows to rid world of nuclear weapons?

CR: I plan to leave foreign policy aside for a while. I had my chance. I got to negotiate the end of the Lebanon War in 2006, I tried my hand in Middle East peace, I got to help with the liberation of Liberia, I was there in Baghdad, and Anbar and Kabul. Now they [Obama officials] get their chance. So I will likely avoid that. I am going to do education and those issues. I was fortunate to do diplomacy at the highest possible levels, and I think I will take a break. I talked to George [Shultz] and Henry [Kissinger] about their project and I think it’s very interesting. They are also looking at the hard questions, like what does it mean to be at zero. I guess I think what the big nuclear threat right now is comes at a somewhat different way. To me the biggest surprise on the nuclear front is not the North Koreas or the Irans of the world, I fully expected those, but when I really got to understand what the AQ Khan Network was about—the Pakistani scientist who was a black marketer in nuclear technology—that seems to me is a threat that is very hard to get your hands around and needs some attention.

SR: Would you be opposed to their plan if China surpassed us militarily and economically?

I think you could make an argument that when the United States was dependent on nuclear weapons, a world of more nuclear weapons was actually more advantageous to the United States. Now when the United States is by far the most powerful country in the world militarily, economically, I know we are having our troubles, but still, and I would argue [the US is most powerful] in terms of influence. I actually think nuclear weapons will recede as an instrument of state power. Nuclear weapons have been coming down, the number have been coming down dramatically since the cold war. It is because they are not useful. You need to keep enough for deterrence, but I would be much more concerned if we did not keep our conventional strength up to speed. I have been asked many times about the rise of Chinese military power. And there is no doubt that it is outsized relative to China’s regional role. But if we allow Chinese military power to outstrip American military power then we’ve done something really stupid. We should be able to maintain both the technological and even numerical edge that is significant in the Asia-Pacific. Particularly when you look at the alliances that we have in the region. We’re also talking about strong militaries like South Korea, Australia, and you know, capable states like Japan. I would worry much more about the maintenance of our conventional strength more so than nuclear strength.

I’m much more interested in missile defense, frankly, because I think with missile defense you can deny to states North Korea and Iran any benefit from seeking these long range missiles with nuclear capability.

SR: What do you make of the Obama administration’s movement with respect to European Missile Defense.

CR: You can make a lot of critiques of whether or not it was a good idea to put missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland. I happen to think it was a good decision. But let’s stipulate that people have an argument that we should have put them in Turkey, or Great Britain or Denmark—Great Britain and Denmark already being part of the missile defense network. But you can’t go back and re-visit that decision. Now this becomes about geopolitics. This becomes about whether or not Russia is going to have a veto over what the United States does with its NATO allies, Poland and the Czech Republic both, of whom have put a lot of political capital into allowing these missile defenses to be deployed. The Russians told me straight up, “we would not care if they were in Turkey or Britain.” This is about Poland and the Czech Republic, [which] used to be a part of the Warsaw Pact. So you cannot encourage thinking that suggests that there is a deal to be made over Poland and the Czech Republic because that empowers elements in Russia that want to revisit the terms of the end of the Cold War. So I’m more concerned about that. We actually told the Russians, Bob Gates and I, sat with Putin and told him that we will not put missiles in the interceptors unless the Iranians test long range. We told them, “you [Putin] can put people in the Czech Republic and Poland that can watch what is going on with the missile defense system to make sure it is not aimed at you. We can do things to make sure that the radar is not aimed at you.” This isn’t about missile defense. This is about Poland and the Czech Republic.

SR: What would you say is the Obama Administration’s biggest foreign policy challenge?

CR: There are plenty of them. I think Afghanistan has more going for it for all that is given to them. They have a pretty good army, but it is a very poor country. If you have ever flown over the mountains as I have, it is very easy to see how terrorists hide. So it is going to be very challenging.

I think the challenge in Iraq is not to lose focus. It is not a question of when American combat forces withdraw. The distance between what the Obama Administration is talking about and what we negotiated is very small, but Iraq is on its way to becoming a strategic asset, but it’s not there yet. You can’t afford to lose focus on it.

But one [challenge] that I would pay a lot of attention to is Mexico. I think what’s happening on the border with the cartels, cartels that are being fed through Central America… There were 5,000 assassinations in Mexico last year by the cartels. This is starting to take on Columbia-like proportions. And I think the Calderon government is trying to do the right thing. It’s a very strong government, friendly government to the United States. When the Mexican president tried to ask the United States to help with law enforcement…. we now have a Samaritan initiative. I spend a lot of time worrying about that because it’s a real security threat to the United States as well.

SR: In Afghanistan, do they have the capacity to become a functioning government like you said Iraq is on its way to becoming?

CR: Ultimately yes, but it is going to be a long struggle. The Iraqi budget for 2009, I think was 49 billion dollars, or something like that, The Afghan budget with 5 million more people was $678 million. They just are poor. It’s the fifth poorest country in the world. We often said when you’re talking about Afghanistan, you’re not talking about “re-constructing”, but you’re talking about “constructing” Afghanistan. It’s a place with no roads—we’ve put enormous amounts of money into road networks. One reason that people continue to grow poppy is because it’s easy to transport poppy—it doesn’t spoil. It’s always been very decentralized. Kabul has never had a great stroke over the rest of the country. And it’s had 30 years of civil war. But it’s got very hardy, resilient people. It’s got a good army; it’s got a lot of will. I think we’ll make it but it’s going to be a struggle. I’ve always thought it would be tougher than Iraq.

SR: In terms of the stability of the international system, how does the financial crisis affect the Washington Consensus? Have American economic values been discredited?

CR: The Washington Consensus comes out of the collapse of central planning and statist economies. I don’t think anyone wants to go back to central planning. But I think you will see a degree of statism creeping in through regulation. That’s only natural and will be corrective. One impact for US policy is that there are a number of countries across the world not just in Europe, but in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa that bought into the de-regulation, “Let businesses get started quickly” use your foreign assistance to fight corruption but, basically free market economies, flat taxes. The Baltic States are in that category Estonia, which is probably the most wired country in the world, they do e-commerce and so forth. They sort of bought into that model in a major way. Second, the pressures on trade policy, shortly after the G-20 meeting in Washington they all took an oath not to go back and do anything protectionist, then immediately India and China go back and do something protectionist.

