Before Barack Obama arrived in Boston last weekend to campaign for Deval Patrick, three Emerson College students and a fourth from Lesley College arrived at Hynes Convention Center around 6 a.m., more than six hours before doors would open. They were rewarded with third place in line behind two men, one from Cambridge and one from the North Shore, who had arrived at 4 and 5 a.m. respectively.

Not loving the chilly October morning temperature, Brian Foote, the student from Lesley, huddled on the sidewalk against the cold stone wall. His friends Ev Dimming and Lindsay Cole took similar positions on either side of him. Lauren Maquin, the last member of the adventurous foursome, chose to stand and moved around for warmth.

Foote said that the chance to see the president was “an experience not to pass up. Even though it’s really cold, it’s really important. I was excited when I heard he was coming. I’m into the president and I’m excited to see him.”

Not dressed very warmly for the occasion, Dimming also complained about the temperature but said, “we figured it was an experience…and it’s important for college kids to get active and inspired.”

Cole added, “we thought it would be an adventure! Because it’s my first year in college, we figured this would be a high point.”

After going through security, people at the front of the line took their place inside sometime after 1 pm. They still had a long wait before the president arrived, but at least they had shelter from the wintery chill. And there was plenty to keep their attention occupied during the wait, including three songs performed live by James Taylor and a series of speeches by Vicki Kennedy, John Kerry, Thomas Menino, Tim Murray and the governor.

ArtsEmerson: The World On Stage — it sounds epic, and for its premier weekend, September 23-26, the new performance series programmed by Emerson College is offering a taste of everything its got.  That means free tours of The Paramount Center, Emerson’s newly restored, art deco movie palace in downtown crossing; film screenings and live performances large and small.

Two full-length main stage productions will open at the Paramount: "Fraulein Maria," a dance parody of the Sound of Music, and "The Laramie Residency," a staging of the documentary theater piece about the notorious murder of Matthew Shepard, and of a new, follow-up piece, "The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later."

The main stage and black box space at the Paramount will also host "Paramount pop-ups," a series of new 10-minute plays by accomplished local playwrights including Ronan Noone and John Kutz.

Meanwhile, the Paramount’s screening rooms with be humming. Offerings will include "The Sound of Music;" "Shanghai Express," the Marlene Dietrich vehicle that was the first film shown at the theater’s original opening in 1932, and "Vitaphone Varieties" a sampling of vintage vaudeville-esque shorts from the same era.

These events will take place in repertory throughout the weekend and beyond. Prices vary and some events are free but require tickets. Complete scheduling and pricing information can be found at artsemerson.org.

Emerson College, much-maligned over its failure to promote diverse faculty, has filled the new position of associate vice president for diversity and inclusion.

Calling it a “cabinet level position,” outgoing Emerson President Jackie Liebergott promises the VP will help the college achieve greater diversity and “to provide a central focus for our efforts to recruit and retain more faculty and staff of color, and to oversee ongoing diversity dialogue and training programs.”

Emerson filled the position internally. Gwen Bates, currently the associate vice president for human resources and affirmative action, where she has served since 2006, will take the new title March 15. She will also chair the search committee to replace herself in HR.

“Gwen is ideally suited to fill these important positions,” Liebergott said in a statement Friday. “She has demonstrated a commitment to both inclusion and diversity and has earned the trust and respect of faculty and staff alike. These qualities, combined with a 30-year track record of achievement in both corporate and academic environments, will stand her in good stead.”

Emerson College theatre studies student Matthew Starring was only a few credits short of earning his hard-fought degree. A degree he battled to earn even while fighting leukemia for the past two years.

Jackie Liebergott, Emerson’s president, in a campus-wide e-mail, reported that Starring died this week.

“He was a bright and talented young man, earning Dean’s list honors every semester,” Liebergott said. “He was a former President and active member of the student A Capella group Noteworthy, lighting up the stage each time he took the lead. He also served as a Student Ambassador in the Office of Admission, providing campus tours for prospective students and their families.”

Liebergott called Starring’s death “an enormous loss” for the college.

Emerson is making staff at the Counseling Center and Center for Spiritual Life available for students tomorrow from 3-4:30 p.m. in Emerson’s Campus Center. A memorial service will be held before the end of the semester.

