NEW YORK (AP) — Mayor Michael Bloomberg named a top publishing executive with no background in education to head the nation’s largest school system after announcing Tuesday that New York City ‘s longtime chancellor was stepping down. Hearst Magazines chairwoman Cathie Black will become the first female chancellor of the city’s 1.1 million-student school system, replacing Joel I. Klein , who has served as chancellor since 2002. Klein is leaving to become an executive vice president at News Corp . Bloomberg praised Black, a Chicago native who spent eight years at USA Today as president, publisher, board member and Gannett Co. executive vice president, as a “world-class manager.” The billionaire mayor, who often eschews traditional resumes for government posts, said Black’s business skills make her an ideal leader of educators and students. “She understands that we have to make sure that our kids have the skill sets to partake in the great American dream,” Bloomberg said. “In the end, I picked somebody who I have confidence is the right person for this job at this time.” The appointment will require a waiver from the state Department of Education because Black is not a certified teacher. The mayor said Klein will stay on until the end of the year. Black attended parochial schools in Chicago and sent her own children to private boarding schools in Connecticut. She has been on Fortune magazine’s “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” list and is the author of a book called “Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life).” She will be the first woman to lead the New York City school system. At Hearst, she oversees titles including Esquire; Good Housekeeping; O, the Oprah magazine and Popular Mechanics. Black’s appointment reflects Bloomberg’s view that success in business translates to similar achievements in public service. “There is no one who knows more about the skills our children will need to succeed in the 21st century economy,” Bloomberg said at a City Hall news conference with Klein and Black. Before Klein joined the Bloomberg administration, he was with media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG . Previously, he was an assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration. He headed the U.S. Justice Department ‘s antitrust division for nearly four years, where his work included launching the case to break up Microsoft Corp. Unlike Black, Klein grew up in New York City and attended public schools. As chancellor, he often clashed with unions and with parent groups that complained of being denied a role in running the schools. “Many parents will be glad to see Joel Klein leave as chancellor, who had no respect for their views or priorities,” said Leonie Haimson, who leads a parent advocacy group called Class Size Matters. Ernest Logan, the president of the union that represents New York City principals, said Klein “had a rocky road” as chancellor but learned on the job. Logan said he knows little about Black. “I’m now going to read her book,” he said. Teachers union head Michael Mulgrew said: “I look forward to working with Ms. Black. As a teacher, I will help in any way I can to improve the education for the children of New York.” Black told reporters she has had “limited exposure to unions” in her previous jobs. Klein was appointed chancellor after Bloomberg won control of the school system and disbanded the Board of Education. Bloomberg and Klein have touted the progress that students have made under their watch, but the state Education Department said last summer that rising scores on standardized tests had been overstated because the tests had become too easy. Black will likely serve no longer than the three years remaining in Bloomberg’s term. “She’s had a career, so maybe she can have the ability to devote the next three years to public service,” Bloomberg said. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Those of you who are lousy at math may someday be able to boost your skills with the use of a painless method of electrical brain stimulation, British research suggests. In a study published in the Nov. 4 online issue of Current Biology , neuroscientists at Oxford University report that adults with normal math abilities were able to improve their performance on a series of numerical tests with the help of a noninvasive technique known as transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS). TDCS involves stimulating specific regions of the brain with low-level electrical currents to enhance or reduce the activity of neurons. Over the last decade, the procedure has shown promise at improving brain functioning in stroke victims as well as in people with Parkinson’s disease . But this is the first study to show that TDCS can help healthy individuals do better on math tests. “We were able to enhance math abilities, in a specific fashion, and with remarkable longevity,” said lead author Roi Cohen Kadosh, a cognitive neuroscientist at Oxford’s department of experimental psychology. For the study, Cohen Kadosh and his colleagues studied 15 student volunteers between the ages of 20 and 21. The students were asked to learn a series of artificial numbers (symbols that they had never seen before that they were told represented numbers) while they received either a placebo stimulation or TDCS applied to the parietal lobe, a region situated at the back of the brain that is key to