So I think trade policy is going to be under a lot of pressure. That’s really dangerous, because if you start to get into protectionist trade policies then you’re really going to deepen the global recession. Third, the issue of political stability in some places, I’m concerned about Eastern Europe, although I think that the institutions are strong enough. Some of them followed aggressive economic and financial engineering and now they can’t pay patrons. Fourth, I’m concerned about foreign assistance. The United States can’t afford… we tripled foreign assistants world-wide, we can’t afford to have that rollback. Countries have made big bets with us; it’s really important to not have that rolled back. I was pleased to see that growth rates in Africa next year are projected to be around 3.5%. So that’s not good [compared to] if it were 7% or 8%, but it’s better than if it were negative growth in those countries. Places like Ghana, Senegal, Mozambique, that are just coming out and becoming reasonable and stable democracies in Africa, you don’t want them to fall back. Now on the other hand, there are some big places where you’ll see some stresses. China: Ju Jintao told us that he needed to create 25 million jobs per year in order to keep pace with the exodus out of the villages. They’re creating 9 million this year. You’ll see some stresses there. You’re seeing stresses and strains in Russia; one of the silver linings is that the lower price of oil will probably disable some of the states that were using high oil prices for foreign policies that were very antithetical to US interests whether it’s Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or the Russians, you know, “Russia Inc.” That’s some of the silver linings about the Washington Consensus, which had already given way to what we call the Monterrey Consensus—that you do have to worry about things about education and healthcare, that they cant just be macroeconomic policies. You have to have a microeconomic effect.

SR: Is the world more or less safe than it was ten years ago? Will it be more or less safe ten years from now?

CR: I think that it is safer because we know what’s out there and we have structures in place to start to deal with them. I think there was a false sense of security in the 90s in the Middle East, which was just toxic with Al-Qaeda underneath the surface, and with these radical madrasahs, and radical mosques that were growing this thing and that explodes and we get semblances of it in ’93 and ’98 when the embassies are bombed and then the USS Cole, it explodes and then 911. It was all underneath the surface and largely because of the absence of legitimate political channels in these authoritarian states. So instead you had this malignant thing—there was politics but it was just in the radical mosques. The very fact now that some of that is being addressed I think makes it safer though not yet safe. When I hear how much more unstable the Middle East is, I say to myself “as opposed to what?” In 2001, with Al-Qaeda growing up underneath the surface, Syrian forces occupying Lebanon, Yassir Arafat in power in Palestinian territory stealing his people blind and refusing to make peace? An intifada between the Palestinians and the Israelis where we were talking about thousands of Palestinians dying, and we weren’t talking about suicide bombings in the West Bank, we were talking about suicide bombings in Tel Aviv. So when I hear this argument about the stable Middle East, and therefore we’re not making it safer, I think people just forget what it was like.

SR: Do you think there will be more self-emerging democracies in the Middle East?

CR: Rather than the Iraqi example?

SR: Yes.

CR: Good question. I think we will see greater pluralism in Middle Eastern politics. I distinguish between pluralistic politics where you begin to open a space for competitive forces, for alternative voices for human rights to be an issue, for women’s rights to be an issue-, and democracy where you begin to grow institutions that actually secure that. So even in a place like Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah has begun to create space for people to have alternative views. How long it takes comes down to organizing a set of democratic institutions, In Kuwait, their parliament is quite active. I think you’ll see more of them [Middle East Democracies]. Lebanon is a democratic state, [although it is] a little odd because of the sectarian balance, but it is a democratic state.

SR: How did you come to the conclusion that the War on Terror would in fact be a “war” as opposed to a law enforcement problem?

CR: I think most of us who were there on September 11th never thought about it in any other way. One reason I’d like to teach decision-making is that there is a caricature of decision-making where everything is done by a set of option-papers: you sit and you debate options. [But] some things are kind of evident. On September 11th, they went after the center of American financial power, they went after the Pentagon, and they were going after either the Capitol or the White House. We think now it was the Capitol. That is an act of war. They didn’t intend to terrorize us; they intended to bring us down.

I remember going into the Situation Room, I got word of the first plane hitting and I thought it was an accident, I got down in the Situation Room and my assistant gave me word of the second plane and I knew it was a terrorist attack. Looking for Don Rumsfeld, and then seeing that the Pentagon had been hit, and false reports that the State Department had been hit and going to the Presidential Emergency Management Center, and meeting the vice president there and there’s Norm Minetta, who was Secretary of Transportation who is trying to take down numbers to find how many planes are still in the air. And then, thinking we’d shot down that commercial plane that went down in Pennsylvania. [I remember] calling up Vladimir Putin and saying that we’re going up on full alert. Him saying, “we’re bringing our forces down so that there’s no spiral of alerts.” Telling Rich Armitage at the State Department—Colin was in Latin America—that you have to send out a cable saying that America has not been decapitated. This is not war?

So I don’t even understand the argument. Why it is important though, is of course there are elements of law enforcement, but in law enforcement, you punish a crime, you investigate and punish a crime after it has been committed. [In this case] if you allow the crime to be committed, thousands of innocent people die. So, you have to prevent the crime from being committed. And that means, if you find people who you think are going to engage in an attack, you have to lock them up, and it means that if you have terrorists that you have picked up on the battlefield, you can’t just release them into an unsuspecting population. It has real policy implications, but that [idea] that it was not a war that we were in engaged in, never occurred to me. I do think that the unfortunate thing is that we were never able to make clear that it was not a war against Islam or war with the Middle East; it was war against terrorists, and we had plenty of Islamic and Middle Eastern allies, because they were the targets as much if not more than we were. We know now that Al-Qaeda’s intention was to bring down the Saudi regime. That was their number one intention, their idea was that if you could somehow separate the United States from the Middle East, that the Saudis would be exposed, and they would bring down the Saudi regime and establish the caliphate in the Middle East. It’s why, by the way, Al-Qaeda’s defeat, almost defeat in Iraq, in the center of the Middle East is so important because Al-Qaeda in exile in some other place is not like Al-Qaeda winning in the center of the Middle East.

SR: Which member of the Bush administration is most misperceived by the media?

CR: The president. The person that I know and worked for—there’s almost no resemblance to the public perception, which was as someone who was not on top of the details. Any cabinet secretary who ever went in to brief with the president, knew two things: the first was, you better get to the point, because the president was already way ahead of you. Secondly, you better have your details straight, not just from that briefing, but from the one you gave six weeks ago, because he was going to say “but on February 5th, you told me that…” [He has] a memory like an iron-trap. [He has] great familiarity with the details, and a great sense of ability to go to the strategic issue. Many cabinet secretaries, including me, would walk in and giving a briefing thinking “why didn’t I think of that” before he asks you that question. So many people when they came out of those meetings… let’s take an assistant secretary of state, would say “you know I wish somebody could have came in and seen the president in this meeting”

SR: How is he doing now?

