Kerry, 9-1

NEWMAN SOCIETY, Oct. 25 — Employees at 10 leading Catholic universities gave $196,025 to suppor t Sen. John Kerr y, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

That's more than nine times the amount given to President George W. Bush's bid for re-election — a total of $21,200, the Cardinal Newman Society reported.

A press release from the society said “the over whelming support for Kerr y among Catholic university employees stands in contrast” to pre-election polls showing the candidates splitting the Catholic vote, with Bush leading among practicing Catholics.

SMU or SCU?

TEXAS CATHOLIC, Oct. 25 — Catholics now form the largest faith group at Southern Methodist University, according to sur veys by the school.

Catholics represent 21.2% of the student population, compared to 16.4% for Methodists.

A similar trend of higher Catholic enrollment is being seen at other denominational universities in Texas, including Baylor University in Waco, where Catholics comprise the second-largest group after Baptists.

House of Studies

THE CATHOLIC SENTINEL, Oct. 20 — The Carmelite friars have broken ground on a new house of studies for their 13 seminarians at Mount Angel Seminar y of the Archdiocese of Portland, Ore.

The friars transferred their house of studies from Berkeley, Calif., to Mount Angel in 1999, reported the archdiocesan newspaper.

Due in large measure to the Carmelites’ strong contemplative dimension, said Father Donald Kinney, student master, the 50-man Western province is attracting vocations, including four new postulants this year. New Job

THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, Oct. 27 — George Tenet, who stepped down as director of the Central Intelligence Agency in July, has been hired by Georgetown University.

Tenet, 51, now works for the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Ser vice and will begin teaching next fall.

In the meantime, he is lecturing and writing a book about his tenure at the CIA.

NHL Scions

NHL.COM, Oct. 27 — The leading scorer on the Providence University hockey team is sophomore left-winger Bill McCreary, whose father and grandfather, both Bills, played in the National Hockey League.

McCrear y is one of six sons of former NHL players now playing for the Friars in what the NHL's website calls a “recruiting fluke.”

The other Friars and their NHL dads include freshmen Colin McDonald (Gerr y), Vince Goulet (Michel), goalie Tyler Sims (Al), Trevor Ludwig (Craig) and sophomore Chase Watson (Jim).

Rights Case

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 29 — The student-led Christian Legal Society has sued the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in federal court in San Francisco for not recognizing it as an official campus organization.

The society says it should be eligible for campus funding and other benefits, and should not be required to open its membership to homosexuals and nonbelievers as required by the school.

An attorney for the group cited the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Boy Scouts of America had the right to deny membership to homosexuals.