**More information released about police station shooting**

The Daily Press reported that the woman fatally shot in the parking lot of the Williamsburg police station was identified as 57-year-old Terry S. Frazier. Police investigators believe the death was a suicide. Beside Frazier’s body the police found a .38 caliber handgun and a note that said she came to the station because she believed the police would know how to handle the situation. The note directed investigators to her room at the Williamsburg Lodge. Frazier had moved into the room at the lodge in December.

p. **College alum pleads guilty in Abramoff corruption case**

p. The Washington Post reported that William Heaton, 28, a graduate of the College and previous chief of staff to Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio) pleaded guilty to corruption charges. He also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. The charges included accepting gifts, gambling chips and multiple trips, including an expense-paid junket to Scotland with his boss from former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He admitted to conspiring with Ney to accept bribes in exchange for actions that would have benefited Abramoff’s clients.

p. Heaton told the court that Ney kept some $5,000 in British pounds that he had received from Abramoff in a safe in his congressional office. Heaton is the ninth person to be convicted in the Abramoff investigation.

**48 percent**
The increase in the number of motor vehicles registered in Virginia during the decade between 1995 and 2005, according to the Daily Press. At the same time, the proportion of Virginians with a driver’s license fell slightly.

p. **66 percent**
The proportion of international relations professors in the U.S. and Canada who think East Asia will be the most strategically important region in 20 years, according to a survey conducted by professors at the College. Most IR professors say the Middle East is currently the most important region.

p. **150 percent**
The increase in office workers’ typing output when a building’s temperature is turned up from 68 to 77 degrees, according to a Cornell University study. The study also found that typing errors fell by 44 percent in the warmer setting.

p. **60 percent**
The proportion of evenly matched sports competitions won by the competitor wearing red, according to a study done at the University of Durham. The researchers believe that the color may subconsciously intimidate opponents.

p. **8 to 10 mpg**
Gas mileage estimate for the GM Hummer most commonly given by dealers, according to a 2003 CBS report. GM estimates are two mpg higher.

Students who download music online from questionably legal sources should proceed with caution. This year, the Recording Industries Association of America (RIAA) has redoubled its nationwide efforts targeting illegal file sharing on university campuses, issuing hefty fines as out-of-court settlement options.

p. The RIAA says it has sent three times as many complaints to universities over the sharing of copyrighted material this year than in the previous school year.

p. “They are sending out a lot more notices now,” Matt Keel, Information Technology’s security engineer, who handles the RIAA’s complaints at the College, said.

p. The College has received over 200 complaints so far this year from the RIAA and other groups, like the Motion Pictures Association of America. The RIAA also sent out 400 pre-litigation notices to 13 schools last week, but none so far to the College.

p. These letters give students an opportunity to settle for a discounted rate, estimated at $3,000, before being taken to court.
Different from the pre-litigation notices, the complaints the College has been receiving simply alert it to the presence of copyrighted material shared on its network and ask the College to take action.

p. “We’re not required under the law to affirmatively go out and police people’s hard drives,” Dave Gilbert, who handles the file-sharing cases in the Dean of Students office, said.

p. Because it is difficult to differentiate between legal and illegal file sharing, IT only blocks peer-to-peer services on the wireless network in an attempt to preserve wireless bandwidth for other purposes. On the wired network, file sharing is allowed, but restricted to a set bandwidth limit.

p. “We are obligated [to take action] once we become aware of the illegal file sharing,” Gilbert said.

p. Under federal law, the College is only liable for any files shared illegally on its network if it does not act to remove them once aware of their presence.

p. While some colleges treat illegal file sharing as a very serious violation, at the College, the odds are that it will result in little to no disciplinary action.

p. “We expect the student can learn from it, can change the behavior and can move forward without long term consequences,” Gilbert said.

p. For a first time offender, this will amount to little more than a slap on the wrist and brief loss of network services while the student’s internet access is limited to a single website explaining the problem.

p. “Your computer was reported to be illegally sharing copyrighted materials. We received an e-mail from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and under federal law, are required to address this issue,” a mock-up of the website IT provides to offenders reads.

p. The student must affirm that all copyrighted materials have been deleted by typing his student ID and password in an online form. Internet use is then restored.

p. “The vast majority of students comply with that and we don’t have a second violation,” Gilbert said.