CR: He’s great, we talk to each other frequently over email.

SR: Is that the first time you’ve been using email in the last 8 years?

CR: [laughter] Pretty much.

SR: What were the most influential books in your life? Personally or academic.

CR: Hans Morgenthau’s book, Power Among Nations was very influential to me. I got a reputation as being a realist as a result. But realist, as an analytic tool, you’ve have countries resembling billiard balls bumping into each other in international politics and it doesn’t matter what’s inside them—that actually doesn’t work in policy terms, so I wasn’t captured by realism in policy terms.

I was very influenced by a book on Russia, which is probably one of the reasons I ended up studying Russian. James Billington, who is still the librarian at this library, wrote a book The Icon and the Axe and it was a book about Russian history and culture that I still love to read. There are many of them, but those two stick out.

SR: What about books that you have personally enjoyed?

CR: I love to read biography. I went on a tear in the summer of 2006, reading the biographies of the founding fathers. I read the biographies on Washington, on Hamilton—[Ron] Chernow has a great book on Hamilton—my favorite really. [I read biographies] on Franklin, on Madison, just lots of books about the founding fathers, partly because 2006 was a very rough year, and it helped me to remember that history has a long tail, not a short one. It helped me to remember that, by all rights, the United States of America should never have come into being—fighting the greatest military power of all time, Washington losing a third of his men to smallpox every time he would raise an army; Hamilton, as Washington’s aid to camp, throwing away all of the dispatches from Congress telling him what to do, rather than bother Washington. This cantankerous group of founding fathers that we had could not even decide what the great seal of the United States would look like. There were three committees to decide the seal of the United States of America. It was a good corrective to what we were going through. There was a lot of criticism, [such as] “the Iraqis just couldn’t get it right.” Maybe their leaders just couldn’t get it right… We were lucky, we had great founding fathers, but boy did they squabble a lot and make their share of mistakes.

SR: Can we improve education in America?

CR: I do, and I think it is necessary. There are two reasons it is important for national security. As a former secretary of state, I advocate for it as a national security priority. One thing, it’s important because if we don’t do better, we won’t compete, our people won’t compete, and then we will start to protect, and that will be really bad for the world because if the United States protects then everyone will protect. Secondly, it is important for who we are. People come here from around the world because they believe that you can get ahead here on merit and it doesn’t matter what your circumstances were, you can still do great things. I call it the “Log Cabin Myth.” A myth is not something that is not true, it’s just something that is outside in your thinking, and Americans really fundamentally believe this: if you just work hard enough, you will succeed. And if we ever lose that, I believe we will lose the one thing that really unites us. Because it is not blood, it’s not ethnicity, it’s not religion, we’re all kinds of mélanges, but it’s this core belief. A great multiethnic democracy has got to have that continuing sense of upward mobility and education is the key to that. Now what do we do? I think the first thing that we do is to recognize that we have to have tough standards and we have to meet them. I came up at a time when the “self-esteem movement” was just getting started, where there weren’t any wrong answers… But actually there are in math and science! [laughter]. Getting kids to recognize that excellence is the goal to self-esteem, not just feeling good about yourself is very important. And that means that curricula have to be toughened, demanding. We need to know when kids are having trouble, which is why I think President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” was so important, because you have to test; it wasn’t punitive. You have to reward good teaching, because teachers are flat-out underpaid. Finally, you have to recognize that America will never test at the very top in math and science, but we can do better than what we are doing, but if you add to that the question of creativity, and you simultaneously ask how others are doing in terms of creativity, you might understand why 1 in 10 patents are right here in this [San Francisco Bay] Area. I think math and science education is very important, but I wouldn’t want to supplant in American education, the belief in broad education, challenging people but also [cultivating] different talents. Something I would re-introduce in the schools if I could is music education. Because if you really want to get disciplined, learn music. I would make people study languages from the third grade, because, abstract systems like that really do develop your mind. So I just think [the important keys are] rigorous curriculum and support for teachers, and it’s high standards that we need to actually assess.

Preprint from the April 3, 2009 Volume XLII, Issue 4 edition of the Stanford Review.

The invitation of President Barack Obama to be Notre Dame’s commencement speaker this year has sparked not just a campus discussion, but a national controversy. Rev. John Jenkins, C.S.C., has justified his decision to invite Obama for many reasons, but most notably that extending the invitation will serve as a basis for engaging Obama in dialogue about life-related issues.

According to Father Jenkins’ press release, “The invitation…should not be taken as condoning or endorsing [Obama’s] positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life, including abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Yet, we see his visit as a basis for further positive engagement.”

Instead of engaging Obama on issues of human life, the invitation ignited a different debate about whether hosting Obama is an appropriate way for a Catholic university to engage these issues. Is abortion the most important moral issue in modern society, such that when deciding whether or not to host Obama, his pro-choice stance outweighs his stance on other social justice issues? Or does Obama’s stance on other social justice issues outweigh his support of abortion? How should Notre Dame balance a commitment to academic freedom with a refusal to compromise on certain moral issues?

The Notre Dame campus, according to the Notre Dame Mission Statement, should be a place where these questions are answered: “As a Catholic university, one of its distinctive goals is to provide a forum where, through free inquiry and open discussion, the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge…”

Notre Dame’s administration is tightly controlling the release of information because of the onslaught of responses by students, alumni and Catholics around the country. The Rover contacted seven members of the Department of Development, the Office of News & Information, and the Office of the President, and each one was unable to be reached, did not respond, or refused to comment when asked questions concerning the commencement invitation. Each person directed the Rover to University Spokesman Dennis Brown for the official University position.

In an interview with the Irish Rover on Friday, Brown was asked to confirm or deny whether an outside public relations firm was hired by the University to help address the situation and to produce talking points for the University’s departments, the Office of Development, and faculty members. Brown refused to comment on the matter saying, “I don’t comment on rumors.” He was unwilling to entertain other questions on the subject. However, an email was circulated throughout the Mendoza College of Business containing such talking points. It is unclear whether the talking points originated from the Office of News & Information itself or from an outside party.