numerical understanding. “As our aim is eventually to help children when they are experiencing learning difficulties with numbers, we wanted the adult subjects to learn new material (the artificial numbers) rather than test them with material that they already know,” Cohen Kadosh explained. His team tested the participants’ ability to automatically process the relationship of the artificial numbers to one another and to map them correctly in space using standard testing methods for numerical competence. The results of the tests showed that the brain stimulation improved the participants’ ability to learn the new numbers, and those that improvements lasted for six months. Control tests showed that the effect was specific to the learned symbols and did not affect other cognitive functions. One American researcher said the findings were encouraging, but a lot more study is needed. “Like many good studies, it opens a raft of fertile questions, including ‘Will this work in children?’ and ‘Is it safe to use in children?’” said Dr. Edwin M. Robertson, associate director of the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “It is certainly possible that undergoing this procedure will affect brain function in children and so cause either neurological or psychiatric problems in the future, and so good follow-up studies are required to examine this issue,” said Robertson, who is also an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard University Medical School. “The concern is greater for children whose brains are still developing, as opposed to the adult population of volunteers who took part in the current study.” Cohen Kadosh said the next step is to test the technique on people who are among the 20% of the population with moderate to severe numerical disabilities, as well as on those who lose their skill with numbers as a result of stroke or degenerative disease. “Our aim is to try to find a way to enhance cognitive treatment by coupling it with noninvasive and painless brain stimulation,” he said. He acknowledged, however, that the technique may also end up being sought after by zealous parents eager to have their kids improve their math scores. “It’s just like other innovations in the past that have been misused,” said Cohen Kadosh. “The experiments that we are doing have been designed to improve disabilities, but of course it can be used by others to enhance average math performance, and we don’t have any control over that.”

FRESNO, Calif. — The number of veterinarians who work with farm animals is on the decline as many retire and fewer students choose large-animal practice. Officials are worried about the impact on food safety, because large-animal veterinarians serve as inspectors at ranches and slaughterhouses. “They’re basically on the front line when it comes to maintaining a safe food supply, not only in the U.S., but in products we export. Vets diagnose diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans,” says David Kirkpatrick, spokesman for the American Veterinary Medical Association. A recent survey by the association found that only 2% of veterinary school students in 2010 graduating classes said they plan to work mostly with large, non-pet animals. Another 7% studied a mixed curriculum that included all types of animals, but the majority of those respondents lean toward pet care. “We have known for years anecdotally that vets were having a difficult time finding people to work at their practice or selling it when they retire,” Kirkpatrick said. “But now we know how big the problem is and how that will magnify over the years,” he said. QUALITY: Shrinking beef market may mean poorer meat at stores From 1998 to 2009, the number of small animal vets climbed to 47,118 from 30,255, while the number of farm-animal vets dropped to 5,040 from 5,553. And the AVMA found that large-animal vets often earn a lower salary: an average of $57,745 compared with $64,744 for small-animal vets, according to a 2008 survey. The large-animal vet world is graying — half of farm-animal vets are older than 50, and only 4.4% are younger than 30. About a third of veterinarians working at the federal level are eligible to retire in the next three years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture . At least six rural counties in California have just one large-animal veterinarian. Stuart Hall, 28, a veterinarian in Visalia, Calif., said a single call can tie him up for four hours — time in which he can’t respond to emergencies. “My worry is always that a farmer is going to try to take care of something themselves,” he said. Hall was born in rural England and educated in London before his interest in working with cows brought him to Tulare County, the nation’s largest dairy producer, five years ago. He and his wife have a blog detailing his life as a farm vet. “I just really like cows. They’re big, old gentle things,” he says. Hall likes working outdoors, the drives through the country and the impact his expertise can have on food operations, he says. But for pre-vet student Justeen Borrecco the decision to pursue a career in pet medicine was easy. She has been shoved, bruised and knocked down by the sheep she feeds every day as a student worker at the on-campus farm at California State University, Fresno. “This is why I want to work with dogs and kitties. I don’t want to deal with anything bigger than me,” the 19-year-old said. On Thursday she