AWOL - Issue 015

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE » SPRING 2014 » ISSUE 015

investigating sexual assault on campuses

Standing with survivors

+ MIND THE WAGE GAP + REWIRING THE CAPITOL + THE SECRET HISTORY OF DC'S FAVORITE TREE

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE » SPRING 2014 » ISSUE 015

MISSION: AWOL is a progressive magazine run by American University students in Washington, DC. Founded in the spring of 2008 with support from Generation Progress, we are a recognized publication of American University.

“Choi fixes his camera on the former dean, who, standing before the old School of International Service, begins to recount a story of war, beauty and science: it is the story behind the Korean cherry trees of American University.”

- Jimmy Hoover, p. 18

We exist to ignite campus discussion of social, cultural and political issues, and serve as an outpost for students to explore solutions to local and global problems. We hope to build bridges between American University and the world around it, ultimately making our campus more inquiring, egalitarian and socially engaged.

AWOL is not affiliated with any political party or ideology.

Our stories have an angle, which is different from having an agenda; our reporting is impartial and fair, but our analysis is critical and argumentative.

Editor-in-chief: Claire Dapkiewicz managing Editor: Eleanor Greene Art Director: Ellyse Stauffer Web Editor: Eleanor Greene

EDITORIAL: STAFF Editors: Jess Anderson, Allison Butler, Casey Chiappetta, Pamela

Illustration by Ellyse Stauffer

p. 11

Huber, Alexa Marie Kelly, Linda Nyakundi Contributing Editors: Jenn Johnson, Jessica Wombles WRITERS: Brendan Agnew, Jess Anderson, Rain Freeman, Haley Hawkins, Jimmy Hoover, Pamela Huber, Alexa Marie Kelly, Alex Mazzarisi, Laura Saini, Jose Mejía Sierra, Jessica Wombles

ART: Photo editor: Paige Salmon illustration & Photography: Rain Freeman, Ben Gregson,

Support // Affiliations

generation Progress

Pamela Huber

LIKE A STORY? HATE A STORY? Want to join AWOL? Write to us: awolau@gmail.com

AWOL is published with support from Generation Progress / Center for American Progress (online at GenProgress.org) and the support of AU Student Activities. Generation Progress funds, trains and mentors students running

FIND US ONLINE:

a diverse and growing group of progressive campus media organizations.

BLOG: www.awolau.org

Grants and assistance can help you build and maintain a web site, expand

TWITTER: @awolAU

print runs and promote your organization on campus. For more, visit

Facebook: www.facebook.com/awolAU

GenProgress.org/publications.

03

09

14

18

20

24

03 DRUG TESTING AFTER DECRIMINALIZATION JOBS OR JOINTS?

11 INVESTIGATING SEXUAL ASSAULT ON CAMPUSES STANDING WITH SURVIVORS

22 ADDRESSING SUICIDE IN PRISON BEHIND BARS AND OUT OF HOPE

by Laura Saini

by Haley Hawkins

by Rain Freeman

Weeding out marijuana users from the job market

Are colleges doing enough?

Considering the mental health of inmates

04 A RUMSPRINGA TALE BREAKING AMISH AND BACK AGAIN

23 CONNECTING WITH INCARCERATED WRITERS BUT STILL I SOAR

by Jess Anderson

by Pamela Huber

by Alexa Marie Kelly

Resident adventurer searches for truth in Lancaster

Fridges offer a glimpse into students' lifestyles

Small pens, small victories for poets in jail

07 A HACKER HAVEN FOR ALL REWIRING THE CAPITOL

18 DIPLOMACY BLOSSOMS THE SECRET HISTORY OF DC'S FAVORITE TREE

24 PROFESSOR PROFILE CHRIS PALMER

by Brendan Agnew

by Jimmy Hoover

by Alex Mazzarisi

DC innovators create community and space blimps

A 70 year old question is answered on campus

The environmental filmmaker talke Alaska, wildlife and life flightplans

09 PUTTING YOUR 77 CENTS IN TOWARD GENDER EQUALITY MIND THE WAGE GAP

14 PHOTO ESSAY: COLLEGE CUISINE CONFESSIONS

20 REDISCOVERING DIALOGUE THE OAS IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY

by Casey Chiappetta

by Jose Mejía Sierra

The socioeconomics of equal pay

A bilingual ode to pan-American community

26 (UN)WHOLESOME WHOLE FOODIES SHOPPING FOR CHANGE

by Jessica Wombles Our satirist argues: there's no point in going unless you actually buy something.

