Student Affairs

Drexel touts upscale furniture, double beds, privacy walls, full kitchens, high-definition golf simulators, and, soon, a nearby Shake Shack. Temple touts low student-to-bathroom ratios and lounges that create two-floor gathering spots with high ceilings, big views, and 70-inch screens. But behind both loaded dormitory towers now being built for students drawn to these popular urban schools - and for their demanding parents - is a common goal: an ingathering from the neighborhoods, a reinjection of residential life on campus.

Diversity. Multiculturalism. Political correctness. Those buzzwords were at the heart of a debate broadcast live via satellite from Washington on Wednesday to more than 200 U.S. college campuses, including Temple University's Ambler campus. "Diversity in Higher Education: Can We Meet The Challenge?" was sponsored by Cox, Matthews & Associates Inc., publishers of the monthly journal Black Issues in Higher Education. The two-hour "videoconference" featured a nine- member panel of both proponents and opponents of multiculturalism in college classrooms.

Alcohol-related problems are on the rise on many college campuses across the country despite stepped-up efforts by schools to limit drinking, researchers at West Chester University have found. In a poll of student-affairs administrators at 213 colleges and universities, 35 percent reported that alcohol-related behavioral problems were increasing on their campuses. An additional 48 percent said drinking in uncontrolled settings such as parties was also on the rise, while 58 percent reported an increase in the use of false identification to buy alcohol.

From a glossary of terms for oppression distributed in orientation workshops by the Office of Student Affairs at Smith College to students entering college housing: Ableism: Oppression of the differently abled by the temporarily able. Ageism: Oppression of the young and old by young adults and the middle- aged. Classism: Oppression of the working and non-propertied classes by the upper and middle classes. Ethnocentrism: Oppression of cultures other than the dominant one in the belief that the dominant way of doing things is the superior way. Heterosexism: Oppression of those of a sexual orientation other than heterosexual.

A civil rights activist with a reputation as one of the most visible spokesmen against apartheid will speak at the Burlington County College main campus on Wednesday at 11:15 a.m. Human rights activist Randall Robinson will speak to students, teachers and the public at the college's theater at the Pemberton Campus on Pemberton- Browns Mills Road (Route 530). The free lecture is being sponsored by the college's Minority Student Union. Tickets must be acquired in advance. After Robinson speaks, he will be questioned by a panel of students about apartheid in South Africa and southwest African countries such as Nambia.

Temple University has hired a new dean of its school of music and department of dance. Robert T. Stroker, associate dean for student affairs at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, was chosen after a nearly yearlong search. Stroker, who has been at Southern Methodist for nine years, succeeds Jeffrey M. Cornelius, who retired as dean of Temple's Esther Boyer College in 2001. Stroker is a percussionist and has degrees from Pennsylvania State University and Michigan State University.

Immaculata University officials yesterday agreed to let student leaders air their complaints about graduation to the school's commencement committee on Feb. 20, a university spokeswoman said. The move came after a four-hour demonstration Thursday in the school's cafeteria building, Nazareth Hall. Student leaders met yesterday afternoon with Stephen Pugliese, the school's vice president for student affairs. The spokeswoman, Marie Moughan, said the meeting was a step forward for resolving whether the final classes of the Women's College could be grouped by school at graduation.

Bill Bradshaw, athletic director at La Salle since 1977, will be introduced today as the new athletic director at DePaul University. He will succeed Edward J. Manetta, who resigned from the position at the Chicago school in March to enter private business. Bradshaw's salary was not disclosed. There was no indication from La Salle officials as to a successor. Bradshaw, 38, had been athletic director at La Salle since 1977. He came to La Salle from private business after securing his master's degree in administration from Niagara University.

Less than a week after Lefty Ervin resigned as basketball coach at La Salle, the school faces the possibility of losing its athletic director. Bill Bradshaw, the Explorers' athletic director, has received a letter from an executive search firm that is helping DePaul University look for a replacement for Edward Manetta, Jr., who quit two weeks ago as athletic director. "I have not expressed any interest in the DePaul job," Bradshaw said yesterday after acknowledging receipt of the letter.