Around the Ivies
Brown University: Around 50 students and alumni exercised their rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 to request personal records relating to their admission to the University, the Brown Daily Herald reported Wednesday. After students at Stanford University called upon students to invoke FERPA to view admissions records to better understand the admissions process and the impact of racial, income-based and legacy-based factors, students across the country began submitting requests to view their admissions files. Brown declined to share notes made by admissions officers, noting that the university had the right to define what consisted a “permanent record” under the law and did not consider admissions notes to be applicable.
Columbia University: Commuter students at Columbia’s two undergraduate schools, Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, will gain he right to swipe access of residence halls beginning in the fall, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported Wednesday. The policy banning non-resident students from accessing dorms had been in place since 2013 and was overturned due to reports by student leaders calling for the removal of the policy. Residence halls, students claimed, could foster community and socialization, making their inaccessibility for commuter students a substantial barrier.
University of Pennsylvania: Students were moved to accommodations in a Sheraton Inn near campus last October because of sewage water dripping from a ceiling, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported on Monday. However, some students have objected to the perceived lack of timeliness of Penn’s Facilities and Real Estate Services department. The group took 10 days to repair the damage at that time, and have taken hours or days to repair other damage, leading students to question its efficacy.
Princeton University: Princeton University announced that its Graduate School will gain a new dean for diversity and inclusion when Dale Trevino steps into the role on July 1, the Daily Princetonian reported on Tuesday. Trevino, currently the director of the Office of Diversity at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, will help to address issues of diversity and inclusivity in his new role, which was reestablished in November after student, faculty and trustee complaints.
Cornell University: The University Assembly at Cornell passed a resolution calling for full divestment of fossil fuels, the Cornell Daily Sun reported on Wednesday. Eleven representatives voted in favor of the proposal while four voted against and one abstained. This will be the fourth time the assembly has officially voted on divestment and is a reversal of a vote last year that did not back divestment. The divestment movement has gained steam at numerous colleges and universities throughout America and calls for colleges to remove any investments within their endowment in fossil fuel corporations. A similar movement exists at Dartmouth.
Yale University: The Yale College Council and the Yale Women’s Center jointly released a report earlier this week highlighting the state of the university’s sexual misconduct procedures. The report also included the responses of the University Title IX Steering Committee, a group of administrators tasked with overseeing Title IX coordinators at Yale, to the document. The report called for a redesign of Yale’s Sexual Misconduct Response website, an expansion of sexual misconduct programming in freshman orientation, the creation of a group of advisers available both for complainants and respondents, and increased resources for both the Title IX Office and the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct. The report noted that many students have been misinformed about university policies.
Harvard University: A group of around 75 students at Harvard called for a cap upon undergraduate course section sizes to be set at 12 students in a protest earlier this week, the Harvard Crimson reported Tuesday. The group, calling itself the Harvard Teaching Campaign, organized a petition that had garnered 2,273 signatures from undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and alumni by the time it was delivered to administrators on Tuesday. Prior to delivering the petition, the roughly 75 student supporters who organized the protest marched through Harvard’s Science Center Plaza and around a famed statue of John Harvard before arriving at Massachusetts Hall, the building that houses many of the university’s administrators. Supporters marched under the slogan “If sections were smaller, that would be baller.”