Exam Week at Virginia Tech; UNC Students Protest Bloomberg

Today in academia: exams tomorrow at Virginia Tech, gun activists at Plymouth State, UNC students protest Bloomberg, more students are applying earlier, and an irresistible list.

Today in academia: exams tomorrow at Virginia Tech, gun activists at Plymouth State, UNC students protest Bloomberg, more students are applying earlier, and an irresistible list.

• Virginia Tech will be holding exams tomorrow. After yesterday's campus shooting and vigil last night, it's the last thing that students and faculty are presumably thinking about. But even though the school postponed its exams for Friday, a school official told the Associated Press that they'll be shifted to Saturday. The schools student newspaper, The Collegiate Times, reported that students and faculty were both compromising on scheduling and that "[a]ll exams from Monday forward are at their normal times." [Associated Press, Collegiate Times]

• Gun activists show up at Plymouth State University.  As a way to protest the New Hampshire school's sensible ban on weapons on campus, two non-students were going to show up with guns on campus, WMUR 9 news reports. The duo, a former police officer and former service member, ventured onto campus and talked to reporters, though they did not "openly carry rifles" as they previously announced they would do, the Concord Monitor notes. Prior to the planned protest, the school's president had said that students didn't have to show up for class on Friday, because "a court order obtained by the university Thursday might not prevent two activists who plan to protest on campus from showing up," the AP reported. Correction: this post has been updated after the Concord Monitor informs that an activist's name was misstated and that they declined to state if they carried concealed guns. [WMUR 9, Concord Monitor, Associated Press]

• UNC students don't want Mayor Bloomberg to headline their graduation. It's unclear how much a 300-person strong University of North Carolina student petition to uninvite New York's mayor as their commencement speaker will have on Bloomberg's decision.  In an interview, Bloomberg just dismissed the protest, which was apparently spurred by solidarity with Zuccotti Park Occupiers who were evicted. "I don't know what their issues are. I was honored to be invited by one of the great schools in this country and if they want me I will be happy to do it," the mayor said. "If they don't want me, I'll still say nothing but good things about it." The schools student newspaper, The Daily Tarheel, noted that the student who started the petition didn't think it was likely that Bloomberg's invite would be rescinded. [NY1, NBC New York]

• More students applying earlier because colleges are encouraging them to.  And maybe it all has to do with the early application vortex that Harvard and Yale started when they reintroduced early admission decisions? The New York Times Choice blog doesn't say, but does anecdotally find a few trends from interviewing college counselors. Especially that "students’ early application filings have been largely motivated by some universities’ aggressive encouragement that they act ahead of general deadlines." [The New York Times]

• We clicked on this new 'Top Ten Most Hipster Colleges' listicle.  It's hard to resist a college ranking list. And even though this includes no colleges that have shown up on popular hipster-listicles past, College Magazine chooses to go predictably New York-heavy with their choices (NYU is #1). There is at least one curve-ball on there that we're perplexed by: Georgetown?  Well, maybe it's because one data-point for the list was "how many awards their college radio stations have earned." Which opens up whole other set of questions about definitions. [College Magazine]