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For two days, parents and students engaged in parallel sessions with similar content. The university places the ultimate responsibility for their education directly in the hands of the students. This begins before they even step foot on campus. For instance, all correspondence is strictly between student and university. Michael decided on his class schedule without any parental input whatsoever. And because of the passage of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in 1974, Michael will actually have to sign a waiver to allow his parents to see his grades or financial records. Legally as well as theoretically, he could refuse us that information. I heard about one set of parents who showed up for their son’s graduation only to learn that he had dropped out long ago. They had been writing tuition checks to him instead of the university; he had happily cashed them and then skipped town. While that is obviously an extreme case, it is a bit unsettling to contemplate being so effectively shut out of critical areas of my son’s college life.
A major theme at orientation was the importance of keeping those lines of communication open. No matter how trying things get. Barbara Goldberg, of the university’s counseling center, said, semi-humorously: “The more annoying you are, the easier it will be for your child to leave home.” I’m doing great in that department. And apparently, I’m not the only parent to make that claim.
There are so many tools and resources available for today’s college student and Maryland offers them by the fistful. A few examples: An emergency service which text messages students’ cell phones notification of extreme weather or other potential danger. The university has a police force of 100; they are constantly on patrol. Every 300 feet, there is an emergency call box - many of them have roving cameras. Response time to anyplace on campus is an impressive ninety seconds.
Beyond student safety, there is a plethora of services to help our kids maximize what the college has to offer. There are 330 student clubs and organizations, a fabulous sports facility, over 100 possible majors, all taking place in a gorgeous setting of stately white-pillared, red brick buildings. I have often thought that I’d love to have the opportunities my kids have; my experience this week at the U of M was no different. There was so much to see, learn, and do; it was positively intoxicating.
I remember enrolling at UCLA, in the late 60s. No orientation, no advisor. I chose classes totally at random. My mother had accompanied me from Chicago, helping me to move in. The night before registration, we pored over the course catalogue, absolutely clueless. In those days, you “ran for classes.” This involved getting up at the crack of dawn and standing in line outside the class you wanted to take. Since you couldn’t be more than one place at a time, you took your chances. My mother had her list, I had mine. We met up afterwards, she having done far better than I. That was how my class schedule was determined. I was exhausted and bummed out before I ever began. It never got better. I ended up transferring a year later to Occidental College. One of my seminars there took place in the living room of my professor’s home. We munched on his mother’s home-baked cookies as we talked. Just a few miles away from UCLA, Oxy’s small and inviting campus could have been on a different planet.
While I doubt that Mick will ever enjoy cookies baked by his prof’s mother, there is also little chance that he will feel anonymous, neglected, or alienated. At orientation (his session hosting a fraction of the 4,000 incoming freshmen), he met numerous kids who knew kids he knew. Instantly, he felt at home. He’s returned very enthused, courses chosen with the help of his academic advisor, his schedule set. While at orientation, I requested help regarding his moving date and got a positive response within a day.
This university, despite its size, strives to listen to its students. I heard two stories that seem emblematic. The dramatic mall in the center of campus has a number of asymmetrical paths running through it. When the mall was first built, it had no sidewalks at all. The sloping lawn was vast, green, and pristine. Over time, students found the best routes from place to place for themselves. Their footprints determined where the paths were later laid. All these years later, the rest of the grass remains untrammeled, concretely demonstrating the wisdom of this strategy.
The second story concerns the plaza between the Stamp Student Union and Nyumburu Cultural Center. From above, the paved area resembles a turtle, the terrapin being the University mascot. The plan began as an architecture student’s class project. His professor hated it and gave the student a lousy grade. Years later, his turtle design was rediscovered and selected for this prime location. The student’s original grade was raised, he was paid for his design, and he had the satisfaction of seeing his work executed.
We haven’t even touched on the massive enthusiasm for the various sports teams and terrific school spirit. My friend Arlene who lives in neighboring Silver Spring claims that, over the years, she has never heard anyone say anything bad about the university. All of this bodes well for Mick’s next four years. I can’t wait for him to get started!
Ali Larter doesn’t kiss and tell.
