'Disgusting Things' and Disappearing Squirrels at Yale, Free Condoms at Penn

The quick and dirty about what's been going on around the Ancient Eight.

With class back up and running in the Ivy League, there's plenty of news—and plenty of gossip.

In fact, Yale administrators themselves may be feeding the gossip with their vague references to apparently unsavory events. According to the Yale Daily News's Cross Campus Blog, a recent email from Saybrook College's Master to residents of the College referenced "weird, creepy and (frankly) disgusting things" that had been happening in the laundry room of late. While he didn't specify just what these disgusting things were, he wrote, "I can't imagine why someone would do those things, but it has got to stop." Yalies, you disgust us.

And while at Harvard, a baby squirrel has been spotted latching onto students and their backpacks in Kirkland Courtyard, at Yale, there may not be many of the little creatures left at all. The Huffington Post reports that some Yale students say that almost all squirrels are now gone from the New Haven campus. HuffPost says that one student speculated that a blizzard last winter may be responsible for the squirrels' disappearance, while an anonymous Yalie emailed Gawker with the claim that the Yale administrators may have "paid to have all the squirrels on campus killed over the summer."

One can only imagine what vendetta Yale administrators would have against the resident squirrel population. The Kirkland squirrel, with its startling dearth of survival skills, should hope that Harvard doesn't get any ideas from Gawker's anonymous tipster.

We couldn't find any breaking squirrel-related news down at Brown; apparently there's no mass exodus of tree-climbing mammals there. Brown's dean of the college, though, will soon be on her way out—the Brown Daily Herald reports that Brown's current dean of the college, Katherine Bergeron, will leave her post to become president of Connecticut College, starting in January.

Penn's Student Health Service, meanwhile, has announced that it will start giving out free condoms instead of selling 12-packs for $3, The Daily Pennsylvanian reports. And to announce the change in policy, according to the DP, Penn's Student Health Service plans to give out 2,000 postcards and a complimentary condom with each (or, as some recipients might see it, 2,000 free condoms and a complimentary postcard with each).