Berlin protestGerman university students are notoriously quick to protest when education funds are threatened, but the news that Berlin%s city government plans to cut university budgets by _75 million by 2009 sparked some unusual and creative forms of protest.
In Berlin’s busy Friedrichstrasse train station, a group of about 40 people participated in a university lecture on Japanese translation. Holding a lecture in a train station was aimed at drawing public attention and media coverage to the students’ cause. Students from Berlin’s three universities have been on strike for a week and student leaders say they’re prepared to extend the strike. Among some of the more unusual stunts was the storming of Berlin’s city hall earlier in the week. Students occupied the building for two hours until they were threatened with arrest. In a more creative vein, a small group of students pitched their tents outside the Scandinavian embassies, claiming educational asylum. And in a tent in front of the high-rise office towers at Potsdamer Platz, university students and professors held a 72-hour physics lecture open to anyone who cared to listen. ,,When I lectured on laser optics at 3 a.m., all seats were taken with dozens of students listening from outside even though it was freezing,” said Professor Paul Fumagalli of Berlin’s Free University. The lecture was held both to protest budget cuts and to beat the world record of 51 hours 44 minutes for the longest round-the-clock lecture, which was set earlier this year by 24-year old American Dustin Buehler.
New turf
The TU Sports Centre has just laid its third artificial turf field. The TU Executive Boards’s Paul Rullman will officially open the field on Tuesday, December 16. After the opening, a friendly field hockey game will be played between two hockey clubs, Virgiel’s Dopie and the Corp’s Dshc. The teams will be mixed, with equal numbers of men and women. The game will be followed by drinks in the Sports Centre. The interior of the Sports Centre is scheduled to be renovated in 2004, following the recent decision not to build a new sports complex
No smokers
On January 1, 2004, the TU’s new no smoking policy takes effect: All TU students and staff have the right to a smoke-free environment. However, the Executive Board doesn’t want smokers standing outside buildings puffing on their cigarettes, so special smoking rooms will be designated. ,,The smoking ban is a legal requirement that must be adopted,” says Johan Hendriks, director of Human Resource Management. ,,We’re currently looking for a solution for smokers. We don%t want them to have to smoke outside on the stairs.” Hendriks says special rooms for smoking are the best option and TU building managers have until January 2005 to designate certain rooms for smoking. The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering has been smoke-free for the past two years. The faculty does use smoking rooms, however. ,,The management decided that everyone has their own methods for getting rid of stress and relaxing. For some people it’s drinking coffee or exercising, for others it’s smoking,” says Human Resource manager Rolf Oosterloo. ,,We therefore made provisions inside the building. We didn’t want to give smokers a negative image. You’re not a lesser employee if you smoke a cigarette now and then.”
Prime hero
Michael Shafer, a PhD student at Michigan State University, has achieved mathematics fame. He’s the new world record holder for prime numbers. Shafer found 6,320,430 numbers, or two million more than the previous record. The count begins with 125976 and ends with 682047. Schafer’s achievement was more luck than mathematics, though. He’s a participant in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (Gimps), a club with 60,000 members whose 200,000 computers are connected to each other in order to search for prime numbers. That the number appeared in Shafer’s computer was pure luck.
Berlin protest
German university students are notoriously quick to protest when education funds are threatened, but the news that Berlin%s city government plans to cut university budgets by _75 million by 2009 sparked some unusual and creative forms of protest. In Berlin’s busy Friedrichstrasse train station, a group of about 40 people participated in a university lecture on Japanese translation. Holding a lecture in a train station was aimed at drawing public attention and media coverage to the students’ cause. Students from Berlin’s three universities have been on strike for a week and student leaders say they’re prepared to extend the strike. Among some of the more unusual stunts was the storming of Berlin’s city hall earlier in the week. Students occupied the building for two hours until they were threatened with arrest. In a more creative vein, a small group of students pitched their tents outside the Scandinavian embassies, claiming educational asylum. And in a tent in front of the high-rise office towers at Potsdamer Platz, university students and professors held a 72-hour physics lecture open to anyone who cared to listen. ,,When I lectured on laser optics at 3 a.m., all seats were taken with dozens of students listening from outside even though it was freezing,” said Professor Paul Fumagalli of Berlin’s Free University. The lecture was held both to protest budget cuts and to beat the world record of 51 hours 44 minutes for the longest round-the-clock lecture, which was set earlier this year by 24-year old American Dustin Buehler.
New turf
The TU Sports Centre has just laid its third artificial turf field. The TU Executive Boards’s Paul Rullman will officially open the field on Tuesday, December 16. After the opening, a friendly field hockey game will be played between two hockey clubs, Virgiel’s Dopie and the Corp’s Dshc. The teams will be mixed, with equal numbers of men and women. The game will be followed by drinks in the Sports Centre. The interior of the Sports Centre is scheduled to be renovated in 2004, following the recent decision not to build a new sports complex
No smokers
On January 1, 2004, the TU’s new no smoking policy takes effect: All TU students and staff have the right to a smoke-free environment. However, the Executive Board doesn’t want smokers standing outside buildings puffing on their cigarettes, so special smoking rooms will be designated. ,,The smoking ban is a legal requirement that must be adopted,” says Johan Hendriks, director of Human Resource Management. ,,We’re currently looking for a solution for smokers. We don%t want them to have to smoke outside on the stairs.” Hendriks says special rooms for smoking are the best option and TU building managers have until January 2005 to designate certain rooms for smoking. The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering has been smoke-free for the past two years. The faculty does use smoking rooms, however. ,,The management decided that everyone has their own methods for getting rid of stress and relaxing. For some people it’s drinking coffee or exercising, for others it’s smoking,” says Human Resource manager Rolf Oosterloo. ,,We therefore made provisions inside the building. We didn’t want to give smokers a negative image. You’re not a lesser employee if you smoke a cigarette now and then.”
Prime hero
Michael Shafer, a PhD student at Michigan State University, has achieved mathematics fame. He’s the new world record holder for prime numbers. Shafer found 6,320,430 numbers, or two million more than the previous record. The count begins with 125976 and ends with 682047. Schafer’s achievement was more luck than mathematics, though. He’s a participant in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (Gimps), a club with 60,000 members whose 200,000 computers are connected to each other in order to search for prime numbers. That the number appeared in Shafer’s computer was pure luck.
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