College Town News :: From North America and Around the World

Hugh Grant in drunken romp on Facebook
WHY has Hugh Grant failed to grow up?
News - 13 Oct 2007
... ST. ANDREWS, UK - The 47-year-old English actor has long been known for his liking for no-strings-attached liaisons with "posh totty" more than half his age.

Now he has suffered the embarassment of his latest foray into student dorms with pictures of the party being published on the internet ...

Pictures of him taken at a student party in the Scottish university town of St Andrews and shared via the Internet make him look an idiot ...

UI students get campus polling sites for under-21 vote
Placement seen as effort to defeat increase in I.C.'s bar entry age
Gazette - 13 Oct 2007
... IOWA CITY, IA - Students opposed to banning 19- and 20-year-olds from bars after 10 p.m. hope to turn out 2,000 student voters to help defeat the ballot initiative.

Their plan: Use on-campus satellite voting stations they helped secure earlier this week.

ISU alums visit doomed dorms
Pantagraph - 13 Oct 2007
... NORMAL, IL — As part of this year’s Illinois State University homecoming weekend, Deborah Gabhart Hogan and Ken Hogan brought their two young boys on a tour of Walker Hall, where the couple met in the 1990s.

The tours, led by ISU alumni staff, marked a bittersweet moment for ISU history.

It’s likely the last homecoming at which alumni will be able to walk in Dunn, Barton and Walker halls. The three central campus dorms are expected to be razed this summer as part of a proposed $43.5 million project to build a Student Fitness and Kinesiology/Recreation Center ...

URI parties resulting in sticker shock
Journal - 13 Oct 2007
... NARRAGANSETT, RI — Narragansett has struggled for years with students and their Thursday, Friday and Saturday night parties, but this year, in some ways, has been different.

Thanks to a police effort to charge underage drinkers who are found wandering about, as well as a tougher “nuisance” ordinance that puts orange stickers on houses for an entire school year if the occupants have hosted a loud party, some people are saying the noise level is down ...

Police fine 2 students and owner of stickered house
Journal - 13 Oct 2007
... NARRAGANSETT, RI — The police say they have issued about 30 public nuisance stickers since the start of the school year, but not until yesterday did they return to one of those houses and subject the occupants to fines ...

Inside the house, officers found the floor covered with glass and a liquid that appeared to be beer. They also saw a number of people who smelled of alcohol and appeared to be drunk, and they noticed that the orange nuisance sticker officers had posted on Sept. 10 was torn off and lying on the lawn ...

Hopefuls discuss ‘core to our city’
Municipal Council candidates talk planning, alcohol, getting USU students downtown
Herals-Journal - 13 Oct 2007
... LOGAN, UT - Three of six candidates vying for seats on the Logan Municipal Council will be part of the body asked to approve and fund a specific plan for downtown Logan sometime in the next year.

That’s why a Wednesday meeting with the Logan Downtown Alliance was so important for the three incumbents and their challengers. And while each agree on the importance of making the city’s downtown vibrant and livable, exactly how much that needs to happen and where to begin are where the six start to diverge ...

Expert urges students to think safety, party wisely
UDaily - 12 Oct 2007
... NEWARK, DE - An expert in high-risk student health and safety issues advised a crowd of 250 gathered in Clayton Hall on Oct. 8, to look out for each other's safety at parties and consider the possible consequences of their actions. In a sobering and humorous presentation, “Drunk Sex or Date Rape: Can You Tell the Difference?” Brett Sokolow, an attorney, used the example of a real court case involving two college students whose lives were drastically altered after they met at a party ...

Hundreds of acres of land owned by UT in West Austin could be redeveloped.
KLBJ - 12 Oct 2007
... AUSTIN, TX - UT Regent James Huffines says a special task force is urging the school to bring in an outside planner to look at all of the options for the 345 acre tract of land. The land along Lake Austin Boulevard is currently occupied by student housing, a golf course, youth athletic fields, and the LCRA. The task force says the school needs to find a way to produce more revenue from the property for the good of the university ...

