Dartmouth's Student Assembly will request a moment of silence today at 11:00 A.M. to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. Other colleges, such as Northern Illinois University, held candlelight vigils Wednesday, exactly a year after the Virginia shootings, Inside Higher Ed reported Wednesday. In the town of Blacksburg, Va., where Virginia Tech is located, Wednesday's activities included a softball game, art displays and meditation in honor of the 32 victims. This week, more than 70 locations across the country, including 32 colleges, will call for stricter gun laws by holding "lie-ins" in front of city halls and other public venues. Issues of gun control, mental well-being and campus security have been brought to the forefront of college life across the country in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, according to Inside Higher Ed. This is especially true in the context of the recent temporary shut-downs of Oakland University and Xavier University in Chicago, the article reported. The shut-downs were in response to the death threats written in graffiti at both schools.
Holly Sateia, special assistant to the president for institutional diversity and equity, has been named vice president of institutional diversity and equity, College President James Wright announced through the Office of Public Affairs on Wednesday. Sateia, who has served in her current position since the fall, was formerly dean of student life at the College. Sateia will supervise the Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Office, Diversity Training and Educational Programs, the Child Care Resource Office and the Dartmouth College Child Care Center. The position, which seeks to increase diversity and inclusion at the College, has been vacant since Stuart Lord went on leave from the College. Sateia was chosen by a search committee chaired by Associate Dean of the Arts and Humanities Katherine Conley and in consultation with Provost Berry Scherr.
Dartmouth physics and astronomy professor Yeong-Ah Soh and a team of researchers recently discovered new magnetic properties of chromium, according to a press release from the Office of Public Affairs on Wednesday. These properties will contribute to a growing field known as "spintronics," an area of science that may someday be used to store computer data. While most work in the area of electronics focuses on the charge of an electron, spintronics generates energy using electron spin. Soh's study found that chromium has different properties when heated and cooled, which reveals the elevated importance of the spin within the element. Soh believes that the discovery will lead to new uses of chromium, the press release said. The details of the study will be published in Nature, a scientific journal, on April 17th.
