The Collegian News Blog

Founders day is upon us at the University of Massachusetts and the campus is gearing up to celebrate 145 years of existence.

Check out tomorrow's Daily Collegian for your blast from the past, but in the meantime, here's today's commemorative itenerary (courtesy UMass.edu):





10:00 Music & Dance
11:30 Barbeque Luncheon and entertainment
12:15 UMass Amherst Marching Band arrives
12:20 Remarks by UMass President Jack Wilson and Governor Deval Patrick
12:40 Ceremonial cutting of the birthday cake
11:30 – 1:30 University Historical Exhibit





Stay tuned to the Daily Collegian online for more multimedia coverage of the festivities.

According to University Spokesman Ed Blaguszewski, the Office of Information Technology is reporting that 120 out of the 150 workstations in University Health Services shut down after an electronic intrusion two weeks ago are now back up and operational.

University officials have just announced the tentative agreement between the administration and the Graduate Employment Office for a tentative 14-month contract.

Labels: contract negotiations, GEO, graduate students, UMass

The Amherst Police Department is reporting that only three arrests came out of this weekends 4/20 celebrations - namely the Extravaganja held last Saturday on the town common.

Labels: 4/20, amherst, arrests, extravaganja

Labels: radical student union, rally, rsu, student union

The University of Massachusetts Chancellor Search Committee - in charge of finding a replacement after former Chancellor John Lombardi moved to Louisiana State University after the end of the last academic year - has selected four finalists for the position.

Here's the breakdown of the Chancellor Search Semifinalists:

Martin Hall: deputy vice chancellor of the University of Cape Town

Robert C. Holub: provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee

Harris Pastides: vice president for research and health sciences at the University of South Carolina and executive director of the University of South Carolina Research Foundation

Satish K. Tripathi: provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

The Chancellor Search Committee, consisting of 25 members and including representatives from the graduate and undergraduate student bodies, has spent much of the last year weeding through applicants and candidates for the position now held by Interim Chancellor Thomas Cole.

"We were truly pleased to see candidates of the highest caliber step forward and enter this selection process. The quality of the candidate field is a testament to the way UMass Amherst is viewed across the country and throughout academia," said Jennifer Braceras, a 1989 graduate of UMass Amherst currently on the University Board of Trustees. "Because this field was so strong, the committee was able to designate outstanding finalists who are able to inspire and are ready to lead."

Labels: chancellor search committee, john lombardi, thomas cole, umass amherst

The Amherst Police Department reported an unusually high level of activity from weekend revelers the past few days this morning.

According to the APD, officers responded to 173 calls for service, including fights, large disturbances, weapons calls, and traffic accidents.

At the weekend's end, a total of 34 people had been arrested for what the APD describes as "varying offenses."

Labels: amherst, crime, violence

Members of the Chinese community on campus are currently rallying against the violence in Tibet and in support of the 2008 Beijing Olympics on the steps of the Student Union.

Chanting "One China," and "One World, One Dream," and waving a Chinese flag participants are handing out what they described as educational flyers depicting the truth about Tibet.

Approximatly a hundred Chinese students gathered outside the Student Union at 11 a.m. this morning and the numbers increased throughout the event, as participants spread out towards the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, waving placards and chanting.

Labels: jqa, liam o'donnelly, UMass

Today marked the first in a series of articles examining the relationship between drinking and violence on the University of Massachusetts campus in Amherst.

With a semester so far marked with extreme cases of violence and crime involving students and student athletes, both on campus and in the surrounding community, reporters and editors at the Daily Collegian have sought to explore the correlation between the two, and if any such relationship exists.

Let us know what you think, either by commenting below, responding to one of our stories or even e-mailing the news section. Share your experiences and tell your own stories, or give us some well-deserved criticism. No matter what your opinion, stay tuned all week for updates examing University policy regarding drinking and crime, drunk driving on and off campus, and how crime statistics are gathered at both UMass and other private institutions.

Labels: alcohol, campus crime, crime, drinking, UMass, violence

Photo credit Jeromie Whalen

Labels: jqa, liam o'donnelly, southwest, student death

In an almost ironic twist of fate, the day after University of Massachusetts football player Spencer Sinclair Ridenhour for lewd behavior -- including exposing himself to a female jogger, sexually assaulting a Smith College student, and masturbating in a car -- the Pennsylvania State Daily Collegian is reporting similar charges being pressed against a Penn State basketball player for his lewd behavior.

"Penn State Police filed charges yesterday against Penn State basketball player Stanley Pringle in connection with an incident involving public masturbation that occurred last Thursday in Pattee Library," Lauren Boyer reported yesterday for the (Penn State) Daily Collegian.

According to the (Penn State) Daily Collegian, "in the original incident report, police said the offender sat behind a woman in the stacks section of the library, attempted to start a conversation with her and then began masturbating. The investigation, including interviews with the victim, yielded a description detailing a college-aged black man with a medium build, about 6-feet-2-inches tall, and wearing a gray sweatshirt"

Oddly enough, Ridenhour -- a 22 year-old transfer student -- originally came to UMass from Penn State.

On a side note, the (Penn State) Daily Collegian is reporting that Pringle is not being investigated as a suspect in an ongoing investigation of "serial masturbation" on campus.