Home is where ...
We don't want voter registrars prying into personal lives
Daily Press - 12 Oct 2007
... WILLIAMSBURG, VA - College students who want to register to vote may see a change at the registrar's office in Williamsburg.

No longer will they be subject to questioning to pin down where they really live — not where they park their backpack, but where home is.

A new registrar has replaced David Andrews, who caused controversy when he differentiated among students based on their living arrangements. The new direction seems to be: If a student declares that he lives in Williamsburg and has documentation of a city address, it's not up to the registrar to question that ...

Oxford arts center a busy place Friday
Oxford Press - 12 Oct 2007
... OXFORD, OH - The Oxford Community Arts Center will host Second Fridays Art Evening, a celebration of the arts from 6 to 9 tonight.

This free event will include music, exhibits of visual art and refreshments. Members of the Artists Collaborative will host Open Studios on the third floor of the Arts Center giving guests the opportunity to view creative art space, as well as purchase one-of-a-kind artwork directly from the artists ...

Delinquent landlords restricted
Come January, landlords will lose licenses for withholding settlement payments.
Minnesota Daily - 12 Oct 2007
... MINNEAPOLIS, MN - "We did that recently in response to complaints where students would try to get their damage deposits back and win their case in courts but the landlord just would not pay," Gordon said.

A renter might file a lawsuit against a landlord for withholding a security deposit or failure to fix problems with the property.

The ordinance will ideally allow residents to collect their settlements after 20 to 30 days of their judgments, depending on the type of case they file ...

FIRE GUTS HARTWICK TOWERS APARTMENT
Diamondback - 12 Oct 2007
... COLLEGE PARK, MD - Residents of the six-story condominum complex, which is not equipped with sprinklers, described a chaotic scene after the fire broke out. No fire alarms sounded, residents said, and they banged on doors to urge neighbors to evacuate. Brady said that when firefighters arrived, a "hectic evacuation" was underway.

Multiple fire departments responded to the scene, setting numerous ladders along the outside of the building to transport equipment. Brady said the two-alarm fire brought 65 firefighters and paramedics to the scene.

Students who urged their neighbors to evacuate said many were oblivious to the emergency.

"There were people five, six stories up who didn't even know there was a fire," ...

The reason Martin has the fence in the first place is because her son, Dietrich Martin, suffers from severe memory loss and is blind after a bad accident 16 years ago.

“I’ve got more things to worry about than arguing with those kids,” Barbara said.

A solution some people suggest is she move out of the neighborhood. Barbara said that is not an option. It took her son six years to get used to the house she is in now and there is no way she could help him adjust to another house ...

'War of the Worlds' Revived
AP - 11 Oct 2007
... ATHENS, GA - That story will air Saturday on a live Georgia radio and Internet broadcast, as University of Georgia theater students slam lead pipes into watermelons, scrape hairbrushes across cookie sheets and otherwise provide the sound effects for a modern version of Orson Welles' famous 1938 broadcast of "The War of the Worlds."

The troupe will perform the radio play on stage before a live audience at the university's Classic Center. At the same time, the show will be broadcast on WUGA-FM, the local Georgia Public Broadcasting affiliate, and on the Internet — giving the live audience and broadcast audience two unique ways to enjoy the show ...

City, Campus Hold Event in Spirit of Neighborliness
News - 11 Oct 2007
... DAVIS, CA - The goal of Davis Neighbors' Night Out is to create a strong line of communication and relationships for all community members, but especially between off-campus students and their neighbors. It is aimed at neighborhood and homeowner associations, Neighborhood Watch captains, and apartment complexes, though any individual residents wishing to host an event are encouraged as well.

"It's not a good use of public safety resources for a neighbor to call the police to ask someone to turn the music down," said Michelle Johnston, the health promotion supervisor at the Cowell Student Health Center at UC Davis. "We encourage students and non-student neighbors to get to know each other before any problems occur so they can communicate concerns directly and avoid bad feelings." ...

Drinking Age Debate
AXcess News - 11 Oct 2007
... USA - Congress enacted legislation in 1984 setting the national minimum legal drinking age at 21. States may still decide their own minimum drinking age, but if states choose an age below 21, federal highway funds are cut by 10 percent. No state has lowered the legal age.