The email was designed to help professors deal with calls and emails they receive about the announcement that Obama would speak at commencement. Recipients of this email were told to ignore general correspondence—“blast emails…can be deleted without response”—and to direct phone calls from the general public to Dennis Brown. They were told to direct the sender to Father Jenkins’ statement: “E-mails…sent to you as an individual can be answered with a short message: ‘Thank you for your thoughtful letter regarding the University’s invitation to the president of the United States to speak at Commencement and receive an honorary degree. Please visit the following link to view Father John Jenkins’ statement: [link included].’”

Professors were also told to “keep a record of names, affiliations and contact information of the individuals calling and e-mailing, and forward the information” to Carol L. Elliott, the Director of Newswriting for the Mendoza College of Business. If correspondents requested to speak with Carolyn Woo, the dean of the College of Business, they were told to “respond that she is not available,” and that they should “NOT give out [Dean Woo’s] main address.”

If a personal correspondence required a more in-depth response, these professors were told to respond with a statement based on the following: “…the invitation recognizes the president for his historic election, for his concern for the poor, for his efforts to improve educational standards, his respect for the role of faith and religious institutions, and for his commitment to ending war. These issues are dear to the heart of Notre Dame and all Catholics. We believe there is an opportunity to build a relationship, create dialogue and find more commonalities in the hope of shaping public debate,” followed by, “But I understand your position, and appreciate that it comes from a deep commitment to your faith and beliefs.”

Despite the call for a creation of dialogue in the prepared statement, the e-mail to the Mendoza College of Business included a bulleted list of advice to faculty members, quoted below:

• Do not engage in a debate, agree or disagree; just let them talk
• Do not offer any information that is not required (i.e., number of complaints we’ve received, why the decision was made, etc.)
• If the caller tries to engage you in a debate, try something like “I’m not here to try to convince you, but I will listen.”
• Do not offer a call back or other response; if they insist, get a name and number

When asked by the Rover to elaborate on what the administration meant by “dialogue” and for examples of ways the administration is going to engage Obama, Dennis Brown would not give specifics. He responded only that: “[Father Jenkins] has some things planned relative to engagement as a whole, not necessarily directly with the President while he’s here. That’s the beginning or rather the basis of an engagement going forward. While he’s here three or four hours on a Sunday afternoon, that’s the beginning of what we hope will be ongoing contact with the Obama administration…on life, but also many other issues.”

On the subject of dialogue inside the University, Brown said, “We think that dialogue and conversation about various issues is healthy on a University campus, and we encourage it,” referring to the March 25 press release (See Page 5) from ND Response, a student coalition focused on organizing a pro-life student response to the invitation. Brown did not comment about any particular issues raised in the press release.

ND Response is composed of ten student groups at Notre Dame that oppose the invitation to Obama. Many groups outside the University, however, have also vowed to protest Obama’s visit. The Cardinal Newman Society, founded in 1993 to strengthen the Catholic identity of America’s Catholic universities, has a petition signed by over 210,000 people at the time of this publication imploring Jenkins “to halt this travesty immediately.” Operation Rescue, run by founder Randall Terry, has opened an office in South Bend and says that he will “turn over tables until the traitors surrender.”

In ND Response’s press release, they separated themselves from outside groups that have no direct connection to the University: “We request any groups who are committed to respectful actions to support our efforts, thereby ensuring a unified front and a more compelling public witness,” believing that any response should be initiated and driven by students.

In addition to declining comment about the University’s hiring of a public relations firm, Dennis Brown also did not comment about several other issues. When asked about the response the University has received from benefactors or how the Development Office has been responding to donors who claim to be withdrawing their support from the University, Brown remarked that, “We don’t discuss our relationships with benefactors. That’s not the policy of the University.” When asked for even a general comment, he cited University policy again. Then when pressed about long-term financial fallout or consequences from the situation, Brown said: “You’re asking me to speculate on something? I don’t speculate on such things.”

Brown was also asked how Father Jenkins might draw the line between honoring, on the one hand, and entering into an academic dialogue, on the other, with a political leader who acts in ways contrary to the fundamental moral principles of the Church—does giving Obama an honorary degree blur that line? This is one of the many points of contention in the dialogue about the commencement invitation that Jenkins has not addressed. Yet in response to the question, Brown was unwilling to comment further and directed the Rover to Jenkins’ previous press release on the issue.

D’Arcy will not attend the commencement, believing that in inviting Obama, “Notre Dame must ask itself, if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth,” according to his March 24 press release. D’Arcy also said in the statement, addressing Obama’s approval of federal funding embryonic stem cell research, “While claiming to separate politics from science, [the President] has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life.”

The University responded to Bishop D’Arcy’s statement on the matter with only a one-sentence statement of regret: “Bishop D’Arcy has been a long-time friend and supporter of Notre Dame, and we’re sorry he will not be there,” according to an Observer article.

As part of his decision, Bishop D’Arcy referenced the statement from the U.S. Catholic Bishops in 2004 that “…Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” D’Arcy went on to comment that, “the measure of any Catholic institution is not only what it stands for, but also what it will not stand for.”

Concerned students of Professor Sean Tarter contacted The Informer after finding closed doors around every corner. Members of the professor’s Fall 2008 class unanimously supported a petition delivered to President Reveley, the Economics Department, and The Flat Hat. Members of the course strongly expressed their interest in further pursuing their Fall course’s content with a follow-up course in the Spring.

Former students of the professor have gained substantial benefits from the material taught in the class. One student was accepted to a prestigious graduate program at Columbia University; the professor was then sent a letter by Columbia asking him to send more students with exposure to the course’s content.

Professor Tarter often hosted extended office hours and in one notable case taught a supplemental lecture, in response to students’ requests, from 9 PM on a Friday night until 1 AM in the morning. According to Stephan Jensen (’09), “nearly the entire class showed up… I don’t know any professor who would spend hours with students talking, that’s pretty extraordinary.”

Reviews of Professor Tarter available on ratemyprofessor.com frequently invoke the word “brilliant” as a primary descriptor. One entry from a student of Econ 400 says, “this class was the most challenging, most rewarding, and most memorable experience[s] of my college career… you will not find an instructor who is more knowledgeable, helpful, or genuine at William and Mary.” Most entries describe the courses taught by Professor Tarter as extremely difficult, but are nonetheless extremely favorable.

Students enrolled in the Fall 2008 course studied financial derivatives and were each responsible for maintaining a mock $100,000 trading platform throughout the semester. Many desired to continue the course’s content into the Spring 2009 semester. Professor Tarter was contacted by The Informer and shared, “the students wanted the class, and I wanted to do it.” Attempting to establish the course, Mr. Tarter decided that “I didn’t care if I was paid,” saying that sharing his knowledge is his primary mission in his life.

