Why we love IU students

They take their responsibility to serve society very seriously. And they keep in touch.

Wade Steffey is missing

Wade, 19, is a Purdue student and a native of Bloomington. He was last seen in West Lafayette on January 13. Please help spread the word!

Who's yer Hoosier?

Take a number and get in line. Applications to IU are wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay up this year.

New Year, new semester

Same old issues dogging the campus. The trustees are interviewing candidates to replace IU President Herbert. Sorority rush is over, and by the way we think sororities are a great influence on campus and a wonderful opportunity for young women. The warm weather that blew in with El Nino seems to be over and we in Bloomington are feeling Mother Nature's full wintry blast. But here's good news:
warm fuzzy boots have replaced flip flops as the fashion statement of choice this year, so students don't look like they are suffering nearly as much as in previous years.

Caveat borrower

We have three rules for our children, should they decide to take a year or two off from their studies:

1. Don't get arrested.
2. Don't procreate.
3. Don't get into debt.

I.E. don't let yourself go too far down a path from which there is no retreat, and for which you will be responsible for the rest of your lives.

All well and good, and the rules could just as well apply to students in college as well, we think. Which explains why we are not particularly happy about the news that the College Board is in the business of private loans for college students. Crippling debt is one of the most intractable problems that bedevils those of us who really care about students; private loans typically have higher interest rates and less forgiving payoff schedules than Federal loans. The College Board does not belong in this business.

It's one heckuva town

Bloomington, that is. And now we've got our own magazine to celebrate it.

Worth a gamble?

Props to Governor Daniels for trying to come up with ways to support higher education in the state of Indiana. However, we are reminded that our sister calls state lotteries "a tax on the stupid." Ironic then, we suppose, that the monies generated would be used to support the smart. What do you think? Has the governor gone too far with privatization? Wasn't the money supposed to go to education anyway? Shoudl the state be in the business of promoting a potentially devastating, addictive activity like gambling? If not, have you got a better idea for funding higher education?

Silent nights...

Shhhhh... it is finals week for IU students, and the place is really starting to quiet down. Traffic is thinning out, and it is easier to park downtown. Next week, the students will mostly be gone except those few who live too far from home to travel for the holidays, especially students from abroad who have enough trouble getting a visa to attend IU in the first place. We're going to feed some of them at least one holiday dinner; on Monday night at the Herman B Wells Library, we fed 1,200 of them a free and healthy snack, and wished them best of luck on their exams.

Blue, blue, their world is blue

Our kids call the winter solstice holiday "Christma-Hanu-Kwanzaa," declining to differentiate between the annual getting of the presents. But apparently lots of people - especially male people - can't see any difference either. Interesting!

More on financial aid

This is huge. For students who get Pell grants, IU is going to cover the rest of the costs of tuition and fees, leaving only books, supplies and living expenses. Read the whole thing here. Of course, living expenses are a large part of the cost of attending college, but smart students can find lots of ways to keep those costs down as well.

Those goofy college kids...

...or in this case, it is a recent IU alum, seeking to gain fame through t-shirts.

Race and education

and everything else... For some well-written and thoughtful commentary from a different perspective, we recommend this blog.

Objective: Remove filler from resumes...

Here is a link to a fascinating discussion about job applicant resumes, started by blogger and law professor Eugene Volokh.

If law firms can reasonably require single-page resumes from second-year law students, we think the same is possible for students in their last year of high school.

Some choice remarks from the discussion:

• College students also get a lot of screwy advice. I was pretty much ordered to include an "Objective" on my resume, and I still don't know what good it's supposed to do. At least the keywords list will help with scanned resumes... but who even reads the objective, anyway?
• I've found the same rule applies to people who say they are "quick learners", or that they have "good interpersonal skills" or "good math skills" or "knowledge of Excel." (I work in quantitative finance, and I'm currently trying to hire a C++ programmer, so, I'm seeing a lot of these). If they say that, then no, they aren't. The people who really know something don't bother to put such vague or low-level skills. The people who say they have "good math skills" usually got a B in their one calculus class 10 years ago. The people who are actually good might list a published paper or a couple courses in real analysis, but if asked they will say they are dissatisfied with their math skills.
• A 2L going through on-campus recruiting at a top school with a multi-page resume is going to look like an idiot.

We're not sayin'... we just sayin'.

News of the day

In our opinion, it was a case of either they had to charge him with a crime or give him a medal. The IU student who pointed out an airline security loophole isn't going to get into any trouble. Let's hope the FBI offers him a job!

We're back

We've been remiss lately, but really it's because the weather has been so unseasonably glorious around here. Thanksgiving Day in Bloomington, and the temperature was in the mid-60's...

