News Briefs: 9/18/08

Group proposes giving a free education for some students

Members of the access and affordability Strategic Plan group proposed free tuition, room and board for University of Richmond students whose families make less than $75,000.

It was the most ambitious idea discussed Monday night during the Gottwald Auditorium during a forum co-led by James Monks, an E. Claiborne Robins School of Business professor, and Nanci Tessier, vice president for enrollment management. Five students attended the discussion.

President Edward Ayers is holding a series of open discussions during the next two weeks to give students and staff the opportunity to comment on different parts of the strategic plan, which officials are aiming to finish by January.

The mission of the access and affordability group is to ensure, "the university will be accessible and affordable for students who can most benefit from and contribute to the educational environment."

--Robin Hawbaker/Collegian Reporter

Bio professors awarded grant to study world's sponges

The National Science Foundation awarded to University of Richmond associate professors of biology, April and Malcolm Hill, a five-year $289,729 grant to study the evolution of sponges around the world, a university press release said.

The Hills will be funded by the "Assembling the Tree of Life: The Porifera Tree of Life Project" to collect molecular genetic data from 8,000 sponge specimens with the help of undergraduate students during the summer over the next five years. During the third year of the research, the Hills will hold a conference and workshop at the university.

The Hills will specifically focus on the evolutionary relationships between different species of sponges that could potentially produce medicines and reveal details about the evolution of all animals.

Other collaborators who will participate in the project include scientists at Iowa State University, Nova Southern University, the Smithsonian Museum, Dartmouth College, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and the University of Alabama at Birmingham as well as several collaborators from Germany, Australia, Netherlands and Columbia.

--Stephanie Rice/Collegian Staff

Initiative to use 'Sticker Shock' to stop underage drinking

RICHMOND -- On Saturday a group known as the Sticker Shock Initiative will put stickers on alcoholic beverages in local stores throughout Central Virginia with a message about not giving alcohol to minors, a press release said.

The stickers will say: "PREVENT UNDERAGE DRINKING - It is illegal for any person 21 or older to purchase or provide alcohol for minors. Fines are up to $2,500 or one year in jail." They will be placed on the bottles so that they will not prevent them from being legally sold.

The initiative is trying to prevent minor's access to alcohol. More than 40 percent of the nations 10.8 million underage drinkers ages 12 to 20 were received alcohol from adults who purchased the alcohol legally, the press release said.

Sticker Shock teams from Henrico, Hanover, Richmond, Chesterfield, Colonial Heights and New Kent will work together for the first time to distribute the stickers.

--Stephanie Rice/Collegian Staff