AN IVY LEAGUE school launching a major capital campaign, on the brink of a huge campus expansion? Under different circumstances, that would be Harvard this school year. Instead, it now describes two rivals unencumbered by administrative upheaval: Columbia and Yale.

Columbia, planning an enormous and controversial expansion into West Manhantville, will launch a $4-billion campaign today, according to the Spectator. It'll be the largest current campaign in higher education. Yale, contemplating the addition of two residential colleges, will follow on Saturday with the public kick-off to a $3-billion campaign, the YDN reports.

It's worth noting that both campaigns have been underway for some time, in what fundraisers like to call the "quiet phase." The Spec doesn't have it, but Columbia announced today that it has already raised $1.6 billion since quietly launching in July 2004. Yale, aiming lower, is expected to report $500 million to $1 billion in already-secured donations over the past three years, according to an "administration official" in the YDN.

The last time The Crimson checked in, Harvard wasn't expected to publicly launch its capital campaign, expected to surpass both Columbia and Yale, until "2008 or later." Meanwhile, The Dartmouth reports that the school's $1.3-billion campaign has reached its halfway point.

A FREE SPEECH battle is on at Columbia, where the athletic department has put the men's club hockey team on ice after a recruitment flier—"STOP BEING A PUSSY," it urged—offended students. The latest in the Spec's blanket coverage is a salvo from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which asked that the team be reinstated. A Spec editorial calls the flier "tasteless" but the punishment "excessive." A columnist also comes to the team's defense. Surprisingly, nobody calls the athletic department pussies.

THE YDN REPORTS on a fascinating, yet incredibly unscientific survey of sexual health at colleges by Trojan Brand Condoms. Yale beats out the 100 others schools in Trojan's report, available online. Here's how the five Ivies included in the survey fared:

1. Yale, 4.0
6. Princeton, 3.4
43. Harvard, 2.1
44. Brown, 2.1
63. Dartmouth, 1.7

THE CRIMSON RESUSCITATES rumors of Cornel West's return to Cambridge from Princeton. Some professors in the African and African American studies department say they've been discussing it since the spring. This piece follows a Boston Globe report in June that broached the same possibility. Will the Prince pick it up soon?

IN IVY OPINIONS, the Cornell Daily Sun berates New York gubernatorial candidate John Faso for accusing his opponent, Eliot Spitzer, of trying to "force gay marriage down the throats of many New Yorkers" at the debate in Ithaca on Tuesday night: "Despite raucous laughter from the audience, Faso appeared unaware of the double entendre." At the Daily Pennsylvanian, a columnist thinks that people often confuse Penn for a state school because of its name: "Not only can a state school name save us from scornful jealousy, it can also inject us with a healthy dose of humility."

And college newspapers are notorious for the incestuous relationships that inevitably develop among their staffs, but they rarely play out in print. Cornell Sun columnists Andrew McCue and Claire Readhead have spent this week flirting on the opinion pages. On Monday, Readhead, in a piece entitled, "Top Five Men at Cornell Not to Date, Part Two," asked of Andrew: "wanna grab coffee sometime?" McCue responds today at the beginning of his column:

After reading Claire Readhead’s invitation to go out on a date in Monday’s paper, I immediately emailed her to accept. Claire then sent a message back saying that she would like to go out on the date, but she was busy with prelims right now, so we will have to wait a few weeks. I can’t wait to actually hang out with my girlfriend.