After publishing an article covering a local reaction to the unrest in Tibet, the Massachusetts Daily Collegian received a fair amount of ire from students with connections to China who felt the reporter had misinterpreted the events across the Pacific from Amherst. Here is a sampling of the e-mails we received in the news section:

"Free Tibet -- they know not what they doWhenever people start to talk about “Free Tibet” in the United States, I am always stunned by the ignorance that they are so eager to show about the subject of their monologue. Your Monday (March 31) news article Pamela Lawn on Tibet is just another piece in that line. Apparently, some people just love to kid themselves by acting as if Tibet had been a “free” and “peaceful” place before 1950. No one seems to care that Dalai Lama had been the leader of a slave system before he left Tibet, under whose “leadership” 5% of the Tibetan population had absolute control over 100% of the resources, while the rest 95% lived in poverty and serfdom, and there had been no freedom of religion (come on, there was only one religion, what do you want me to say?), no separation between the religious and political power(or shall I say between the Church and the State?), and no access to education for the people. Now, poor Tibetans, they cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. But, while taking the moral high ground by trying to represent the Tibetans in the self-claimed righteous cause of “Free Tibet,” you might want to ask yourself whether you know what life has been like for Tibetans in the past and at present, whether you know anything about the changes that has happened to people’s life in general in China? Do you really know, or do you simply not care?Some probably would think that I have been brainwashed by the Communist government in China. Well, the apparently brain-washed one seems to have access to more diverse and accurate information about Tibet then citizensof “the free world.” In the case of this protest on March 14 (by the way, show some professionalism by getting the dates correct), what I have seen here in the U.S. is simply horrible journalism. When mainstream media like CNN and NewYork Times talk about the violence of Chinese police against “peaceful” Tibetan protesters, they couldn’t even show the right pictures and the right videos – either pictures were cropped to skip details that might favor the Chinese government, or the pictures and videos shown were not even taken in China but in Nipal or India (one of the numerous examples of such intentional distortion and manipulation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13fz9HIrJpQ). Obviously, most people are simply assuming that the violence and deaths were caused by the Chinese police. I mean, give me a break, this is a digital age, the lack of access to Tibet by foreign reporters does not mean the lack of evidence sent out from within Tibet, by Chinese, Tibetans, or foreign tourists((http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhjCX4KIz4Q ). And – I can’t believe I’m saying this – the rejection of foreign journalists by the Chinese government does not mean that you should sacrifice journalist conscience and simply makeup stories. I understand that this is a free country where people have the right to express themselves, and I have no intention to shut anyone up. All I’m saying is, you are having a college education, please take it seriously – do some research on Tibet, learn its history, use your brain, and stop kidding yourself, or your readers like me. Sincerely yours,

--Zixu(George) Liu"

"Recently, I read an article about Tibet in your 3/31 daily collegian. I am very surprised about what you wrote on the report. After finishing the whole news, I really want to ask you: Do you really know what happens in Tibet? If you just obtain the information from you local media, I think that one old Chinese aphorism may be useful for you: "listen to both sides and you will be enlightened; heed only one side and you will be benighted". The whole Tibetan violence is caused by several rioters, not by the Chinese Government. Dalai Lama should take the whole responsibility for it, who always says that they will use peaceful method, not force. Accurately, the riot in Lhasa this time proves that he is just a rabble rouser and a political liar who just always some beautiful things and do some dirty things below the table. A handful of Tibetan, who are stirred up, first attached the innocent peoples and rape the shops. That is why the Chinese Government sent the policeman to army to stop the chaos."

"Dear editor:

I am writing to response to the news about Tibet that appeared on yourpaper on 3/31/2008. I am very disappointed that your report lack a balanced view of what happened in Lhasa during the past several weeks. It was nothing wrong in putting out a riot that caused enormous destruction in the city, as described by reports from Economist and other eye witness reports from other sources. I believe your paper has set a bad example of journalism that you reported the event happened in Lhasa in a way to support your presumed political view. Namely everything that happened between government and citizen are related to human right. China has a political system and governing ideology that is vastly different from the western counterpart. Therefore before rushing to interpret every event according to modern western views, which is doom to fail to understand the rest of the world fairly, please take time to gather witness reports from other sources instead of "Free Tibet" groups, such as tourists, reporters that happened to be there and citizens that are not related to activist groups, as well as unprocessed photos. Yes, professionalism takes time, and writing a balanced report requires a lot of hard works. But I believe it would ultimately improve the quality of your paper and benefit the readers.

Sincrerely,

Chiu Tai Andrew Wong"

How did we do covering the events in Tibet from a local angle? Let us know by sounding off below.

On the same day the Massachusetts basketball team won its biggest game in approximately 10 years, a UMass football player stole some of the headlines -- and not in the most positive of ways.

According to Northampton police, junior reserve defensive back Spencer Ridenhour is facing charges of open and gross lewdness following an incident reported near Smith College last Tuesday.

Furthermore, according to Northampton police, Ridenhour was also arrested earlier in the day after a separate, but similar incident.

The Daily Collegian's Frank Vitale has the full story.

Ridenhour has been suspended indefinitely from the team, according to UMass Athletic Department spokesperson Jason Yellin.

To see Ridenhour's player page on umassathletics.com, click HERE.


posted by Eli Rosenswaike