OFFICIALS: MEXICO VIOLENCE AFFECTS STUDY ABROAD NUMBERS VOCAL, Page 4 The Daily Collegian Published independently by students at Penn State Rape charges filed A woman reported to police she was raped after leaving an apartment party downtown on Saturday By Laura Nichols COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER Police say an 18-year-old Philadelphia man stood watch as a juvenile male raped a State College woman in the stairwell of the University Gateway apart ments Saturday. Now Isaiah J. Elijah. 18, is charged with one felony count each of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and criminal conspiracy. In addition he is charged with three counts each of misde meanor indecent assault, simple assault and false imprisonment, according to the court docu ments. No identifying information or charges against the juvenile are being released, police said. State College police also could not confirm whether the woman was a Penn State stu dent. The juvenile raped the woman who attempted to resist — early Sunday morning after she left a party in the downtown apartment building in search of a friend. Elijah and a juvenile friend offered to help the woman find her friend. The three left the party together and headed toward the elevator, according to court doc uments. The woman told police Elijah and the juvenile were “pushing up against her" inside the eleva tor, according to the criminal complaint. They exited the third floor and were walking down the back stairwell of the apartment build ing when Elijah and the juvenile forced the woman against a wall and held her there, according to court documents. The woman said she strug gled for at least one minute dur ing the time the juvenile raped her, according to court docu ments. Elijah told police that he served as the lookout after being asked to do so by the juvenile, standing a foot away while the juvenile raped the woman, according to court docu ments. After the incident, Elijah and the juvenile walked the woman back to the party; according to court documents. The woman was taken to Mount Nittany Medical Center for an examination, and Elijah was arrested on bail of $lOO,OOO, according to court doc uments. To e-mail reporter: Icnsol9@psu.edu Dick Vermeil replaces Rick Reilly for speaker series By Marilyn Perez COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER Former NFL coach Dick Vermeil will replace sportswriter Rick Reilly in the upcoming Distinguished Speakers Series talk, Student Programming Association officials confirmed Thursday. LAST FOOL STANmM3j|^ “Last Comic Standing” funnyman brings on April Fool's Day Experts say GPAs on the rise Making the grade The grade point average among Penn State students enrolled in Resident Instruction courses rose from a 2.86 GPAin 1975 to a 3.07 GPA in 2008. I Year j Average GPA ! 1985 Source: Faculty Senate Grade Distribution Report coordinated plan to work on these “Project Blue Pill" came from the Devin Weakland and David Despite losing the UPUA presi- issues,” he said. film “The Matrix," Adewumi said. Adewumi listen to the announce- dency to Christian Ragland on Adewumi started organizing In the movie, a red pill will allow a ment of the'election winners. Wednesday night, David Adewumi Project Blue Pill before the See ADEWUMI. Page 2. is sports,” Distinguished Speaker Series Chairman Mike Perone said. Vermeil will speak April 20 at Eisenhower Auditorium. Free student tickets will be available April 6, and free general public tickets will be available April 13 if not completely distrib uted earlier. Vermeil is known for his experi ences coaching the Philadelphia Eagles, St. Louis Rams and Kansas City Chiefs, but it’s his sensitivity that is recognized by Bob Lemon (junior-broadcast journalism). mceled his >earance to ir Woods at Masters it. •oked for a ■parable :aker to fit “He’s a different kind of coach. I feel like he cares about the players more than other coaches, and he always wears his heart on his same iche, which A&E, Pape 7 It’s getting easier and easier to snag a slot on the Dean's List. A new study from Kaplan Test Prep has targeted a possible cause for grade inflation, a growing trend in higher educa tion. According to the study, 46 per cent of students who use profes sor-rating Web sites enrolled in classes based on the “easy grad ing reputation of a professor.” RateMyProfessor.com was specifi cally listed as a Web site students used to find lenient graders, with 73 percent of the 1,229 total stu- Junlin Chen/Collegian Adewumi discusses future Despite losing the UPUA election, Adewumi is starting a new organization. sleeve,” Lemon said, citing Vermeil’s emotional press confer ence after resigning as coach of the Eagles in. 1982. Vermeil brought the St. Louis Rams their first Super Bowl victo ry in 2000 and was the first head coach to bring the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl. Ryan Serviolo (junior-psycholo gy) thinks of Vermeil as a “highly regarded” coach and would love to hear him speak. “ The fact that he was a coach for the Eagles is pretty attractive to me, because I’m a big Eagles fan,” Serviolo said. “He’s one of the nicer coaches in football. You could tell he really cared about his players.” He added it’s refreshing to see By Laurie Stern COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER By Paige Minemyer COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER CAD - dents polled reporting they have used the site. This could be contributing to grade point average increases, Kaplan Vice President of Research Jeff Olson said. Frank Chang (freshman-politi cal science) said he uses the site to find out about the professor’s poli cies. but doesn't rely on it as an indication of grading leniency. He said those who write negative posts saying the professor is a harsh grader are usually slackers. No matter what reasons stu dents have for using professor rating sites, statistics show grades are in fact rising. At Penn See GPA. Page 2. said he is looking for other ways to University Park Undergraduate tackle issues facing students. Association (UPUA) elections. Adewumi (junior-Spanish) is Now, he wants to use the publicity starting an organization called his campaign generated to push Project Blue Pill, which he said the movement forward, will advocate for students on two “I think we generated a lot of major platforms tuition and momentum about the issues." he housing. said. “We need to come up with a The inspiration for the name someone who is able to be an “actual human being and a foot ball coach at the same time.” Jason Aversano (junior telecommunications) said there’s a trust between Vermeil and his players. “The players they cry with the coach, they laugh with the coach, so he’s not as much of a boss as he is part of the family,” he said. Perone said people who decide to attend Vermeil’s appearance can expect to learn about leader ship. Leadership skills can be found in many different forms, he said, and Vermeil just happens to have gained his experience through football. Mike Tombasco (sophomore- psucollegian.com Local count short By Megan Rogers COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER With State College lagging behind the nation in returning census forms. State College Mayor Elizabeth Goreham and Penn State President Graham Spanier joined forces on Thursday morning in an attempt to increase census awareness. As of "Census Day" April 1. 47 percent of households across the nation have mailed back their census forms, but only 41 percent of State College resi dents have filled out the forms, Goreham said. This is nothing new State College has a histo ry of problems when it conies to getting counted, she said. Speaking outside the State College Municipal Building, both Goreham and Spanier stressed the importance of completing the census. Because students make up 75 percent of the State College population, they play a huge role in determining state See CENSUS. I\iqc2. Graham Spanier talks about the importance of the census during a borough press meeting. If you go What: Dick Vermeil in the Distinguished Speaker Series When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 20 When; Eisenhower Auditorium Qetnße Free student tickets are available on April 6, left over tickets wilt be available on April 13 for the general public. finance and business) said he would enjoy seeing Vermeil speak. “This is a guy who has reached the highest level of the sport by winning the Super Bowl,” he said. To e-mail reporter: mcpso7l@psu.edu
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