News follow: sexual harassment

The court finally ordered UGA to clear Soloski's name in the sexual harassment case that's been ongoing since 2005. Read my follow here.
One of my favorite things about court stories is that they're often straightforward -- there are clear sides, and documents to help you as you go.


On another note, today was the last day for our office manager, Mary Straub. She has been with the Red & Black for nearly 30 years. We threw her a farewell party today. Here's the story Daniel wrote about her as a goodbye "gift" from the newsroom.

Slippin' and slidin'.

And yep, opened school caused some grim news around campus: people slipped, got into accidents, etc. Even Campus Transit had problems getting their buses out on time.


Here's my follow on the snow story -- and boy, people were angry.

Out of the wonderland now

The snow decided to stick around today.




As power was out in the entire city, we decided to still put out the paper the next day. It was important to us to give our students and faculty (and the community) information about what was going on around the city as it was weather-ravaged. Harry, our publisher, hooked up his RV's generator to the first floor of the office (usually reserved for advertising; the newsroom is upstairs) and we generated enough power for five computers, and dammit, we made a newspaper. I was in charge of all the news stories as well as writing a longer snow followup (we had some news stories on hold that I could run because the paper didn't publish Monday). What's interesting is that the administration decided to keep UGA on a normal operating schedule tomorrow, even though some parts of campus are pretty dangerous, according the school's physical plant. Some people still don't have power so they may not know yet that school is open Tuesday (UGA notified through email and text, but if phones can't be charged, some people may not even know). Should be interesting tomorrow...

Winter wonderland (in Georgia, of all places)

Six to eight inches of snow have pummeled Athens pretty hard. I haven't seen snow like this since the blizzard of 1993, when I was in kindergarten.
We came into the office to write, but school was canceled so we don't print tomorrow (however, we'll have the stories online). Here's my story about the local reaction here.
I was actually pretty scared driving home today from work. In the South, no one is used to snow -- there's only about one snow plow in the entire state. Also, since many have had zip experience driving in snow and ice, the roads are really dangerous.

Lodging Complaints

Grime and odor in Mell Hall has prompted alleged allergies, moving and documented complaints from dorm residents, staff and parents, while Housing has cited humidity as a concern and said that complaints are rare. Some students have said they've been told their walls have been covered in toxic black mold, and cite physical problems -- headaches, colds --- as a result of the infestation.
We'll be keeping up on this story in our housing conditions series called Lodging Complaints, which you can track here. We'll be posting documents and photos as we get them.

When rats attack

The Benson building, which houses the Women's Studies department, has seen some bad infrastructure problems over the last few years: asbestos, rats, etc. are common complaints among faculty and students. A rat problem has forced the department to displace students and faculty across campus until the problem is fixed. But the main issue is the department says it thinks it's been ignored by upper administration --- after all, shouldn't students and faculty expect to work in sanitary conditions? The department does plan to move to another building, but the move is to the basement of another campus building, which is being delayed because the current departments needs to move first. The upper administration has cited in the past that budget contraints have been a problem in helping the Benson building out.


Here's my latest story about the rat problems here.

News follow: sexual harassment

And more news to the Soloski lawsuit saga.