ALTHOUGH NEIL KERWIN has been American University's interim president since then-President Benjamin Ladner was ousted in 2005 after a scandal over his lavish spending habits, today marks the formal installation of the school's former provost as president.
There'll be a campus-wide reception at the Mary Graydon Center following the 11 a.m. inaugural ceremony at Bender Arena. Tonight, expect the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Whitehaven Street NW to be jam-packed as guests head to the Italian Embassy for the inaugural ball, which starts at 7:30 p.m.
» "Presidential Inauguration" [American University]
Photo courtesy American University
IN THE BATTLE FOR FEDERAL TRANSIT FUNDING, proposals that would serve the most passengers stand the best chance of getting a thumbs up. For Maryland's proposed Purple Line, which would be a light-rail or bus-rapid-transit link between the Bethesda and New Carrollton stations via Silver Spring and College Park, the University of Maryland is a potential ridership goldmine. But as The Post's Katherine Shaver reports, officials at the university are opposed to a state plan that would bring the mass transit line through the heart of the university on Campus Drive, pictured above, citing safety and aesthetic concerns. Writes Shaver:
State officials say similar transit lines operate safely in other areas crowded with walkers, including on college campuses. Supporters of the Campus Drive route say location is key. They point to the inconvenient walk or shuttle bus ride required now because Metro's College Park station was built a mile from the campus, which has about 36,000 students and 12,400 employees.
Continue Reading "U-Md.: Purple Line Should Avoid Campus Center" »
IN SOME COLLEGE TOWNS, campus and city mix to create a vibrant academic and social environment for students to enjoy outside the classroom. That's not quite the situation in College Park, but officials at the University of Maryland are aiming to change that with a $700 million development project called East Campus.
As The Post's Ovetta Wiggins reports:
The University of Maryland plans to tear down old student housing, abandoned research greenhouses, its mail facility and maintenance buildings to create an area where students and residents of the College Park community can shop, dine and gather for concerts.Also in the works for the 38-acre tract of land bordered by Route 1, Paint Branch Parkway, Central Campus and College Park's Green Line station is a branch of the Alexandria-based Birchmere music club, a movie theater, a grocery store and new housing. The first phase of the East Campus project is expected to be complete in 2011, the second phase by 2014.
Continue Reading "U-Md. Aims to Create Social Hub in College Park" »
WHEN GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY's law school was established in 1979, it used the old Kann's department store in Arlington County's Virginia Square neighborhood as its temporary home. The law school eventually moved out, but the aging building, with its ancient escalators pictured above, continued to house various undergraduate and graduate classes.
Now, though, the building is being emptied to make way for a new university complex, which will house the School of Public Policy and the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, along with academic and student support services. Reports The Post's Jerry Markon:
The $82 million project is a key part of a five-year, $600 million expansion and renovation of three GMU campuses in Northern Virginia, including Fairfax and Prince William counties. But the need is particularly acute in Arlington, university and county officials said.Construction on the new building starts this month and is slated to wrap up in 2010.
» "GMU Prepares For a Farewell to an Original" [WaPo]
Photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post
WHILE HE WON'T BE throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day at the Nationals' new baseball stadium, Pope Benedict XVI will be gracing the ballpark with his presence in April.
At this morning's meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, the details of the pope's upcoming visit to the United States were announced. As Jacqueline L. Salmon and Howard Schneider report, the pope will arrive in Washington on April 15 with a visit to the White House and will celebrate Mass at the ballpark on April 17 before meeting with leaders of the nation's Catholic colleges and universities at the Catholic University of America in Northeast.
» "Pope Set to Visit Washington, New York in April" [WaPo]
Photo by Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images
THE STORY OF SWASTIKA SCRAWLINGS at George Washington University has a new plot twist.
After university officials barred from campus a student who they said was connected to a series of incidents involving the writing of racial epithets and the drawing of swastikas in residence halls, another student has accepted responsibility for drawing the Nazi symbol on her own dorm room door.
