CLASS CUTS

PRINCETON

A federal jury has convicted a former Princeton graduate student of "product tampering and communicating false information" for planting a cyanide-laced teabag in a local supermarket last February, The Daily Princtonian reported last month.

Several hours after placing the teabag, Dragoljob Cetkovic called the supermarket claiming that some cheese had been poisoned, citing the teabag as proof. The store tested 157 cheese samples, but found cyanide only in the teabag. The call was later traced to Cetkovic's apartment.

During his two-day trial, Cetkovic testified that his action was part of a suicide plot, not intended to harm others. He said he hoped to learn from newspaper reports whether the dosage of cyanide in the teabag was lethal, so that he could use the same amount to kill himself.

Cetkovic's academic status was terminated in 1979, and he had been banned from the university campus in 1983 for causing "difficulties," The Daily reported.

Cetkovic, who could receive up to 15 years in prison, will be sentenced in November. Controversy Surrounds Report That School Allegedly Censored

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

Allegations that the dean of Boston University's College of Communications censored a report about an Afghani resistance news organization have renewed debate in a long-running controversy over academic and journalistic ethics, university faculty members said this week.

In January of 1986, Boston University received federal funds to send BU personnel to Pakistan to train about 30 Afghani reporters, photographers, and video camera men for the Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC). The organization aims to provide information usually censored by Afghanistan's state-run press to the Western news agencies.

The controversy after several B.U. faculty members questioned whether the university presence in Pakistan would promote pro-rebel propaganda instead of fair journalism and consequently damage the university's image in the academic world.

As a result, Dean emeritus and Professor of Journalism Bernard Redmont stepped down as dean of the university's College of Communications in the summer of 1986 because he "felt the Afghan media project...raised an issue of journalistic and academic ethics."

Redmont said he resigned because poor communications, disputing political factions, inadequate security and the influence of foreign agents in Pakistan made the university's presence in Pakistan appear suspect to outsiders, whatever its actual motives. "There is the danger that the college could be involved in propaganda and the risk to our reputation that there could be that perception," Redmont said.

The latest flare-up arose after the campus independent newspaper The Daily Free Press alleged that the current dean of the College of Communications H. Joachim Maitre had been censoring by deleting unconfirmed reports of rebel atrocities against Soviet soldiers from a brochure promoting the AMRC.

Maitre could not be reached for comment yesterday.

But the Associate Dean of the College of Communications Donald S. Goldman did not agree that Maitre had acted inappropriately. He said that the report was intended as a public relations piece, not a news story.

Goldman said that the BU faculty members in Pakistan had taught the Afghani rebels the basics of good journalism regardless of political ideology. "What we've tried to do is teach them to be objective, to be independent and to confirm their stories. We'd be just as willing to help the Sandinistas, Cubans or the Soviets develop an independent media." Original Ballots Found From Allegedly Corrupt Student Election

COLUMBIA

A missing ballot box from last spring's Columbia College Student Council elections has been found, but those involved have little hope that the find will shed any more light on the controversy surrounding recent accusations of ballot box-stuffing and miscounting, The Columbia Spectator reported last week.

The former election commission co-chairman said last month that his successor and another member of the commission had rigged last spring's election to help elect the current council vice chairman and another candidate, who lost the bid.

The ballot box may not be complete, since some ballots were removed for recounting, and it is unclear whether the box contains the computer sheet voters must sign to ensure that students vote only once.

If the sheet is found, a group investigating the charges of corruption may be able to determine if there are any false signatures by matching the signatures on the computer sheet with actual student signatures on record. Junior Took His Own Life, Autopsy Finds

PRINCETON

An autopsy report has confirmed that the knife wounds which proved fatal to a Princeton junior last month were self-inflicted, despite earlier suspicions that he may have been murdered, The Daily Princetonian reported late last month.

Laurance D. Myers died September 17 from cardiac arrest while receiving emergency treatment for severe wounds to his chest, abdomen and wrists. The County Prosecutor later determined that there was no evidence to contradict the hypothesis of suicide.

Myers had been diagnosed over the summer as having a chemical imbalance in his brain, leading to a schizoid personality. He had been receiving psychiatric care.