p. While second-time violators have received a warning—the lightest disciplinary measure — these instances are handled on a case-by-case basis because of their rarity.

p. Before last week — when there were eight second-time violations — there had been only one such case this year. In order to make sure these students fully understand the technical aspects of the situation, they are often referred to the IT department.

p. “One place where students get caught by surprise is where students have their file sharing options open,” he said.

p. Recently, the dean’s office saw a second-offense student who continued to share and upload files in a peer-to-peer file-sharing program. By uploading files, the student again made his IP address an RIAA target.

p. “You have to be aware that generally when you’re downloading you’re also uploading,” said Keel. “If you’re sharing, you’re not anonymous. They can track it back.”

p. There has never been a third offense, but Gilbert imagined he would “respond more assertively.”

p. “Usually the next level from a warning is probation. In an extreme case, sanctions higher than that could be warranted,” Gilbert said.

p. Most students at the College probably do not have to worry about extreme cases. Gilbert described an “extreme case” as significant piracy going above and beyond the average user’s downloading the odd song.

Microsoft Windows recently released a new operating system, Windows Vista, which boasts features to increase safety and efficiency in Windows programs.

p. The operating system, released earlier this year, comes with a new version of Microsoft Office called Office 2007, according to Microsoft.com.

p. The operating system is incompatible with some earlier Windows applications, causing complications during the switch from older editions of Microsoft to the Vista operating system.

p. Chris Ward, director of the technology support center at the College, said that as of now “we are not recommending students or faculty [and] staff upgrade their current computers to Vista.”

p. However, a new myNotebook model will be released between May and June of this year, and the model will come with the Vista operating system, according to Ward.

p. According to the College IT website, Vista is expected to be available in public computer labs for the 2007-2008 academic year.

p. Incoming freshmen in the class of 2011 will have the option of purchasing laptop notebooks with the Windows Vista operating system.

p. “We are currently testing applications to identify any compatibility issues so we can fix them before deployment,” Ward said.

p. Ward, however, said that IT does not “anticipate any major problems” upon the debut of Vista on campus.

Three College professors and one 2006 graduate recently published the results of their 2007 “The View from the Ivory Tower” survey on international relations faculty in the United States and Canada.

p. The survey was conducted by Professor of government and Dean for educational policy, arts and sciences Sue Peterson, Assistant Professors of government Michael Tierney and Amy Oaks and Daniel Maliniak, ’06.

p. The conductors of the survey were particularly interested in whether the teaching and research efforts of faculty members are responsive to changes in the real world, and whether research and instruction in international relations have any influence on world policy. The survey consists of 83 questions on four topics: teaching, research, the international relations discipline and foreign policy views.

p. The idea for conducting the survey originated in 2004 when a College student approached Tierney. The student wanted to know why international relations teachers talked so much in class about realism when they are committed in their own research to liberalism. Liberalism is the importance of institutions in international politics, while realism focuses on state power and national interests.

p. “We thought it might be interesting to find out if international relations faculty around the country really do teach what they preach — that is, whether their research and teaching are tightly connected,” Peterson said.

p. Peterson was surprised by the negative correlation between teaching and research practices in the field. Sixty-two percent of U.S. faculty identify the Middle East as the region of greatest strategic importance today, but only 7 percent conduct any significant research in that region. Similarly, 66 percent of U.S. faculty said that East Asia will be the most important region in 20 years, yet only 8 percent focus their research on this region.

p. The goal was to survey all faculty members at four-year colleges and universities in the United States and Canada who teach and conduct research in international relations. Of the 2,838 American and 275 Canadian faculty members asked to participate, 1,112 Americans and 110 Canadians responded to the survey. The goal for 2008 is to expand the survey to include the opinions of European, East Asian and eventually Latin American foreign policy experts.

p. “We hope to provide important information to scholars of international relations about their own discipline, about the influence of teaching on the foreign policy views of students and future policy makers, and about the relationship between the academy and the policy world,” Peterson said.

p. She said that the first survey in 2004 made her think more deeply about the goals and methods of her own teaching.

