Passing notes is so old school. At New York University, a glitch in the school’s e-mail system allowed students to share their most vacuous thoughts not with a couple classmates, but with the entire student body.

The debacle, which students nicknamed “Replyallcalypse,” broke out Tuesday when the Bursar’s Office sent an e-mail to students with the wrong settings, reports NYU Local. A sophomore mistakenly replied to the message — and 39,979 people got the one-line e-mail (“do you want me to do this?”) actually meant for his mom.

In the more than 24 hours before NYU’s IT department shut down the thread, thousands of messages ricocheted around the listserv. But if you expected students to use their newfound platform toward a higher purpose, you’d be disappointed. Buzzfeed’s screenshots of the more outstanding messages include photos of Nicholas Cage, complaints about tuition and many, many requests for everyone to just shut up. Whether that reflects young people or Internet culture is up for debate.

“We had been given a great and terrible power,” freshman Kelly Weill wrote in NYU Local. “For a moment we contemplated responsibility, then gleefully tossed it aside in favor of posting pictures of cats.”

Nearly two years ago I wrote an article about how Towson University in Maryland was one of the first residential colleges in the region to enact an all-out ban on smoking anywhere on campus.

Since then, these bans have become trendy on college campuses across the country. All of the schools in the University System of Maryland will be smoke-free by the start of next school year, as will be George Washington and American universities in the District. Nationally, more than 800 schools have banned smoking — and more than 600 of those schools forbid all tobacco products.

(Chris Goodney - Bloomberg) Most schools cite the same reason in enacting a ban: They want to protect students, faculty, staff, campus visitors and others from harmful second-hand smoke. The bans obviously also make it more difficult for smokers to continue their habit.

Do these bans work? Do they change students’ behavior and attitudes?

When the Indiana University in Bloomington announced that it would ban smoking starting in January 2008, health science researchers at the university decided to study the topic. They compared their home campus, where smoking would soon not be allowed anywhere, to nearby Purdue University in West Lafayette, where smoking was allowed as long as smokers stayed at least 30 feet away from buildings.

The University System of Maryland's governing board is now under fire from legal experts who say it violated the state’s Open Meetings Act when it met in private to discuss moving to the Big Ten Conference. Meanwhile, its flagship school offers an online course in the very law it is accused of breaking.

The board voted Monday to endorse the university’s application to join the conference. University system officials have said the vote was not required for the change. The chancellor of the system said on Monday that the meetings were legal and conducted under the supervision of the attorney general’s office. The chairman of the board said in a statement on Wednesday that the board convened under “the advice and counsel of the Office of the Attorney General.”

(L to R) U-Md. President Wallace D. Loh, Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany, University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan, University System of Maryland Chairman of the Board of Regents James L. Shea, and Director of Athletics Kevin Anderson pose for a photo on Monday. (Patrick McDermott - GETTY IMAGES) Earlier this year, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and the U-Md. Institute for Governmental Service and Research teamed together to create an online course to teach the basics of the Maryland Open Meetings Act. In a May press release, Gansler is quoted as saying: “Giving people an easier way to gain a working knowledge of the Open Meetings Act promotes a more open and honest government.”

I took the free online course this week, reading through six lessons and taking 10 quizzes. Here are some highlights:

The course kicks off with a short introductory video featuring Gansler, who says in part: “As the Open Meetings Act states, conducting public business openly promotes government accountability, it increases public faith in government and helps the public become more involved.”

Lesson No. 2 of the course explains that a meeting of a public board happens when a quorum, a simple majority, convenes “for the consideration or transaction of public business.” The course notes that convening can occur by “conference call or other means that allow the members to interact simultaneously.”

(This post has been updated.)

In the frenzy leading up to the University of Maryland joining the Big Ten Conference on Monday, the University System of Maryland Board of Regents met twice behind closed doors to discuss the move and vote to endorse it.

I wrote an article for Wednesday’s newspaper about how the meetings — unannounced and entirely out of public view — appear to be in violation of Maryland Open Meetings Act, according to legal experts. (You can read the full article here: “Legality of University System of Maryland’s Big Ten vote questioned.”)

What do we know about these two meetings? Here’s a timeline pieced together using a variety of sources, including information provided by a university system spokesman on Tuesday afternoon:

Thursday, Nov. 15: The Board of Regents was notified of the proposal on Thursday, according to Regent C. Thomas McMillen, a former Terps basketball star who went on to become a Democratic congressman.

Saturday, Nov. 17: Rumors of U-Md. possibly leaving the Atlantic Coast Conference and joining the Ben Ten began to circulate late on Friday and picked up steam on Saturday. At some point on Saturday, the board of regents arranged via e-mail to hold a “closed session” telephone conference the next day.

University of Maryland President Wallace D. Loh (left) and University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan (right) both reportedly participated in the Sunday telephone conference with the Board of Regents. (Patrick McDermott - Getty Images) Sunday, Nov. 18: At 4:30 p.m. the teleconference began. Thirteen of the board’s 17 regents were on the line: Chairman James L. Shea, Orlan M. Johnson, Francis X. Kelly Jr., Linda R. Gooden, Louise Michaux Gonzales, David Kinkopf, Gary L. Attman, McMillen, Barry P. Gossett, Earl F. “Buddy” Hance, John L. Young, Patricia S. Florestano and student regent Steven Hershkowitz.

(Originally, a spokesman for the board did not include the board chairman, Shea, on a list of the regents who participated in the call. On Wednesday afternoon, the spokesman updated that list to include Shea.)

The regents were joined by university system Chancellor William E. “Brit” Kirwan and some of his staff, along with representatives from U-Md. People with information say that U-Md. President Wallace Loh was on the line.

Loh has implied that the decision to move to the Big Ten was mostly his to make, but he sought a blessing from the school’s ultimate authority, the board of regents, before doing so. If the regents voted no, Loh said he would not have proceeded.

Where and when did the University System of Maryland regents vote on a proposal for the state’s flagship school to move to the Big 10 athletic conference?

On Monday morning starting at 9 a.m., I and several other reporters staked out the site of a regents education committee meeting at the student center at the University of Baltimore. We weren’t there by accident. We had been led to believe by senior officials that the campus would be the location for a regents meeting to discuss the high-stakes athletic move.

The Web site of the Board of Regents, which is a public body subject to Maryland open-meeting laws, had no other posted information about any other Monday meeting.