The provost announced at Thursday's Faculty Senate meeting that the dean of the AddRan College of Humanities and Social Sciences will be stepping down from her position.Mary Volcansek, dean of the AddRan College, will finish out the year before returning to teaching, said Nowell Donovan, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs.

"I want to take this time to publicly thank Mary for her service as the first dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences," Donovan said.

A national search for her replacement will begin soon, he said.

Almost everyone has, at one point in their lives, experienced that feeling of being stuck in the middle of nowhere without being able to do anything about it.Now, imagine living in a town without a hospital, restaurant, movie theater or even a bar, and you'll start to form an accurate mental picture of what Covington, Texas is all about.

Shopping at a gas station, joining the Future Farmers of America and having no fast-food restaurants around is all part of growing up in this small town, which is about 45 miles south of Fort Worth.

Animal and nature enthusiasts around the globe are mourning the death of Steve Irwin, the "Crocodile Hunter."Irwin was the beloved TV personality on many wildlife adventure shows, who was killed unexpectedly Monday from a stingray attack while filming a children's TV show off the Great Barrier Reef.

While in the water, Irwin swam over a hidden stingray and was stabbed in the chest with its barb. He was pulled from the water by his boat crew and rushed to a nearby island for emergency treatment. However, all attempts to save Irwin were unsuccessful.

Athletics administrators and College Sports Television have joined together to bring students online video broadcasts of TCU sports events for free in the 2006-2007 academic year.Scott Kull, associate athletics director for external operations, said the streaming video, which will be archived on gofrogs.com, makes games more accessible to students and alumni who wish to stay up-to-date with TCU athletics.

"We have started doing live video and audio for volleyball games this season," Kull said, "and we are going to broadcast the TCU-UC Davis game this weekend."

While most classes require students to listen to lectures, some classes offered in the nutritional sciences department include cooking and food tasting in the syllabus.One of these classes, food and culture, taught by Anne VanBeber, professor and chair of the nutritional sciences department, is being offered for the first time this semester to provide students with the foundational knowledge that the American Dietetic Association requires, VanBeber said.

A song written by a TCU student has recently been named one of the top five finalists in a national song-writing competition. The winner of The Student Anthem Challenge will be announced next week and will be decided through online voting, which will be available to voters through Sunday.

Jacquelyn Weitz, a music graduate student, entered her song "More Than I Am" in the competition almost five months ago, she said.

Nearly 1,000 students are expected to attend the new student-run tailgate Saturday before the Horned Frogs take on the University of California at Davis in their first home football game of the season, said the president of the Student Government Association. The student tailgate has been revamped since the 2005 season because students wanted something different than last year's tailgate, which took place on the practice field, said Trevor Heaney, president of SGA.

The heartache and tragedy of the Sept. 11, 2001, events created wounds on the hearts of many Americans.Now, five years later, Hollywood has released two movies depicting some of these events. But is it too early to release films that created such tragedy?

For many Americans, it is obviously too soon because many people have chosen not to see these films, but to some, the films speak for themselves and they speak with heart.

Both films left me speechless, and I felt as though the events were unfolding in front of my eyes.

On a regular basis, U.S. citizens are subjected to the foundations of what our nation stands for. We are a nation of risk-taking entrepreneurs and ambitious dream-chasers.When the gaping mouth of immigration...

The struggle of blacks, for most of the past 400 years, has been for social equality.In "The Future of the Negro," Frederick Douglass wrote in 1884, "The tendency of the age is unification, not isolation; not to clans and class, but to human brotherhood."

Last week, I wrote to the whole student body about the necessity of integration at TCU. This week, I want to specifically encourage black students on campus to be proactive in expressing themselves to a largely ignorant campus.