Over the remainder of this week, Think Magazine will be collecting questions from students at Stony Brook University. The top three questions as decided by our readers will be submitted to Huffington Post College. If your question is selected, we will film you asking it in person. From there, the video will be placed on The Huffington Post’s home page along with 24 other questions submitted from universities around the country.

Then, tune in to the live “Open for Questions” webcast at The White House with top administration officials including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and top domestic policy advisor Melody Barnes and see if your question gets asked!

So now its up to you. Think of any question relating to higher education that you have been dying to know. Submit your question to Think via the comments thread below, or on Facebook or Twitter. You can even get a head start on a video and post your question to our YouTube channel.

The deadline for questions is Friday at noon, so get to work!

If you have any questions about this, send an email to info@thinksb.com or give us a call at (631) 320-THINK.

Think joins a select group of student publications from around the country as partners with HuffPost College. Our articles, blogs and videos will now be available at huffingtonpost.com/college and Think will display the latest stories from other HuffPost College partners on our site thinksb.com as well.

Now is the best time to join Think Magazine. Our new partnership means that your work could be displayed on the home page of Huffington Post, one of the most widely read news sites in the world. And our writers are now able to present themselves as reporters for Think and The Huffington Post. If you’re interested or want to learn more, visit our recruiting site, Write, Don’t Right.

Thanks for reading Think and keep an eye out for our content on HuffPost College!

The criticism of the hotel centers on its location, not on the idea itself.

When Stony Brook University President Samuel Stanley announced at a university senate meeting on October 5 that plans for an on-campus hotel would be moving forward, he became just the latest champion of an issue that has already outlived two lengthy administrations before his own.

Most of the controversy and complications associated with the hotel can be traced back to the fact that Stony Brook is a public university, and is therefore subject to any number of state regulations and restrictions.

John H Marburger, Stony Brook University’s president from 1980 to 1994, was the first to suggest a hotel be built within the boundaries of the university.

“I started the whole thing and I worked with the Stony Brook Foundation,” he said. “They established a realty sub-unit to deal with this.”

The establishment of Stony Brook Foundation Realty Inc in 1979 and its activation in 1987 was solely for the purposes of, in the words of the Stony Brook Foundation, “facilitating the development and operation of a conference center/hotel on the Stony Brook University campus.”

Now, almost a quarter century later, plans have been drawn up to construct a five story, 135-bedroom hotel on a 13-acre plot of land by the main entrance of the university, complete with a 5,000 square foot conference center, indoor pool, exercise facility and restaurant. The only point of access to the hotel will be off of Circle Road, across the street from the Administration building parking garage.

The hotel will be operated and managed by a private corporation. Hilton Garden Inn, a subsidiary of Hilton Worldwide, is currently the front-runner in ongoing negotiations, but a final decision has yet to be made.

The construction project has been contracted to Harbor Construction Management, an affiliate of Harbor Financial Management based in nearby Port Jefferson. Its CEO Robert Frey is a research professor at Stony Brook and a trustee of the Stony Brook Foundation, which is footing the bill (through their realty affiliate) for construction of the hotel.

The design of the building and its surroundings has yet to be finalized, but Frey says that it will likely fit in with the campus décor.

“In terms of design, the general target is the Humanities building,” he said, referring to the brick structure nearby.

Marburger is also unconcerned about a corporate building interfering with the aesthetics of a university as large as Stony Brook.

““I’m not too worried about the intrusiveness onto the architecture or the traffic of the campus,” he said.

Harbor Construction Management will ultimately be taking orders from the Foundation, which will have “final authority” according to Frey.

Once the building is completed, Stony Brook Foundation Realty Inc will turn the property over to a private hotel manager and operator. SBFR is in final discussions with Hilton Garden Inn to manage the hotel, according to Hilton Garden Inn spokeswoman Dawn Ray.

Those discussions may take longer than expected because both SBFR and Hilton are in uncharted territory.

The Stony Brook Statesman was noticeably thicker this week, and not in a good way.

The October 8 issue was stuffed with a 12-page, full color supplement from the Human Life Alliance, a pro-life organization based out of Minnesota. The pullout is made to look like a magazine, with propagandist articles displayed under headlines like “The Long Term Effects of Abortion.”

