Campus Watch : What's happening at schools across the nation

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It's a given that many college students tend to lean liberal when it comes to smoking pot, having sex and dabbling in communal living. But, if you're a liberal college student trying to decide between several highly qualified Democratic presidential candidates, who are you going to vote for?

The answer, according to students at Yale and Stanford, is Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

A one-week poll taken by Campus Democrats at Stanford surveyed 150 students, exactly half of whom favored Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Vice President Al Gore. Clinton came in second in the poll with 37 percent of the vote, The Stanford Daily reported. Among the 75 prospective students surveyed, Obama was even more popular, receiving 68 percent of the vote.

Bobby LePore, president of the Stanford Democrats, told the paper he was surprised to see how few Edwards supporters there were.

"There's been a lot of hype lately about his candidacy having a lot of support among young voters, but that doesn't seem to hold true on campus," he said.

At Yale, students at the first organizing party held by campus Democrats turned into a "we-love-Barack" fest, with a few on the fringes arguing for Clinton or Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).

The demonstration made it clear to at least one person in the room that Obama "has the youth vote locked up," one Yale student told student newspaper The Daily News.

The senior added that he nevertheless supported Edwards and his "grassroots" style of campaigning.

Here's where interactive media gets into the game: a comment posted on The Stanford Daily's Web site questioned how many of those who claimed to be Obama supporters backed the senator because there was no one better to support. While no one has answered so far, it's a perplexing question.

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More interesting news from Yale: the university, which banned stage weapons from school plays last week in response to the killings at Virginia Tech, has come to its senses and rescinded the ban, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The university announced the ban Thursday morning, the same day the play Red Noses, which featured some sword fighting, was set to open on campus, The Daily News reported. The play's swords, which looked rather lifelike, were swapped for some wooden ones.

"Calling for an end to violence onstage does not solve the world's suffering: It merely sweeps it under the rug, turning theater [HTML_REMOVED] in the words of this very play [HTML_REMOVED] into 'creamy bon-bons' instead of 'solid fare' for a thinking, feeling audience," said Red Noses director Sarah Holdren, a Yale junior, in a speech before the curtain rose Thursday night. "Here at Yale, sensitivity and political correctness have become censorship in this time of vital need for serious artistic expression."

The university backed off the ban Monday after others complained it was censoring the arts. Now, according to the AP, audiences will be notified if the play they're about to watch contains stage violence and fake weapons.

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Attention, parents: think that abstinence course will keep your student sleeping alone? Think again.

A new study funded by the U.S. Congress shows that there's little correlation between abstinence courses and actual prevention. According to The Daily Barometer, the student newspaper at the University of Oregon, students who took abstinence courses are just as likely to have sex a few years afterward as those who didn't. In addition, abstinence classes certainly didn't detract students from having unprotected sex.

University health officials say they try to teach comprehensive sex education, underscoring the fact that abstinence is the only way to be 100 percent safe.

Students, however, may feel more propelled by hormones than by the comfort of knowing they're 100 percent safe. A better education would be the knowledge that free condoms are distributed at many campus health centers, which also offer counseling.