Efforts to establish a course for the current semester were met with support by various faculty members, including Economics Department Chair Will Hausman. According to Mr. Tarter, “Will Hausman, David Lutzer, and even Eric Jensen tried to help, but for reasons we really don’t understand, we were unable to proceed.” The course was ultimately unable to be offered this semester, much to his students’ disappointment.

The petition that students then took upon themselves to draft read, “Adjunct Professor Tarter’s dedication to teaching is evident to anyone who has encountered him in an educational setting,” and details the particularly astonishing feats the professor when through for his students. Students Julian Vignaud (’09) and Stephan Jensen (’09) decided to circulate the petition to express “in very clear terms that not having this professor teach the course was madness.”

Jeremy Powers (’09) formerly took two courses with Professor Tarter and was a supporter of the petition effort. “The amount of material that Sean was able to not only cover but make understandable is simply amazing,” says Mr. Powers, “his expectations were high, but he taught with artful simplicity and made himself completely available to answer questions after every class, even holding 4 hour review sessions on Friday nights.”

Professor Tarter not only is an extremely engaging and talented professor, who shares mutual respect and admiration for his students, he is also suffering from a severe neurological disorder. His medical condition has caused him to go through great pains to teach. According to Mr. Tarter, it is worth it, “I am consistently blessed with the best students imaginable, both as academics and as people,” says Mr. Tarter, who describes a guiding mission in life to impart the knowledge he has acquired to students, no matter the personal cost.

Dean of Arts and Sciences Carl Strikwerda was contacted to determine the effects of budget cuts on the employment of adjunct professors. According to Mr. Strikwerda, “no one was let go or had a contract canceled because of the budget. We were very careful only to hire the adjuncts we truly needed this semester to meet student enrollment needs, but the number of adjuncts this spring is not significantly different from past semesters.”

Mr. Strikwerda also said that “generally, we do not have adjuncts teaching for free.” He notes that there are a few exceptions and believes that there have been instances where “due to special circumstances, we have allowed someone to teach and they have refused payment or we have allowed them to teach for free,” but that, “I can’t recall any instances of this right now.”

Mr. Tarter notes that even if the course had been established this semester, his doctors would have strongly opposed his plans to teach. His medical condition is currently quite severe, but Mr. Tarter plans to work as hard as possible to be well enough to return next semester. Although the student-initiated effort to create a class this semester failed, Mr. Tarter says, “I have only experienced gracious support and encouragement from the school and have absolutely no complaints.”

Professor Sean Tarter hopes to return to teaching in the Fall 2009 semester. Many of the students contacted for this story will have graduated by that time, losing the opportunity to continue studying under a professor they consider to be a true asset to William and Mary.

The crucifixes have been a part of The Heights in scattered classrooms since the 1970s. Former University President and current University Chancellor J. Donald Monan, S.J. has confirmed that there was no specific directive or university initiative to make the classrooms uniform in appearance. Indeed, many of the professors who have come forward against the new crucifixes typically lecture in Merkert, a hall which did not have crucifixes adorned on the walls prior to the current semester. Some classrooms in Gasson, meanwhile, have had crucifixes for the past few years.

Professor Hoveyda, the Vanderslice Millennium Professor and Chairperson of Chemistry at Boston College, found it disconcerting that the faculty were not consulted before the decision to implement crucifixes was reached by administrators. He stated that “in any respectable university, it is the faculty who are responsible for the level and the quality of the education of our students; this does not pertain to administrators, particularly those who are either not scholars or are have never in their lives been highly respected serious scholars.”

Professor Hoveyda went even further when he said “I can hardly imagine a more effective way to denigrate the faculty of an educational institution. If that has been the purpose of the administration of Boston College, I congratulate them, as they have succeeded brilliantly.”

Even some professors who recognize a duty on the part of a Catholic university to expose its students to Catholicism object to the crucifixes on the basis that they impose too much upon the religious freedom of students. Professor Scott, a member of the chemistry department, commented that “as a Jesuit university, BC does have a duty, in my opinion, to expose its students to Catholicism. However, ‘expose’ and ‘impose’ ought never to be confused.”

The university denies that the crucifixes were ever meant to be or are in any way offensive to the campus community. In fact, it seems as though the move to introduce crucifixes into the classroom has been underway for some time as the administration has searched for some time for crucifixes that represent both Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and BC’s commitment to social justice and missions around the world.

In a short statement to The Observer, University Spokesman John Dunn said that “Several years ago, University President William P. Leahy, SJ, appointed a Committee on Christian Art at Boston College, chaired by T. Frank Kennedy, SJ., then chairman of the Music Department and now director of the Jesuit Institute. The committee’s charge was to promote Christian art on campus, reflecting the Jesuit, Catholic mission and character of Boston College. Over the past few years, the committee’s efforts have resulted in statues, banners, paintings, musical recitations, crucifixes and icons in buildings, residence halls, and classrooms throughout campus. Many of the artifacts have been donated by students who brought them back from immersion trips. This Christian art is meant to constitute an enrichment of the culture at Boston College and is reflective of the University’s pride in its religious heritage.”

Student reaction, meanwhile, remains mixed. Although Professors Hoveyda and Scott cited several examples of even Christian students taking offense to the new icons and crucifixes, some members of BC find their arrival “comforting.” Billy Cody, A&S 2011, argued that “having a Crucifix or an icon in the room is a powerful daily reminder of Christ’s sacrifice for us and that without him we are nothing. It fits perfectly with the Jesuit motto ‘Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam’ (For the Greater Glory of God) because its presence reminds us that even in the classroom, we act for His greater glory.”

The university has declined to comment on what, if any, action will be taken against professors who refuse to hold classes in their assigned classrooms. How far professors will press the issue also remains unclear, as one professor recently said, “I do not feel comfortable sharing with you what the faculty plan to do, but I can tell you that we are not going just to sit back and watch this.”

This article originally appeared in the January 27, 2009 issue of The Observer at Boston College.

Applicants to U-M, however, face a unique challenge in the admissions process. Because of the university’s commitment to sustaining diversity especially after the passage of a statewide affirmative action ban in 2006, applicants must complete an essay focused on their ability to bring diversity to the U-M campus.

Some critics have claimed that the university’s essay questions are highly politicized since diversity is such a vague term. They think that the university’s definition of diversity is simply a code for affirmative action. 