Photos of the Heroes star casually chatting with adult film "legend" Ron Jeremy as he bared his, um… considerable asset… recently made the rounds on the internet, and OK! got to the bottom of the picture everybody’s talking about.
“It was an amazing time in my life, and that’s it,” Ali tells OK! at the American Women in Radio and Television’s Gracie Awards held at the Marriott Marquis in NYC.
The actress, 32, joins 55-year-old Ron in the cast for National Lampoon’s Homo Erectus, which hits theaters June 13. She plays a cavewoman; he, quite appropriately, plays a caveman.
This fall, Ali gets back to hanging with a classier crew when she returns for the third season of her hit sci-fi series.
"There was no other option"
Former South African captain Hansie Cronje has been banned from cricket for life by the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) after he admitted receiving money from bookmakers.
"The UCBSA council hereby intends to ban Hansie Cronje for life from all activities of the UCBSA and its affiliates," a statement said.
The decision to ban the disgraced player came after he told the King commission, which is investigating allegations of corruption within the game, that he had taken approximately �100,000 in bribes on five separate occasions between 1996 and 2000.
He also admitted making cash offers to fellow team-mates Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams to perform badly.
The ban is likely to extend to all of the USBSA's cricketing activities and those of its associated bodies.
Both Gibbs and Williams were banned for six months for their involvement in the Cronje scandal, but the suspension did not apply for domestic cricket.
The whole saga began last April when Delhi police revealed they had a recording of a conversation between Cronje and a representative of an Indian betting syndicate during the one-day series between India and South Africa in March.
Although he fiercely denied any claims of match fixing, Cronje informed UCBSA's managing director Ali Bacher that he had not been "entirely honest" and admitted to taking money for "forecasting" results.
Cronje later attributed his behaviour to the Devil after having "taken his eyes off Jesus" when Satan approached him.
During the King commission hearings, he was offered immunity from prosecution if he makes a full disclosure of his role in match-fixing.
After three days of cross-examination, during which time he confessed to receiving $140,000, Cronje broke down in tears.
The scandal has rocked the whole nation and provoked former South African president Nelson Mandela, who met Cronje last week, into urging him to become a role model to young South Africans - despite his disgraced actions.
Mandela said: "I am saying to him, without excusing in any way what he has done if the allegations are proven to be right, that he can be a role model and turn this tragedy into triumph."
The King commission will resume hearings into the matter in November and is likely to make recommendations to the South African government by early December, according to sports minister Ngconde Balfour.
Cronje has seven days to respond to the ban.
Links to top Cricket stories are at the foot of the page.
I’m madder than linguist whose cat has got his tongue over the fact that too many words are used too often and it is starting to drive me crazy.
Folks, am I the only one that I noticed that during the Academy Awards Oscars red-carpet interviews, each and every actor (both male and female) uses the word “Amazing” in every response? And the same goes for all the other red carpet interviews on all those other award shows that don’t give out the coveted “Carmine,” including (but not limited to) the People’s Choice Award, the Foreign Press Award, the Golden Globe awards, the Tony Randall awards, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum and ad nauseam!
And that’s why I love to watch the British shows on the Channel 13 on the Zenith in the living room — because those people know how to speak the mother tongue! It is so refreshing to listen to those blokes pronounce words the way they were meant to be pronounced, and used them in the ways they ways they was meant to be used!
Rosalia’s family immigrated to the United States from Italy when she was 4 years old and, like many immigrant families, her parents understood that education as the key to achieving the American dream.
This will be the last chance you have to join us in honoring this amazing lady Rosalia and her amazing co-honorees, so contact me ASAP at diegovega@aol.com to try to reserve tickets for the gala!
Read Carmine's screech every Sunday on BrooklynPaper.com — before you can read it anywhere else! E-mail him at diegovega@aol.com.
At least they didn't wait until after the actual event to publish this like they have done before. Something something lint something something more lint.
It seems, Jim, that you are finally at least trying to look on the bright side of these monstrosities. Has it anything to do with the weather? Less sweaters, for instance? Less...Oh, I won't say it.
The West African nation of Ghana has enjoyed two decades of a thriving democracy by combining reforms and the bounty of its land. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on the country's efforts to give ordinary citizens a bigger say in their economic future.
