Around the country

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- When students walked into class one Tuesday last semester, they knew it was going to be different than usual. Professors Sherri Porcelain and Miriam Klein Kassenoff had moved their classes to a different location, and cameras were all over the room. \nBut when 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel walked in, the collective "Oooh!" displayed the awe of the students sitting in the room. \n"The class before we were talking about his book Night (Wiesel's autobiographical novel about the Holocaust) and all of a sudden he just walks in there," Rajiv Nijhawan, junior, said. "It was totally unexpected." \nWiesel's visit was arranged by and taped for the mtvU series "Stand-in," where celebrities make surprise appearances as professors for a class. \nWiesel focused on the worldwide indifference toward the mass genocides occurring in Sudan and Rwanda, relating them to his experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp. \n"The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference," Wiesel said. "An ethical person is one who is not \nindifferent." \nDarfur, in Sudan, has been in conflict since February 2003. More than 200,000 people have died and 2 million have been displaced. \nWiesel's advice to college students was simple. \n"When you read about an injustice, always take the side of the victims," he said. "Your silence or indifference will never hurt the killer, only the victim." \nMtvU called for students across the nation to raise awareness and act upon the Sudan crisis. \nWiesel said he believes that students can spark change through their \nactions. \n"Remember one thing. The century is not mine. It's yours," Wiesel said.\nMCAT will go online in 2007\nCAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The MCAT, or Medical College Admission Test, will make the jump from paper- to computer-based testing by 2007, along with a significant reduction in the number of questions and the testing time. \nAccording to a press release from the Association of American Medical Colleges, which administers the MCAT, the computer-based format will allow for additional test dates, faster scoring, and a more controlled testing \nenvironment. \nThe MCAT is currently administered in the computer-based format in select test centers, including one in Boston. A trial computer-based version will be given at all testing centers next August, according to the press release. \nTwo other graduate admissions tests are already offered in computer-based formats. The Graduate Record Exam adopted a computer-based format for its general exam in 2002. The Graduate Management Admission Test, now offered in both paper and computer formats, will switch to computer-only next January.