CAMPUS ROUNDUP

Fund for Gay Studies at Columbia

A private donor has established an endowment to provide $200,000 in scholarship money for needy students pursuing gay studies at Columbia College.

Donor Andrew Lanyi created the George R. Lanyi Memorial Foundation Endowment last month in memory of his son George, who died of AIDS.

The award, expected to be in place for the 1993-94 academic year, will be awarded on a rotating basis.

Cornell Cutbacks

In an effort to meet the largest budget cuts in a decade, the Cornell Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Engineering announced plans Wednesday to reduce faculty size and eliminate a number of courses.

The move is intended to meet a $450,000 deficit from this year's budget and to create a projected $3 million in savings over the next two years.

University officials cite lower enrollment, high indirect research costs, and government funding cuts as the causes of the monetary gap. No current faculty members will lose their jobs, but those who leave will not be replaced, in the effort to shrink expenditures.

Big Gift at the Big D

Dartmouth College announced yesterday it has received a $30 million gift, the largest in the Ivy League school's 223-year history.

Dartmouth plans to spend the money on a new library and to renovate the existing Baker Library.

The principal donor is John W. Berry, 70, of Dayton, Ohio. Berry, a 1944 Dartmouth graduate, has committed to giving $25 million, the largest individual donation in Dartmouth's history.

Additional $1 million gifts will come from his son, George Berry, a 1966 Dartmouth graduate, and the Loren Berry Foundation, established by John Berry's father. The Berry family founded The Yellow Pages telephone directory advertising business, the L.M. Berry Co., in 1910, according to Dartmouth. The company was sold in 1986.

MIT Professor Acquitted

A MIT management professor was acquitted yesterday in Middlesex County Court of Sexual harassment charges brought by an administrative assistant.

Gabriel R. Bitran and MIT were found innocent as co-defendants in a civil suit brought by Marina R. Erulkar, who graduated from the school last year.

The lawsuit focused on incidents between December 1989 and May 1990, in which Bitran allegedly kissed Erulkar and inquired into her personal life. Erulkar worked for Bitran as a temporary secretary from 1988 until July 1989, when she became an administrative assistant in his office.

The 13-member jury decided that Erulkar was unable to provide a "fair preponderance of the evidence" to support her claims that her work environment violated Chapter 151b of state statutes prohibiting sexual harassment that is "so severe and pervasive that it creates a humiliating, hostile, or sexually offensive atmosphere in the workplace."

Appeal at Princeton

A man convicted of impersonating a Princeton student for nearly two years last week appealed a guilty verdict handed down in October.

James A. Hogue, 32, assumed the identity of Princeton student Alexi Indris-Santana, until his arrest in 1991.

The sentence that Hogue is appealing would require him to serve nine months in jail and five years on probation, as well as to perform 100 days of community service and to repay the financial aid he received from Princeton.

Penn Pals

In the wake of criticism from graduate students and student activist groups, the University of Pennsylvania last week changed its residency policy to allow unmarried couples to live in its residence halls.

Those in favor of the new policy said that restricting cohabitation to graduate students, their spouses and their children discriminated against both same-sex and unmarried heterosexual couples.

Yale Locks?

An effort by Yale College administrators to prevent the proliferation of "master Keys" on campus has failed due to student perseverance and a little illegal key-smithing.

Administrators tried to eliminate master keys, which allow students to enter any residential college on campus, by changing all entry locks. Security concerns were cited as the reason for the change.

Students have, however, found a way to adjust existing master keys so that they fit the new locks.

Apparently, the new master keys were available within weeks of the start of the school year.

Alex B. Livingston, Elizabeth J. Riemer and Susan S. Shin compiled this article, with wire dispatches.