This is a department dependent issue. In CS as many staff and students use a selection of Linux, Windows and MacOS X so most staff encourage students to submit in .pdf, .html or plain text. If staff in a given department only have access to a windows PC and students are only provided a windows lab, then the school may well require submissions in an Office format.
Then install PDF Creator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/) on those machines. It's a Open Source and very useful PDF generator (acts as a Windows Printer). It is basically a thin-ish wrapper around Ghostscript.
These are pet peeves of mine, as my missus can't drop IE/Windows completely since she still needs them to do University work.
Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com