Family Sues University Where 20-Year-Old Daughter Died in a Pancake Eating Contest [people.com]

The flava:
Over a year after 20-year-old Sacred Heart University student Caitlin Nelson died from choking in a charity pancake-eating contest on campus, her family is suing the school for her alleged wrongful death.

Rosanne Nelson filed a lawsuit against Sacred Heart University on Monday in Superior Court in Bridgeport, Connecticut over the death of her daughter.

The lawsuit alleges that Sacred Heart was at fault for allowing the pancake-eating contest to happen, claiming that the university “failed to investigate the safety of a pancake eating contest before granting approval” and did not have “adequate and appropriate medical personnel” who could respond to a choking at the contest. . . .

The article:
https://people.com/food/caitlin-nelson-death-sacred-heart-university-pancake-eating-contest-lawsuit/

Monday Magic in October

"People who had experienced one or more traumas in their lives were more likely to report health problems if they did not confide in others about their traumas than if they had done so (e.g., Pennebaker & Susman, 1988). The inhibition idea was that the act of inhibiting or in some way holding back thoughts, emotions, or behaviors is associated with low level physiological work – much the way that Sapolsky (2004) or Selye (1978) thought about stress. Further, people were especially likely to inhibit their thoughts and feelings about traumatic experiences that were socially threatening. Hence, individuals who had experienced a sexual trauma would be far less likely to talk about it with others than if they had experienced the death of a grandparent. . . ."

"Traumas"
E.g., administrators, students, colleagues, vendors, the state legislature, Pearson, Cengage, Barnes & Noble Education, the athletic department, fraternities, sororities. . . .

What to do about it?  Ideas?

"Everyone, hug those you love today."

The flava:
Lauren McCluskey was walking home from a Monday night class at the University of Utah while chatting with her mother on the phone, when her mother heard her yell, "No, no, no!"

"That was the last I heard from her," Jill McCluskey said in an emailed statement Tuesday.

The article:
https://www.ksl.com/article/46412459/that-was-the-last-i-heard-from-her-family-of-u-student-slain-on-campus-speaks-out

12 Authors Write About the Libraries They Love [nytimes.com]

"For most readers and writers — and book lovers in general — the library holds a special place of honor and respect. We asked several authors to tell us about their local public library or to share a memory of a library from their past. . . ."

University of Iowa Cites Alcohol in Suspending 9 Frats [usnews.com]

The flava:
University of Iowa officials say they've temporarily suspended nine fraternities for incidents with alcohol.

The chapters suspended Wednesday pending further investigation are accused of violating a university moratorium on alcohol at fraternity and sorority parties. The nine are: Pi Kappa Alpha, Beta Theta Pi, Pi Kappi Phi, Acacia, Sigma Pi, Phi Delta Theta, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Delta Chi.

University vice president Melissa Shivers says "the blatant and systemic failure to curb holding dangerous open events with alcohol, including tailgates, will stop." 

The article:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/iowa/articles/2018-10-11/university-of-iowa-cites-alcohol-in-suspending-9-frats

Suspended Badger Quintez Cephus sues university officials over the timing of disciplinary action [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

The flava:
Suspended Badgers wide receiver Quintez Cephus has sued the University of Wisconsin to try to stop an expected expulsion over a sexual encounter with two students in April. . . . The officials forced Cephus "into the predicament of having to either waive his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by choosing to participate in the University process despite the potential harm to his criminal defense, or decline to participate in the University’s process thus leading to the inevitable finding of responsibility and severe sanctions," the suit states.

The article:
https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/college/uw/2018/10/11/quintez-cephus-suspended-uw-receiver-sues-university-wisconsin/1587980002/

Reuters Top 100: The World's Most Innovative Universities - 2018

"For the fourth year running, Stanford University tops Reuters’ ranking of the World’s Most Innovative Universities, a list that . . . was compiled in partnership with Clarivate Analytics, and is based on proprietary data and analysis of numerous indicators including patent filings and research paper citations."

