The Faculty Senate met Thursday for the first time this semester to welcome 20 new senators and discuss the individual committee projects for the 2007-2008 school year.After spending an academic year working on a new faculty tenure and promotion appeal policy and producing a draft last August, the Tenure, Promotion and Grievance Committee will continue to work on the policy, TPG chairwoman Dianna Newbern said.

"We have to get more input on the draft the committee wrote this summer and write another draft, but overall we are 90 percent complete," Newbern said.

When you think of football games, what do you think of? Cheering in the stands until you lose your voice? Painting your face so purple that your professors can't tell whether you've been strangled or gone...

Would anyone notice if you went missing?The TCU chapter of Amnesty International held a weeklong event starting Sept. 4 to raise awareness for people who are imprisoned for their beliefs.

Dani Folks, vice president of Amnesty International, said the term coined for these prisoners are "prisoners of conscience."

"Amnesty International is the biggest civil rights organization in the world," Folks said.

Amy Gardner, the organization's secretary and treasurer, said people's rights are being abused every day.

New meaning can be given to the phrase 24/7/365 for a Kentucky-born playwright. In November 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winner and playwright Suzan-Lori Parks made a commitment to write one play a day for an entire year and called it "365 Days/365 Plays," said Harry Parker, chair of the TCU theater department.

The TCU Department of Theatre, starting Sept. 10, is joining hundreds of acting companies involved in what theater companies call the largest project in the history of American theater.

I spent most of my summer up in Missouri this year, and while there, I got the distinct pleasure of going frog gigging. That's what Texas will be doing Saturday, except without the boat and high-powered lights.See, something's changed with this team since Texas met Michigan in the Rose Bowl in the 2004-2005 season. The team doesn't lose big games anymore. Mack Brown has figured out how to get the best out of his team when it matters most.

California may have its Napa Valley Wine Country, Texas has GrapeFest.The largest wine festival in the Southwest, and named a Top 100 Event in North America for 2007 by the American Bus Association, GrapeFest will be held for its 21st consecutive year in Grapevine.

"Texas is the fifth largest wine producing state in the nation" Lewis said. "Texas is close to surpassing Oregon to be one of the prominent winery states in the US."