Student Newspaper

PLENTY OF things deserve the protection of confidentiality. Parking fines are not among them.When parking spaces are as rare as they are at University of Maryland College Park, the competition for finding one can be as fierce as an NCAA basketball play-off.So imagine how students, faculty and administrators must have felt to learn a couple of years ago that a basketball player had found his own way of shutting out the competition by parking pretty much as he pleased -- accumulating more than $8,000 in fines in the process.

It is a tradition at the Diamondback, the University of Maryland's student newspaper; one that angers employees, but delights advertisers eager to get their messages in the pages that are sure to be read.About this time every year, the paper publishes a 12-page supplement listing the salaries of most of the university's staff, from President William E. Kirwan's $161,200 to the $26,631 Hazel Stephenson makes as an administrative aide.Ms. Stephenson, who works in the meteorology department, is steamed.

"YOUR BOSS was at the school today," my son said.My boss? I'm the Mom. I don't have a boss. I am the boss."The editor from The Sun," he said impatiently. "She talked to the school newspaper staff. You know -- deadlines, breaking stories, exposes. Newspaper stuff like you do."More proof no one in my family has a clue what I write about. It's been years since my last expose, "Craft Fairs: The Last American Sweatshop?"While I am confident my boss offered sound advice -- after all, she is a very good speller -- I wonder if she prepared the young journalists for the cruel reality of community news.

A disgruntled State University of New York security guard who was depicted as lazy.A nervous admissions officer who was worried about offending prospective freshmen at Stevens Institute of Technology.A professor at El Camino College in California who was removed from teaching one of his classes.All three have something in common: anger at a student newspaper. And all three are believed to have responded by destroying large numbers of copies of the offending publication.In the 1960s, campus protesters occupied administration buildings.

The student newspaper at Centennial High School has scooped the competition.Last month, Wingspan won the Marylander Award in the annual Maryland Scholastic Press Association contest, making it the state's best.Their newspaper is best, editors say, because students are serious about the job that needs to be done. "There's a professional atmosphere, and we try to [produce] a professional newspaper," says Chad Hawthorne, an editor.In winning the award, Wingspan edged out Montgomery County high schools known for their first-rate journalism programs.

PHILADELPHIA -- Amid preparations for Monday's commencement exercises, University of Pennsylvania officials spent much of yesterday dealing with the racial tension that has plagued the campus over the last semester.The university's Judicial Inquiry Office held a closed hearing yesterday to determine whether a white student who had called some black students "water buffalo" had violated the university's policy forbidding racial harassment. The policy prohibits racial epithets meant to "inflict direct injury" on people.

The two young thieves were brazen and unrepentant." 'The greatest thrill I get is when I'm stealing,' " one Atholton High School student boasted in an interview with Atholton student journalist Michelle Hamby.Burglary, car break-ins, the sale of stolen goods -- the anonymous Columbia students claim that they have done it all.In the November issue of the Raider Review, Atholton's student newspaper, the two students brag about their exploits in an article that still has schoolmates talking and some parents complaining about the article's tone.

I'm supposed to be outraged. Some kids (vandals? protesters? terrorists?) at the University of Maryland stole about 10,000 copies of the student newspaper Monday and left in their place a flier saying the paper was racist.School president William Kirwan quickly jumped into action, issuing a statement condemning the thefts. He made clear that "the University is unequivocal in its support of the First Amendment right of freedom of speech -- even if such speech is offensive to some persons."If you want to get a red-blooded reporter's red blood boiling, all you have to do is attack that First Amendment.

A debate over free speech erupted this week on the Johns Hopkins University campus after a student newspaper published an editorial cartoon featuring an anti-Chinese slur and hundreds of copies of the paper were stolen, apparently by angry students.A series of student groups and Hopkins administrators condemned both the cartoon, which appeared in last Friday's edition of the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, and the subsequent theft of the newspapers.Newspaper editors, meanwhile, are defending the cartoon on free-speech grounds but are expected to print several critical responses in today's edition of the weekly paper.

Calling the Diamondback "racist," protesters yesterday took roughly half of the 20,000 copies of the student newspaper at the University of Maryland at College Park.In place of the missing papers, the protesters left a small computer-generated sign that read: "Due to its racist nature, the Diamondback will not be available today. . . . Read a book."Nobody claimed responsibility for the missing newspapers, which are distributed free, and campus police said they were investigating.Several students said the protest probably stemmed from a general perception that the Diamondback is insensitive to blacks and other minorities on campus, rather than from any particular article.