Choose Responsibility, a Vermont-based organization formed in January to campaign for a lower drinking age, claims the age-21 law forces young people to drink, usually in large quantities, behind the scenes.

"The law has completely failed," said Amanda Goodwin, a Choose Responsibility staffer. "Most young adults have consumed alcohol and, surely, that is proof of the law's lack of effectiveness compounded with an increase in binge drinking and really dangerous underground drinking." ...

Officials introduce new ordinance
Democrat - 11 Oct 2007
... TALLAHASSEE, FL - City leaders took the first step Wednesday in allowing taller buildings, smaller buffer zones and design standards for pedestrian- and transit-friendly student housing.

Tallahassee's city commissioners unanimously voted to introduce an ordinance that seeks to encourage student housing near the universities while preserving neighborhoods. Some neighborhood activists said the proposal to get more students to live in apartment complexes close to their schools looks good on paper, but they want the city to monitor whether developers are following the design standards ...

Historic district plan returns
Resurrected idea now centers on only parts of West End area
Centre Daily Times - 11 Oct 2007
... STATE COLLEGE, PA — Like a blast from 2002, the H-word surfaced anew this week before the Borough Council.

That word would be “historic.” As in “historic-district ordinance.” The original concept here, struck down by Mayor Bill Welch in 2002, would have affected 1,159 homes in the Holmes-Foster, Highlands and College Heights areas. Plans to modify homes within the district would have been subject to review and certification by an architectural-review board ...

Dalai Lama ends tour of Ithaca, leaving message of peace and unity
WCAX - 11 OCT 2007
... ITHACA, NY - More than 1,500 people converged on downtown Ithaca yesterday to see the Dalai Lama during his second day of public appearances in the upstate university town ...

Survey: Valley draws retirees
Collegian - 11 Oct 2007
... STATE COLLEGE, PA - Penn State students may think State College is the ideal college town, but a new study shows that retirees can benefit just as much as students ...

Consumer groups seek to curb marketing of credit cards at colleges
Star - 11 Oct 2007
... USA - Campus credit-card marketers are out of control and entrapping students into years of debt, say a national consumer group and a coalition of college officials and student leaders.

Students lacking financial savvy are barraged by credit-card offers starting their freshman year ...

Led by the consumer group U.S. PIRG, the coalition launched a national campaign to pressure colleges to halt a trend they say is increasingly burying students under credit-card debt that averages $2,000 to $4,000 and haunts students long after graduation ...

Column: Slumlords
Daily Egyptian - 11 Oct 2007
... CARBONDALE, IL - Student housing is said to be a part of the college experience. For some students, however, this experience can be at best a migraine and at worst a nightmare. One would be hard pressed to find a student at SIU who doesn't know at least one person with a landlord horror story. These stories are not students whining about dirty houses with old appliances; these stories involve unsafe living conditions, housing code violations and serious monetary disputes ...

Brock allots money to cities to deal with student problems
Standard - 11 Oct 2007
... ST. CATHERINES, ON - Both St. Catharines and Thorold are getting $25,000 from Brock University to deal with student housing issues, but the two cities are spending the cash in different ways.

St. Catharines is matching the money and planning to negotiate with Niagara Regional Police for extra enforcement against noise, vandalism and nuisance complaints about students.

Thorold is using the money to help pay the wages of an extra bylaw enforcement officer it hired recently to deal with parking and property standards issues ...

Moosewood: a meatless mecca
The little Ithaca eatery still draws the Birkenstocks crowd, but its 10 cookbooks just spell great food
Gazette - 10 Oct 2007
... ITHACA, NY - Still in its original location - the Dewitt Mall, a restored brick school building - Moosewood Restaurant was founded in 1973. The first Moosewood cookbook, compiled and hand-lettered by Mollie Katzen, one of the restaurant's original owners, came four years later. Today, that cookbook is still considered the vegetarian bible, with more than 2 million copies in print ...

