Football Nixed

THE DAILY NEWS, Dec. 16—New York's St. John's University will drop its football and men's track-and-field teams at the end of this academic year and eliminate its men's and women's swimming-and-diving programs at the end of 2003-4, the New York daily reported.

The cuts will help the university comply with Title IX of federal law, which forbids sex discrimination at institutions receiving federal funds. Following the changes, the school will have 16 teams, 10 for women.

In a further irony, the decision comes as a federal commission is set to issue recommendations that would reduce incentives for universities to get rid of male athletes as a way to comply with Title IX.

Catholic Recruiters

ABERDEENNEWS.COM, Dec. 10—The University of Mary in Bismarck, the only private college in North Dakota, is one of the region's fastest-growing universities, and much of that is due to its recruitment efforts, reported the Web site of The American News, a daily newspaper in Aberdeen, S.D.

The college provides free distance learning to Catholic high schools in the Dakotas, Montana and Minnesota, and visits those same schools to conduct its Emerging Leadership Academy, a workshop program on values and leadership.

Officials of the college, founded in 1959 by the Benedictine Sisters of the Annunciation, said the programs are designed to attract students—especially Catholic students—to the university. “We want to form partnerships with Catholic schools,” said one official, “to attract the best and the brightest in the upper Midwest.”

New President

THE BALTIMORE SUN, Dec. 12—Thomas Powell has been named the 24th president of Mount Saint Mary's College and seminary, said the Baltimore daily. He will succeed George Houston, who is retiring at the end of June 2003 for health reasons.

A committed Catholic, Powell is currently president of Glenville State College in Glenville, W.Va., and this will be his first stint as teacher or administrator of a Catholic institution.

While Powell will serve as president of both the college and seminary, the day-to-day operations of the seminary are the responsibility of the rector, Father Kevin Rhoades.

Collateral Damage

NEWARK STAR LEDGER, Dec. 19—Frank Walsh, who was implicated in the meltdown of the troubled Tyco International company, resigned from Seton Hall University's governing board a day before he pleaded guilty to a New York state charge of felony fraud, said the New Jersey daily.

It is the latest episode in which legal troubles of prominent donors have brought unwanted attention to Seton Hall, which is administered by the Archdiocese of Newark.

Scholarship Awards

THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION, Dec. 20—Theodore Cachey, a professor of romance languages and literatures at the University of Notre Dame, is one of 2002's 16 recipients of awards for outstanding scholarship in English and modern languages presented by prestigious association.

Cachey was recognized for his book, Petrarch's Guide to the Holy Land, published earlier in 2002 by University of Notre Dame Press.