Binge drinking among college students is lower in states with stricter alcohol laws, according to a new study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. The study found that states with at least four or more laws discouraging heavy alcohol consumption had a lower rate of binge drinking among college students. Toben Nelson, assistant director of program evaluations for the College Alcohol Study at the Harvard School of Public Health, said that out of 40 states involved in… Read more

On Feb. 16, the Los Angeles Police Commission ruled unanimously 5-0 to tighten the guidelines on police officers shooting at moving vehicles. The decision came soon after LAPD police officers shot and killed a 13 year old who was driving a stolen car on Feb. 6. Under the new guidelines, police officers are prevented from firing at moving cars unless they consider their lives, or those of bystanders, to be in danger. The commission also recommends that police be trained… Read more

After spending more than 30 years as a professor in the Leisure Studies and Recreation Department, retired CSUN professor Isabelle Walker recently donated her Antelope Valley property to CSUN as an endowment to support the study of nonprofit management. According to Walker, the property has increased in value since she purchased it in 1974. The 2.5-acre property in the northern Lancaster area has an estimated value of $50,000. “I hope that it will benefit CSUN in any way possible,” said… Read more

After many years of hard work, CSUN student Omar Ramirez, senior film major, will finally get his 10 minutes of fame. Ramirez, who wrote a movie script for a senior film project, was chosen out of many candidates to produce his 10-minute film and present it, along with other student films, at the annual student film showcase held in the Alan and Elaine Armer Theater on campus. “Only four or five (films) are chosen, and mine was one of them,”… Read more

As part of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, from Feb. 27 to March 4, the Joint Advocates on Disordered Eating (JADE) put up a series of mirror displays along the pathway in the Sierra Quad as a way to reach out and educate people about eating disorders. “‘Get Real’ is the theme for the week,” said Annette Dietel, senior psychology major and a JADE member. Dietel said the displays were intended to help people get real with themselves. Vivian Orcasitas,… Read more

The Physical Plant Management Department at CSUN is taking steps to tighten campus security for buildings and keep locked buildings limited to authorized personnel only. PPM is looking to implement new locking devices, which would require both a keycard and password to unlock, said Tom Brown, PPM director. The system would also feature technology that keeps a record of the cards’ usage history, which would be uploaded into a computer system with each swipe to monitor building access activity. Certain… Read more

The days of creating cheat sheets, writing answers on the palm of the hand and whispering answers to a friend during a test have given way to a much more advanced form of cheating. High-tech cheating is a topic of concern at many university campuses nationwide. When one thinks about high-tech cheating, cell phones, camera phones, text messages, and PDAs come to mind, but thanks to the Internet, another form of high-tech cheating has concerned to many professors. The Internet… Read more

A Christian group not associated with CSUN, called Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, held a rally in front of Oviatt Library Wednesday, sparking a debate. The organization displayed cardboard posters with pictures of aborted fetuses. CSUN administrators were not aware of the group’s plan to come on campus. The group stayed on the Sierra Quad from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. “We’re a public institution, and organizations have the right to reach our students through freedom of speech,” said Tom… Read more

The Carnegie Corporation of New York has chosen CSUN, among other schools, to help create a program to prepare future K-12 teachers, and will be providing $5 million over the next five years to do it. The grant is part of an initiative from the Carnegie Corporation called Teachers for a New Era, a program aimed to develop a model teacher preparation program that might be adopted by other institutions. “We want to change teacher education, (and) improve it in… Read more