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

“Criminalizing drug use stigmatizes it.

It puts it in the shadow and makes it very difficult for people to identify and fix problems.”

DRUG TESTING AFTER DECRIMINALIZATION

JOBS OR JOINTS?

Words by Laura Saini // Illustration by Ellyse Stauffer

Caught smoking a joint? No worries. The Simple Possession of Small Quantities of Marijuana Decriminalization Amendment Act of 2013 reduces marijuana possession penalties from a criminal misdemeanor to a non-arrestable civil infraction. Simply put, DC residents can no longer be cuffed for smoking or holding small amounts of marijuana. Instead of incarceration, personal possession of up to an ounce now carries a $25 fine and possession in public carries a $100 fine. Further, marijuana-related criminal records are no longer permanent and may not prevent DC residents from getting into competitive colleges or obtaining public housing.

However, smoking marijuana recreationally or medically can still affect job prospects, as companies have their own individual policies. Whether or not the substance is legal, companies still have every right to hire and fire employees based on drug tests.

The biggest push behind decriminalization is the huge racial disparity in arrests. Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, a non-profit organization targeting equality for African Americans and other ethnic minorities under the law, recently published a study stating that 60 percent of arrests in DC were for possession. Nearly nine out of 10 of those

“An arrest is a life-changing experience, and it’s something I take seriously,” Hughes said. “I take into account thinking: ‘How is this arrest going to affect someone for the rest of their life?’”

3

arrests involved African Americans. However, African Americans use drugs at roughly the same rates as Caucasians, according to "Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States," a study conducted by the Human Rights Watch. The Washington Lawyer Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs reported African Americans represent about 90 percent of the DC prison population for drug arrests—the most prevalent drug being marijuana. Often those arrested are young black males.

Local DC police officer, and AU alum, Phillip Hughes explained his discretion when deciding to make an arrest based on marijuana. If high school kids are smoking marijuana in their backyard, Hughes would more likely just confiscate the drug than arrest them, as long as they don’t have a prior criminal record.

“An arrest is a life-changing experience, and it’s something I take seriously,” Hughes said. “I take into account thinking: ‘How is this arrest going to affect someone for the rest of their life?’

There is no set blanket policy to make an arrest. Sometimes it is important to consider a person’s age, criminal history and the nature of the crime when deciding to make an arrest. This new decriminalization bill will stop this from being an issue, at least in the case for marijuana arrests.”

While the laws of possession are changing, smoking recreationally, however, can still impact the likelihood of getting a job— even in states where recreational marijuana use is legal.

A potential employer can ask you to take a drug test for both legal and illegal substances. Passing a drug test matters, as employees cannot be high on any drug while on the job, including legal drugs, such as prescription pills. Depending on the company, failing a drug test can be grounds for termination.

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alcoholism is considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Although companies cannot legally discriminate against someone with alcoholism; but, they can turn away an applicant if the use of alcohol adversely affects job performance.

Illegal substance addiction, however, is not covered under the act.

Twenty one states have legalized medical marijuana for patients with extreme pain, cancer, and other conditions. But medical marijuana users are not protected from discrimination under federal law. Although marijuana has been legalized on the state level, it is still illegal to consume on a federal level. Federal laws trump state laws. This creates a gray area with regard to drug testing in states with relaxed marijuana laws.

Therefore, companies can discriminate against those who smoke recreationally and those who use medical marijuana. In a 2012 federal court case, Casias v. Walmart, Joseph Casias was fired from Walmart for testing positive in his drug test. Casias, who suffered from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor, used medical marijuana privately. He sued Walmart, claiming that his use was legal under Michigan state law. He was prescribed medical marijuana from his doctor for pain relief; although he did not tell Walmart he was using it. Testing positive, however, was ruled as reasonable grounds for Walmart to terminate Casias.

Casias lost his case because the Americans with Disabilities Act does not protect illegal substance users. Marijuana—in all forms—is still federally illegal. A similar verdict was reached in Ross v. Ragingwire Telecommunications in California. The Supreme Court of California ruled that under California law, employers may require pre-employment drug tests, and they may take illegal drug use into consideration when deciding to offer a job.

“I think whether marijuana is legal or not, if businesses and employers want to base hiring and firing decisions based on marijuana use, that’s their right,” Dan Riffle, the director of federal policies at the Marijuana Policy Project, said. “But good luck finding qualified workers if you’re not going to hire someone who has consumed marijuana.”