On January 13, Ann Kirkland, an assistant professor for women’s studies and political science, presented the politics behind the university’s “diversity” essay questions. Her research focused on two questions for applicants that enrolled at U-M in fall 2004, one year after the Gratz v. Bollinger decision which compelled the university to eliminate its controversial points system. The first question asked what “[the applicant] as an individual would bring to the campus community” since “Michigan is committed to building… a widely diverse educational community.” The second question asked applicants “to describe an experience where cultural diversity – or lack thereof – made a difference to [the applicant].” Applicants were compelled to select one of these questions.

Kirkland claimed that the idea of diversity is highly contentious. While most think that a specific group is diverse simply because of skin color, she explained that there are other important definitions of the word.

“There is a broader way to describe differences among people. Most people use ‘diversity’ to mean race, but they do not talk about disability or gender. Gender and even culture were mentioned by very few applicants,” she said. 

After analyzing 176 essays from the class of 2008, Kirkland determined that there were a variety of themes that applicants addressed while answering either of the questions concerning diversity. 

“One concept of diversity that I noticed was an idea I call ‘racial representationalism.’ Applicants would claim that since they were a member of a certain minority group, they would bring diversity to campus. Obviously white applicants did not write this way,” she said.

Another response included the concept of “war movie diversity,” where applicants would list and describe their friends with different traits and experiences. Just as there is the stereotypical African-American, white Southerner, and Italian soldier in the typical war movie, so do applicants show that their personal identity contributes to diversity at U-M.

Surprisingly, some low-income minority applicants and some high-income white applicants expressed some cynicism towards the diversity question. While no one said that the diversity questions were a sham, the applicants seriously criticized the question’s underlying assumptions. 

“These applicants stated that diversity seems great, but there is some underlying tension between groups. They claim that the environment may look diverse, but it may be segregated,” Kirkland said. 

Kirkland’s research will be fully complete by the end of the semester. Even though her research is being funded by the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID), she hopes that her research will create discussion within NCID and the U-M admissions office.

“Hopefully my results will be the start of a well-meaning dialogue about diversity. I can’t think of another word that has undergone such a transformation,” she said.

Adam Pascarella is a junior at the University of Michigan. This article originally appeared in the January 20, 2009 issue of the Michigan Review.

University donations to political campaigns generally lean towards the left, and five higher education institutions appear in Barack Obama’s top 20 donor organizations, including Harvard and Columbia.  Employees at the University of California alone donated nearly a million dollars to his campaign.  Education was Obama’s third largest industry, giving him just under twenty million dollars (John McCain received only 1.6 million from this same demographic).

Dr. Catherine Mooney, an associate professor at the school of Theology and Ministry at Boston College, explained her contribution to the Obama campaign.  ”This election was the most interesting election I recall,” she said. “It touched on a host of issues related to human dignity and justice, including how best to promote peace, economic equality, racial harmony, environmental responsibility, access to health care and education, immigrants’ rights, and the sanctity of human life.”

Interestingly, BC political contributions were split drastically by gender and employment type.  All four Republican donors were male, and two were university administrators.  The Democratic total was a broader sample of BC employees.  The donor disparity was echoed in donation amounts: Republican donations averaged $814, compared to a $200 Democratic average.  While other administrators did contribute to Democratic campaigns, their participation was nowhere near the 50 percent figure posted by Republican administrators.

The only Republican donor willing to comment, Associate Director of Public Affairs Reid Oslin, was dismissive of trends among BC employees.  ”Offering support to a political candidate is an individual choice, and not related in any way to my employment at Boston College,” he stated.

But election data seems to support the commonly held sentiment that the Boston College administration is more conservative than at comparable schools.  Certainly Republican employees are more likely to be administrators, but this does not imply that the administration leans in any particular political direction.  Some conservative BC policies, such as an aversion to contraceptive programs and penalties on substance abuse, come from its adherence to Jesuit, Catholic values.

According to Dr. Mooney, however, religion does not make one conservative.  ”I agree with the U.S. bishops that participation in our political life is a moral obligation,” she said. “There was no perfect candidate for me.  But as I weighed all the issues, I thought the candidate most likely to move us as a nation to reflect and act positively for the common good was Barack Obama.”

Religion could come into play at BC if an Obama administration continued the President-elect’s support of partial-birth abortion, according to Professor Terri Long of the College of Advancing Studies.  ”Thus far, BC has maintained independence, but additional pressure from bishops or the Vatican could push BC to institute a more conservative Catholic agenda,” she predicted.  ”This sort of change would damage BC’s reputation among non-Catholics, effectively marginalizing the school.”

Not every donor was a McCain or Obama supporter.  The largest Republican contributor, Law Professor Scott Fitzgibbon, gave to Sam Brownback.  The largest Democratic donor, Nancy Veeder, supported Hilary Clinton.  Two other major donors supported Christopher Dodd.

Another significant Clinton supporter, Ellen Friedman, commented on the nature of the political system.  ”Anytime you hear anyone say ‘it’s not about money,’ you know it’s about money,” she said wryly.  ”I do believe that it is obscene that so much money is spent to win the presidency—or, indeed, any office—but until we have real campaign finance reform I’m afraid that is going to be the case.”  Friedman’s observation may be relevant in this election cycle, where Obama outspent his rivals in the Democratic primary and then nearly doubled McCain’s advertising in the general election.

 Nobody denies the historic progress signified by the election of an African-American. Members of both parties, however, are less than satisfied with the election’s results.  Professor Terri Long of the College of Advancing Studies strongly supported Hilary Clinton, and she maintains a healthy skepticism about the upcoming administration.  ”I see the nation moving back toward the welfare state instituted in the New Deal,” she said.  ”This concerns me because I have traveled frequently to Europe and have numerous friends and business associates of my husband’s in Switzerland, Germany and England.  I have seen the effects that far-left policies have had on those countries: massive unemployment, decreased productivity, an inability for European companies to compete in a world economy.”

Long also commented on the election’s impact here.  ”As for BC, I think what happens here will largely depend on the economy.  If Obama’s policies do not improve the current economic situation, fewer students and families will be able to afford tuition.  With credit tightening and endowments shrinking, financial support will become increasingly limited, forcing the school to admit more students from higher income families.”

Professor Friedman summed up the uncertainty many still feel.  ”Will the Obama win mean change?  Will he be able to do what needs to be done to rescue not only Wall Street but also ordinary folks who are losing their livelihoods and homes? Will he be able to get us out of Iraq and keep us out of other wars?  Will the people who were dancing in the streets last Tuesday be dancing in the streets two years from now? All of that remains to be seen.”

