- Purdue University students will no longer face school discipline for illegally drinking alcohol if they seek medical attention while they or someone they help is drunk.
The medical amnesty policy is aimed at making sure those who are hurt while intoxicated or suffer from alcohol poisoning don’t hesitate to get help, school officials said in announcing the PurdueCARES plan Tuesday.
“The way I look at it is, it provides a peace of mind to students,” associate dean of students Jeffery Stefancic told the Journal & Courier. “They are fearful if they made poor choices with alcohol that to call police or medical staff, they don’t want to get someone in trouble.”
Purdue officials said about 100 colleges across the country have similar policies. The initiative given temporary approval by Purdue President France Cordova also will have an online tutorial for incoming students about the dangers of alcohol.
The University Senate will discuss this fall whether to support making the medical amnesty policy permanent, but campus Police Chief John Cox, and West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis have both come out in favor of it. Read more…
It is summer, but fourth- and fifth-grade students who like to write have a chance at winning some funds.
Students may submit a 600-word essay on “Why School Choice is Important.” Winners will receive their choice of $100 cash, a $100 U.S. Savings Bond or a $100 gift certificate.
The contest is sponsored by Americans For Prosperity in honor of Milton Friedman. Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economic Science, and his wife established the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation to promote parental choice of schools.
Submissions must be sent to debbiehealy58@aol.com by July 20 and must include the student’s name and full address. Winners will be announced July 29.
The internet in Syria has been disrupted in various parts of the country. This appears to be a deliberate attempt by the authorities to curtail its impact on the growing revolt.
Although internet services continued to operate normally after the outbreak of pro-democracy protests in mid-March, this month the service started to see breaks in various places.
“Starting at 3:35 (today), approximately two-thirds of all Syrian networks became unreachable from the global internet,” reported internet intelligence firm Renesys on its blog on 3 June.
“Over the course of roughly half an hour, the routes to 40 of 59 networks were withdrawn from the global routing table.” Most mobile phone and internet networks were also reportedly affected by the blackout.
Renesys said the network prefixes that remained reachable included those belonging to the Syrian government, “although many government websites are slow to respond or down”.
Meanwhile, the Google Transparency Report, which monitors traffic to its services around the world, showed traffic levels in Syria well below normal.
The shutdown of internet services began on a day which was preceded by calls – including on Facebook – for massive demonstrations across the country in what was to be a ‘Friday of Children’.
The Facebook group the Syrian Revolution 2011, which has attracted more than 190,000 followers, called for nationwide protests on 3 June to honour children allegedly killed by security forces, such as 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib whom activists say was tortured to death.
An Education Department committee further honed its recommendations for how to overhaul the way the government measures the success of community colleges. Though there was general agreement on crafting completion measures, there was strong disagreement about whether the government should require community colleges to report their students employment outcomes. (Inside Higher Ed, 06/06/11)
A 5-year-old lawsuit over an alleged “enemies list” at the Capistrano Unified School District has finally ended. An appeals court yesterday cleared former district administrator Susan McGill.
Former Capistrano Unified Superintendent James Fleming and his assistant, Susan McGill, were both charged five years ago for their alleged role in compiling a list of parents who’d criticized the school board. Prosecutors said the list also contained the names of the parents’ kids and their schools.
An appeals court dropped the charges against Fleming six months ago. The same state appeals court has ordered prosecutors to drop criminal charges against McGill. The court said McGill never had a chance to defend herself before the grand jury that originally brought the charges.
A lower court suggested that Orange County should censure its prosecutors for misconduct in the case. But the appeals court found that legal error, not misconduct, led prosecutors to prevent McGill from defending herself to the grand jury before her indictment. The h