If Americans decide that marijuana use doesn’t deserve discrimination, then corporations will eventually have to abide. But the law is usually a step behind when it comes to social change.

According to a recent survey by PEW Research, 52 percent of Americans are in favor of marijuana legalization. This decade is seeing America’s highest approval ratings ever.

Is legalization the next step in DC? According to Riffle, “Criminalizing drug use stigmatizes it. It puts it in the shadow and makes it very difficult for people to identify and fix problems.”

One of the main problems is that people don’t know exactly what kind of drug they’re getting from an underground market.

Government regulation could help to stabilize this as well as reduce drug-related crimes.

“The business side of drugs is the side that we worry about because that’s where the violence comes from,” Hughes said. “We’re not seeing marijuana users hurting other people, generally. We are seeing drug dealers hurting other drug dealers, fighting over turf, fighting over business.” Prohibition causes these underground drug markets and drug violence to flourish. Drugs like methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin cause an increase in violent and risky behavior, but marijuana use has not shown a significant increase in either behavior.

Never before has a majority of the nation supported the legalization of marijuana. It is possible that federal change is the next step. In the meantime, research the policies of any company to which you may apply. Know that, by signing on, you are bound by the marijuana policies a company holds—regardless of what your state or District may say. •

Laura Saini is a freshman studying journalism and justice and law.

A RUMSPRINGA TALE

BREAKING AMISH AND BACK AGAIN Words by Jess Anderson // Illustration by Ellyse Stauffer

The landscape is all gently rolling, snow-covered hills dotted with farms and cattle. It looks bleak after the latest winter storm, with a backdrop of skeleton trees and pale skies. The only spots of color come from laundry pinned up on long clotheslines, undulating gently on the cold breeze.

But when the train pulls into the Lancaster, Pennsylvania station a few minutes later, the scene outside is quite different. There are colorful row houses and trendy little cafés—one, owned by Mennonite couple Kathleen and Matt Smucker, comes highly recommended both by my cabdriver and the broke twentysomething panhandling outside the station. There are children strolling up and down the sidewalks—the older ones plugged into their iPods, the younger ones running ahead with their cartoon-themed backpacks jouncing up and down.

This city and the farms on its outskirts are the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish country, but it wasn’t the quaint horse and buggies that lured me out of my residential Washington, DC neighborhood. It was the thought that while my university peers and I dragged our caffeinated, sleep-deprived bodies toward expected life goals—high GPAs, solid internships, successful careers—young people the same age as us were embracing a plainer, simpler life.

Or were they? Lucy Walker’s 2002 documentary The Devil’s Playground painted a vivid picture of Amish adolescence—a particular period known as “rumspringa”—in Elkhart-LaGrange County, Indiana as a boozy, drug-laced haze of partying and adoption of “English,” or non-Amish, behaviors. One of the film’s protagonists, 18-year-old Faron Yoder, owned a car and was a regular user and dealer of methamphetamine. Young girls spoke casually of hard drinking, marijuana, and pre-marital sex—all while wearing long, homemade dresses and simple bonnets.

“For most kids, rumspringa means going out and getting wasted,” Yoder explained at one point. “And you have a hangover and then you go back and join church. It’s like a vaccination. You get a little dose of the outside world, so you know what it’s like and you won’t be tempted later on.”

For some, what Yoder says is true. Rumspringa, loosely translated as “running around,” is a period of a young Amish person’s life beginning around age 16 and lasting either until marriage or baptism into the Amish church. The idea is to test the material comforts of the modern world—satellite television, cars and Xbox, to name a few—before committing to the Church and its rules.

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

4

AMERICAN WAY LIFE MAGAZINE AMERICAN WAY OFOF LIFE MAGAZINE

But for others, there are wild inaccuracies between the true Amish way of life and what the media portrays today. Walker’s documentary is only one example—TLC’s Breaking Amish and Discovery’s Amish Mafia also reveal false “truths” about the reclusive community.

Even Lancaster natives like Jacob Wanner, a junior at American University, are susceptible to the likes of Amish Mafia.

“We were so into it for a little while,” Wanner admitted. “At first we were like ‘maybe this is real!’” The blurred-out faces seemed to lend the show some authenticity, and he says it was exciting to see familiar landmarks.

“It was just entertaining, and then we realized that it was absolutely ridiculous,” Wanner said.

Kathleen Smucker, who has lived in Lancaster her entire life, adds that it can be upsetting to see a community from her city misrepresented by the media. “It’s just sickening to watch it,” she said. “And I know a lot of people aren’t believing it, but some people are, and it’s just so far off.”

