Student Body

ERIE, Pa. - A guidance counselor and track coach at a Western Pennsylvania Catholic school has been suspended without pay for two weeks after he sent the student body an insulting e-mail criticizing the lack of fan support at a recent basketball game. Chet Moffett apologized for the e-mail he sent to students at Erie's Cathedral Prep high school after its Dec. 13 loss at General McLane. Moffett's e-mail was sent to all students at the all-male school, but mainly targeted 36 students whom the coach saw not sitting in a student cheering section.

Urban flight isn't just for whites anymore. Middle- and upper-middle-class blacks are emptying out of big Northern cities - Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Cleveland - in huge numbers. Some are heading south for warmer weather and more abundant jobs. But a lot are relocating just a few miles away, in the suburbs, and for all the old reasons. Safer neighborhoods. Better schools. Parking. Central air. In all, the black population in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania suburbs grew 32 percent over the last decade, as reported by the website Metropolis.

The nation's first state will have its second university next month when Delaware State College officially becomes Delaware State University. Yesterday, the state House of Representatives unanimously approved a measure that would grant university status to the predominantly black college, which was established in 1891 as the State College for Colored Students. William B. DeLauder, college president, told legislators that the new status will enhance efforts to raise funds and attract more students to the Dover-based institution.

At 27, Martha Carey Thomas applied to be president of a newly formed women's college in Bryn Mawr. She didn't get the job, but was hired as dean and an English professor in 1884. After 10 years at Bryn Mawr College, she was elected its president in 1894. Thomas (she preferred to go by M. Carey or Carey) was born in 1857 in Baltimore. She grew up with a strong determination to attain a higher education, despite her father's wishes otherwise. She was educated at Cornell and Johns Hopkins Universities.

I was invited to deliver several 9/11 10th anniversary speeches in the last two weeks. I accepted them all. Two stand out. One week ago today, I spoke to nearly 3,000 students in two local suburban high schools. In the morning, I spoke to the entire student body of Central Bucks East in Buckingham, and in the afternoon, it was the entire student body of Central Bucks West in Doylestown. The speeches came just after I'd completed a full week of guest-hosting for Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball , and yet I found it more intimidating to speak to local high schoolers than go live on a national cable channel.

Why is it that some people think that all African American males are good at sports; all Asian Americans are math geniuses; all Italian Americans eat nothing but spaghetti; and blond women are less intelligent than their brunette sisters? Paulsboro High School students asked their peers these questions and more at a workshop organized by a group called Students United in Respect and Equality. Through workshops, videotapes, and lectures, the 60 Paulsboro students involved in SURE are working to motivate themselves and others to look beyond such stereotypes.

Kelly Anderson said she's proud of herself, even if others are not. At 17, Kelly is a graduating senior at Girls High School, an honor student, president of the student body, and in the top 10 percent of her class. She's also pregnant and unmarried. Kelly isn't ashamed of it, but thinks the school is. Earlier this week, Kelly and four other pregnant seniors were told by the dean of students, Nancy Tregnan, that they would not be allowed to march in with their classmates at their graduation June 18. Traditionally, the president of the student body leads the robed class of seniors into the graduation ceremony, held at the Academy of Music.

How does a team judge success? We chronicle the teams, with the ones that earn championships most prominently mentioned, and rightly so. Achieving any title, whether it's conference, South Jersey, or state, takes talent, toughness, and sometimes a little luck and plenty of cohesion. Yet we often forget that while only a select few win titles, the rest are putting in heavy hours in attempting to be competitive. Which brings us to the Cherry Hill West boys' basketball team.

In the spring, St. Joseph's University began building a residence hall for freshmen; when it opens next fall, there will be more spots in existing dorms for upperclassmen who want to live closer to campus. On the Main Line, Villanova University and Haverford College also are working on dorm projects to accommodate ever-changing student needs. It's not just a local phenomenon. Loren Rullman of the Society for College and University Planning said similar projects were under way around the country.

As Jim Lehrer told the nation that the first presidential debate's live audience would refrain from cheering, booing, and hissing, a theater full of college students in a critical swing county erupted in laughter - and hisses. Hundreds of miles from the debate at the University of Denver, more than 200 students gathered at West Chester University's Sykes Student Union on Wednesday night to watch it on a giant screen, discuss their postdebate thoughts, and participate in a "Debate Watch" officially recognized by the Commission on Presidential Debates.