A female Emerson College student was groped Friday night after leaving the Loews Boston Common movie theater on the outskirts of the school’s downtown Boston campus, police said.

According to George F. Noonan, Emerson College’s police chief and director of public safety, the victim was leaving the movie theater when she was approached by a man in his 30s or 40s, who made her sit on a park bench near a bus stop and then touched her “in an inappropriate and impermissible manner,” Noonan said.

The student escaped without physical injury and immediately went to campus police. The suspect is described as white, with a birthmark on the right side of his bald head. He was wearing a gray suit at the time. Campus and Boston police are investigating.

NEW YORK — The members of Brooklyn trio The Jaguar Club claim to have been in some of the most unfortunately-monikered bands in the history of music, including Finer Things and The Huxtable Residence.

They came up with “The Jaguar Club” after drummer Jeremiah Joyce came across the intricate logos of organizations of car devotees one day while doing a Google Image search.

“It’s never been a strong point” according to Joyce. “We were terrible at coming up with band names.”

Blast chatted with The Jaguar Club at their record release party at Brooklyn’s Union Hall last month. Since forming in 2006, the band has released two EPs. Their first full-length album, “And We Wake Up Slowly” was released September 1.

Joyce and bassist Yoichiro Fujita met while both were students at Vassar College and eventually moved to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn together.

“In the fall of 2005, we were really getting the itch to start a band” Joyce said.

Meanwhile, singer Will Popadic, a former Emerson College student who had recently relocated to New York from Los Angeles, posted an ad on Craigslist saying he was looking to meet like-minded musicians.

“It was just so nice and warm and friendly” Joyce recalled thinking upon coming across Popadic’s ad. “He was like, “ËœI just moved to New York…”Ëœ”

And the rest, as they say, is history. The newly-formed group began writing songs in the spring of 2006, released an EP that fall, and toured extensively up and down the East Coast in 2007.

“Basically, we hit the ground running” Joyce said.

“And We Wake Up Slowly” was recorded earlier this year in an 300-year-old barn in New Paltz, in upstate New York “" a stark contrast to the Brooklyn basements in which most of the songs were written. The band members say the experience was a bit like camping, with musical instruments scattered around the converted studio, which had no running water.

“It definitely took us out of our element” Popadic said. “A lot of the sound and texture is a product of being there.”

“You just feel so liberated from everything back in the city” Joyce said. “It feels like home, for me.”

In fact, much of the record deals with typical quarter-life crisis themes, one of which is “being a country mouse in the city” as Popadic puts it.

“I don”Ëœt love cities, but I have to be in them to do this” said Popadic, who is from rural Massachusetts.

The members cite Oasis, Band of Horses, The National, Idlewild, and Radiohead among their influences. Their sound, at times, resembles what The Smiths might have sounded like if they’d been an arena rock band. Popadic’s vocals bear more than a passing resemblance to David Byrne’s, with occasional theatrical warblings like those of Rush’s Geddy Lee.

Still, feeling that their sound was a bit lacking, the trio recently added a second guitarist for live shows, Gavin Dunaway, who had been living in D.C. and had seen the band perform several times.

“We were always looking for ways to make (our sound) bigger” Joyce said. “He’s like a new pair of socks. They’re so instantly comfortable, and yet they’re new.”

Dunaway’s proposal for a new band name? “Gavin and the Jerks.”

But for now, perhaps out of necessity, it seems “The Jaguar Club” will stick.

“We had a small window of opportunity (to change the name)” Fujita said, as his bandmates considered their newly-minted LP. “And now it’s too late.”

Certainly in no small part thanks to the enterprising of Emerson College senior Gaby Dunn, an editor at the school paper, “The Berkeley Beacon,” embattled journalism/history professor Roger House has been reinstated.

Dunn’s reporting revealed a pattern of at best unscrupulous and at worst blatantly racist behavior by Emerson over several decades of tenure review.

House and another professor named Pierre Desir, who are both black, were denied tenure last year. They were the only professors denied tenure, and they were the only professors who were black.

House filed a complaint with the state Commission Against Discrimination last year.

According to Dunn’s latest reporting, Emerson agreed to take both professors back without tenure. House agreed, and he will be re-reviewed in 2011 for promotion. Desir appears to have declined, and he will not be returning this fall.

