A student at the University of California, Los Angeles was critically injured last Thursday after a fellow student stabbed her five times and slashed her neck in an organic chemistry lab between classes.
Twenty-year old Damon Thompson, a senior at UCLA, was arrested shortly after the incident and charged yesterday with premeditated attempted murder, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Members of the UCLA community had reported to the university's administration that Thompson was exhibiting erratic behavior in the months leading up to the incident, but at press time, the Los Angeles Police Department had not found an obvious motive for the slashing, and the two students did not appear to know each other, according to the Times.
The victim — whom officials have not publicly identified for privacy reasons — is recovering, her family told the Times.
Colleges still reporting widespread flu-like illness
As the annual flu season begins, colleges and universities nationwide are continuing to see thousands of students whose symptoms are consistent with swine flu, according to data from the American College Health Association.
In the week ending Oct. 2, there were 6,326 new cases of flu-like illness at the 273 colleges surveyed by the ACHA, resulting in nine hospitalizations.
Only 8 percent of the schools surveyed had seen no new cases of swine flu during the week.
The Mid-Atlantic region reported the most new cases.
Rhode Island schools surveyed reported 111 new cases, for an "attack rate" of 37.4 new cases per ten thousand students. (Brown is not participating in the survey.)
The ACHA, which releases new data weekly, has been tracking the incidence of influenza-like illness at the 273 colleges and universities in the sample, which collectively serve 3.3 million students — roughly 20 percent of the U.S. college population.
Schwarzenegger nixes pay caps for public university executives
Legislation to impose restrictions on executive compensation in California's public higher education system was vetoed Sunday by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The proposed bill would have given the state the option to bar University of California regents and California State University trustees from increasing the salaries of high-level administrators within their systems and doling out bonuses during budget crunches, Insider Higher Ed reported Monday.
In his veto message, Schwarzenegger objected to the bill's sanction of broad state intervention within the UC and CSU systems.
It is "unnecessary" for the state to "micromanage" the regents and the trustees, Inside Higher Ed quoted Schwarzenegger as saying, and such a "blanket prohibition" would hinder the ability of California's public institutions to provide a high quality of education.
The governor's veto incited vocal dissent from many of California's state legislators, in particular the bill's sponsor, State Senator Leland Yee.
Yee criticized the governor for protecting the interests of executive officers, particularly amid system-wide budget cuts and tuition hikes, calling the veto a "slap in the face" to students and low wage workers in both systems, according to Inside Higher Ed.
