Cut and paste
UCA President Allen Meadors recently sent an email to all faculty members instructing them on how to deal with the H1N1 flu, which has struck UCA along with other campuses. Ticky faculty members, who are tough on their students who cut and paste from standard sources for assigned papers, did a little research and discovered that the letter was almost identical to a letter posted by Washington State University on the same subject.
A citation, of sorts, appeared at the bottom of the email. “Illustrating the commonality of university responses to H1N1 throughout the United States, this message has drawn upon other similar messages, especially the August 27 message of Washington State University’s president and provost to its faculty.”
Jeff Pitchford, vice president of university and government relations at UCA, said he would not consider borrowing from the WSU email plagiarism.
“It was distributed to a university faculty list-serve email, just to tell faculty members what to do, how to handle it, where to go if they want more information, what the symptoms are, that type of thing,” Pitchford says. “I think it’s something that’s going around universities around the country. While we may have different missions and be in different areas we all have the same goal when it comes to taking care of students.”
Sex and religion
A study released last week said states with more conservative religious beliefs tend to have higher teen birth rates. Researchers speculated that this could be because conservative religions frown on contraception. The study claims no cause and effect, however. But, in birth rates and rankings on a Pew survey of religiousness, Mississippi finished No. 1 in both categories. Arkansas was fourth in teen births and seventh in religious fervor. The study was by Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh. It was to be published in Reproductive Health.
Tacos all the time
Little Rock’s eating scene has been improved immeasurably by an influx of foreign immigrants, particularly Latino. But the bigger immigrant population in Northwest Arkansas has often put it ahead of Central Arkansas in worthy developments. For example:
The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board last week approved a beer permit for Taqueria Los Primos in Springdale. Little Rock has many taquerias, but none like Los Primos, which its attorney described as “a Waffle House for the Latino community.” Los Primos will be open 24 hours a day, serving 30 in a former gas station. It will sell beer at all permitted hours.
Twenty-four-hour tacos? And migas? And egg-and-potato burritos? And chilaquiles? Just the thing after a late night of carousing. This is an idea worth copying.