Melissa Etheridge
joins "faculty" of mtvU

mtvU's faculty of onetime college professors this fall includes Martha Stewart, Kanye West, Melissa Etheridge, and Shimon Peres. Stand In, where celebrities are surprise university lecturers, is the most popular series on the MTV spinoff channel, which is beamed into dorms at 730 colleges and available online. The network doesn't tell students in advance what to expect. Some past episodes were filmed at Temple, Fordham, and the U.S. Naval Academy.

West, who recently spoke out against homophobia in hip-hop, is expected back on campus to talk about music composition. Etheridge will talk to a health class about her breast cancer scare, and Peres will meet with students studying the Middle East. For Stewart, mtvU producers are trying to locate an agricultural school where she can lecture about landscaping, said Stephen Friedman, the network's general manager.

Criminal justice won't be on the syllabus for Stewart, who is finishing up her home confinement following a five-month prison term for lying about a stock sale. "No, that's not one of the topics we're looking at," Friedman said. (AP)