pulled on her farm boots, picked up bundles of hay and maneuvered her 130-pound frame around to feed dozens of ewes and lambs. “But it’s still good experience. Anything I learn or help with, like vaccines or bandaging, can apply to other animals,” Borrecco said. The sophomore from Hanford, Calif., said it’s important to get as much hands-on time with animals before applying to vet school. Several schools and states have tried to lure students to large-animal veterinary medicine. At the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, applicants interested in becoming farm-animal vets have an admissions edge. The university has slowly boosted the number of students interested in large-animal medicine to 11 of 127, double the number from four years ago. The vet school has also reached out to high schools in rural areas. More than a dozen states, from Washington to Georgia, offer some type of loan repayment program or other incentives if students pledge to work in a region in need of large-animal vets. Vet students typically finish school with about $134,000 in debt, according to the AVMA. Iowa State’s VSMART program allows students focused on farm animals to reduce by a year the amount of time it takes to get a veterinary medicine degree — a big deal when you’re talking about spending upward of $32,000 a year, Kirkpatrick said. Federal legislators have introduced several bills to help increase the number of farm animal vets, including the Veterinary Services Investment Act, which is aimed at recruitment, helping vets expand their practices and providing financial assistance for students. The bill passed the House in September and is awaiting approval in the Senate. The students who have chosen to work with large animals are committed to their choice. Elizabeth Adam, 26, of Santa Maria, Calif., earned a degree in English and business at Loyola Marymount University , and later worked as a consultant at a law firm — but really dreamed of being a farm doctor. “I was making good money but was miserable,” she said. Adam is now in her second year at Fresno State’s pre-vet program. “This is for me,” she said. “The outdoors and the late night emergency calls and the country — I’m ready for all of that.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Daniel Remold, a journalism professor at the University of Tampa, says his passion is campus media. Can he help it if the big story over the last decade is about sex? His new book, Sex and the University: Celebrity, Controversy, and a Student Journalism Revolution (Rutgers University Press), provides insights gleaned from reading more than 2,500 student sex columns. He tells USA TODAY why they matter. Q: What conclusions can we draw about students’ sex lives from these columns? A: These are wonderful sociological treasures in defining this sexual generation. The quote I love most is, “We’re not Baby Boomers. We’re not part of Generation X . We’re generation sex.” They’re speaking to students in their own language. They cover every extreme possible but primarily grapple with how confusing the current social, sexual landscape is on campus. The general sentiment seems to be that all rules have been thrown out the window. Chivalry is gone, dating is pass?, gender roles reversed. There’s no blueprint for how students are supposed to act with each other. The columnists are asking, “Is this really good for us?” Q: Extremes, huh? Do you believe everything you read? A: I would truly say with full confidence that the columns are giving attention to issues students are engaged in. They’re compressing the campus culture into 600 to 800 words a week. They’re trying to be sarcastic to retain readers. There is an element of the exaggerated or sensational embedded in some of the pieces. But it’s coming from students themselves. Q: Did you find censorship ? A: It’s unfortunately fairly common and still tends to happen behind closed doors. In most cases, students are realizing they can and do fight back. The censorship comes into play 99% of the time when a single outside reader, an alumni or parent or administrator, sees the word “sex” and simply reacts. They don’t take time to really read the pieces. In a lot of cases, they would find they’re on the columnists’ side. Q: What would you say to parents who are surprised or concerned by what they read? A: I’ve told parents there are three things all students tend to have in common: They complain about parking. They figure out how to coordinate sleep and school. And they have to make choices related to sex. Students, whether we want to admit it or not, are wrestling with these issues. We all have sex in common, even those who remain chaste. And the columns deal as much with the abstinence side of things. I’d much rather put my kid on a campus in which discussion about it is allowed openly among peers. Q: What has changed since the first campus sex advice columns appeared a decade ago? A: Sex columns are truly no longer thought of as novelty items. They’re in all 50 states, all across Canada and in parts of Asia. They continue to cause controversy. As for the columnists, a growing camp seems to be using pseudonyms. In my interviews with columnists, the first wave never expressed regret over the writing but at times had moments of regret that their names are so easily searchable — by graduate schools, by potential employers, even first dates. It’s not something they can escape.

