Sounds like your first problem might be the 100mbps thing
You were right, of course! As soon as I hooked it up to the university LAN, it got an IP address and was pingable. I was not able to test transfer speeds due to time limitation. Looks like I will be buying a small hub for home! I am getting DSL soon, so it will come in really handy then (2 PCs and now an EMPEG).

Thanks (to all) for the help!