Durham calling
one fine morning
Chronicle - 10 Oct 2007
... DURHAM, NC - For the first time ever, I stayed in Durham over a break from classes. To my surprise, Durham does not shrivel up and die without Duke students.

In fact, the oft-heard student refrain that "there's nothing to do in Durham" has never proven less true. Between the World Beer Festival's absurd number of beers (which must be seen to be believed), Sati's 35-cent wing night, Broad Street Cafe's bohemian attractions and Southpoint's usual excellence, the problem with Durham is no longer that there isn't enough to do but that there's too much ...

Oshawa housing plan under fire
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The proposal, aimed at resolving ongoing problems with traffic, loud parties and rowdy behaviour around houses with multiple tenants, unfairly targets students who need affordable homes, several speakers told councillors and city officials...

City warning: Three's company in houses
The Daily Reflector - 10 Oct 2007
... GREENVILLE, NC - The city's ordinance against four or more unrelated people occupying a house or apartment was adopted in the early 1980s and "is designed to keep from creating a situation that deteriorates neighborhoods," ...

Heavyweights want US drinking age to be kept at 21
US advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving teamed up Tuesday with the American Medical Association and key safety groups in a joint effort to push for the legal drinking age to be kept at 21.
SAWF - 9 Oct 2007
... USA - MADD was a motivating force in getting the minimum legal drinking age across the United States raised to 21 in 1984, the organization's chief executive...

He warned that lowering the legal drinking age to 18 -- as a small activist group based in the university town of Middlebury, Vermont, "Choose Responsibility", is pushing for -- would lead to more binge drinking among America's youngsters ...

[EDITOR'S NOTE: College Town Life applauds the efforts of Choose Responsibilty to lower the drinking age in the USA. While MADD may be correct about some of the impacts of higher drinking age, anyone who has lived in a college environment knows that totally unsupervised drinking, and more of it, has plagued university cities since now underage drinking moved to rental homes. See the College Town Life College Drinking page.]

RIT's college town
WHEC - 9 Oct 2007
... ROCHESTER, NY - This time next year, students at RIT will be able to hang out with their friends in a brand new location.

We checked to see how work is going on the new Park Point Project on campus. It is a mix of housing and retail space - 900 beds, a Barnes and Noble, entertainment venues, restaurants and shops ...

Volunteers will work to restore neighborhoods
Press-Citizen - 9 Oct 2007
... IOWA CITY, IA - On Oct. 20, a group of about 130 volunteers will go to the Grant Wood neighborhood to help families clean their yards and dispose of waste, according to a news release from the Iowa City Area Association of Realtors.

University of Iowa students, local Realtors and other local organizations will have people on hand to help home owners trim bushes, rakes leaves, clear flowerbeds and provide basic weatherization materials, the release said. Also, the Household Hazardous Waste trailer will be on hand to help families get rid of old paints and other chemicals and free appliance pick-up will be offered.

The event, called "Reclaiming Roots," is the second in the area and works to restore neighborhoods and help community members meet each other ...

Ole Miss will relocate old faculty homes
Commercial Appeal - 9 Oct 2007
... OXFORD, MS - Nearly two dozen houses now located on the campus of the University of Mississippi will be moved to other sites in Oxford and Lafayette County as part of an affordable housing program.

"There are very few homes in the Oxford-Lafayette County market available for less than $100,000," said Fred Laurenzo, president of LOU-Home Inc., the group that will move and rehabilitate 21 homes on faculty row. Laurenzo expects the houses to sell for between $70,000 and just over $100,000.

Helping make the project possible, the city of Oxford has donated 5 acres of land, and seven Oxford-area banks will provide $1.8 million in funding ...

STATE COLLEGE BOROUGH COUNCIL
Outlook for new high rise dwindles
Centre Daily - 9 Oct 2007
... STATE COLLEGE, PA — Prospects for another apartment building in the downtown stretch known as “Beaver Canyon” have turned dimmer.

HFL Corp. had proposed a 48-apartment tower of perhaps 10 stories at 256 E. Beaver Ave., the former home of the Kappa Sigma fraternity at Penn State.