College tuition costs shot up again this fall, and students and their families are leaning more on the federal government to make higher education affordable in tough economic times, according to two reports Thursday. At public four-year schools, many of them ravaged by state budget cuts, average in-state tuition and fees this fall rose 7.9%, or $555 a year, to $7,605, according to the College Board ‘s “Trends in College Pricing.” The average sticker price at private nonprofit colleges increased 4.5%, or $1,164, to $27,293. Massive government subsidies and aid from schools helped keep in check the final price many students paid. But experts caution that federal aid can only do so much and even higher tuition is likely unless state appropriations rebound or colleges drastically cut costs. “Just when Americans need college the most, many are finding it increasingly difficult to afford,” said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education . When adjusted for inflation, the tuition increases this fall amount to 6.6% at public four-year colleges and 3.2% at private ones, according to the College Board. Many students are finding relief in expanded federal aid, including tax credits, veterans’ benefits and a record expansion of the Pell Grant program for low-income students. In 2009-10, 7.7 million students received $28.2 billion in Pell Grants — an increase of almost $10 billion from the year before, according to a companion College Board report, “Trends in Student Aid.” Even so, the maximum Pell grant covers just 34% of the average cost of attending a public four-year college, down from 45% two decades ago. For now, government subsidies and aid from schools are helping hold down net tuition and fees — the actual cost students pay when grants and tax breaks are factored in. Estimated average net tuition and fees this fall at public four-year colleges were $1,540, while at private colleges they were $11,320. Both are up from last year, but below what students paid five years ago. “Despite the fact sticker prices have gone way up, there is so much grant aid out there that many students are really paying less than they did before,” said Sandy Baum, a senior policy analyst for the College Board and a Skidmore College economics professor. That’s also contributed to a growing gap between those who receive aid and the one-third of full-time students who pay full freight for college, the report says. Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, said it’s important to note that tuition is climbing after a decade in which family income did not rise for 90% of Americans, and at a time when many areas of the country face high unemployment. “We’re kind of on a national treadmill,” Callan said. “We’re putting additional aid in that is helping to buffer some students from the severity of this. But the tuition increases and the bad economy are raising the need for financial aid much faster than our investment in aid is moving.” The student aid report found that grant aid per full-time undergraduate student increased an estimated 22% from 2008-2009, while federal loans increased 9%. The Obama administration’s restructuring of the federal student loan program this year will direct more money to Pell Grants and tie future increases in the maximum grant to inflation. But college officials say the impact will be minimal because next year’s increase is small and tuition is rising faster than inflation. Most students attend public schools, and states continue to cut appropriations. After adjusting for inflation, per-student state spending on higher education dropped nearly 9% in 2008-09 and another 5% in 2009-10 — and that spending includes soon-to-expire federal stimulus money . Community colleges, which educate about 40% of college students, remain affordable, with tuition averaging $2,713. Lower income students receive enough aid to attend essentially for free. Still, tuition rose 6% at public two-year colleges. State and local budget cuts paired with skyrocketing enrollment have prompted some schools to cut courses and limit enrollment. The priciest private colleges are creeping closer to shattering the $60,000 ceiling in total cost to attend. David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, emphasized net tuition and fees have declined 7.4% in the past decade in inflation-adjusted dollars because colleges are expanding student aid. “Every institution that I talk to understands the absolutely critical role of aid and it’s going to be the thing they try to hold at the top of the list of priorities,” Warren said. On average, about 55% of bachelor’s degree recipients at public colleges borrow money, and their debt is $19,800 by graduation, the College Board found. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

A student at Emory University told a fellow reveler at a fraternity party early Saturday morning that he was gay. In return, he was allegedly showered with anti-gay slurs and dragged out by his neck as onlookers cheered, according to the Emory Wheel . Though the incident is still under investigation, it has already prompted calls for greater campus harmony. Incidents like this, and the suicide last month of the Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, could grow rarer, say legal experts and student advocates, following the U.S. Department of Education ‘s release Tuesday of anti-discrimination guidelines. ON THE WEB: When college is not the best time MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Substitute education for Lysol The “guidance letter,” reportedly in the works for months, tells schools, colleges and universities that bullying should be treated as more than just a breach of campus codes; it also must been seen as a possible violation of federal law. “I am writing to remind you,” wrote Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights, “that some student misconduct that falls under a school’s anti-bullying policy also may trigger responsibilities under one or more of the federal antidiscrimination laws enforced by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights.” Though Ali’s letter did not stake out any new policy