The University of Virginia is the target of criticism by some of its gay staff members over its policy restricting access to the university recreational centers, according to a report in Charlottesville’s Daily Progress.

p. The newspaper published an article Feb. 25 focusing on U.Va.’s position, which is atypical of many of Virginia’s public institutions. While U.Va. allows the heterosexual spouses of professors and staff to purchase memberships for the recreational centers on campus, it does not allow the partners of gays to receive the same benefit.

p. According to Carol Wood, a U.Va. spokeswoman, the university’s policy is based on an opinion the school received from the office of former Attorney General Jerry Kilgore. “[U.Va.] is clearly compliant with state law. I cannot speak for other institutions,” Wood said in the Daily Progress.

p. Gay and lesbian staff members have reportedly met with Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-25), whose district represents Charlottesville, on the issue. Deeds, a Democrat who narrowly lost in his 2005 campaign for attorney general, is sympathetic to their concerns.

p. “I don’t see what the problem is with a gym membership,” Deeds said. “Under the current law, something like health care for same-sex partners at a public institution would be a problem, but going to the gym?”

p. The decision to restrict access is not reflected in the policies of several other public state schools, including Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University, Old Dominion University and the College.

p. According to Director of Recreational Sports Linda Knight, the College’s general statement of rights allows partners to receive gym benefits.

p. “The William and Mary Statement of Rights and Responsibilities protects students, faculty and staff from discrimination based on sexual orientation. If a homosexual faculty or staff [member] comes and asks about a membership for their partner, we extend the same offer to them as we do spouses of faculty and staff,” Knight said.

Last month, the College announced it had received a $300,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to pursue faculty-undergraduate combined research initiatives.

p. Under the supervision of faculty members, approximately 20 advanced undergraduates will coordinate individual and/or group research projects in sophomore- and junior-level courses. According to the Roy R. Charles Center, there are two primary goals of the program: to enrich the learning experience of students lacking research opportunities and to provide top-tier students with a “sheltered” opportunity to experience a teaching role.

p. The initiative aims to strengthen research opportunities during students’ sophomore and junior years, years that, according to the Charles Center, “have become the weak link in the College’s commitment to active learning and undergraduate research.”

p. The College first received funding from the foundation last year, when Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Carl Strikwerda secured a grant from the foundation.

p. “The Mellon Fellows program has allowed experienced undergraduates to help faculty mentors bring their research into their teaching in exciting new ways,” Strikwerda said.

p. Faculty in 15 departments, including those in the sciences, social sciences and humanities have benefited from the funds.
Timothy Barnard, professor of English and American studies, received a grant to chronicle early twentieth century Williamsburg culture.

p. Working with two undergraduate fellows, he is heading a one-credit class that interviews local Williamsburg residents about movie-going during the first half of the 20th-century. Barnard also hopes to expand the Williamsburg Theatre Project, an online database that aims to record every film that screened in Williamsburg.

p. “The course and the research opportunity it creates for students … contributes to the efforts of the American studies program to offer to the community [its] researching techniques and expertise that can help promote a better understanding of our community’s rich 20th century history (which for too long has been overshadowed by the fame of our town’s colonial history),” Barnard wrote in an e-mail to the Flat Hat.

p. Junior Kristen Boos is working with Barnard on the project. She said that the program allows students to step outside the library and gain new, first-hand research opportunities.

p. “This program gives students an opportunity to experience first-hand historical research and documentation,” Boos said. “It extends historical research out from Swem Library and into the Williamsburg community. Instead of just learning how to work a microfilm reader, they will be gaining skills in talking to people, asking the right questions and thinking analytically about what they hear.”

**41 percent**
The percentage of Americans who believe in extra sensory perception, or ESP, according to a June 2005 Gallup poll of 1,002 adults. The proportion is down from 50 percent in 2001.

p. **11 percent **
The proportion of college textbooks purchased online, according to a 2006 survey by the Follett Higher Education Group, which runs more than 750 college stores. 19 percent of students surveyed said they had bought at least one book online that year.

p. **$42.3 million **
The estimated cost of both the Integrated Science Center currently under construction and the renovation of Rogers Hall. The project is scheduled to be completed by Jan. 2008.

p. **400**
The number of U.S. colleges at which Aramark provides dining services, according to the company. Aramark runs the dining halls on campus.

p. **$582,900**
The preliminary Student Assembly budget for the next fiscal year, amounting to slightly over $100 per undergraduate student.