College Students

HOWARD COMMUNITY College students from Pakistan, India, Iran, Egypt, Liberia, South Korea, Haiti and the United States came together last week to offer words of tolerance, hope and courage at a ceremony honoring the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Seeking ways to share their grief and show national solidarity, students and faculty lighted "unity" candles and penned personal messages in condolence books that will be sent to New York and to the Pentagon. "I just can't get over it," said Kristen Sanders, a cheerleader at HCC. "This stuff doesn't really happen in America.

With your child home from college for the holidays, you might want to take the opportunity to see if you are getting your money's worth. At the dinner table or during a TV timeout, you might want to ask, kind of casually, "So, what role do you think the popes played during the Restoration?" Or, "Where, exactly, are the Balkans?" Drop this little query on your college kid: "President Johnson and Martin Luther King -- did they get along much?" The answers you might get can be found in a hilarious volume called, Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students, compiled by Shepherd College history professor Anders Henriksson.

Standing before a room of about 70 college students last month, Baltimore mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martin O'Malley looked at his audience and asked for help. "Help me in this important race," he said to the students gathered at the Nyumburu Cultural Center at the University of Maryland, College Park. Although students are neither the most reliable nor the most numerous voting bloc in elections, candidates are stepping up efforts to involve them in their campaigns. "It's a really dynamic and turbulent time nationwide," said Grace Snodgrass, a senior majoring in government and politics and journalism at the University of Maryland.

Towson University roommates Sara Meyer and Sarah Disney like having a good time as much as any college students. They just don't want to party in their dorm.So the freshmen chose an honors dormitory, joining a growing number of students around the country who choose to live on campus in a variety of special settings, such as those stressing academics and community service or ones that ban alcohol and smoking."I like to have fun, but it distracts me from my work. I need peace and quiet," said Meyer, 18, of Frederick, ducking into the crowded sixth-floor walk-up she shares with Disney, 17, of Towson, and two other women in the newly renovated Richmond Hall.

Everybody always is saying NASCAR needs to reach out to a younger demographic. Guess what? That's exactly what its marketing team is doing. "NASCAR Kinetics" is in its third year. The program recruits and educates college students across the nation, giving them hands-on experience working with professionals in the world of motorsports. Each semester, students are given case studies and asked to develop a marketing plan. For instance, this semester, student groups across 12 college campuses have been asked to develop marketing plans for the new brand of ethanol-blend gasoline used in the three NASCAR circuits.

Maureen Evans Arthur was probably one of the few college students upset to hear that classes and school-related activities were canceled this past week. The 24-year-old second-year journalism and anthropology major at Howard Community College was scheduled to go to Annapolis on Wednesday for the annual Student Advocacy Day, an event that draws more than 100 community college students to the state capital to speak with Maryland politicians about the importance of funding community colleges.

A young woman who has managed to hold a deadly disease at bay for years says she couldn't have done it without speaking out publicly about the virus that threatens her life.Kim, 30 and HIV-positive, has found a great demand for her message on AIDS prevention and education.She comes to Carroll County tomorrow to share life lessons with students at Western Maryland College. Not so long ago, the Baltimore woman might have been sitting in the audience thinking how irrelevant AIDS was to her life.

Baltimore County students will be able to jump-start their college careers while still in high school and finish college a year early through a cooperative venture of the county schools, the Community Colleges of Baltimore County and three state universities.The Three-Year Baccalaureate Program, announced yesterday at county school headquarters in Towson, will save qualified high school seniors time and money by allowing them to take up to 12 college credits before graduation.Students can earn the equivalent of a two-year degree one year after graduation -- with two summer sessions -- and then transfer to four-year schools as juniors.

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is playing the rock star, touring college campuses on his "Change Starts With U Campus Tour 2004." Each stop has featured performances by musicians such as alternative rock band Guster and Tom Delonge from the punk band Blink-182. In the end, though, the tour has been about more than sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. It has a more sobering message: College students are being victimized by a heartless government that makes them pay for their college education.

Every year Baltimore gets a shot at convincing thousands of bright young college students that their temporary abode could make a great home for life. And, every year, thousands of graduates leave, vowing never to return. Now, community leaders have decided to view that mass exodus as an opportunity. They hope to use the four years that students spend here to hook them on Baltimore's charm and opportunities. "We don't want them leaving," said Elizabeth Toole, director of the Baltimore Collegetown Network, a consortium of 13 colleges and universities in Baltimore.