“That’s what reality is here now,” added Terry Bryant, who teaches backpack journalism and television production, among other things, at AU. “It is hours and hours of video shot and edited down to what producers think are the most exciting things that people will watch. And I’ve listened to a couple podcasts about the production of reality shows, and the producers have even said, ‘We go home at night feeling dirty.’”

amish foundations and misconceptions The faith itself, based on Anabaptist Christianity, revolves around the concept of the “Ordnung,” which, while not outlined in the Bible, has its roots in scripture. Essentially, the Ordnung is an unwritten set of rules that

“There are so many people out there who are looking for more than they’ve got. I believe people are looking for what Jesus can give them… a conversation can make a big difference in someone’s life.”

area. Cates said its intervention programs, based on input directly from the Amish community, have been successful so far in raising awareness among Amish youth of dangerous behaviors, particularly alcohol.

The organization was also a direct response to Walker’s documentary. As Cates explained it, Walker went to Elkhart-LaGrange, the third largest Amish settlement in the world and began filming for her documentary. She didn’t mention that her piece was going to be about rumspringa—as far as members of the community were concerned, it was simply going to depict Amish life.

“At the point that she did this, there were not all these documentaries, all this information out on the Amish,” Cates said. “So they invited her literally into their homes. She did filming of all kinds of things […]

She has, somewhere in film vaults, or on film somewhere, all kinds of documentary film of the Amish just being Amish and talking with her.

And that’s the tragedy of what happened—that that has been lost now and they won’t talk to anyone like that for years to come.”

Still, while the film sparked anger and feelings of betrayal among community members for what they viewed as sensationalized accounts of rumspringa, others recognized shreds of truth.

“A number of the community leaders—and bishops are a lot of times the community leaders in an Amish community—a number of bishops felt like [the documentary] is highlighting a problem we need to address,” Cates said.

among the amish But, Cates said, it’s important to remember that, though they exist, cases like those portrayed in Walker’s film are anomalies.

Sam Mason, a sophomore studying International Relations at American University, can attest to that. He comes from a tiny community called Chrome in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Of its 30 to 40 residents, he estimated that about half are Amish or Mennonite. Growing up, he had limited interaction with his Amish neighbors—most of the time, any commingling that occurred was work-related.

“My interaction with the Amish was mostly based on proximity, because they were my neighbors, and utility because we are both farmers who live in the same area,” Mason said. “Obviously, we’re going to interact because we’re going to help each other out.” Still, even for neighbors, he says interaction with the Amish on any scale “is pretty limited.”

Even when his Amish neighbors began rumspringa, Mason said he still didn’t have much contact with them. He never heard of any wild Amish parties around, much less got an invitation to one.

restricts aspects of daily life—for example, limiting the style and color of clothing and prohibiting practices like divorce, running for political office, going on the public electricity grid and owning certain technology.

The rules vary from community to community—and, contrary to popular belief, there are many different communities of Amish.

“When you talk about Amish, it’s kind of like talking about Christians,” said Dr. Jim Cates, a psychotherapist and one of the founders of the Amish Youth Vision Project. “When you say somebody is a Christian, well, are they Catholic, are they Lutheran, are they Baptist?”

The Amish Youth Vision Project emerged as an attempt to lower risk behaviors associated with drugs and alcohol in the Elkhart-LaGrange

5

“It’s kind of a fantasized, romanticized process that people think, ‘Oh these people that don’t use electricity suddenly go into this stage where they can do whatever they want’ and they just imagine, like, Amish orgies and meth parties,” he said. “My Amish neighbors, their rumspringa is to go buy a six pack of beer and go into the woods and get drunk.”

The scene Mason described is not unlike the escapades of many young adults today and is a more accurate picture of Amish youth than the one depicted in Walker’s documentary. But even low-key parties are more than some families are comfortable with. In some cases, rumspringa has even factored into families’ decisions to leave the church.

“People don’t realize it, but it’s not that uncommon to see an Amish guy with an iPhone,” said Wanner. “There’s a lot of … I guess you could call them loopholes.”

Wanner grew up in close proximity with members of the Amish community. Oftentimes his family, like many in the area, would hire the Amish to do yard work or help out around the house. While there, they had no qualms about using technology like weedwackers and tractors.

“There’s things that they realize are just a necessity,” Wanner said.

“They need to be able to communicate more than just writing a letter to someone. And then there are things that they just have to yield to the times. For example, an Amish buggy has to have electric headlights and taillights.”