Next, an African country combines democratic reforms with the bounty of its land.
Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Ghana on efforts to give ordinary citizens a bigger say in their economic future.
This is your show, the "UNIIQ Breakfast Drive."
Radio reaches nearly all of Ghana's 23 million people, and lively give-and-take is a breakfast staple. Tempers flared and guests from different political factions jumped all over each other's words, but, once the show was over, all was quickly forgiven.
It's a scene that sharply contrasts with the civil wars and bloodshed in many of Ghana's West African neighbors. In a continent where long- running dictatorships are the norm, Ghana has enjoyed two decades of thriving democracy. Two incumbent leaders have lost in general elections. In 2008, the margin was less than 1 percent. Yet, on both occasions, the sitting president stepped aside and power was transferred peacefully.
Ghana was the first African colony to gain independence back in 1957 from Britain. It had its share of autocrats and military coups, until the early '90s, when long-ruling strongman Jerry Rawlings, seen here with President Clinton, stepped aside and allowed democratic elections.
That marked a turning point, says political scientist Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi.
EMMANUEL GYIMAH-BOADI, political scientist: It's the first time we have had both economic growth and political stability and freedom. In many ways, the economy has been improving and improving since the early '90s, and seems to have begun to gallop a bit for the past six years or so.
Ghana is a major exporter of cocoa beans, and also gold and diamonds, but new wealth awaits.
In June 2007, Kosmos struck gold.
A U.S.-based drilling company discovered major oil reserves in 2007, and Ghana's first oil revenues began to flow last December.
The hope is that Ghana can avoid the fate of other African oil nations, which have squandered their wealth through mismanagement and corruption, leaving their populations poorer than ever.
Ghana has been very fortunate to have discovered oil after democracy, and not before, because that democracy is going to influence how that — you know, how Ghana manages its oil wealth.
Patrick Awuah is one of a growing number of overseas Ghanaians who have returned. He went to college in the U.S., then worked at Microsoft. He came back to start a university called Ashesi, or "Beginning." Ghana's fledgling democracy needs leaders, he says.
We have borrowed the liberal arts, the model of the liberal arts and sciences, as the way to do that, that teaches broad perspectives, a deep ethos, a deep concern for ethics, and a specialization.
Ashesi has 450 students and will soon triple that number in a new campus just outside the capital, Accra, with funds from the World Bank and other investors. Students and alumni we talked to echoed the school's values.
Business major Naa Ayeleysa Quaynor-Mettle hopes they will make a difference.
NAA AYELEYSA QUAYNOR-METTLE, university student: Because you're training ethical leaders, entrepreneurs, who are going to take over in terms of the integrity, in terms of sharing the national cake or the national pie among everybody, so that the majority of the nationals, the Ghanaian nationals are not eating the drops or the crumbs from the table, but then we're sharing equally.
Right now, Ghanaian are hardly sharing equally. Although Ghana is better-off than it's West Africa neighbors, there's a wide gap between urban and rural areas.
The vast majority of Ghanaians and much of this country's poverty reside in the rural hinterland. And most experts say that the only way to really attack poverty has nothing to do with gold, diamonds, or even oil, but rather to create more economic activity and more jobs in rural communities like these.
One example is in shea nuts. They are exported to Europe and America to be processed into shea butter, for skin creams or food additives. There's a move to start doing more of the lucrative processing right here. In the northern Tamale region, Rita Dampson co-owns one of a growing number of small local processors. They are supported by aid groups, companies that use social awareness in their marketing, and also a U.S. aid project set off by Congress to boost trade with Africa.
RITA DAMPSON, business owner: When you pick the nuts and sell, that's just the end of it. But when you process it into butter, the profits you can get to support your children, by paying their school fees.
So there's more profit if you process the nuts?
Hundreds of women today sort and clean the shea nuts, and once they're crushed, spend hours as human mix masters, knead the viscous dough to release the prized shea butter.
A few businesses have also started using mechanized plants to increase production, but the shift to local processing has a long way to go. The vast majority of shea nuts are still exported.