The proposed changes would decrease the percentage of students guaranteed admission, dropping the amount from the top 12.5% to the top 10% of high school graduates. This 2.5% loss of top high school students will be compensated by a holistic evaluation of applicants, essentially granting admission to undoubtedly qualified students who may not have had the proper counseling to meet the requirements of U.C. eligibility, such as SAT tests and specific classes in high school.

To facilitate the eligibility process for applicants, the new admission standards propose to eliminate the two required SAT II Subject Exams, giving the students two less tests to worry about when applying to college. Eliminating the SAT II subject tests makes the admissions system less of a numbers game: without these additional test scores to consider in students’ applications, the U.C. system will be able to base its admission choices more on individual merits and circumstances and less on numbers.

The proposed system is designed to favor minorities and increase diversity. By giving ineligible students a chance for admission, the amount of admitted minorities will subsequently increase, proponents report, considering that underrepresented students make up a fair amount of applicants considered ineligible each year.

The University is trying to increase the amount of qualified students on their campuses, whether they have met the requirements or not. The idea is to base admissions decisions not only on the required grades and test scores, but also on whether a student is bright enough to succeed at a U.C. campus, even if he or she has not even taken the SAT. University of California admission policymakers believe that, if admissions officers put in enough effort and thought into each ineligible applicant, they can determine whether the student is qualified for U.C. admission. Supporters of the measure say many students may have lacked sufficient opportunity or suitable counseling to fulfill the U.C. requirements.

Several obstacles must be overcome before these amendments can be put into place. One of the primary concerns is that the proposed changes could mean California students who would otherwise have been guaranteed admission, will not be admitted. Critics of the plan argue that California students in the top 12.5% of their class have a right to be guaranteed U.C. admission.

A second obstacle is the difficulty of determining the fine line between ineligible students who automatically get turned down and ineligible students who get considered or admitted. Many are wondering, if a student has not taken the proper high school courses or SAT exams required for U.C. admission, how are the admissions staff supposed to be able to recognize a student that has potential if they cannot see how they have performed in challenging courses or on a standardized test? And how will they be able to tell that a student did not fulfill the UC requirements because of poor counseling or because of laziness?

Opponents of the plan argue these new changes distort the eligibility requirements for the U.C. by essentially making exceptions to ineligible students who may be unqualified. Additionally, the amount of time it would take to thoroughly consider the ineligible applicants may be impossibly time consuming for the admissions staff, considering that about 15% of UC applicants are considered ineligible each year.

While new changes to the UC admission process may help disadvantaged applicants that are not eligible by taking their circumstances into consideration, the changes hurt the top eligible high school students, 2.5% of whom would no longer be guaranteed admission.

The elimination of the SAT II Subject Tests further downplays the role of test scores in determining qualification for U.C. curriculum, and places greater emphasis on more subjectively evaluated aspects of the application, such as the student’s personal statement. While some may think of it as a better and fairer way of admitting students, others argue it is an excuse to increase diversity and the percentage of minorities in the U.C. system at the cost of more qualified applicants.

Professor Priya Venkatesan “is threatening to name seven of her former students in a potential civil rights lawsuit against the College,” reports The Dartmouth. She is planning to sue under Title VII, a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination by employers.

Because Venkatesan will be a research associate at Northwestern’s International Institute for Nanotechnology (not at a Weinberg department), she will probably not teach a course here. But when she was a research associate at Dartmouth Medical School, she did end up teaching a freshman writing course.

Before teaching at Dartmouth, Venkatesan held a teaching assistant position at the University of California-San Diego, where she received a Ph.D. in literature as well as what she called “spectacular” teaching evaluations.

At Dartmouth, Venkatesan’s job was, among other things, to teach Writing 5, a freshman introductory course not unlike a Weinberg freshman seminar here. But after giving a class that one student described as “a nightmare,” she decided to file a lawsuit against seven students.

Venkatesan first began feeling discriminated against when students criticized the ideas in her first book, titled “Molecular Biology in Narrative Form,”

One Dartmouth student described the book as “basically using literary criticism in lieu of the scientific method.” She claims that the book, which shows “a connection between molecular biology and French narrative theory,” caused resentment due to the fact that it was successful and was published by a woman of minority descent with a Ph.D.

One of the examples of “discrimination” she cites includes a lecture she gave on the witch trials in the Renaissance. During the class, a student interrupted to express his opinion that it was wrong to, in Venkatesan’s own words, “criticize patriarchal authority on the basis that science and technology benefited patriarchy or men.”

Venkatesan was offended by what happened next. “I think what happened afterwards was that some people—I can’t name them, and I don’t know how many there were, but it was a significant number—started clapping for his statements,” Venkatesan said. “It was a very humiliating moment to my life.”

Venkatesan acknowledges that “to say that that behavior, that type of disrespect is because I’m an East-Indian female is a little bit, maybe it’s a leap.” Yet she does not think it is “irrational” to consider that behavior as discrimination, citing instances when students would “gossip” about the social ineptitude of certain Indians.

In addition, Venkatesan alleges that her boss was ineffective and possibly incompetent at his job.

“I understand that there are such things as bad working environments—a shithole is just a shithole, and that’s not illegal, and I know that,” she said to The Dartmouth. “But sometimes you have to take time out and address the issue of justice in society and to really implement the values that are so lacking at Dartmouth.”

While Venkatesan knows her legal battle will be hard, she says she remains optimistic.

“I think that I have a good case because there were just so many instances—it was almost an incessant barrage—of hostility, nastiness and anti-intellectualism that I may just in fact have a case, but I’m not a lawyer,” Venkatesan said in an interview with The Dartmouth. “I am going to be the first one to say that is going to be very difficult to prove in a court of law,” she said. “But I think if I get my story out there and tell them this is my assessment of what happened, then I think that’s a social good.”

Venkatesan declined the Chronicle’s request for an interview.

In light of these events, the Student Assembly (SA) began work on ensuring that students at the College have affordable legal options for downloading music and other types of entertainment.

In December 2007, SA President Zach Pilchen sent out an e-mail notifying students that the College had finalized a partnership with Ruckus, an ad-supported digital entertainment service that offers free music and video downloads to college students.

William and Mary students can register with their William and Mary e-mail addresses at www.ruckus.com to begin using the service.

According to Chris Utah, director of subscriber acquisitions for Ruckus, the company is “the only online music discovery service that provides free downloads to college students.”

