Tufts University has instituted a ban on "any sex act in a dorm room while one's roommate is present," The Tufts Daily reported on Sunday. The Tufts Office of Residential Life and Learning added this directive to the school's guest policy after noting that inappropriate sexual behavior was one of the most frequently mentioned sources of conflict between roommates. Carrie Ales-Rich, an assistant director for community and judicial affairs, said she hopes the rule will facilitate communication and cooperation between roommates, according to The Tufts Daily. The rule has sparked controversy among students concerned that the university is interfering with their personal lives, The Tufts Daily reported.
Princeton University announced that it would implement layoffs and slash departmental budgets after the institution's endowment dropped 22.7 percent over the past fiscal year, The Daily Princetonian reported on Thursday. The endowment, which was valued at $16.3 billion in June 2008 and has now fallen to $12.6 billion, provides 48 percent of the university's operating budget. The decline has forced university President Shirley Tilghman to cut budgets across departments so that the university's total spending for 2011 can return to between 4 and 5.75 percent of the yearly endowment, according to The Daily Princetonian. Tilghman said that the change "will essentially put the university in a more secure place going forward," The Daily Princetonian reported. Other large university endowments have taken similar hits, as Harvard University's dropped by 30 percent, Stanford University's fell 27 percent and Yale University's fell 20 percent.
Labeled a terrorist by critics, Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur American Association, spoke at Columbia University on Tuesday evening about the violent tensions between the Muslim Uyghur minority and the Chinese government, The Columbia Spectator reported. Several of the 70 students who attended the lecture protested against the speaker. The students blamed Kadeer for this summer's violent ethnic clashes in China's Xinjian Uyghur Autonomous Region, according to The Columbia Spectator. Kadeer has criticized the Chinese government's attempts to assimilate the Uyghurs into the Han population. Kadeer argues that the government has encouraged Hans to move to the Xinjiang region, thus contributing to ethnic conflict.