ground, it did signal the Obama administration’s tighter embrace of its duty to police civil rights infractions. It also more conclusively fleshed out how existing laws will be applied. Most pointedly, it made clear that campus officials must take immediate and appropriate action to impartially investigate harassment allegations and respond in a way that is “reasonably calculated to end the harassment, eliminate any hostile environment and its effects, and prevent the harassment from recurring.” If not, the full powers of the Department’s Office of Civil Rights will be called upon, Education Secretary Arne Duncan warned. “Are we putting people on notice? The answer is yes,” he said. “If we have to, we’re more than prepared to step in.” In the Emory case, the university already has affirmed its commitment to providing a “safe, inclusive and welcoming environment” for everyone, as well as its intolerance for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, according to a statement attributed to John L. Ford, senior vice president for campus life. The student, unnamed by the campus newspaper, wants to use the incident as a learning opportunity for Emory students, according to Michael D. Shutt, director of Emory’s office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender life. Such campus-wide efforts are welcome, according to the Department of Education’s letter. It recommends not just separating the victim and perpetrator, but also rewriting policy, if necessary, and educating the wider community. “If there’s a culture toward being discriminatory or whatever ‘-ism’ you want to insert there, if there’s a culture there, the institution as a whole has a responsibility to shift that culture or at least educate people,” said W. Scott Lewis, president of the Association for Student Conduct Administrators and a partner in the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management. “In the world of student conduct, everything is about accountability and education.” He viewed the letter’s release as properly framing bullying and harassment in the context of civil rights. Advocates for gay and lesbian students and for Jewish students enthusiastically greeted the release of the letter as bolstering protection of victimized groups. “This is a bold step,” said Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, a Charlotte, group advocating for safer college environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. Windmeyer was especially pleased that the department signaled its willingness to use Title IX, the 1972 law barring sex discrimination, to guard against abuses based on sexual orientation. Though federal law does not explicitly protect students on the basis of sexual orientation, the letter spells out a more expansive view, one that says sex discrimination can be punished if students are harassed “for exhibiting what is perceived as a stereotypical characteristic for their sex, or for failing to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity and femininity.” To Windmeyer, such language is “a great step forward.” Rep. Brad Sherman , D-Calif., hailed the letter for applying Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to incidents of anti-Semitism. Though Title VI does not apply to religion, the letter, here too, stakes out an expansive view. It cites as actionable discrimination against students on the basis of “actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.” “The policy is now clear,” Sherman said in a statement. “Colleges and universities will no longer be permitted to turn a blind eye when Jewish students face severe and persistent anti-Semitic hostility on their campuses. The schools will now be compelled to respond.” Colleges’ responses are mandatory, even if a student does not formally file a complaint, according to the letter. In fact, college and university administrators are on the hook for addressing harassment incidents about which they know or “reasonably should have known,” wrote Ali. Such an expectation is troubling to Ada Meloy, general counsel for the American Council on Education , especially because the letter applies both to K-12 schools and to colleges and universities. “Certainly, in a K-12 environment, there are teachers who come and go in hallways. It’s different from a higher ed situation,” said Meloy. “It’s very difficult for institutions to meet a ‘should have known’ standard — especially when it’s often applied in hindsight.” The emphasis on K-12 creates other problems for higher education institutions looking for guidance on how to respond. Sorting through what qualifies as harassment and what doesn’t depends largely on the specific facts, department officials emphasized. When campus officials receive guidance letters such as the one released Tuesday, they rely on the examples, culled from actual events, that are cited in these guidelines. Tuesday’s letter, however, cited four examples — and none dealt with higher education. “The new guidance reinforces the complexity for colleges and universities, as well as K-12 schools, in addressing peer-to-peer harassing behavior,” said Ann H. Franke, a lawyer who consults nationally with colleges and universities on academic freedom, workplace issues, and student affairs. “The more fact patterns they put in front of us the more detail we get.” Others saw in the letter an even more unwelcome blending of assumptions of the roles played by K-12 and higher education institutions. The letter urges a paternalistic stance that is inappropriate for colleges and universities and would impinge on the First Amendment right of free speech, wrote Will Creeley, director of legal and public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, in Philadelphia. “At an institution of higher education, students may range in age from 17 to 67 and beyond, and must be treated like the adults they are,” Creeley wrote in an e-mail. “Our nation’s colleges and universities have a legal duty to respond to instances of true harassment. They must also respect the expressive rights of their students. These dual obligations to protect free speech and prosecute actual harassment need not be in tension.”