But the borough Planning Commission, in a 4-2 vote, has recommended that the Borough Council not adopt the zoning changes that would be necessary to allow the redevelopment project ...

College Avenue's face-lift falls victim to budget cuts
Democrat - 9 Oct 2007
... TALLAHASSEE, FL - Years of planning to make College Avenue a student-friendly corridor - complete with widened, crack-free sidewalks and increased lighting - have fallen by the wayside.

The city of Tallahassee eliminated the $6.8 million project that would have enhanced the historic gateway to Florida State University as a result of deep budget cuts ...

Raising bar on biking
Cited for success, Davis takes on new challenges
Bee - 9 Oct 2007
... DAVIS, CA - The League of American Bicyclists last week named Davis as the only city in the country to earn its "platinum" or top bike-friendly status. It's the second platinum award in two years for Davis, and city and university officials say it corroborates their sense that decades of efforts to make bikes partners on streets have paid off ...

Demolition reveals Palo Alto history
DAMAGED BUILDING'S REMOVAL UNCOVERS ADS FROM LONG AGO
Mercury-News - 9 Oct 2007
... PALO ALTO, CA - At that time, Palo Alto was a rapidly growing city, having just been incorporated in 1894, Palo Alto City Historian Steve Staiger said. "In the sophistication of its commercial district, Palo Alto was mature beyond its years," he said.

Professors coming to the new Stanford University, handfuls of retirees drawn to California and an increasing number of students might have purchased Easterday's wares, Staiger said. Today the city "really isn't a college town, but in the beginning Palo Alto had that feel," he said ...

Cornell plans to invest $20M in community over 10 years
Journal - 8 Oct 2007
... ITHACA, NY - Local leaders expressed excitement and interest in learning exactly how $20 million from Cornell University will be invested in the local community to improve housing, transportation management and other infrastructure needs.

Cornell President David Skorton announced the university's plan to spend the money over 10 years in the Ithaca area during a brunch Saturday with community leaders ...

“Cornell is looking for opportunities to be supportive of mutually beneficial projects, especially in these priority areas that directly address the needs of its faculty, students and staff,” Skorton said, according to a text of his speech provided by the university. “Because success in these areas will be critical to Cornell's ability to recruit and retain the next generation of faculty and staff, the university is ready to do its part so that Tompkins County has a sustainable economy, a vibrant cultural experience and the infrastructure necessary to serve the needs of our community.” ...

Mixed grades for private dorms
COLLEGE | Complaints, low occupancy hamper projects
Sun-Times - 8 Oct 2007
... CHICAGO, IL - They advertise "luxury" living for college students, including single bedrooms, kitchens with granite countertops and stunning city views. With four projects completed or under way, privately owned student residence halls are on the upswing in Chicago, but so far their rate of success has been decidedly mixed ...

Cops waste time crashing parties
Badger Herald - 8 Oct 2007
... MADISON, WI - Last Wednesday, my nine roommates and I were served with an array of tickets totaling somewhere in the range of $14,000. The tickets were for a pre-game party we hosted directly before the Iowa football game. At approximately 5:30 p.m., a team of four police officers knocked at our door, proceeded to kick everyone out and take down our names and information, telling us they would be back in the next two weeks with tickets for distributing, procuring and possessing alcohol underage ...

Why Johnny Can't Walk To School
Courant - 7 Oct 2007
... NEW HAVEN, CT - When Stéphane Roy and his wife moved to New Haven's East Rock neighborhood two years ago, one of the benefits was the ability to walk their child to the Worthington Hooker School every morning.

Roy, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Center for British Art, wanted Charlotte to consider school an extension of her home. With school just a couple blocks away, he hoped, she would understand the whole neighborhood to be part of her world.

"For her, being able to walk to school makes it all very concrete, very tangible," Roy says. "She loves school, so it's easy to get her going in the morning. When we go to the park, we come by the school. It's an extension of her home, something she knows and loves." ...

Redevelopment plan makes Slippery Rock a destination
Tribune-Review - 7 Oct 2007
... SLIPPERY ROCK, PA - A few years ago, Slippery Rock was a sleepy, little college town in northern Butler County that had seen better times.

