USF Bulls Radio

The University of California System released admissions data this week, announcing a record breaking 60,000 admissions of California students to begin classes next fall at the systems’ 10 campuses. While overall admissions were up, the acceptance rate was down due to a demographic surge of college age Californians.

Three textbooks publishers, backed by the Association of American Publishers, are suing Georgia State over its use of digital course packets. The lawsuit claims that the university is distributing copyrighted material to students without permission or paying licensing fess.

This week, students staged sit-ins at Appalachian State University, The University of Montana and Penn State, all demanding their university sign on the Designated Supplier Program (DSP). The sit-ins all ended with arrests, the largest at Penn State where 31 students were arrested.

The Affordable Textbooks Campaign, a project of the Student PIRGs, Arizona Students Association, California State Student Association, and student governments across the country, announced on Tuesday that over 1,000 professors have signed a statement of intent to use “open textbooks”- free, online and open source textbooks.

Campuses across the country joined Virginia Tech Wednesday to memorialize the 32 students and faculty killed one year ago in the infamous campus shooting. The shooting by a student with a history of mental health problems has prompted a nationwide reevaluation of campus mental health, privacy, security, and firearm policies.

As the price of gas continues its steady increase, concerned Facebook users have created more than 500 global groups dedicated to griping about gas and brainstorming ways to lower prices.

Oberlin recently kicked off its first ‘Ecolympics’ by installing energy orbs on campus. The orbs, located in each dorm’s lobby, glow different colors representing that dorm’s energy consumption.

A group of students from Washington University in St. Louis recently founded Schoology.com, a virtual education website that allows students to earn money while sharing class notes and tutoring each other online.

New York City recently subpoenaed MIT doctoral student Edward Hirsch to gain access to text messages sent through TxTMob, a system Hirsch developed to help activists communicate via text messaging. The system, created for protesters at the 2004 Republican Convention in New York, was designed specifically to guard their digital communications from law enforcement.

As more and more people – especially young people - get their news and watch television and video online, political campaigns and unaffiliated supporters are turning to tools like youtube to get their message out.

Over the past two weekends, students across the country volunteered their time and raised money to fight hunger and homelessness on the local, national and international level. Coordinated through the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness, the event has so far raised 70,000 dollars, included over 2000 volunteers, and was held on 100 campuses.

Members of the University of Florida’s Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) recently began a hunger strike demanding a meeting with university president Bernie Machen to discuss socially responsible investment plans for the university’s $1.2 billion endowment.

University of Illinois junior Frank Calabrese recently announced that he was running as the Republican Party nominee for University of Illinois’ State House seat.

The University of Illinois chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ recently held “Blitz Week,” a week dedicated to actively sharing faith and religious beliefs with friends and classmates.

In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Students across the country are participating in The Clothesline Project, an initiative to address the issue of domestic violence on campus.

Students involved with Food Not Bombs at Rutgers University are reaching out to the local immigrant community by handing out free coffee, fruit, and muffins once a week to the day laborers who spend their mornings in a local park, waiting for work.

The House Education and Workforce committee passed a bill this week to guard the student lending market from possible future downturns. The bill would authorize the Education Department to buy student loans, in the event that a lender can no longer back its loans.

Graduate students recently gathered to meet with Florida State University's President T.K. Wetherell to discuss the lack of health insurance provided for them through the school.

Back to da Roots, a new student group at the University of San Francisco, recently hosted an event called The Faces of Fair Trade to educate the USF community about fair trade practices and to demonstrate the vital connection between consumers and farmers.

Student leaders at UMASS Boston recently confronted university administrators about their growing frustrations over a lack of communication and support from the school.