Shortly after they were married, Smucker’s parents made that very choice.

“Basically, my parents left because they wanted something better for their children,” Smucker said. Rather than let them dive hard and fast into the “English” world of “temptations” during rumspringa, they chose to leave and join a Mennonite church.

In 1966, there began a transitional period during which the church split into what is today known as “Old Order” and “New Order” Amish.

The two groups are similar, though New Order Amish tend to be less strict about shunning and more strict when it comes to alcohol.

Smucker’s parents were not shunned as a consequence of their departure because they left during this period. But “meidung”, or shunning, is still very much a part of Amish life. In fact, Smucker’s husband, Matt, comes from a similar background: when he was seven years old, his parents also left the church. But because they left after the split, their community, even their family, shunned them.

“Different ones in the family take it more seriously, and there’s others who are okay with it and don’t make a big deal of it,” explained Smucker. “In the beginning, when they left, it was of course more difficult.”

Now, certain members of the family—his maternal grandparents, for instance—more or less ignore the ban, despite the disapproval of the church. Others choose to obey the ban, refusing to eat from the same table as Matt’s parents.

“Shunning you is for them their last way of showing that they love you,” Velda Bontrager explained in Walker’s documentary. “They feel that you are breaking a promise you made when you joined the Amish church.”

Bontrager initially joined after her rumspringa, but ultimately decided to leave and was consequentially shunned. Even though she says in the film that she is excited about taking classes at a local community college and looking forward to all the opportunities before her, her face reveals the pain of being cast out of the community.

“They fear for your soul,” she said. “I lost the support of my family.

Nobody would talk to me. It was like I wasn’t even there.”

Amish in the 21st Century Two words that are not ordinarily associated: Amish and iPhone. The ability of the Amish to hold on to the core beliefs that set them apart is remarkable in its endurance: plain dress to discourage vanity and an absence of personal cars and drivers' licenses to discourage roaming too far from family and the community. But sometimes English ways are inevitable.

He recognizes, however, that the Amish add a unique element to Lancaster—as evidenced by the ten million visitors that come to the city each year, according to the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau. He describes a strip along Lincoln Highway where “you can buy all sorts of Amish stuff that was made in China.” And part of this uniqueness comes from assumptions outsiders make about the community, assumptions that are often reinforced by reality shows.

“I don’t believe that reality TV shows you the true story,” Bryant said.

“I also don’t believe that if they did show you the true story, they would be accomplishing their goal. Their goal is to make money.”

For example, shows about the Amish may play up the isolation of certain communities as mysterious and intriguing. The interpretation viewers don’t get is that of the communities themselves: groups of close-knit, devout people with an incredible work ethic—something Smucker can relate to. Growing up in a Mennonite family taught her how to work hard, she said, a lesson that has helped her and her husband build their café from the ground up.

“We only went to school to eighth grade, so we just kind of worked hard and got it to where it is today,” she said. Because Matt dropped out and spent years working for his father, as is often the case for both Amish and Mennonite children, and because Kathleen worked as a server in a restaurant, the Smuckers had enough money saved to start without a loan. Today, their work ethic is just as important as it was two years ago when the café opened, and they take pride in making personal connections with their patrons.

“From the very beginning, that was one thing we wanted to do—go above and beyond what people expect,” she said. “There are so many people out there who are looking for more than they’ve got. I believe people are looking for what Jesus can give them… a conversation can make a big difference in someone’s life.”

“English” people today intrigued by the Amish would do well to adopt Smucker’s philosophy—conversations with people from Amish country or even the Amish themselves can go a long way toward breaking down stereotypes and misconceptions reinforced by films and reality shows.

As for the frantic college student trying to graduate into a world outside the university walls, Smucker’s story can be a reassurance. Grades and conventional education might not always be the answer—sometimes hard work, patience, and a little bit of faith can make a person simply happy. •

Jess Anderson is a sophomore studying journalism. She is a staff editor for AWOL.

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

6

AMERICAN WAY LIFE MAGAZINE AMERICAN WAY OFOF LIFE MAGAZINE

A hacker haven for all

guests lead workshops on everything from programming to fine art to bicycle repair.

Words by Brendan Agnew // Illustration by Ellyse Stauffer

When it’s not serving as a communal learning space, HACDC’s members are busy collaborating on their own pet projects. Since 2008, members have created art, published a book and programmed a network designed to help disaster victims.

rewiring the capitol Photo

DC is not generally considered an “innovative” city. Despite the young, ambitious would-be movers and shakers in the District’s universities and internship programs, it is known as stodgy and bureaucratic. HACDC, the District’s only hackerspace, or a group of hackers, hobbyists, artists and engineers, is gearing up to change that.

