Counterfeiters Collect Change in Criminal Coin Caper

Oberlin students who have hoodwinked campus change machines with photocopied dollar bills are foolishly risking decades in prison, say Secret Service officials.

The Oberlin Review this month exposed a series of counterfeiting capers in which crafty collegians copied currency and feloniously inserted counterfeit bills into automatic change machines, which erroniously dispensed quarters, nickels, and dimes.

"The machine accepted the [photocopied bills] as legitimate currency and made change," Richard McDaniel, director of Oberlin campus security, told the Review.

While sleuths have yet to track down the change theifs, Oberlin officials have thwarted would-be counter-feiters by installing a new part in the change machines so that they will no longer accept photocopies.

But if cops catch the counterfeiters and courts convict the currency copyists, these collegiate criminals could collect hard time in the can. Secret Service officials in Cleveland said that counterfeiters face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison for copying the bills and another 15 years for passing them, as well as up to $10,000 in fines. BRANDEIS

Drugs Improve SAT Scores

High school seniors got high SAT scores after taking an antianxiety drug, a Brandeis researcher revealed last month.

The Brandeis Justice reported that Director of Health Services Dr. Harris Faigel dispensed so called "beta-blocker" propanolol, a common prescription drug, to 25 extemely jittery high school seniors retaking the SAT test. The group was selected for a high level of test-taking anxiety.

Students who took the drug one hour before the exam performed significantly better on the test than they had the first time around, improving by an average of 120 points, according to Faigel.

Six anxiety-ridden students in a control group who chose not to take the beta-blockers, however, showed no significant improvement.

The drug has also been tried informally on Brandeis students, but without significant results, according to Faigel. He explained that the drug only works for students who experience extreme anxiety, not for those who simply get a common case of pre-test butterflies.

"[The drug] is for the ones who see the blank for their name on a test and think it's a trick question," he told the Justice. ITHACA COLLEGE

Condoms Machines Installed

Stimulated by campus concern over safe sex, Ithaca College officials climaxed heated debate by inserting condom vending machines in dormitory bathrooms last month.

"Making condoms available at all hours would make sure they would be used for preventing the spread of AIDS," Ithaca spokesperson John Lippincott told the Cornell Daily Sun.

The upstate New York college has no known cases of AIDS, Lippincott said, adding that the machines are "aimed at keeping it that way."

The condom vending machines, which were installed in mid-October, dispense condoms in men's and women's bathrooms in each of the college's residence halls for 50 cents apiece. Ithaca receives no profit from the condom sales. No sales figures are yet available for the condoms.

Several colleges nationwide nave installed similar condom dispensing machines. Nearby Cornell University has considered adding the machines the Daily Sun reported.