Following a trend of liberal arts colleges eliminating loans for needy students, Williams College, a prestigious liberal arts college in Williamstown, Mass., announced Thursday that it will replace all loans with grants. The decision will cost $1.8 million per year for the college of about 2,000 students.
A loan no longer
Williams is the third prominent liberal arts college to eliminate loans this year, following announcements earlier this year by Amherst College and Davidson College. Princeton University was the first major American college to replace loans with grants in 2001.
Resistance to RIAA
The University of Oregon has challenged the Recording Industry Association of America in federal district court, arguing that the association cannot require colleges to identify the registered user of an IP address caught sharing music illegally.
The RIAA issues pre-litigation letters to colleges asking them to forward IP addresses caught sharing. Those users are given the chance to settle or take the matter the court. Those users are given the chance to settle or take the matter the court.
The University of Oregon has argued that it cannot determine definitively whether the owner of an IP address was the one engaging in file-sharing. It argues that much of the sharing has been over open wireless networks or in dorm rooms where multiple people could have signed onto the Internet.
Open Source Material
A University of Washington at Bothell professor assigned students in her environmental history course to edit an entry on wikipedia.org as a final project.
Wikipedia has been widely criticized as a research tool because anyone can edit entries. Martha Groom, the professor, told the Chronicle of Higher Education that was one reason she assigned the project. “Is there crap on Wikipedia? Sure there is,” she said. “So let’s be part of making it better.”
Many entries written by Groom’s students were modified or rejected by Wikipedia administrators because they argued a specific point of view or because they overlapped information that was already posted elsewhere.
Riot Protection
Students at the University of Rhode Island have cried foul after residents of Wiley Hall, a dormitory at the college, were prevented from leaving the dorm after the Boston Red Sox won the World Series early Monday morning. Some were trying to take to the streets to join an estimated 700 others in celebration.
Students questioned whether the Wiley Hall director had the right to make the decision, reported The Good 5 Cent Cigar, the campus newspaper.