TOP 100 UNIVERSITIES | 2018 RANKINGS
1 Stanford University, USA
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA
3 Harvard University, USA
4 University of Pennsylvania, USA
5 University of Washington, USA
6 University of Texas System, USA
7 KU Leuven, Belgium
8 Imperial College London, United Kingdom
9 University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA
10 Vanderbilt University, USA
11 Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), South Korea
12 Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
13 Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH), South Korea
14 University of California System, USA
15 University of Southern California, USA
16 Cornell University, USA
17 Duke University, USA
18 University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
19 Johns Hopkins University, USA
20 University of Tokyo, Japan
21 California Institute of Technology, USA
22 Osaka University, Japan
23 University of Michigan System, USA
24 Northwestern University, USA
25 University of Wisconsin System, USA
26 Kyoto University, Japan
27 University of Minnesota System, USA
28 University of Illinois System, USA
29 Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
30 University of Utah, USA
31 University of Erlangen Nuremberg, Germany
32 Ohio State University, USA
33 Columbia University, USA
34 Seoul National University, South Korea
35 University of Toronto, Canada
36 Tohoku University, Japan
37 University of Pittsburgh, USA
38 Yale University, USA
39 Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
40 University of Oxford, United Kingdom
41 University of Colorado System, USA
42 Tufts University, USA
43 Baylor College of Medicine, USA
44 Tsinghua University, China
45 Technical University of Munich, Germany
46 Kyushu University, Japan
47 Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
48 University College London, United Kingdom
49 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland
50 Purdue University System, USA
51 University of Chicago, USA
52 Oregon Health & Science University, USA
53 University of Manchester, United Kingdom
54 Indiana University System, USA
55 University of Montpellier, France
56 University of Munich, Germany
57 Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
58 Emory University, USA
59 Peking University, China
60 Sorbonne University, France
61 University of British Columbia, Canada
62 Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
63 National University of Singapore, Singapore
64 Princeton University, USA
65 University of Zurich, Switzerland
66 Hanyang University, South Korea
67 Case Western Reserve University, USA
68 Yonsei University, South Korea
69 Rutgers State University New Brunswick, USA
70 Boston University, USA
71 University of Massachusetts System, USA
72 Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany
73 Wake Forest University, USA
74 Keio University, Japan
75 Korea University, South Korea
76 University of Florida, USA
77 Leiden University, Netherlands
78 University of Paris Descartes - Paris 5, France
79 Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
80 University of Cincinnati, USA
81 University of Freiburg, Germany
82 Ruprecht Karl University Heidelberg, Germany
83 State University of New York System, USA
84 University of Claude Bernard - Lyon 1, France
85 University of Virginia, USA
86 Dresden University of Technology, Germany
87 University of Iowa, USA
88 Ghent University, Belgium
89 Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
90 Hokkaido University, Japan
91 Tel Aviv University, Israel
92 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
93 Zhejiang University, China
94 Fudan University, China
95 University of Miami, USA
96 Arizona State University, USA
97 University of Paris Sud - Paris 11, France
98 Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology, South Korea
99 Nagoya University, Japan
100 Free University of Berlin, Germany

When was the last time you signed a petition? Or called your senator?

More than 2,400 law professors signed a letter opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation, stating "that he did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament requisite to sit on the highest court of our land."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/03/opinion/kavanaugh-law-professors-letter.html

UW researcher wins $625,000 MacArthur ‘genius grant’ for transgender youth study [The Seattle Times]

The flava:
A University of Washington researcher has been named a winner of this year’s John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship, commonly dubbed the “genius grant.”

Kristina Olson, 37, was one of 25 fellows selected by the foundation, which announced the winners Thursday. Each of the fellows will receive a $625,000 “no-strings-attached” grant “to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society,” the announcement said.

Olson is a research psychologist who was nominated for her ongoing study of transgender youth who are supported by their parents or guardians to live their preferred gender.

The article:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/uw-researcher-awarded-macarthur-fellowship-for-transgender-youth-study/

Reproach [The Harvard Crimson]

The flava:
We ask that Kavanaugh’s upcoming appointment as a law school lecturer be suspended pending a review of the serious allegations against him. For better or for worse, decisions made at Harvard fall under the national spotlight. Let us be a voice for survivors, not perpetrators. If the University has reason to believe that Kavanaugh was culpable of sexual assault, we believe that accepting him onto our campus would be an insult to survivors within our own community. Harvard must clearly demonstrate that it prioritizes their needs, believes their experiences, and will fight for their safety.

The article:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/9/27/editorial-harvard-should-tread-carefully-with-kavanaugh/