College Campuses

Havre de Grace. -- For a long time, standing out in the cold, I've been wondering how to gain admission to the exclusive society of American minorities. Clearly, that's the place to be.Everyone who's managed to get inside seems to be having a wonderful time. As seen from the outside, through the thick glass of the windows, an air of opulence and aristocracy, perhaps even of elitism, prevails. It is like a scene at an 18th Century French court, a world beyond the aspirations of les citoyens ordinaires.

THIS AUTUMN, much of my time has been spent touring college campuses with my 17-year-old, a senior in high school who is helping his parents through this stressful ordeal by declaring:a) He doesn't know where he wants to go to college, and;b) He doesn't know what he wants to study.Since this places him in the same demographic as 90 percent of the high school seniors in the country, my wife and I are not too concerned.Instead, we spend our weekends dragging the boy to every college on the East Coast, hoping he might find a school he likes, one that measures up to his rigorous standards, which right now seem to center on which has the most vending machines in its dorms.

I can still recall the humorous ordeal I'd encounter as a college student years ago whenever I made the foolhardy decision to phone home collect."You say an Andrew Leckey is calling?" asked my mother, sensing her son was calling collect because he was tapped out (( and seeking cash. "No, it can't be the Andrew Leckey we know, since he would handle his money well and wouldn't pester his poor parents with a collect call."Giggle from the operator. Charges not accepted.Subsequent attempts drew tongue-in-cheek responses ranging from "We haven't heard from an Andrew Leckey in so long that we assumed he'd struck out on his own" to "The Andrew Leckey we know is independently wealthy and wouldn't call collect."

One could think of the two electric vehicle charging stations on the Catonsville campus of the Community College of Baltimore County as points in a widening state-, region- and nation-wide grid. But tucked away in a fenced-in storage lot behind the school's automotive department, they don't get much use. Though available to the public, their presence has not been widely advertised. Most of their use comes in charging a low-speed car and a high-speed car owned by the college and used to train future technicians on electric vehicles.

MOST PEOPLE assume that college campuses are safe havens for free speech and enlightened debate. In the case of student newspapers and publications, however, college administrators often try to control these publications to avoid controversy or articles putting the school in a bad light. In October 1998, student editors at Neumann College in suburban Philadelphia temporarily suspended publication of the school newspaper after school administrators demanded prior review in reaction to a controversial editorial cartoon.

An Ellicott City man sitting on a bench at Howard Community College in Columbia was robbed and pistol-whipped Tuesday night, Howard County police said.The victim, Keith Bates, 29, said the gunman approached and demanded money about 9:45 p.m., police said. Although Mr. Bates handed over money, the robber struck him in the face and fled in a white Ford Mustang with another man, police said. Mr. Bates was cut under one eye, police said.The robber was described as white, in his early 20s, with brown hair, thin mustache and goatee.

THE COLLEGE-search season is pretty much over for high school seniors. The mouse has been passed to juniors, whose turn it is to find a school.Yes, the mouse. Every year, a higher percentage of students turns first to the Internet to see what the schools have to offer.In a survey last year of 500 higher-ability students, 78 percent had visited individual college Web sites, according to Art & Science Group (ASG), a Baltimore college marketing consultant. That compares with 58 percent in 1997 and just 4 percent in 1996.

WASHINGTON -- After 18 months of study, interviews with 89 sports officials and countless hours of discussion about how to fix what seemingly grows less fixable each day, the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics unveiled yesterday a blueprint for reforming college sports that seemed full of hope, if short of new ideas.Echoing a refrain heard often at last year's National Collegiate Athletic Association convention, the commission declared that college presidents should be in the vanguard of efforts to restore integrity to athletic departments.

Where is the Johns Hopkins University? In North Baltimore, of course. But also in Columbia, Scaggsville, downtown Baltimore, near Baltimore-Washington International Airport, in Washington, D.C., and Rockville.So, where is the College of Notre Dame? Also in North Baltimore. But, coming soon to Harford County.Throughout the state, colleges are expanding beyond their traditional borders. Ivy-covered buildings on sprawling campuses are out. Functional space convenient to professional workers is in.The trend continued today when the University of Maryland System opened its new Downtown Baltimore Center.

After a year away, the Basketball Academy returns to a college campus, Morgan State, for the 17 t h annual event that combines academics and service learning with three days of top-notch high school boys and girls basketball Thursday through Saturday. Last January, The Basketball Academy games had to be moved to Lake Clifton and the academic components to Mervo after a new NCAA rule banned basketball tournaments run by non-scholastic entities from Division I campuses. The rule aimed to prevent college programs from gaining a recruiting advantage by colluding with organizers to bring events such as AAU tournaments to their campuses.