The Statesman News Editor Lauren Cioffi responded to the ad, and clarified the paper’s policy on advertisements.

“Editors are never informed of the advertising that will go in the issue they are publishing, until after the general manager makes the decisions, and the issue goes to print,” she said.

“The News department and advertising department are two separate entities of the paper and do not work together. To reject or accept advertisements based on what the ad represents- thoughts, companies and ideas- is unlawful,” Cioffi added.

A pro-life pamphlet was distributed in thousands of copies of the October 8 Statesman.

Two student newspapers in Wisconsin refused to run the same supplement, entitled “icare…,” for fear of alienating students who might disagree with the message that the HLA sends. The University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point Pointer released a statement on the matter, saying, “we have a policy against advertising topics which have a tendency to cause conflict, shame or controversy among the student body.”

The leaflet covers every base imaginable. It attacks birth control as ineffective and dangerous; showcases testimonials from regretful teens; displays pictures of various stages of a pregnancy; it even tries to make a constitutional argument against abortions.

Most alarming, however, is the fear mongering conducted by the HLA. Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, one of the leaflet’s “experts,” argues that abortions are linked to breast cancer, an argument that has been rebuked time and again by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and dozens of studies conducted over the last few decades which show that there is no link between either spontaneous or induced abortions and breast cancer.

The Statesman, like many other large-scale university publications, uses advertising agencies to gather ads for each issue. The Human Life Alliance likely used one of these agencies to target campus publications. Alloy, one such agency that works with hundreds of campus publications including The Statesman, offers freestanding inserts like the one HLA distributed, though it’s unclear from exactly where this insert came from.

Stay with THiNK for all the latest on this story.

After huge losses in the last two elections, could it get even worse for the GOP?

Whose left?

It’s a question that a lot of Republicans will be asking (or avoiding) in the coming months. Since President Obama took office in January, his approval ratings have remained astronomically high compared to his predecessor and the Republican members of Congress, while several prominent figures on the right have taken a beating. First was the admission of an affair by Nevada Senator John Ensign, then came the bizarre case of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, and just this past Friday, news of Sarah Palin’s resignation as governor of Alaska have left the once-vibrant field of possible 2012 candidates much thinner.

Palin of course has not ruled out a run for the presidency, but resigning from an elected position a full three years ahead of the 2012 election could hardly be considered a shrewd political move. And NBC’s Andrea Mitchell has reported that sources close to Palin say that her political career is over, less than one year after it really began.

Sanford was also considered a possible candidate for the next election, but a bizarre series of events involving his disappearance, the Appalachian Trail, a rendezvous with an Argentinean mistress in Buenos Aires and the subsequent unanswered questions that surround the whole episode has left his career in shambles.

Other candidates include former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who finished the 2008 Republican primary in third place, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and 2008 candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

But of those four candidates, only Jindal would be a break from the old school GOP that has lost 54 seats in the House of Representatives and 15 in the Senate since 2006. And if the elections in 2006 and 2008 have taught us anything, it’s that looking backwards doesn’t win you elections.

There are a whole host of other potential nominees who have yet to step forward, and they certainly have plenty of time to do so. But if the Republican Party wants to remain a truly national party capable of winning elections in all 50 states (Democrats have at least one Congressperson in every state but Wyoming, Republicans will have none in all of New England when Judd Gregg retires next term), they need to stop putting their worst feet forward.

We continue to work closely with The Stony Brook Independent on this story.

THiNK Magazine’s Adam Peck and Stony Brook Independent’s Mike Kelly are covering the death of a Stony Brook student last night in Roth Quad.

From The Stony Brook Independent and the University:

Reports of a student death in Roth Quad late last night have been confirmed by the Stony Brook University Police.

The university has also confirmed the death on its website, stating that the student was found dead in his room in Roth Quad’s Hendrix College. No criminality is suspected at this time.

The student’s identity and cause of death are unknown at this time, and University Police Detective Robert Swan said that further information would not be available until later this morning after the student’s family had been notified.

“That’s our first concern, to notify the family,” Swan said.

Stony Brook University Medical Center Media Relations was unavailable for comment.

We will be monitoring this story as more information becomes available. Our thoughts and deepest condolences go out to the victim’s friends and family.

