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As the parent or relative of a college student we wanted to make sure you know about College Day, a new holiday for College Students. College Day will be celebrated on March 5th, 2007 at colleges across the United States. Like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, every family will celebrate this holiday in it’s own way, although many families are planning on sending a care package or present to their son or daughter in college. The College Day Team would encourage you to create your own care package as personalized gifts are the best and we have some great suggestions of what to include in a care package. Or you can check out our store and order one of these awesome care packages for your relative at college.

College can be a difficult time for many students, as they are away from home for the first time. And although a college student might never ask for a care package, getting one from home is certain to brighten their week and make this holiday a great day for college students.

The College Day Team will also be placing a special focus on a philanthropic cause each year, and this year it is depression and mental illness in the college community. Please visit this page to learn more about this issue and what you can do to help.

Please e-mail us at contact@collegeday.org if you have any questions about this holiday.

Cheers,
The College Day Team

10 University’s in Kansas have gone dry and moved away from the traditional drunken antics made popular through movies like Animal House.

Kansas State Collegian:

According to a Jan. 9, 2005, New York Times article, “Ban of Brothers,” at least 30 colleges nationwide have banned alcohol in fraternity houses.

These national changes are being brought about by a continuum of issues. Alcohol-related deaths and injuries have plagued fraternities in recent years - a disaster K-State’s fraternities have avoided. Other factors include rising insurance costs, social responsibility and an increasing outreach to the non-drinking college crowd.

But  not everybody is adopting the dry policy.

Article continued:

Despite the potential benefits of being a dry house, not everyone is lining up to adopt dry policies, and much of the counter-argument stems from the rights of older members to drink if they so choose.

Although many think a nation of dry fraternities is only a few years away, Pete Smithhisler, vice president for media and community relations for the North-American Interfraternity Conference, said the future is not certain.

Click here for the full article.

A fairly recent trend in a lot of the college community is the internet poker fad through sites like Party Poker.  But this trend is likely to stop.  Saturday, Republican’s passed a bill making it impossible for American’s to play poker online.

Columbia Daily Spectator:

Under the proposed law, which was unexpectedly pushed through the Senate by Majority Leader Bill Frist, it is illegal for credit card companies or banks to transact with online casinos and certain gambling sites, effectively shutting them off from U.S. residents. Bets on horse racing, fantasy sports, and state lotteries will be exempt.

Many students in the college and university system have been paying their way through school by utilizing these sites.  In the future, they will be forced to find extra sources of income elsewhere.

To view the full article, click here.

The Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings recently announced future plans to re-work the financial aid system.

Uwire with the story:

Spellings described five “actions” under her plan, including the creation of a “higher education information system” and the expansion of President Bush’s controversial No Child Left Behind program.

The information system would use privacy-protected, student-level data to improve the Department of Education’s ranking and searching systems.

These changes, according to Spellings, would provide more resources to help students research higher education and would allow for higher education to be judged on performance, not reputation. The data, however, would have to be provided by the colleges and universities themselves…

Another facet of Spellings’ plan involved improving the affordability of college through streamlining the financial aid process, and reducing the turnaround time for students to discover their financial-aid eligibility.

“We must increase need-based aid,” she said. “I look forward to teaming up with Congress again to improve the financial aid process and to help the students who need it the most.”

Spellings plan, however, has not gone without criticism.  Some Democrats are arguing that the system is squandering money and not serving the student’s best interests.  For the full article, click here.

Building a resume can be a real pain.  You have to deal with formatting the resume, writing the resume, getting the resume out, and then keeping it up to date.  A new online service called Emurse does it all.

Solution Watch with more:

Emurse offers a free service where anyone can signup and create a resume using their online resume builder and share it on the web. Users have the option to create or upload multiple resumes and obtain a permanent address for each (resume.emurse.com) where they can send people to view, download, and print their resume. Resume pages allow viewers to download in six different formats (DOC, PDF, RTF, ODT, HTML, TXT) and and at the same time track the amount of views, downloads, and prints of the resume for the owner to monitor.

For more information or to start an account, click here.

A new online service called studicious allows students to take notes, organize schedules, keep track of grades, and share notes online with other studicious users.

Solution Watch with more:

Claimed to be a social notetaking service, Stu.dicio.us allows students to publicly save organized notes, manage a class schedule, and keep up to date with tasks using a time sensitive to do list…

As of now, students can organize themselves using a class schedule tool, note manager, and a to do list in an Ajax based interface with barely any clutter to be found. Students can also search other member notes, making Stu.dicio.us a social notetaking service. But what has me excited for the service are the features to come September 1st. Stu.dicio.us says to expect a grade manager to record test and quiz grades, a 1gb file manager to save documents and school related material, and Wikipedia integration for class notes.

If you want an easy means of keeping track of all school related information, you want to cut back on paper waste, or if you want access to other people’s notes, you might want to check this out.  For more information, visit stu.dicio.us.

Boston is home to a large amount of schools that include Harvard, UMass, Emerson, amongst others.  So when the students go back to school, they’re not only taking over campus, they’re taking over the entire city.

The Onion with the story:

The now-monthlong invasion carried out by more than 200,000 college students who bombarded this normally quiet, historic city has forced native Bostonians to relinquish their rights as citizens and settle into a new life under occupation…

With their concentration in liberal-arts colleges spreading from a centralized location to the outlying suburban areas, the students have made certain that they will maintain a constant presence in all parts of the city.

Some complain that these students presence is overwhelming and burdensome, but when it comes right down to it, they better starting getting used to a large student population, because student numbers are on the rise.

Collegehumor has posted a vid of one of the most ridiculous lectures/lecturers I’ve ever seen. A must see. Click here.

This is absolutely hilarious.  If you like Borat, you’ll like this.

Click here.