Unlike other online music providers that only offer free previews of songs and charge up to $150 per year for subscription services, Ruckus allows students to download over three million different songs from both popular and indie music artists at no cost after registering at the site.

The Ruckus Web site states that all downloads are “100% legal, virus-free and spyware-free.” Ruckus also recently added a free video download service for subscribers with music videos, TV shows and films.

SA Senator Walter McClean, chair of the Senate finance committee, has played a key role in bringing a Ruckus server to the campus and in promoting the service to students.

At first, Mr. McClean talked with SA members and many other students about their experiences with downloading music. After determining that Ruckus would be a valuable and useful service for students at the College, he contacted representatives from both Ruckus and the College’s Information Technology department. Mr. McClean then facilitated communication between both sides in order for a contract to be worked out.

For the past few months, Mr. McClean has been actively working with Ruckus to publicize the service through Facebook, school-wide e-mails and campus mailbox flyers. Mr. Utah says that before promotional activities began in December 2007, there was not a single Ruckus user at the College. Now there are over 3,500 William and Mary subscribers on Ruckus, or about 47% of the College’s total population. As of January 21, 2008, students at the College have downloaded a total of 894,357 songs from Ruckus.

Although Ruckus is actually open to any US college student with a valid .edu e-mail address, Mr. McClean says that William and Mary’s partnership with Ruckus is beneficial because it includes a special server on campus that “increases download speed and reliability for William and Mary students.” This new internal server moves the substantial downloading by the College’s students on Ruckus to the campus’s internal network, thus improving Internet speed for both Ruckus users and non-users on campus.

Mr. Utah believes that Ruckus is a good service for college students because “students don’t generally have the money to pay for a new album or song just to see if they will like it, and with all of the legal action that the recording industry has been taking against college students, they are moving away from P2P and other illegal means of downloading.” Students can play the music they download through Ruckus on their computer, and for an optional fee of .79 to .99 cents per track, they can transfer the music to some MP3 players or burn their tracks to CDs. At the moment, Ruckus downloads are incompatible with Apple’s iPods.

In the upcoming year, Ruckus plans to fix incompatibility issues with Macs.

More TV shows and full length movies will be added to the video download service. A new feature called “Match and Snatch” will be beta-tested at the College and four other schools affiliated with Ruckus. This feature will let Ruckus users view music recommendations and find members with similar musical preferences based on the music they have downloaded. Ruckus also continues to heavily promote its networking features through its “My Ruckus Music” application for Facebook. Ruckus users can post their top-ten lists, recently played tracks, and most played tracks on their profile, and check out their friends’ favorite tracks as well.

Mr. McClean remains committed to promoting Ruckus at the College. “If we can push a service that means unlimited free music, and reduces the likelihood of William and Mary students being sued for thousands of dollars, I think it is someone’s responsibility to encourage it,” he said.

Megan Locke is Arts & Culture Editor for The Virginia Informer, a Collegiate Network publication at The College of William and Mary. This article was originally featured in the January 30, 2008 issue of The Informer.

In the past few years, the complexity of MMOs has increased, as has that of Social Networking Sites. In 2003, Linden Research, Inc. released a hybrid of the two technologies, dubbed SecondLife, which enables users to create avatars and interact with other people (through their respective avatars) in a virtual world. Rather than having goals similar to those of other MMOs, in SecondLife the goal is essentially the same as that of one’s “first” life. SecondLife allows for the leasing of land, enumerated in a currency that Linden Research invented (Linden Dollars), and also allows for the creation, buying, and selling of goods. Essentially, Linden Research attempted to create an entirely virtual world that is an almost perfect clone of the real world.

Recently, Library and Technology Services (LTS), has begun making plans to purchase an “island” (a plot of land) in SecondLife. According to Greg Reihman, Faculty and Development Director for LTS, several professors are already using SecondLife and more have expressed interest in doing so.

Reihman cited the applications of a technology such as SecondLife to communications and collaboration, claiming that “the 3D environment allows for forms of communication and presentation that are very different from what occurs using other communication tools,” with email and video-conferencing as examples of technologies currently used to achieve these goals. He also suggested the possibility of SecondLife’s application to distance education, enabling students to interact with professors and (virtual) classmates from anywhere in the world. In addition, technologies such as SecondLife might open up possibilities for students to create structures, buildings, and art in design classes or similar situations.

Aside from the use of SecondLife as a technology to simply augment what goes on in the classroom, Reihman cited examples of using SecondLife as the subject of studies in several different fields. He has already used SecondLife as an example in a philosophy class dealing with ontology (“what is real and how we decide what is real”). Professor Robert Rosewein, in the Sociology Department, is studying SecondLife because of its social and cultural implications. Professor Roger Nagel, who teaches a course on cyberethics in the Computer Science and Engineering Department, is also studying social networking sites, including SecondLife. Said Reihman, “[SecondLife is] where many people develop new identities and new forms of interaction and these new phenomena are intrinsically interesting to scholars working in those areas.”

Above all, the primary reason that the University is investigating SecondLife is that “it seems very likely that some form of virtual environment will have an impact on how we communicate and interact in the future, so many educators want to ensure that students are ready to participate in such environments – perhaps even to contribute to the development of such environments.”

Lehigh University would not be the first campus to set foot in SecondLife, as many campuses have already begun building virtual campuses and classrooms, communicating, collaborating, holding classes, and even hosting visits for prospective students. Universities already using SecondLife include Harvard, Ball State, Central Missouri State, Pepperdine, Bradley, and the University of Tennessee.

Reihman suspects that, though SecondLife might better be able to support some of the facilities that current technologies attempt to provide (video-conferencing, for example), this new technology will most likely not fully replace any major technologies, but simply serve as an enhancement.

The University’s official plans are somewhat vague. At present, the total cost of the project is unknown, but will become clearer as the project progresses. LTS is preparing for a small pilot in the spring and will make the necessary budgetary decisions based on what they decide to do and the response across campus to a SecondLife island.

According to SecondLife’s website, an island costs $1,675 US, plus approximately $300 per month for maintenance. Reihman suspects that this will be the initial investment. Although other campuses have gone with higher-cost ventures including hiring third-party designers to replicate real campuses in virtual worlds, Lehigh plans to start small and build further based on interest and how the project is received.

Brian Parks was a Senior Staff Writer for The Lehigh Patriot, a Collegiate Network publication. This article was originally featured in the December 2007 issue of The Patriot.