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia’s Education Department approved a textbook that wrongly claims thousands of black troops fought for the Confederacy. The agency is now warning schools about the mistake after a fourth-grader’s parent discovered the error in the Civil War chapter of Our Virginia: Past and Present . The parent, Carol Sheriff, is also a history professor at the College of William and Mary . Sheriff says blacks occasionally took up arms to defend their masters, but it was illegal to use blacks as soldiers in the Confederacy until toward the war’s end. None of those companies saw action on the battlefront and most worked involuntarily as laborers Our Virginia author Joy Masoff told The Washington Post that she found the passage on the Internet. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WESTCHESTER, N.Y. — October has been a bad month for college towns. On Oct. 2, a raid by New Haven , Conn., police to break up a party by Yale University students led to claims of police brutality and excessive force. One week later, a party by Penn State University students turned violent when a fight between two women spilled out onto the streets of State College, leaving two students with stab wounds. Last week, Pace University football player Danroy “DJ” Henry was shot and killed by police outside a popular eatery frequented by students from the nearby Pace campus. What they have in common is alcohol — a common component in encounters between police and college students that can fuel tensions. “Obviously you’re going to have some standard issues,” said Eugene O’Donnell, professor of law and police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice . “You’re going to have issues about later-night activity. You’re going to have alcohol-related issues.” The violence outside Finnegan’s Grill in Thornwood, N.Y., came after a celebration of the school’s homecoming game, attended by about 150 people including students and members of the football team. The crowd spilled into the parking lot after 1 a.m. after a fight inside the bar. On Friday, a law enforcement source told The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News that Henry had a blood-alcohol level of 0.13%, exceeding the legal limit of 0.08%. It was hardly the first run-in between police and Pace students. In November 2000, several students were among eight men who trashed a campus townhouse in retaliation for an earlier fight at a local bar. And on April 25, 2008, a 21-year-old student was charged with assaulting his ex-girlfriend in her dorm room during a drunken rampage. “Pace is like a little city unto itself, and they do require police resources,” said Mount Pleasant (N.Y.) Police Chief Louis Alagno. “We’re called there mostly for things such as motor vehicle accidents and aided cases, but we also respond for criminal incidents. There are burglaries, larcenies and the occasional sex crime or assault. It does require police resources.” You don’t have to tell police in New Rochelle, N.Y., a city with three colleges — College of New Rochelle, Iona College and Monroe College. “We’ll have pockets of disturbances,” said New Rochelle police Capt. Robert Gazzola, head of the department’s police services division. “I don’t think there’s any lasting animosity between the police department, the Iona College students, the Monroe College students. A lot of it is isolated incidents that perk up and we have to respond.” The city, plagued for years by rowdy behavior in local bars tackled the problem years ago by passing a stricter “cabaret law” that allowed police to go after and target troublesome bars. Police in Mount Pleasant and Pleasantville, where most Pace watering holes are located, have enforced underage drinking laws for years — a common tactic in college towns. But the bar at the center of a fatal shooting had no recent history of problems involving students, according to state and local law enforcement. Finnegan’s seemed an unlikely place for a violent encounter between police and celebrating college students last weekend. Pace students interviewed by The Journal News said they generally had not had negative encounters with local police. Some went so far as to say they were shocked to hear of the violence outside Finnegan’s last weekend. “I wouldn’t say they’re aggressive, they’re just doing their job,” said student John Tripodi. “I guess what they did (outside Finnegan’s) was a little excessive, but if I was him I don’t know what I would have done.” But Megan Murphy, a freshman accounting major at the Mount Pleasant college, called the police account of the shooting “ridiculous.” “It’s all too iffy right now. I’m not sure,” Murphy said. “I wasn’t there so I can’t say what exactly happened. (Henry) probably just panicked.”

