Today's 45th annual Honors Convocation will focus on making students aware of a global community as a best-selling author and professor delivers the keynote address.Honors Convocation is a ceremony held to celebrate the conclusion of senior honors presentations, the announcement of the Honors Scholar Award, the Faculty Recognition Award and an opportunity to hear a lecturer speak on an academic or current issue, said Katie Quinn, honors program coordinator.

It sometimes takes the worst tragedies to bring out the best in people. We saw it on Sept. 11; we have seen it on the battlefield in Iraq, and we saw it yesterday at Virginia Tech. Amidst the violence,...

New leadership has sparked new ideas for next year's university-wide community service project, LEAPS. LEAPS has been an annual event at the university since spring 2000, said Peter Thompson, assistant director for Student Development Services.

Kerri Westfield, LEAPS director, said the executive committee has plans to change the event to affect one smaller community within Fort Worth as opposed to sending students out to various parts of the community, as it has been in the past. She said the executive committee decided they wanted to try something new this year.

My initial reaction to the headlines announcing that student-loan provider Sallie Mae is being bought out by private investors was to write a column about how terrible privatization is for students because of the potential for interest rates to rise.After all, I typically am very much for the government regulation of social programs. But, after I did my research on this topic, I realized that privatizing one of the nation's largest student loan companies may not be such a bad thing.

In 1960, Richard Nixon and John Kennedy took to the podium for the first nationally televised presidential debate. This moment was the first time that the communication medium of television was used to influence voting. During that race, Kennedy's charm and charisma over the television led to a victory for the young democrat and kept Nixon out of office until 1968. Television is a tool for communication that brings people together to entertain and inform.

The organization that called for "shock jock" Don Imus to be fired is starting a chapter on campus.Last week the National Association of Black Journalists released a statement asking for Imus to be removed immediately for his comment about the Rutgers University's women's basketball team.

Karen Anderson, a journalism graduate student, is organizing an NABJ chapter at TCU. Their first meeting was Wednesday night, Anderson said. Although it is the end of the semester, she said she wants to get the chapter set up for next year.

Red Bull gives you wings ... and possibly a free trip to Red Bull Flugtag in Nashville, Tenn., if you win the Red Bull Gravity Challenge on campus today.Programming Council is co-sponsoring the Red Bull Gravity Challenge today on the Sadler Lawn from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The challenge will consist of an egg drop from 50 feet and the winning team will get to go to the Red Bull Flugtag on June 23.

The Smith Hall conference room was filled with students' cued applause as the radio program "Everything Fort Worth" began at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. For the following hour, host Shivaun Palmer questioned panelists David Minor, Curt Moore, Justin "Red" Sanders and Adam Blake about the Neeley Entrepreneurship Center, its impact on the community and their personal experiences in business.

The baseball team will try to extend its current winning streak to double digits if the team completes a three-game sweep of the incoming conference-rival BYU this weekend.The No. 27 Horned Frogs (28-9, 10-1) have won seven straight games overall and 19 straight at the friendly confines of Lupton Stadium. The last loss for the Frogs came April 5 against the No. 26 Oklahoma Sooners (25-14, 5-6). TCU was able to make up for that loss, which was described as "embarrassing" by head coach Jim Schlossnagle, with an 11-4 victory Tuesday night.

Meet John. He's a 53-year-old Gemini who likes Bruce Springsteen with 18,348 friends on the popular social networking site MySpace.com. Meet Mitt. He has 5,257 friends, is 60 years old, married and listens to the Beatles and Roy Orbison. Their occupations: U.S. senator, former governor and 2008 presidential hopefuls.MySpace.com and other social networking sites, such as Facebook.com and Friendster.com, appeal to a core audience of 18- to 25-year-olds, a demographic that will play a key role in the 2008 election, according to a March article in the Washington Post.