World-renowned Nigerian author and David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies Chinua Achebe passed away on Friday. He was 82.

Achebe’s 1958 novel Things Fall Apart is regarded as one of the most important forces in the development of African literature, and it is through this work that Achebe “gave birth to a modern Africa.”  The book has sold over 12 million copies in English and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Additionally, Achebe has written several essays, short stories, and poems that draw on his experience growing up in Nigeria, deal with the tension between colonialism and African values, and address questions about the role of African culture in postcolonial Africa.

Achebe was a beloved member of the Brown community: he joined the Brown faculty in 2009 as the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies, received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University, and oversaw the annual Achebe Colloquium on Africa, which has continuously attracted scholars and government officials from all over the world. According to its webpage, the colloquium, which has been convened by Achebe himself, brings key thinkers and figures together to discuss “the importance of strengthening democracy and peace on the African continent.” You can see a comprehensive list of Achebe’s works here; each work is a testament to his unwavering commitment to contributing to the dialogue on postcolonial Africa, African culture, and other relevant topics.

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News flash: Greek life is a man’s world.  At least that’s the case according to Samantha Wishman, a Penn grad.  In her recent article for The Daily Beast, “Frat Culture’s Woman Problem,” Wishman argues that a double standard exists between fraternities and sororities on college campuses: while fraternities are often given almost free rein to party and are only subject to disciplinary action when they commit serious criminal offenses, sororities are strictly scrutinized by their national organizations for even holding parties with alcohol. [Read more →]

We have pretty interesting news.  No, we aren’t opening a campus in Shanghai. Casual sex website eduHookups is expanding to Brown! Started at UChicago a few weeks ago, the “no strings attached” hookup site has already expanded to Northwestern, Columbia College Chicago, DePaul, SAIC, Yale, Washington University in St. Louis and Loyola University Chicago and will be opening up to Brown students on April 4th (you will need a brown.edu email address to register… sounds a little bit like another instant web-phenom that started up seven years ago).

The purpose of the site is simple: to give college students an easy (no pun intended) place to seek out sexual encounters. For both the cripplingly shy and the passionately deviant, eduHookups should represent a welcome addition to the college student’s casual sex utility belt (apparently the old-fashioned kind of social lubricant just doesn’t do it anymore). The site has been a relative success so far, with 800 registered members and features in the Huffington Post and a local Chicago television station. Oh yeah, and there was this little quip on Leno a few weeks ago:

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According to a Manhattan mother, the time to start preparing for your shot at the Ivy League is well before freshman year of high school. Apparently we should seriously consider preschool education in the quest for admission to a top-ranked college.

The mother, Nicole Imprescia, is suing York Avenue Preschool for destroying her daughter’s shot at admission to a private school in the city, along with an Ivy League education. She claims that the school was putting her daughter in classes with younger students, putting her at a disadvantage compared to the other four-year-olds of the world. If Imprescia wins, York will have to refund her for the $19,000 she paid in tuition. Yes, you read it right: $19,000.

The lesson?  Make sure you thank your parents for putting you in the right preschool when you were four.  Who knows?   If they had made a different decision, you might not have even made it into Brown!  Or maybe that’s just what one overly-concerned helicopter parent wants us to believe…

It has been an exciting few weeks for colleges across the country, to say the least. Temperatures are rising, spring break is upon us, and  March Madness is basically here. Here are just a few stories to remind you of some recent strange–dare I say ridiculous–events in higher education:

If you are unaware of what’s been happening with Charlie Sheen recently, then just leave now. Charlie Sheen’s influence has inspired people all over our country to try to understand what really matters in life. His many words have been so inspirational that even some GW students want him as their commencement speaker. This GW Facebook page (with over 1,500 “likes”) implores Mr. Sheen to attend GW’s graduation. Other sites have followed, and even our very own Diddy tweeted at him. No one knows what the future hold for Sheen, though we must trust that it will be nothing less than epic.

Not in Providence, but in Provo, Utah, Brandon Davies, one of Brigham Young University’s finest basketball players, was suspended for having premarital sex (#sinning). According to BYU’s honor code, students are required to “live a chaste and virtuous life,” a rule which Davies apparently violated simply for attending sexction. The question remains: how did they find out about Davies’ sexual endeavors? [Read more →]

Image courtesy of The Huffington Post

After going four admissions cycles without an early admission option for prospective students, Harvard and Princeton announced yesterday that they will be restoring their early action plans.  Both reinstated programs will allow prospective students to apply in the fall through a non-binding application process.

The admissions offices at Harvard and Princeton announced in September 2006 that they would be eliminating their early admission programs due to the fact that they catered mostly to students from high-income families and purportedly led to increased stress on high school seniors.  In the last several years, however, the early application pool at other universities appears to be skewing less towards privileged students, according to Harvard President Drew Faust.

The Herald’s editorial page editor Tyler Rosenbaum will be on Boston’s NPR channel, WBUR (90.9 FM), at 3:00 pm today!  He will be debating the authors of the controversial book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, which the Herald responded to in its January 31 editorial “Does college actually teach us anything?”  Be sure to tune in!  You can stream the  station’s live feed here.

How would you feel if Brown instituted a female-only swim hour? — Photo courtesy of Nicholas Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald

In response to a request from its Muslim Students Association, George Washington University has designated one hour a week for female-only swimming. Female students who observe Islam might otherwise feel uncomfortable using the school’s pool, because they could be seen by men without their hajibs and in immodest clothing. The female swim hour, called Sisters’ Splash, takes just 1/20 of the total recreational swimming hours at the facility.

But apparently some people have been getting pissy about that.

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Ritalin, a form of cheating? — Heather Stone / Chicago Tribune (MCT)

It’s a well-accepted fact that some students use a little more than coffee and hard work to get ahead on their school work. But recent changes to Wesleyan University’s Code of Non-Academic Conduct bring the (im)morality of study drugs to the fore.

This semester, Wesleyan updated its Code of Non-Academic Conduct to prevent “misuse or abuse” of prescription drugs, according to a report from Inside Higher Ed. While many schools have policies against the use of drugs not prescribed to the user, those policies are usually based on health concerns.

But it seems with this move from Wesleyan, the use of study drugs is being raised as a moral issue. The Honor Code at Wesleyan requires that academic work is completed “without improper assistance,” so the implication is that the use of non-prescribed stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin that keep students awake, alert and focused, is ethically wrong.

But the issue is still up for debate. David Leibow, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry in Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, quoted in Inside Higher Ed, called the ethical motivation behind the ban “dubious,” and compared their use with drinking coffee or simply having a better work ethic than other students.

So Blog readers, what do you think? Is using a pill to help you get through a paper or an exam a form of cheating? Or is it using an available resource to do well in school? Tell us in the comments! (And remember, they’re anonymous.)

Apparently, some students at Georgetown love the critically acclaimed show Breaking Bad a little too much…

At around six o’clock this morning, police discovered a suspected “methamphetamine lab” inside a Georgetown freshman’s dorm room.  The building was subsequently evacuated and two students were taken into custody.

We here at BlogDailyHerald sincerely apologize for not adding “disassembling your meth lab” to our list of things to do to prep for Parents Weekend, and for any subsequent awkwardness this omission may have caused you with the rents.  Our bad.