Cougster

Here are some of the new Go Cougs commercials you may seen on TV.

A father of a almost Coug is claiming WSU’s financial aid department “lied through their teeth, repeatedly and systematically” to him and his son. Joel Kennedy who blogs at The Stupid Shall Be Punished says his son Rob was going to attended WSU and had even moved in to his dorm. According to him WSU said his son’s National Merit Scholarship would cover all of the tuition due. It turns out that was not the case. The son then withdrew from WSU and is now at Boise State. Kennedy says President Elson Floyd called the family to apologize. Read the whole story on Kennedy’s blog.

Elsevier, the world’s largest publisher of medical and scientific literature, lost it bid to keep its contract with WSU secret.

From the Association of Research Libraries:

Whitman County Superior Court, State of Washington, ruled Friday, June 19, 2009, in favor of full disclosure for a public-records request submitted to Washington State University by Ted Bergstrom, Paul Courant, and Preston McAfee for license information regarding the WSU-Elsevier contract. On June 9, Elsevier had filed a Motion for Injunction against release of the data. According to court papers, the plaintiff argued that disclosure of the Elsevier-WSU contracts would “disclose aspects of Elsevier’s pricing methods and formula so as to produce private gain and public loss. Such disclosure would violate Elsevier’s rights under Washington statutes…to preserve the confidentiality of its proprietary pricing methods and formulae.”
“We could see no reason why the open-records request should not be fulfilled in this case,” said Jay Starratt, Dean of Libraries, Washington State University. “As a member of ARL’s Scholarly Communication Committee, I am interested in the results of the data analysis being conducted by the researchers.”
Researchers Ted Bergstrom, Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Paul Courant, University Librarian, Dean of Libraries, and Professor of Public Policy, Economics, and Information, University of Michigan, said, “We believe that state open-access laws serve the public interest by requiring full transparency of contracts that involve millions of taxpayer dollars. We will continue to collect and analyze the terms of ‘Big Deal’ contracts signed by a large number of universities and to share this information with the library community

We are glad to see that Elsevier’s injunction was rejected. Government contracts, statistics, or almost any info should be made available to anyone free of charge. That is half the reason Cougster exists, to provide more transparency in WSU related matters. Thanks to DigitalKoans where we first found out about this story.

Two WSU football players, Tyree Toomer and LeAndre Daniels, were arrested yesterday for allegedly stealing bikes.

From Cougfan:

…were arrested on theft and burglary charges and were immediately suspended. “Paul Wulff and the coaching staff are aware of the situation. The student-athletes have been suspended from team activities while more information is gathered, and appropriate action will be taken,” said WSU Sports Information Director Bill Stevens.

The pair were arrested on Tuesday according to police documents, and both were still in custody as of 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

Toomer and Daniels are accused of second degree burglary, residential burglary and theft in the second and third degrees.

Campus police said the two had been seen taking bicycles and upon further investigation, they apprehended Daniels and Toomer and located the bicycles at their shared residence.

A hacksaw, reported stolen from a nearby home construction site, also was located at their residence, according to the report in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Formal charges from the Whitman County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office are pending.

Now when it is partying and MIP stuff we usually don’t care but stealing bikes, god we hate people who do stuff like that. We hope they are given a 3 games suspension at least.

A WSU student had swine flu. The key word is HAD, the 19 year-old student has fully recovered after contracting it in mid May. We are glad this Coug got better fast. The Olympian has more on this story.