Dunn has reported that in Emerson Colllege’s 129-year history, it has never promoted a tenured black male faculty member, even though tenure is usually accompanied by a promotion from assistant to associate professor.

Dunn wrote a series of articles last spring attracting national attention and leading the school to convene an independent review of its tenure process.

The Beacon could not reach house Wednesday night for comment.

Emerson College, one of Boston’s “downtown colleges” is beginning a major renovation project to one of its main buildings, the Little Building on the corner of Tremont Street and Boylston Street.

The school says traffic and building access will not be disrupted but scaffolding will be erected all around the busy corner as Emerson restores the Little Building “to its original splendor,” said Andrew K. Tiedemann, Emerson’s vice president of communications and marketing, in a statement Friday.

“The Little Building, named for local businessman John Mason Little, was built in 1917 on the site of the Hotel Pelham, which was the first apartment house constructed on the Eastern seaboard,” Tiedemann said. “Historian Walter Muir Whitehall declared the Little Building ‘the most glorious office building of the World War I era’ and is considered Boston’s best example of Modern Gothic skyscraper. The building was featured in the August 1917 edition of the American Architect and Building News.”

Emerson purchased the building in 1994 and renovated it in 1995, preserving its original layout and artsy murals. It was concerted to a residence hall with offices on the main floor and Emerson’s student gym and dining hall on the lower levels.

Emerson College alumnus David P. Twomey died June 30 after contracting the H1N1 Influenza virus. He was 27.

Mr. Twomey became ill June 24.

A Portland, Maine native, he was a 2001 graduate of Cheverus High School. Mr. Twomey received a B.A. in communication arts from Gannon University in Erie, Pa., in 2005. He graduated from Emerson in 2006 with a master’s degree in political and organizational communications.

According to the college, Mr. Twomey had lived in Washington, D.C. since 2007 and was working as an operations coordinator for digital media services for the U.S. Federal Courts Office of Public Affairs since June 2008.

“There are those times in teaching when you are blessed with an exceptionally talented and humane and incredibly gifted student — that was my experience with David Twomey,” said J. Gregory Payne, Twomey’s former professor, in a statement released by Emerson. Mr. Twomey was Payne’s graduate assistant. “He lit up the room with his smile and compassion and love of politics and the promise of public diplomacy. He truly was one of the most gifted students I have ever encountered and left a lasting legacy in whatever he did and to those he touched in his all too-short-time with us.”

A funeral mass was said on Tuesday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Maine.

In a bold move, Emerson College has instituted a medical amnesty policy to encourage students who abuse drugs and alcohol to seek potentially life-saving medical treatment without the worry of disciplinary reprisal from the college.

“The overarching priority of Emerson College with respect to alcohol and other drugs is to ensure the safety and well-being of our students,” said Ron Ludman, dean of students at Emerson, in an email to the campus. “The College is committed to providing guidance so that students can learn to develop a responsible approach to social challenges, including whether to use alcohol, how to do so in moderation, and how to comply with local, state, and federal laws governing alcohol consumption.”

Ludman said that the college expects students to abide by the law and respect college policies governing drug and alcohol possession and consumption. “However, the College acknowledges there may be times when students may face medical emergencies involving excessive drinking and/or drug use. In these situations students are expected to call for assistance when concerned for their own health or welfare or that of another student,” Ludman said. “In order to encourage students to seek prompt and appropriate attention for alcohol or any other drug intoxication the College has instituted a “Medical Amnesty” policy.”

According to the policy: “Seeking medical assistance for oneself or a fellow student demonstrates responsible student behavior. When evaluating an alcohol violation the College will consider whether a student sought medical assistance for oneself or another person in need, and in most cases view the act of seeking medical assistance as good judgment and accordingly, not deserving of typical disciplinary sanctions.”

Therefore, Emerson students will not be subject to a disciplinary fine, hearing, probation, suspension or other punishment if they exercise good judgment and act in the medical best interests of themselves and their fellow students.

Students’ parents will still be called and students could be required to meet with the Emerson Counseling Center and Wellness
Educator in these cases.

Click here to read the entire Emerson College Medical Amnesty Policy