CHTICLE
DCH0I C E a
Beyond the pail: Builders
Digging for
Sand Scholars
This wasn't a typical beach
party. For one thing, there
wasn't a beach-the
nearest shoreline was miles
away. But that didn't stop 200-
plus members of the Stanford
community, from students to
faculty and their children, who
in March simply borrowed 75
tons of sand from a local con-
tractor and sculpted a huge
sand castle on campus.
In what turned out to be a
two-day beach bash of sorts,
they molded sand into a tow-
ering 18-foot structure. Build-
ers formed a multitiered foun-
dation by stomping sand into
square wooden frames as Top
40 tunes blared into the night.
The next morning, armed
with palette knives, spatulas
and "just about anything
that's flat and metal,"
according to organizer Wade
McNary, a Stanford resident
assistant, sculptors moved in
16 NEWSWEEKONCAMPUS
for the finer touch. They fash-
ioned windows, turrets and
faces, making the structure
look like a cross between a Ba-
varian castle and the huge
masks on Easter Island.
A local merchant sold or-
ganizers lumber for half price,
so the entire project cost only
$500. Although there was no
prearranged work schedule,
the castle was completed by the
end of the second day. The
event attracted about 1,000
people over the two days, not
counting those who came to dig.
Still, Stanford students will
have to set their goals much
higher to match the Guinness
world record for tallest sand
castle: a 52.81-foot structure
weighing more than 48,000
tons, built in Florida in 1986.
Middlebury
Gets Messaged
n low-tech days, students at
Middlebury no doubt rushed
daily to their mailboxes to
see what the postman brought.
Today they rush hourly to
their phones to hear what the
school's new computerized
telephone-answering service
may have waiting for them.
As part of an elaborate $2 mil-
lion phone system installed
last summer, college officials
included a feature called
PhoneMail. The service allows
anyone with a campus phone
to send, receive, forward and
save phone messages. Middle-
bury has rapidly become ob-
sessed with its new toy. Sopho-
more Kirsten Keppel checks
her messages every 45 min-
utes: "I don't know how I'd sur-
vive without it."
The system has spawned
imaginative uses. Working stu-
dents looking for substitutes
may send a generic message to
fellow employees. There's
even a new drinking game built
around PhoneMail-losers
must not only drink but record
a message, often much to their
later embarrassment.
Students also must wade
through their share of electron-
ic "junk mail." Broadcast
messages can be sent to each
extension announcing every-
thing from course changes to
campus parties. A "chain mes-
sage" multiplied until some
students were hearing the
same words six times a day for
weeks. The perpetrators were
soon threatened by peers and
eventually apologized-not by
phone, but in the school paper.
DWIGHT GARNER in Middlebury
Booze Busters
on Rice Patrol
Underage imbibers at Rice
University parties had
better watch out: their
drinking companions just may
be undercover agents. Since
late January, the university
has employed a squad of stu-
dent monitors to patrol the
campus party circuit, check-
ing to see whether alcohol rules
are being obeyed. Student re-
action has been mixed. Some
see the secret squad as a meth-
od to ensure responsible drink-
ing, but others wonder about
entrapment. "I don't think it's
my place to spy on what my
peers do at parties," says sopho-
more Anne Chang.
Campus regulations re-
quire student groups to register
in advance those parties
where alcohol is served and to
sign a liability form taking re-
Np
-4
2~
IL~LUSTRATION BY JOSEPH CIARDIELLO
Catch-21: Secret agents track underage drinkers in Houston
MAY 1988