I added a fix for that phpCAS error last night. Tenatively we're
looking at getting a 1.8.x bugfix release out over the next day or two
that will incorporate the phpCAS error, the template selection
problems, and a few other bugs we've identified.
If you're interested in making changes to remove the CAS problem
yourself there are just 2 lines that need to be modified in admin/app/
frontpage/controller.php, line 186 & 193 to replace phpCAS::getUser()
with $_SESSION[user]->username. The commit detailed here:
http://dev.studentsenate.rpi.edu/repositories/svn-senate/changesets/611
includes the full details (ignore all the other lines that were
changed).