Local processing is even more difficult with what is still Ghana's biggest export: cocoa beans. Very little chocolate is made anywhere in Africa because of a lack of refrigeration and milk. So the emphasis here is instead on getting a better price. Kojo Adojeno Tano and his neighbors belong to Kuapa Kokoo, Ghana's largest cooperative. It was set up 20 years ago with the help of a British aid group called Twin Trading. It, an American group called Fair Trade USA, the Body Shop, and others have helped find buyers who have pledged to pay fair trade prices.
The co-op even owns part of a Fair Trade chocolate line called Divine, sold mostly in Europe and online in the U.S. Kuapa Kokoo members help each other with chores, cutting open cocoa pods, fermenting and drying the beans inside them. Nationwide, the co-op has 64,000 members and is itself a democracy. Members elect their national leaders, as well as local recorders, usually a trusted elder.
In this group, it's this Kojo Tano.
This year, we were able to buy 1,497 bags.
Meticulous accounts are disclosed at group meetings. The co-op's profits have paid for community wells, credit unions and schools. It's hardly made anyone rich. Few people here have even tasted chocolate, for example.
Fifty-four-year-old Tano is an exception.
How old were you when you first tasted chocolate?
You were 48 years old?
But he's much more interested in how much Fair Trade chocolate is consumed in Europe and America.
We need more money from you.
For now, Fair Trade doesn't have a fair share of the chocolate market. Kuapa accounts for just 5 percent of Ghana's cocoa farmers. Still, it has improved life for Kojo Tano, whose six children are all getting an education. Two are in college.
When I grow old, they will look after me.
This is the best time to be a young person in Ghana.
The optimism is echoed back in the capital, especially among young urbanites, like the business major Naa Mettle.
With the oil find, Vodafone is just coming to settle. There is KPMG. There's Pricewaterhouse. There are all the giant, more international companies coming in. I think those opportunities are just overthrowing.
From big oil to small shea nuts and cocoa beans, Ghana's challenge will be to make the benefits flow more evenly, especially to its rural areas and, at the same time, keep its commitment to democracy and free media.
The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation has, for the second time, lifted a total of 994,691 barrels of Jubilee crude oil.
For now, oil revenues are meticulously reported. How all the new money will be monitored will be central to the political debate that will only heat up as elections approach next year.
Fred's reporting is a partnership with the Under-Told Stories Project at Saint Mary's University in Minnesota.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Another man was arrested Wednesday in connection with a shooting earlier this month that left a 31-year-old man dead and a woman wounded, according to the Gainesville Police Department.
Police said an arrest warrant was obtained Wednesday for Marika Allen, 28, and he was later located and taken into custody.
Last week, according to police, an arrest warrant was obtained for James Boykins Jr., 20, and he was taken into custody by members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force.
In the early-morning hours of March 9, according to the Police Department, officers found a man dead of apparent gunshot wounds and a woman who had been shot near a food store on Northeast 8th Avenue, east of State Road 24.
Police said the man was identified as Montez Davis, a Gainesville native. The woman, whose age was not released, was taken to a hospital.
Investigator said an argument involving several people about narcotics resulted in the shooting.
Detectives continue to investigate and ask anyone who may have information about the case to call Alachua County Crime Stoppers at 352-372-STOP, or Detective J. Castor at 352-393-7681 or 352-872-2101.
AWESOME, best of luck guys.
Was always a fan on Facebook. Posted on Facebook page. Best of luck folks.
have been a fan...message posted on facebook.
pls pls I want to win the pen drive!
I have become a TweakTown fan on Facebook!
A golden dragon was held aloft on poles by skaters. Kobe Bryant appeared on video. NHL mascots gave the crowd a primer on what this odd game is all about. NHL preseason hockey made its debut in China — a 5-2 victory by the Los Angeles Kings over the Vancouver Canucks.
A golden dragon was held aloft on poles by skaters. Kobe Bryant appeared on video. NHL mascots gave the crowd a primer on what this odd game is all about.
NHL preseason hockey made its debut in China — a 5-2 victory by the Los Angeles Kings over the Vancouver Canucks — in a step by the league to crack an immense market.
The fans in Shanghai got a fast and physical display Thursday — 17 power plays and 57 shots on goal, all met with loud cheers. Each hard check drew a collective "oooh" or "aaah."