Four-Letter Word Formations

Members of the Stanford University band were caught with their pants down on November 1.

And since they were urinating in the middle of a football field at the time, college were not pleased. The band was already on slippery ground, because it spelled out four-letter words in formation the week before.

As a result of its indiscretions, the band was suspended from playing at the UCLA game November 8, and will not be allowed to march--or urinate--on the field at the traditional Big Game against University of California at Berkeley next weekend.

Stanford Athletic Director Andy Geiger made the decision to suspend the band, calling members' actions "insulting and lewd."

"I can't trust them," Geiger said last week. "They don't seem able to have a level of taste and values that represent this place. As long as it's that way, they're not going to play on the same field as the football team."

Still, 95 band members will accompany the Stanford Cardinals to the Coca-Cola Bowl in Tokyo on November 30. But they must abide by conditions set by the athletic department.

Band Manager Jeff Stevens said he was surprised when the band dropped their drawers en masse. "It came out of an attitude that the band can get away with anything," he said. IOWA STATE

Now That's Roughing It

Students at Iowa State University are putting the squeeze on administrators, who say they're really a soft touch when it comes to toilet paper.

The tissue issue arose last week, when some dormitory residents complained the toilet paper was too rough and demanded a better product.

"It's just brown-wrap paper... It's one ply, rough, coarse and hard. You can hear it crinkle," said Kim Collier, an 18-year-old freshman from Chicago who's leading the complaints.

Jim Day, director of Richardson Court Residence Halls, which comprise about a third of the 20 campus dorms that house 10,000 students, said officials are willing to help relieve the situation.

"If they want [a better brand] then we'll try to provide it," Day said Tuesday. "It may involve getting different brands and letting the students get involved in testing it to get some ideas."

The toilet paper tug-of-war at the Ames campus, about 30 miles north of Des Moines, has gotten national attention, and Collier said in a telephone interview that her phone hadn't stopped ringing since the story broke.

"Everybody's talking about it," she said. "One guy from Florida Southern University wrote me, telling me how he heard about our situation and how he wished he could ship the whole dormitory some Charmin."

Robert Perish, purchasing manager at Iowa State, said the school had ordered 170,000 rolls of the present brand. He said he couldn't remember the name, but that it cost about 25 cents a roll, or about $42,500 a year. "It's definitely not as nice a quality as you'd find in a store, but it's not cardboard, either," Perish said. CAL STATE

Crackdown on Newspapers

Newspaper editors at 12 of the 17 California State University campuses defied a state regulation prohibiting them from endorsing political candidates. Two weeks ago, students published editorials supporting candidates for public office--and at least one school has taken disciplinary action against an undergraduate editor.

The regulation, established by the state school system's board of trustees, states that "the funds of an auxiliary organization shall not be used to support or oppose any candidate for public office or to support any issue before the voter."

On the San Diego campus, the Daily Aztec included not only political endorsements on November 3, but also an editorial urging other state university newspapers to do the same. "I can't think of any other school system in the country that has such a policy," said the Aztec's editor, R. Andrew Rathbone. "It's clearly unconstitutional in our opinion."

The next day, Rathbone received a letter from Thomas B. Day, president of the university, informing him that he would be suspended as a result of printing the editorials.

"Student newspapers in various ways get support from all the students; in fact, from all the taxpayers," wrote Day. "Courts have held that mandatory dues from all members cannot be used to endorse political candidates that only some of the members support. It seems a simple enough matter of fairness for all. You have deliberately violated that sense of fairness to all students," the letter said.

The university provides the Aztec with offices, but advertising and subscriptions mostly fund the newspaper.

Rathbone's suspension was postponed until February 2, in order to give him time to prepare a legal defense.

At California State University at Long Beach, the administration has taken no action. "We feel that our students are intelligent enough when they read an editorial that they know who wrote the editorial and what it represents," said Eugene L. Asher, executive assistant to the president. UMASS-AMHERST COLLEGE

Massachusetts' Snowball Wars

At least 300 students from the University of Massachusetts and Amherst College pelted each other with packed snow in mid-afternoon and early evening fights Tuesday.

The fight began among UMass students, who decided to take it to Amherst College. "Basically, we decided to combine forces against the common enemy," said UMass student Darren Garnick.

Amherst police caught wind of the movement as the students left campus and called UMass police to assist them in dispersing the crowd.

But the students marched on, arriving at the campus at 3:30 p.m. "The whole street was filled with people, like a peace march," Garnick said.

No serious injuries were reported, but several windows were broken at Amherst's Converse Hall, which houses college administrative offices.