But with the redevelopment of the borough's downtown area, it is a destination that draws more students to the charming, 600-acre Slippery Rock University campus and visitors from around the state to its new shops and restaurants ...

Mayoral Candidates have different ideas, goals for Athens
Messenger - 7 Oct 2007
... ATHENS, OH - Wiehl, a 1st Ward Athens City Council member, stresses focusing the city's energies on responsible development, while maintaining the city's character and working to make the city "greener" in terms of the environment. He has proposed instituting a grant program for local businesses whereby the city helps link businesses with grant dollars to help them excel. He said he wants to clean up and clarify the development process to provide developers with a better picture of what is required by city code. His main concerns, he indicated, stem from a need to clean up the code and deal with quality-of-life issues that affect every resident ...

Hearne annexation shifts to college housing
Daily Times - 7 Oct 2007
... SALISBURY, MD - Billed originally as an upscale development for empty-nesters, the project tied to a controversial annexation into Salisbury was recently retooled as college housing.

The shift surprised some city officials, who said The Orchard's original 468 townhomes aimed at retirees would benefit the city more than apartments for college students.

"There's a big difference in selling it as one thing, and then coming back with something else," City Council Vice President Gary Comegys said ...

Milledgeville renters, residents clash over housing
Telegraph - 7 Oct 2007
... MILLEDGEVILLE, GA - At issue is the fate of the city's historic homes, some of which are large, antebellum houses that help attract a steady stream of tourists to Milledgeville. But in recent years, many of these homes have been converted by speculators into rental properties typically occupied by students attending either Georgia College & State University or Georgia Military College.

The result has been heady profits for landlords, cheap housing for students and headaches for longtime downtown residents, who complain that the fabric of their neighborhoods has been negatively impacted by the sudden and overwhelming influx of teenagers and twenty-somethings ...

Life in a college town part of novel
News 7 Oct 2007
... ANN ARBOR, MI - I think in large part, the book grew out of my living in Ann Arbor. I've actually lived in a lot of college towns, ... and college towns are weird places. Everyone's either 19 or 50, and it's very easy to feel that you're forever young. There's a new bunch of students every year, and there's homecoming and spring break and Thanksgiving break, and there are these football games and stuff like that. It can kind of lead to a certain kind of arrested development. So part of what I was writing about is what it's like to be in your 20s and 30s in places like Ann Arbor. You think at some point that you're going to be an adult, and your life is going to begin, and what you don't realize is that your life already has begun ...

At State College, squad targets suppliers for underage drinkers
Under the Influence / An occasional series on college drinking
Post-Gazette - 7 Oct 2007
... STATE COLLEGE, PA - He was also about to get another surprise, one that would make him squirm even more.

The officers didn't simply want to know how much he drank. They wanted him to give up the names of those who provided him alcohol. After a few minutes, the man in the sweaty white shirt admitted being served at an off-campus fraternity where he was a pledge a short walk away.

Two other underage students this night would acknowledge to police they too were drinking at the same fraternity, including one willing to make a written statement. For members of the borough police department's Source Investigation Program, a special detail known as SIP, it was evidence that would help them begin to build yet another case ...

All's not quiet in the neighborhoods near Tufts
Globe - 7 Oct 2007
... SOMERVILLE, MA - Somerville officials and a neighborhood group are calling on Tufts University to take more responsibility for students they say are behaving badly in the neighborhoods, screaming in the streets in the wee hours, jumping on cars, and urinating and vomiting in residents' yards.

Neighbors have always had to cope with students living around them, said Tom Kinslow, a founding member of the West Somerville Neighborhood Group. But he said this year's crop of students seems especially inconsiderate ...

2 areas fuel many noise calls
One stretches north from UA; a 2nd source is West Side units
Daily Star - 7 Oct 2007
... TUCSON, AZ - A few blocks south on Highland, Justin Stern, a UA senior in media arts, stood on his porch and gestured around the neighborhood that he estimates is 80 percent students.

He said families who live there should move if they don't like the noise because students already dominate the neighborhood ...

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