THiNK Magazine is entering the world of print journalism at a time when many other news organizations are leaving it. The Internet has led to decreased circulation and revenue at virtually every newspaper and magazine, even forcing some to close entirely.

To help steer us through these difficult times, we enlisted the services of Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor and publisher of The Nation magazine. Who better to guide the youngest news magazine in the country than the editor of the oldest?

THiNK Magazine spoke with Katrina vanden Heuvel shortly before the presidential inauguration.

THiNK Magazine: As editor of the oldest and one of the most respected news magazines, what are your day-to-day responsibilities?

Katrina vanden Heuvel: I have a range of responsibilities from actually ensuring that we get out every week—which is no minor thing—to the broader strategic thinking about the issues that we feel are important, and not only to cover them week to week, but to put them on the radar. Those are what I would call not-ready-for-prime-time issues: nationalizing banks, welfare, abolition.

But all in all, its about crafting the direction of a magazine that has always been independent, that has stood outside the establishment, that has been committed to principles of justice, of peace, of economic service, civil liberties and civil rights. So there’s a broad responsibility, in addition to actually pushing with the editors, to make sure pieces are being edited correctly, that we have the right lineup and we deal with the face of the magazine.

But I would add..is yours a print magazine?

THiNK: Yes, but we also have a website we update in between issues.

KvH: We have a web editor, but the other thing I do almost every day is work out what’s going to be on our website, because it amplifies the magazine but there is original material here as well, so its almost as if I’m editing two different magazines every day.

THiNK: The Bush administration is now over. And while that is certainly good for the country, it may prove to be an interesting obstacle for liberal and progressive types who have had tremendous success butting heads with conservative, Republican leadership. Does The Nation intend to keep going after the Bush Administration post-mortem or will the magazine move on?

KvH: Well you’re absolutely right that the 8 years of the Bush administration not only provided us with an enormous amount to cover and to expose, it increased out circulation by some 70%.

But the role of The Nation has always been to hold politicians accountable, to push the limits of debate, to expose abuse and corruption regardless of party.

For the first time in many years we’re going to have allies inside this administration, but the great changes of our time in this country have come when people working outside, whether it’s a movement or magazines have pushed. The New Deal didn’t happen without labor movements, the end of slavery did not happen without the abolitionists, who by the way founded The Nation magazine. The Vietnam War did not end, nor did civil rights legislation come about without pressure, but not just from congress.

So what we need to do about it is not just keep a mindset of pure opposition, but never lose sight of our core mission, which is to be honest, particularly in holding politicians accountable while giving them backbone and spine with encouragement and pressure.

THiNK: The Obama administration has been coy when it comes to investigating the Bush administration’s wrongdoings. Is that something that publications like The Nation should push for, or is it time to focus on the crises at hand?

KvH: I think you can walk and chew gum at the same time. I think that part of moving forward is learning lessons for the past.

The Nation not only has a major piece this week by former District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a role in the Watergate investigations, but we also have our netroots movement correspondent Ari Melber, who has worked with the Obama camp’s website change.gov and pushed forward the question of whether the Obama administration will appoint a special prosecutor. It is now the most popular question on that website, and Obama was pushed to reply to that question by George Stephanopoulos of ABC this past Sunday.

I will say that we plan to move forward as we do every issue. For example, how do we craft a recovery plan to get us out of this economic crisis?

But at the same time, there is also a belief in upholding the rule of law and pushing this administration to think hard about how it can hold Bush administration officials accountable. I don’t know if we will be successful, but part of our work is not measuring success by purely metric outcomes but by holding true to principles which guide The Nation and I hope the nation.

THiNK: Its funny that you mention Ari Melber, he’s actually coming to speak to us here at Stony Brook in February.

KvH: Oh great, he’s terrific! Part of our work at The Nation is to think hard about new media and how we can connect to it, and we want to be a part of it. Ari has been terrific as netroots movement correspondent, first time we’ve ever had that position.

THiNK: From the newest magazine to the oldest, do you have any advice for us as we prepare for our first issue?

KvH: I will tell you, The Nation magazine is 143 years old, and I feel 143 years old some mornings. There’s nothing like starting a new magazine, and I admire and respect you for doing so, having the moxie and the time to do it. So I wish you all the best, you and your colleagues.