In an effort to combat drunken behavior at University of Minnesota football games, the school has implemented a new policy that requires students who get kicked out of a game to pass an alcohol breath test before the next game, according to The Associated Press.
The program, called Check BAC, was inspired by a similar policy introduced by the University of Wisconsin five years ago. According to the AP, the rule applies to all of the school’s 10,000 student season-ticket holders.
Minnesota Vice Provost for Student Affairs Jerry Reinhart told the AP that the intention was not to make trouble for every student who consumes alcohol before the game.
“If people come in with a buzz on — there will be tailgating — that’s fine as long as their behavior doesn’t interfere with those around them,” he said.
Notre Dame to dissolve “heterodox” side of economics department
The University of Notre Dame plans to end an experiment started early in the decade that essentially created two economics departments, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported.
According to the Chronicle, university leaders accepted the schism in 2003 after “a long series of quarrels over methods and ideology.”
One faction of faculty members went to a department called Economics and Policy Studies, “a heterodox department that made room for post-Keynesians, Marxians and historians of economic thought,” according to the Chronicle. Heterodox views are those that are unorthodox or stray from an acknowledged standard.
The others went to Economics and Econometrics, “a more mainstream department with an emphasis on quantitative tools.”
University officials told the Chronicle that what started as an experiment has now clearly failed, and they plan to dissolve the “heterodox” department within two years.
Students in Beijing protest detention of teacher
About 100 university students assembled outside a Beijing police bureau yesterday to protest the detention of a lecturer and demand his release, according to the Associated Press.
The lecturer, Ding Xiaoping, was a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations. He teaches at several universities, according to the AP.
A recent graduate told the AP that Xiaoping had been taken Saturday afternoon because, he believed, the government saw him as a threat to the upcoming celebration of the Communist republic’s 60th anniversary.
“He was taken away for political reasons. The police want to limit his activity,” the recent graduate, Yu Zhiwei, told the AP.