However, goodbye to all that. They say the weather is going to turn nasty and cold, and just in time for the end of the semester too. Probably better for keeping the students indoors and focussed on their studies. Check with your student - this is the time of year when lots of them run low on meal points. Remind them that the first night of finals week (Monday, Dec. 11) there will be free food in the Herman B Wells Library, courtesy of the College of Arts and Sciences. 10 p.m. - be there.

Here's hoping!

Readers of this blog will know that we are big fans of the IU football coach, Terry Hoeppner. Today is the IU-Purdue game, and our son is off to West Lafayette with a bunch of friends, to cheer on the Hoosiers. If IU wins today, that means the first trip to a bowl game since 1993. That is one long post-season drought.

So here's to IU, to Coach Hep, and to the Hoosier team. Bring home the Old Oaken Bucket!

The Admissions game

If you are reading this, then you probably have at least one child already in college. Remember the application and decision-making process? Wasn't that fun? For this year's students and parents, suddenly the received wisdom has changed.

Our take is this: if you are 17 or 18 years old and you cannot keep your resume of awards and activities to one side of a single sheet of paper, well, frankly... we agree with the person quoted in that article. When do you sleep? Have you slept at all in the past four years? Had any fun? More to the point, what will happen when you get to college? Will you do the "crash-and-burn" or will you keep going at this frantic rate?

Our father was a university professor and the best piece of advice he ever gave us was this: "Enjoy these years and take advantage of the whole range of experiences that are open to you. Have some fun." And this, mind you, was when we were starting our junior year. Of high school.

Sign of the times

It had to happen... Starbucks opened a store on campus today, its "first" one at IU, according to the paper. Wonder how many they plan?

No one loves Starbucks more than we do, but we are beginning to think our son was right, the one who said: "Pretty soon they are going to open Starbucks inside of Starbucks."

Martinsville reconsidered

We have a fondness for lemon drops - especially the hard-to-find old-fashioned sour kind that you used to buy for a penny apiece and eat out of a little white paper sack. We found some of those yesterday in a most unexpected place - downtown Martinsville - as we made a spontaneous detour on the way home from Indianapolis.

We grew up in Bloomington and have made the trip around Martinsville countless times on our way elsewhere, but yesterday was our first time ever venturing into this tiny (population ~13,000) and relatively poverty-stricken metropolis. Our first time! Say "Martinsville" to almost anyone in Bloomington and the reaction will inevitably be: "Ku Klux Klan." Granted, there was a notorious killing there in the 60's that had strong racial overtones. There are also countless apocryphal stories told by people who have passed through the place (and by people who know people who said they passed through the place, if you catch our drift), about racist comments and threats they received. There may be some truth to these rumors, but consider for a moment that the town's terrible reputation may not be entirely deserved. After all, it is hardly the only place in the country where racist events are known to have taken place, nor is it the worst.

More to the point, Martinsville has a lot of - dare we say it - charm to recommend it to tourists. We parked on the square and walked past several curio and gift shops on our way to Ruby's Diner, where we had lunch (GREAT onion rings - another one of our culinary weaknesses). Friendly service, too. We weren't the only ones there and in fact we ran into a colleague who works at the IU School of Medicine, enjoying lunch there with her mother. Many of the downtown stores feature books and products touting favorite son John Wooden.

Coach Wooden was born in Martinsville in 1910 and played hoops for Martinsville High. Paul V. McNutt, the former governor of Indiana whose name graces one of the more popular residence halls at IU, is another native of the town .

Who knew? The place has four or five excellent antiques shops, including the old jailhouse, which has been converted into Jail Bird Antiques, complete with a tea room. And it is not the only tea room in town. There is even a tiny artists' colony beginning to take root.

Our favorite find of the day has to have been the Martinsville Candy Kitchen, also located on the square. That's where we found the lemon drops that we've been happily sucking on ever since. Their signature product is hand-made candy canes, but they also make many chocolate products, as well as a variety of fudge. We can't eat chocolate but we bought some fudge to bring home for the kids. The owner heard us talking as we paid for our purchases and pointed out a bag of lemon candy he had made. Looks like small bits of yellow candy cane, but he promised us it was all lemon-flavored and not lemony-mint. We bought the bag (for a whopping $1.49) and once we have made our way through the lemon drops, we are looking forward to that treat.

As we took our change, the young woman who rang up our purchases said, "You come back and see us soon." And we plan to... those are some tasty lemon drops.

Wonder if they celebrate Festivus...

Religious blasphemy or legal loophole? You decide.