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