COLLEGE SHORTS

Author: Ben Salkowe

Harvard denies admission to Web site hackers

For 119 applicants to Harvard Business School, it was a harsh lesson in ethical behavior - the school announced March 7 that it would reject the students who had hacked into the admissions' Web site a week earlier to get an early glimpse of their admissions status. In a post on the BusinessWeek Online message board, a computer hacker shared instructions to prematurely access admissions decisions at several business schools. The schools included MIT's Sloan School of Management and Duke's Fuqua School of Business. All of the schools' admissions data was managed on sites run by ApplyYourself, Inc., and had a security loophole which allowed access but recorded the students whose records were accessed.

"Our mission is to educate principled leaders who make a difference in the world," said Kim B. Clark, dean of Harvard Business School in a statement. ''To achieve that, a person must have many skills and qualities, including the highest standards of integrity, sound judgment and a strong moral compass - an intuitive sense of what is right and wrong. Those who have hacked into this Web site have failed to pass that test."

Other schools involved have questioned whether such severe penalties should be enforced, because the security records can only indicate which records were accessed, and not who accessed them. Nonetheless, following Harvard's decision, MIT, Duke and other schools involved also rejected students on similar grounds.

-The Boston Globe



NYU heightens balcony control after suicides

Responding to the deaths of five New York University (NYU) students who committed suicide over a thirteen-month period of time, the College announced that it would begin limiting access to balconies in two of its dormitories, which collectively house over 1,000 students.

"There is research which indicates that restricting the means to taking one's life, such as restricting access to roofs and balconies, reduces suicide rates," said John Beckman, a NYU spokesman. "Experts we consulted encouraged us to take this action, and we have followed their advice."

NYU has already expanded its counseling for students and installed plexiglass panels around an atrium in their library, where multiple students had jumped to their deaths. The balconies in other dorms at the campus have already been blocked due to issues with student noise - the College plans to block access to the balconies in the two additional dorms by preventing the doors from opening more than a few inches.

The Washington Square News, a student newspaper, criticized the decision in an editorial saying, "This policy in the name of suicide prevention seems more like a face-saving way for NYU to ensure that students don't end their lives on NYU's campus, rather than a way to reach out to suicidal students and offer them help and guidance."

-The New York Times