Investigative Reporting 495

1. Investigative Reporting 495 Hot ideas

2. Safety concerns • Firefighting: Is equipment, training, etc. safe? • EMS: who are members, what is their training? What is their record? • Police: What is the safety record? Read this first: http://www.securityoncampus.org/schools/cleryact/

3. Rutgers compliance with OPRA. • Get the law (it’s short) • Contact Government Records Council (Trenton) • Talk to NJFOG people. • Devise a spread sheet of requests and how many were successful. • Talk to people. (Leslie Fehrenbach for starters.)

4. Percent of grads in the military • Compare to other state universities. • Talk to grads who have done it. • Find out about grads who died; get their stories. • Talk to current military veterans at Rutgers: are they getting administrative support?

5. Outlaw fraternities and sororities • Which ones are they? • Any trouble? • What is the downside to being non-official? Upside? • Dangers to Rutgers students. • Parents’ point of view.

6. Patterns in course evaluations • Evaluation system is all online now. • Does it produce more or fewer replies than paper? • Compare to ratemyprofessor (it’s all online, including Rutgers). • Who is responsible for it? • What has it done to improve education at Rutgers? • It wasn’t supposed to be used for hiring and tenure, but it is. Trace history.

7. Institute-forming at Rutgers • What is it? • Is it just to make money, improve reputation? • Almost every longtime prof has one? Why? • Downside.

8. Who is entitled to student directory info? • Why is it collected if it isn’t used? • What problems has it caused? • Spam email problems • Who is in charge of it?

9. How green is Rutgers? • Compare to other state universities. • Find out things like cloth diapers, energy-efficient appliances, hybrid vehicles, recycling, dryers or clotheslines, cloth bags at bookstores, etc., bicycling. • A general report or zero in on any aspect you think shows the real story.

10. Do athletic contributors get access to players and coaches? • Are the contributions good for tax write-offs? • Do they influence coaches, athletic director, etc. and how? • Who are they? (The big ones).

11. What are the rules about romance? • Between professors and students. • Between staff and students. • Between higher level employees and lower-level. (McCormick did this — twice.) • Get stories, find out disciplinary action. • Have there been any cases about this?

12. Climate changing at Rutgers • State climatologist in residence at Rutgers. • Has Rutgers seen global warming? How has it affected life in the area. • Arboretum on campus. • Go to http://climate.rutgers.edu/stateclim/

13. State of day-care/night-care • What do students and staffers do? • Is it a sufficient system? • Is is costly? • Where are they? • Who runs it, how does it work?

14. Security at social functions • Is there prejudice/racism over security? • Compare white and non-white functions. • Get stories. • Get stats: how many officers were sent to various events?

15. Funding for campus media • Why are there disparities? • How is money doled out? • Talk to editors, radio managers, etc. • Is there prejudice against, for example, the Medium and Black Voice? • Is there political prejudice?

16. Campus inequities • Newark, Camden, New Brunswick. • What are their budgets? • Why does Rutgers always announce improvements at all three? • Talk to administrators, students, etc., to compare services.

17. Suicide at Rutgers • Incident at Targum few years ago. Get details. • Is it common? • Why does Targum have a policy on it, and what is it? Do other publications have policies? • Why is it downplayed? • Get human-interest stories.

18. Tyler Clementi/Dharun Ravi • Almost anything about suicide or bullying. • Where is he now (Dharun)? • The trial. Its effects. • This year’s freshman class; what has (or has not) been done to avoid another similar case? (Maybe nothing?)

19. Semi-legal highs • Salvia • Bath salts • Laughing gas • Cough syrup • JWH-18, a cannabinoid • Dextromorphan • Oxycodone (oxycontin)

20. What is the budget of PR? • How much does the communications office get? What is it used for? • How much is spent on photography? • How much is spent on printing vs. online? • Is the office wasting money? • New consolidation of PR magazines for staff.

21. Use of athletic facilities for ordinary students • Who uses them? • How often? • What do they cost? • Where are they? • Is there waste? • What percentage of students use them?

22. Rutgers old alumni • Karl and Bert are just two of the many anti-McCormick alums. • Get their stories. Find out more. • What is the Rutgers 1000? • What are the competing philosophies of bigger sports vs. reduction of academic reputation?

23. Condition of Rutgers golf course • Where is it? • What is its history? • Money coming in, going out? • What is its condition? • Used by small elite?

24. Who got tickets for fall football — and how? • Cost • Permitting (ticket license) • Location of seats • Who ARE these people? • What is their connection to Rutgers or N.J. power structure?

25. “Embedded” reportersEnterprise story • Anyone can do it. • Firefighter, EMS, anything you can volunteer for. • Even sports (read Paper Tiger, by George Plimpton).

