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I don't know anything about Hope College, but I thought I would add it as a tribute to the undergraduate who developed the software that runs this board.

This is a "Discus" discussion board and was created by Kevin Paulisse while he was an undergraduate chemistry major at Hope. He designed the software for the chemistry department, learning computer coding in the process, but also began to distribute his work freely over the internet. The software became very popular, and eventually (with the permission of the college), Kevin formed a partnership with one of his professors to develop a more robust commercial counterpart to the free version of the software.

It is now estimated that more than 50,000 sites are using this software to run discussion boards.

Anyway, I've always thought that any college that had students as bright as Kevin and that supported its students in endeavors like this must be pretty good. It's particularly fitting that College Confidential has chosen this student-developed software. The particular layout and user and administration options that are available with this program tend to make Discus boards very friendly places with a strong sense of community.

(Sounds like an ad -- but I run a website where I've used the same software for many years, and I am very happy to endorse it).

By Roger (Roger) on Thursday, October 11, 2001 - 01:41 pm: Edit

Thanks for the tribute to the student developer, Calmom. I guess College Confidential helped pay for Kevin's education. :-) We are gradually modifying the software to better fit our needs, so it may bear less and less resemblance to its brethren. UBB is probably more popular, but Discus seemed to require fewer mods to get where we want to go with it. Glad you can vouch for it as a long-term user, we'll try not to screw it up too badly!

By AnonMom on Friday, January 11, 2002 - 09:39 am: Edit

A year ago, a young man, drunk as could be, ran over and killed his girlfriend at an off-campus party at Hope. This was the second alcohol related death there in a few years. They tout themselves as Christian school (Calvinist, I think) with no on-campus drinking allowed. Seems the heavy percentage of female students indicates families think their daughters will be safe from the world's evils at Hope. Turns out Hope, like most colleges, church-related or not, suffers from the same sociological pressures as everyone else.

How can colleges know what personal challenges, woes, addictions and other "hidden" family messes are in a kid's background before they get to college? Any parents out there have any ideas? For years, we've been blaming colleges for providing the venue for our own kid's shenanigans. Turns out they are just reflecting home life in many cases, or escaping the confines of it.

As a parent, I hope my kids are behaving at college. if not, I can't blame the college. They (the college) are not the quasi-parent.