San Diego State University suspended six fraternities on suspicion of drug dealing after police agents arrested 75 students in a raid in which police confiscated three guns, two kilograms of cocaine, ecstasy pills, methamphetamine and over $60,000 in cash, The Chicago Tribune reported. According to authorities, some fraternity members openly dealt drugs and may have used the profits to fund fraternity operations. The investigation was sparked by the on-campus death of Shirley Poliakoff, 19, who died of a cocaine overdose in May 2007. The fraternities that received suspensions were Theta Chi, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Kappa Psi, Phi Kappa Theta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Mu.
The editors of Quinnipiac Chronicle, the weekly newspaper at Quinnipiac University, are considering whether to create an independent online newspaper after university administrators announced plans to handpick next year's editors, The Yale Daily News reported. The administrators' decision was denounced by the Quinnipiac Faculty Senate and the newspaper's staff. The conflict between the publication and university administrators began two years ago, when the newspaper reported the arrests of two freshmen on their web site before Quinnipiac President John Lahey was aware of the arrests. The administration then announced a web publications policy that banned the newspaper from publishing anything online that had not been printed first.
Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania announced plans to standardize tuition rates for Ph.D. students across their colleges in an attempt to adapt to an interdisciplinary Ph.D. education, according to Inside Higher Ed. Previously, Penn tuition policies varied across schools and were calculated on course-by-course basis. Now, the Ph.D. programs will cost a standard $24,000 for the first five years. Cornell will also lower Ph.D tuition to a uniform rate of $20,000 in order to be more competitive with rival public universities.