As The Post's Valerie Strauss reports, the unidentified student was caught drawing swastikas on her own door by a hidden camera, which was installed after she complained to university officials when the symbols first appeared. The student in the second case will not face judicial action.
» "Student's Swastika Claim Unravels" [WaPo]
OFFICIALS AT GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY have banished a student from its campus after a surveillance camera caught the individual scrawling swastika on a residence hall door. Both the university and the FBI have been investigating a series of incidents involving Nazi swastikas and insensitive words discovered on campus.
Says university spokeswoman Tracy Schario in a statement:
The suspect has been barred from campus, will face student judicial action, and a determination will be made as to whether District of Columbia and/or federal laws were violated. In compliance with federal privacy laws the university will not disclose the name of the student.» "GW Student Charged in Swastika on Dorm Door" [WT]Meanwhile, the investigation continues to determine the source or sources of earlier incidents involving the drawing of swastikas on two other residence hall doors. Currently, there is no evidence to suggest any connection between the suspect charged Saturday night and the incidents still under investigation.
» "Statement from The George Washington University Regarding Suspect Caught in Incidents In Which Hateful Words and Emblems Were Posted in One GW Residence Hall" [GWU]
DOWN IN CHARLOTTESVILLE, officials at the University of Virginia are dealing with a pretty big task: raise $1,025,045 today, another $1,025,045 tomorrow and another $1,025,045 the next day. Then that must be repeated, as The Post's Susan Kinzie reports, all the way into 2011, when U-Va.'s ambitious $3 billion fundraising push, started in 2004, ends. Currently, the university has raised $1.375 billion, about half its goal.
"There's a lot of pressure with this," Robert Sweeney, U-Va.'s senior vice president for development, tells The Post. Oh really? Well, at least Sweeney isn't in charge of raising $3 billion in alumni donations from George Washington University graduates, whose alumni giving comes in at a dismal 11 percent, according to the City Paper.
» "U-Va. Drive May Raise Stakes for Fundraising" [WaPo]
» "The $50,630 Question" [City Paper]
RESIDENTS IN BROOKLAND often bemoan the lack of restaurants, bars and other retail amenities in their Northeast neighborhood. But a new bar on the 12th Street NE strip, The Library, is causing a stir. From one posting on the neighborhood's message board:
I don't expect many people to agree with me, but I feel I have to say this: I don't think naming the new bar on 12th Street 'The Library' is cute or clever. I'm a librarian, and it's offensive to me. Is this a quiet place to read and study? No, it's another bar for students who want to drink a lot of cheap beer, get disgustingly drunk, and then annoy the neighbors with their noise and trash. It's a sports bar, with multiple TV screens.Worst of all, some other neighbors complain, is the "lack of decent beer." And the brew that is available? It's served in lowbrow plastic cups. On Tap recently noted last month that "The Library serves $5 Busch Light pitchers and $4 Captain Morgan pints all the time and each day they have an additional special." Busch Light. Classy.
Continue Reading "Name of Bar, Cheap Beer Spark Brookland Battle" »
ON THE SAME DAY that the U.S. Senate passed hate crimes legislation on Capitol Hill that extended protections to gays and lesbians, across town came word of the arrest of a Georgetown University student for what police say could be just such a hate crime.
The arrested student is a 19-year-old undergrad from Texas suspected of participating in an incident earlier this month on 36th Street NW in which a group of men allegedly attacked another man while yelling homophobic slurs at him. The suspect was identified after the victim found his Facebook profile.
As WRC/NBC4 notes, while Metropolitan Police Department officials say they haven't detected an increase in reported hate crimes in the District, the "Georgetown attack was the first of three possible anti-gay crimes in Northwest in September. On Sept. 13 a transgender person was attacked in Chinatown, and a man was attacked at about 1 a.m. Saturday after leaving a gay bar near the Convention Center."
» "Senate Extends Protections to Gays, Lesbians in Hate Crimes Act" [ABC News]
» "Georgetown Student Arrested In Possible Hate Crime" [WRC/NBC4]
Addison Road