CAMPUS BRIEFS: Friday, April 18, 1997

Police confiscate kegs from Quad commissary A University Police officer was walking by the shop at approximately 1 a.m. yesterday when he observed the three kegs in plain view with the commissary's door open, police said. According to the police report, an unidentified individual paid a commissary employee $30 in cash to store the three Natural Light-brand beer kegs and 20 12-ounce bottles of Red Ass Light beer in the establishment, which is one of four residential commissaries operated by Penn Student Agencies. Quad commissary manager Theresa Javurek, a Nursing sophomore, said the underage student employee has been fired as a result of the incident. -- Scott Lanman Dartmouth prof was being investigated for child sex abuse The Dartmouth Professor who committed suicide last Friday was under investigation for allegedly abusing one or more children in Minneapolis, where he was Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota. Michael Dorris -- who founded the Native American Studies Program at Dartmouth and was also an Anthropology Professor -- suffocated himself with a plastic bag last Friday at a New Hampshire Hotel. The Minneapolis Police department forwarded the results of the investigation to the local District Attorney, and the files will be disclosed next week, officials said. Neither police and prosecutors in Minneapolis nor Dartmouth officials would comment on the details of the sexual abuse charges against Dorris. But Minneapolis police did note that Dorris had also attempted to commit suicide on Good Friday at his home in New Hampshire. Dorris -- the bestselling author of The Broken Cord novel about fetal alcohol syndrome -- was in the process of divorcing his wife, the novelist Louise Erdrich. --Shannon Burke Rodin, DU brothers give kids a taste of Penn Delta Upsilon fraternity brothers provided 20 Shaw Middle School eighth graders with a taste of University life during the second annual "Communiversity" program yesterday. Seven television stations arrived at 9 a.m. to record University President Judith Rodin -- a Shaw alumna -- address the younger students. "We want to show you what universities are like and what you have to look forward to," Rodin said. DU brother Panos Martinis, a Wharton senior, said his chapter modeled the Communiversity program after a similar program Rodin observed while serving as an administrator at Yale University. Martinis -- who organized last year's event -- added that the brothers want to "give [the younger students] a vision of how their life can be in four years if they keep up their grades." Rodin and Office of Community Relations Director Glenn Bryan doled out educational advice to the local youths ready to begin their high school career. Bryan -- who also grew up in West Philadelphia -- warned that the next four years would "fly" by, adding that "now is the time that you will have to think about what you want your life top be like." -- By Shannon Burke and Randi Rothberg