UMass Leads Environmental Sustainability Efforts Across All Five CampusesA new report presented to a UMass Board of Trustees committee highlighted sustainability initiatives that span a wide array of green programs – from renewable energy use to green building, recycling efforts, and student involvement in environmental programs. The presentations came approximately 10 months after UMass President Jack M. Wilson signed the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, a national pledge among higher education leaders to neutralize institutional greenhouse gas emissions and to accelerate research and educational efforts geared at addressing global warming.

Boston U. Dorm Vending Machines Sell CondomsBoston University students now have the choice between sweet, salty and lubricated when they hit the vending machines for a late night fix.Students can purchase Trojan Elexa condoms alongside Skittles and Sun Chips in the 11 large dormitories and one in South Campus. For $2.50 in cash or convenience points, a student will receive two condoms, packaged in a small white box. Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University had programs to distribute free condoms before BU.

29 College Presidents Back Discussion over Nation’s Drinking AgeTwenty-five years ago, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which drove every U.S. state to raise the legal drinking age from 18 to 21.The act comes up for reauthorization in 2009, and 129 top college officials have signed onto a new petition urging lawmakers to reconsider the country’s alcohol laws. “When you have a law that says you may not consume alcohol until you turn 21, and when just about everyone affected by that law is violating it routinely, we have to ask ourselves, ‘Are we truly a nation of lawbreakers or is this just a bad law?’ ” says John McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont and the petition’s creator.