Students from the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast region who came to TCU may qualify for a portion of a $50,000 grant awarded to the School of Education.The grant, which was provided by the United States Department of Education, will be used by the Student Support Services of the TRIO program to provide tutoring, academic advising, counseling and other services to eligible students, said Steve Hodnett, director of the TRIO program.

"We look at students on an individual basis and try to make the transition as easy as possible for them," Hodnett said.

The TCU community now has a chance to learn the art of swing dancing in a seven-lesson course beginning tonight.Swing is a jitterbug-style dance that started during World War II and became increasingly popular during the 1950s. The main types of swing, the East Coast and the West Coast, both use a six-beat pattern that can be performed to many types of music.

The beginner-level class teaches students how to dance the East Coast Swing step by step. The course's instructors said students will learn everything they need to know to lead or follow like a pro.

Students who are looking to start and run their own businesses, or those who have little business knowledge, may benefit from a new program starting at TCU.The School of Business is offering juniors, seniors and recent graduates the chance to enroll in a summer program designed for nonmajors to help them develop business fundamentals.

Laura Meade, the academic director for the Summer Business Program, said the program can even benefit liberal arts majors.

Current and aspiring dance majors will have their only opportunity to perform in their department's spring shows when the Department of Ballet and Modern Dance holds a set of auditions starting tonight.The first audition is tonight at 5:30 p.m. in the Ballet and Modern Dance building. The audition is used to cast dance majors for spring concerts and other shows for the rest of the semester.

Throw on a cowboy hat and pull up some boots because the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo is here again.Throughout this month and into February, the Will Rogers Memorial Center will host the event, which has taken place annually since 1896.

Participants from 40 states and even a few foreign countries are attending the event with more than 21,000 bodies of livestock.

Also attending are some of Fort Worth's more notable citizens.

1The Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo boasts that it has the "World's Original Indoor Rodeo." Held nightly, the rodeo features everything from barrel racing to bull riding. Although the livestock competition is always the centerpiece of the show, the in between event entertainment, such as Tijuana stud poker, in which four men play a game of poker with a wild bull on prowl in the ring, providing both laughs and thrills. Oftentimes, the rodeo clowns steal the show with their sarcastic in-between bull banter.

You were at a crossroads.Fresh out of high school, immature, dazed and confused. Confronted with the overwhelming task of selecting a university to attend, you drifted through piles of flyers and brochures with little clue as to what to care about and what to bypass. But there is one thing we too often forget when organizing our applications: culture.

Too often college students lose themselves in the hustle and bustle of academia, desperately striving for a certain grade or graduate school acceptance, and in the process, completely miss their surroundings.