26. How do they choose basketball tourney locations? • Why has Rutgers been passed over? • Who decides? • When are future ones — and where?

27. Who checks grades of athletes? • What are the requirements? • What does the NCAA require? • Discuss “gut” courses — speech for athletes. • Can ordinary students take these courses?

28. “Sinister” looks • Cell phone cameras, etc. make coaches look sinister. • Posting online • Cameras in locker rooms • Cameras in rest rooms • Violation of privacy? • What does “reasonable expectation of privacy” mean?

29. Who are we? • Racially, get stats from OIC • SATS, how does Rutgers rank, today and yesterday? • Rank in HS class over the years, up or down and why? • Socio-economic level • Male-Female/Racial • Trends.

30. Energy consumption of stadium • How has the new stadium affected it? • More cars? • Any movement to get people to take mass transit (buses to parking lots don’t count). • Garbage, upkeep, etc.

31. Historic preservation • DeWitt an example another is Low. • How many buildings have been destroyed? • Get history. • New College Avenue — will it destroy buildings? • Eminent domain — does Rutgers have it?

32. Local theater in NB and campus • Up, down, changed? • What are they, what have they been? • Who is in charge of them? • What has happened to their budgets? • The State Theater, Crossroads, and on-campus.

33. Mortgage meltdown/resurgence • Staff, students, faculty affected by it? • Has Rutgers been affected? • Get stories. • Get stats. • Background yourself about it.

34. Student loans • Good team topic: • Students who graduated and have big debt • How the law changed over the summer • What can today’s freshman expect? • Calculate how much money a graduating senior expects to make vs. level of loans • Talk to parents, loan officers, govt. officials

35. More student loans • Who is Sallie Mae and why is she saying those terrible things about me? • Go to studentloans.gov • Students paid more than they should because of government program • Tons of ideas out there: hottest issue in America: the next mortgage meltdown?

36. Increase in foreign students? • Are they used as low-paid lab techs? • Are they increasing or decreasing? • What is the university doing to help? Is it really help? • Who are they? Get stories? • Talk to AAUP.

37. Ages of professors, staff • Will a lot be retiring soon? (Baby boomers). • What will the result be? • What are they? • What changes have they seen? • Major turnover going on.

38. How do you become a Rutgers supplier? • Hurtles? • What if you are a small company? • Pay-offs? • Ways to get around the system? • How does the system work?

39. Employment at Rutgers • Are postings real? • Are jobs filled as they post them? • Get background stories from staffers. • How many (%) are hired from within? • Get number of jobs posted during a certain period and the number of outsiders hired.

40. Changing face of downtown • Use George and Albany streets as center. • Business declining or growing? • Effect of New Brunswick Tomorrow and DEVCO (link is in Sakai resources). • Talk to downtown businesspeople, reporters, residents, David Harris, the poor. • John Lynch backgrounder.

41. J&J • How strong is the influence of Johnson & Johnson? • Grants handled directly through Old Queens. • Who are the players? • How much do they give to Rutgers? • What do they get?

42. Parking in NB • Is the system corrupt? • Payments are too high? • How are Rutgers students affected? • How to get a parking meter card. • Do they rip off students?

43. Can you vote on College Avenue? • No polling place. • Used to be one in gym. What happened? • Talk to William Hamilton, city attorney, to start. Then city clerk.

44. Rutgers history (Enterprise) • Series on how buildings were named. • And why. Lack of knowledge by students. • McCormick Hall, Bloustein School • Nothing for Fran Lawrence. Review his career. (recently died) • What was Rutgers like in the old days? • Talk to alumni.

45. Fraternity violence • Is it a problem? • Initiation • Hazing • History of problems. • Students who died in fraternities.

46. Text messaging • Since Virginia Tech. • How many signed up? • Has it been used elsewhere? What were the results? • What else is Rutgers doing to protect students?

47. Outside jobs • How many professors have outside jobs? • Do they report it? Must they? • Are there conflicts? Do they work in fields they teach? • What is the Rutgers rule on it?

48. How many Rutgers people have served? • Students, faculty, staff. • Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, elsewhere. • Get stories. • See how the numbers measure up to other state universities?

49. Rutgers health centers • Get health dept. reports on them — county and state. • Are they effective? • Complaints? • Student stories. • What the county health dept. inspects • County health report. Check out animals (p 61/actually 41) • OPRA (or just ask) for individ. Health reports.

50. Rutgers dining halls • Get health dept. reports on them — county and state. Easy to get. • Are they decent? • Complaints? • Student stories. • Also, other eateries on and off campus. Do a chart, report, or story.