Drew University’s first Wallerstein Distinguished Visiting Professor, Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, has recently found himself in the middle of an international controversy. The sociologist and human-rights activist has been under scrutiny after he made a statement last Sunday urging Gamal Mubarak, the current Egyptian president’s son, to run in next year’s November 2011 presidential election.
Over 40 of Drew’s undergraduate students are currently declared Behavioral Science majors. After this year’s mid-semester faculty meeting, these 40 students may be asked to take their path of study in a different direction.
In keeping with Drew University’s policies about its oldest residents, several trees were cut down before the beginning of the semester. According to an e-mail from Facilities on Wednesday morning, a few more will be cut down in the coming days. Among the trees cut down this summer was the much-loved tree in the Brothers College courtyard.
The scramble to buy textbooks is a fixture of the first few weeks of school, but starting this fall, students have a new option available: to rent them instead. The Drew University Bookstore has debuted “Rent-A-Text,” a new service that allows students to rent books for the semester and return them by the end without the hassle of reselling them or lugging them home.
Several publications recently announced their ratings of institutions of higher education, and Drew University had mixed results. According to US News & World Report, Drew came in 79—a drop of 11 spots from last year. In other publications, Drew received higher ratings. According to Forbes, Drew dropped from 70 last year to 91 this year out of 610 universities, while The Princeton Review has ranked Drew’s theater program number one.
President Bob Weisbuch introduced Wednesday’s Common Hour guest, Steven Berlin Johnson, author of “The Ghost Map.” The book is this year’s required reading for the freshman class of 2014. Johnson began by talking about the beginning of “The Ghost Map” and how it was different from his other books. He said that, of his books, “[It’s] the first book that had sustained a narrative all the way through.”
During the week before the semester started, Pub Manager Rico Astacio (’11) paid a visit to The Pub and found some of the ceiling on the floor. “I came in here to get ready for the year and noticed the tiles were falling in,” Astacio said. One tile was broken in half, part of it on the floor and the other part hanging from precariously from the ceiling. Several more had severe water damage.
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