On campus, Feb. 14
1. If you’re strapped for cash, you might not want to turn to a payday loan for a quick fix. That’s a lesson underscored in a recently released survey released by George Washington University’s Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center. The study, which analyzed the financial habits of 5,500 people 23 to 25 years old, found that 42% of Millennials surveyed use alternative financial services like payday loans, tax refund advances and auto title loans — behaviors, the survey said, that “threaten their economic aspirations and security.” It’s indicative of Millennials’ “financially fragile” state, according to the report — that is, the inability to cope with unexpected money problems. “Their knowledge deficit could prove disastrous for them, the economy, and society,” the study says.
2. Last year, Texas State University student Monika Rostvold sat on her school’s library steps wearing only a red blindfold, pasties, a nude thong and headphones. The performance art piece, the aim of which was to bring awareness to sexual assault, was so that spectators could see her body as “natural” and to “take the sexuality out.” On Tuesday, Rostvold, a senior studio art major at TXST, was at it again — but this time her outfit consisted mainly of Chick-fil-A fries and ketchup. This year’s performance piece — “All You Can Eat,” which was written on napkins — came with a new message: to bring awareness to what she says are the negative effects of dating and hooking up. The culture, she says, is “very satisfying, but is it healthy? Is it really what we want? That’s what I’m asking the audience. I know fast food and the body is hard to connect, but to me it just made sense.”
3. Dartmouth College will close its doors this March to the campus fraternity whose hazing activities were highlighted in the 2012 Rolling Stone article-turned-novel Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy. The college’s decision to de-recognize Sigma Alpha Epsilon — various chapters of which have been in the spotlight for issues ranging from racism to sexual assault — came after a hazing-related investigation conducted by the national chapter ended this week. SAE spokesperson Brandon Weghorst tells Paste BN College the chapter will be closed by the national chapter for “no less than five years as a result of members’ health and safety violations, and their inability to adhere to the national organization’s standards and expectations.” He notes that “Sigma Alpha Epsilon is committed to the safety and well-being of our members, and we have zero tolerance for hazing or any actions or behaviors that are not consistent with our mission and our creed, ‘The True Gentleman.'”
4. An 18-year-old says she was kicked out of her school’s gym for violating its dress code. But this didn’t happen at a high school — she claimed it was at Santa Clara University. Grace DiChristina, a freshman studying sociology, told Mic that her outfit — a short top that showed a sliver of her stomach — was deemed inappropriate by school officials for conflicting with the university’s Jesuit values. They were also concerned it could spread the deadly MRSA virus, DiChristina told the website. “The fact that this is a Jesuit school should absolutely not be linked to the dress code at the gym,” she said in a Facebook post. “I do not go to the gym to be sexualized or looked at by other people — I go to improve my health and my self-confidence.” A university spokeswoman told BuzzFeed that the school’s midriff policy is in place for health reasons — not religious ones. She said all gym-goers “must wear a T-shirt or tank top.”
5. A Lehigh University student tested positive for the Zika virus, according to an announcement released Wednesday on the school’s website. The unnamed student contracted the virus while traveling abroad over winter break but is recovering and “feeling well,” John Smeath, vice-provost of student affairs said in the statement. Smeath said state health officials have confirmed that no additional risk related to Zika exists on the Bethlehem, Pa., campus. While no vaccine exists to prevent the disease, one could be developed as early as 2017, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, told Paste BN.