There are any number of good reasons why college students shouldn't spend much time watching screenings of pornographic movies on school property or reading racy sex columns in the school newspaper. But it's not the job of college administrators or state lawmakers to make those decisions for them. There may indeed be little journalistic value in "The Bed Post," a sex column that appeared in The Towerlight, Towson University's student newspaper. Aside from its questionable taste, it violated many of the standards student publications traditionally are supposed to teach aspiring young reporters and editors, such as the necessity of judging what is worthy of coverage as news and a willingness to stand behind the facts in a story.

There are two distinct pictures of Morgan State University campus media adviser Denise Brown. One is that of a passionate advocate for student speech, guiding the student newspaper and yearbook to substantial improvements over the past six years. But the other, painted by school administrators, is that of an undisciplined employee who flouted authority and misused privileges. Those pictures are directly at odds in the wake of Morgan's recent decision not to renew Brown's contract, a move that outraged students and caught the attention of organizations that defend campus speech.

Zainab Alkebsi, 18, writes for the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which she attends on a full academic scholarship. Rockville native Allison Kaftan, 25, is pursuing a doctorate in English at George Washington University. Jeff Majors, 33, studies computer programming in Houston. If they weren't deaf, they would simply be high-achievers. But when the average American deaf 18-year-old reads at just a fourth-grade level, these students' accomplishments are as noteworthy as their secret to success is controversial.

Administrators at the Catonsville campus of the Community College of Baltimore County briefly blocked distribution of the most recent edition of the student newspaper, which featured an editorial critical of their hiring practices. A college official denied that the action was an attempt to censor the student publication, Red and Black. But the editor of the monthly newspaper says basic press freedoms were impinged. "This newspaper doesn't belong to the administration. It belongs to the students," said David Morey, editor in chief.

COLLEGE PARK - About 40 students gathered outside the offices of the University of Maryland's student newspaper yesterday to protest a cartoon it ran Tuesday about the death this week of an American woman acting as a "human shield" in the Gaza Strip. Rachel Corrie, 23, a student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., was killed Sunday as she tried to stop an Israeli bulldozer from destroying the home of a Palestinian physician. Witnesses said Corrie, a North Carolina native, knelt in front of the machine, which kept coming and crushed her. The Israeli military said the driver didn't see her in time.

George Van Brunt Cochran, 70, an orthopedic surgeon, mountaineer and former president of the Explorers Club in New York, died Monday in Ossining, N.Y., of complications from Parkinson's disease. In 1957, Dr. Cochran made his first important expedition, exploring the Homathko Snowfield in the Coast Range of British Columbia and making his first ascents of four peaks. In 1967, he led the Cape Dyer Arctic-Alpine Expedition to Baffin Island, and from 1967 to 1990, he headed six expeditions to Ellesmere Island in Canada.

Sarah L. Cooper, a retired educator who taught English and journalism at Eastern and Western high schools, died of heart failure Monday at Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville. She was 95 and a resident of Mount Washington until 1990. Born in Baltimore and raised in Windsor Hills, Sarah Levin was a niece of Henrietta Szold, the West Baltimore intellectual who founded Hadassah. She was a 1924 graduate of Western High School and earned her bachelor's degree from Goucher College in 1928.

Assembly's folly creates crisis in transportation I was disappointed but not the least surprised to read the self-congratulatory political pabulum submitted by Del. Maggie McIntosh on behalf of the General Assembly's House Democratic Caucus ("State's Democrats progressive, prudent," Opinion Commentary, May 1). The Assembly's "prudent" fiscal management transformed a $1 billion state surplus in 2001 to nearly a $1 billion deficit in less than one year. As a consequence of its "discipline" the state does not have enough revenue to adequately support many needed programs, including one of the state's fundamental obligations - investment in transportation infrastructure.

Who are the best teachers? Students at Anne Arundel Community College have had their say. Recognized this year by the AACC Student Association were three faculty members who received teaching excellence awards and an adviser for work with the student newspaper. The winners are: Louis L. Aymard Jr. of Stevensville, professor of psychology, who received the Teaching Excellence Award for full-time faculty. Among the nomination comments: "A gifted teacher who cares about all of his students."

EMMITSBURG -- Mount St. Mary's College, a Catholic school in the placid hills of Frederick County, finds itself embroiled in a constitutional debate -- not over freedom of religion, but over freedom of the press. In February, college officials sent a letter of reprimand to William M. Lawbaugh, faculty adviser to the student newspaper the Mountain Echo. Lawbaugh was told his expected pay raise of $3,800 would be withheld until he proved he would "serve the college as a responsible teacher of journalism."