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — When bad weather hits this winter, students in a rural western Ohio school district will hit their home computers as part of an experiment. With the Ohio Department of Education looking on, the Mississinawa Valley Schools in Darke County will try to replace days off for snow and other inclement weather with online learning. Department officials say the test could help the state determine the future of calamity days. School districts are allowed to declare only three this year, down from the previous five. Schools that go over must make up the days on scheduled days off or at the end of the school year. Mississinawa Superintendent Lisa Wendel told The Columbus Dispatch the experience in online education will help students in college, where those classes are more common. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Three beers, a can of Red Bull and a large espresso: no big deal, many college students might say. Three beers, a can of Red Bull and a large espresso times three or four, and they still might tell you they’re not intoxicated. Therein lies the danger of caffeinated alcoholic beverages, whose popularity has grown in recent years among college-aged drinkers, drawing the attention of concerned health officials, politicians and college administrators. Experts say that even one is a recipe for disaster, and so do officials at Ramapo College : they banned alcoholic energy drinks on campus this month. Peter Mercer, president of the New Jersey college, said students referred to the above concoction when describing the effects of drinks such as Four Loko, which is particularly popular around the campus. Four Loko is one of a few flashy, canned drinks that take the mixing out of the equation, making it that much easier for students to get dangerously intoxicated, faster. Mercer said concerned students told him the inexpensive 23-ounce, 12% alcohol energy drinks were “all of a sudden very popular,” and Four Loko was involved in a couple of incidents of excessive drinking. Since the start of fall semester, 23 people have been hospitalized with alcohol intoxication. ON THE WEB: Why do students take so long to grow up? MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Are prescription drugs “cheating”? Mercer called Four Loko a “cynical product” whose only purpose is to get the drinker intoxicated quickly. Others agree: Glen L. Sherman, co-chair of the Alcohol and Other Drug Knowledge Community for NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, said the drinks are dangerous because of their apparent targeting of underage student consumers and their high alcohol content — drinking one can of Four Loko is the approximate equivalent of drinking four beers, according to an informational page NASPA recently posted on its website. “These beverages are of great concern to us,” Sherman wrote in an e-mail. “Each campus must decide what specific steps make sense to best educate students about and try to protect them from these risks, and to encourage students to make good decisions when they are confronted by them.” Ramapo’s ban is part of a “multi-pronged approach” addressing excessive alcohol consumption, Mercer said. Other measures the college has taken include increasing after-hours security measures in residence halls, tightening visitor policies and holding student focus groups. Those additional steps may be crucial for the ban to have even a shot at success. Kathleen E. Miller, a research scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions at the State University of New York at Buffalo, has studied college students’ use of energy drinks, both with and without alcohol. She said that if the college can’t ban drinks like Red Bull and vodka from local bars, it won’t be able to stop consumption of caffeinated alcoholic beverages. But the college can send a signal. “A college ban will make people take a second look and maybe they’ll be more aware of what they’re drinking,” Miller said. “It’s inherently potentially dangerous to mix caffeine and alcohol because you’re sending your body mixed signals.” The caffeine stimulates the system while the alcohol depresses it, making students feel less drunk than they actually are. Through her research, Miller found that students who consume energy drinks with or without alcohol are more likely to engage in risky behavior like drug use, smoking or binge drinking. That doesn’t necessarily mean the energy drinks cause the behavior, but there is a correlation. Energy drink consumption “isn’t necessarily a gateway behavior, but it is what you might call a red-flag behavior,” she said. In a June 2008 study published in the Journal of American College Health, Miller found that 26% of surveyed public university undergraduates reported consuming energy drinks mixed with alcohol in the past month, while about half said they’d done so more than once. Efforts at Ramapo have curbed and will continue to curb consumption of alcoholic energy drinks, Mercer said, but “it’s unrealistic to assume that it’ll be totally eliminated.” That’s not stopping him from trying, though: At the next meeting of the New Jersey Presidents’ Council, Mercer plans to make his case to other college and university presidents. “The risk for their students is just as high as the risk for mine,” he said. “I’ll tell them what I’ve done and hope that they may want to follow suit.” States such as New Jersey and New Mexico are considering banning the drinks entirely. The drinks are also on the federal government’s radar. Last November, the Food and Drug Administration threatened to ban the drinks if manufacturers could not prove they were safe for consumption. No regulations have been issued yet, but an FDA press officer, Michael L. Herndon, told Inside Higher Ed on Friday that the agency has received 19 responses from 27 manufacturers and distributors, and plans to evaluate those submissions and other scientific evidence “as soon as possible in order to determine whether caffeine can be safely and lawfully added to alcoholic beverages.” Herndon said the decision is a high priority but “could take some time.” But Mercer doesn’t need FDA regulations to deem the drinks unsafe, especially when it comes to students. “I don’t accept that it’s a rite of passage to collegiate life that people put themselves at risk,” he said. “I can’t accept that.”