“Monday nights are Microcontroller Mondays at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church.”

From the outside, HACDC’s space in Columbia Heights is unassuming. Inside, the cluttered workspace is strewn with wires, motherboards, gutted musical instruments, mangled bike frames and half-finished schematics. Photos of the earth's atmosphere, taken from "space blimps," or converted old coolers launched into near-space with weather balloons, cover the walls. It looks like the shared space of a carpenter, a mad scientist and a performance artist, none of whom agree on an organizational strategy.

Hackerspaces emerged over a decade ago, descendants of the “hacklabs” of the 1990s that provided free access to Internet and programming software. The anarchist leanings of many hacklab founders, however, hindered the movement’s growth. Now, while they continue to appeal to code junkies, they are attracting an increasingly varied crowd—leading to a reemergence of hackerspaces in the US. “There are things that are the same about a lot of hackerspaces, but they usually differ in terms of governance,” said Ben Mendis who, until recently, was HACDC’s acting president. “A hackerspace is a reflection of the community that it’s in.” Since 2008, HACDC has attracted techies, artists, and DIY types to its Columbia Heights site.

Monday nights are Microcontroller Mondays at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church. While it’s not HACDC’s mostattended weeknight, it has a dedicated following of tinkerers who are interested in robotics. Each weeknight has a different theme.

Some play host to guest speakers and member-led seminars, but most attract their regular crowd—a mix of hobbyists and experts who need space to work on their projects. Group members and

7

Among their most impressive feats is the Mirage355 Biosignal Amplifier. Completed in late December 2013, the collaborative, near year-long project of several HACDC members, is capable of detecting even the slightest changes in brain, heart, and muscular activity. Despite the fact that it was made communally without the financial backing of investors or a major company, it exceeds industry standards.

“One of the problems with other biosignal amplifiers is that it’s hard to distinguish what’s just noise if you don’t have a specific problem you’re looking for,” said Matthew Hines, known in hacker circles as Mirage355, who first brought the concept to HACDC. “Our amplifier has a lower noise floor; ours makes it easier to determine what’s just noise and what’s an actual signal.”

Hines developed a similar device before reaching out to HACDC. In HACDC, however, he found an attractive community with equal parts know-how and adventurous spirit. The biosignal amplifier team consisted of both professional tech experts and weekend warriors, some of whom didn’t develop an interest in biohacking or programming until well after their formal education.

Although the inner workings of each hackerspace vary, they share a commitment to open membership, not discriminating based on experience in the field or credentials. Because of this, Hines argued hackerspaces serve as a home for unconventional learning.

“The best model of learning, I’ve found, is giving people a problem to solve and having them learn along the way,” Hines said. “The people at HACDC aren’t paid to teach but are experts actively en-

gaged in their own projects. People can come to these spaces to get the resources they need, human and otherwise, to complete projects on their own and further their skills.”

NEWSWIRE

Mendis expressed a similar optimism for the teaching potential of hackerspaces. But he encourages HACDC to make an even greater effort to branch out.

Despite the impressive contributions of amateur hackers, “HACDC has kind of a reputation for being an ‘expert’s space,’” he said. “People tend to feel intimidated. By and large, most of our members are focused on working on projects and forming a community of experts. I’ve been pushing for more teaching and outreach, because it’s important to get a broader mix of perspectives into the space.”

“People can come to these spaces to get the resources they need, human and otherwise, to complete projects on their own and further their skills.”

BEE-ING THE DIFFERENCE

T

he Beeinformed Partnership, sponsored by the USDA and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, reported that, on average, US Beekeepers lost 45.1 percent of their colonies this past winter. The issue raised by the honeybees’ disappearance isn’t just a lack of honey. According to National Geographic, the world is facing an unprecedented pollination crisis, in which honeybees play a huge part.

Understandably, the AU Beekeeping Society is excited to install new bees in their apiary this spring.

Mendis may soon see his hopes realized. HACDC is generating a substantial buzz in the capital. In April, the White House itself will host this year’s annual Maker Faire, an event for hobbyists and experts alike to showcase their gadgetry. Audience members will include government and private organizations looking to capitalize on curiosity and innovation. According to the White House’s blogged announcement of the event, the showcase will display every-day Americans’ ingenuity in order to encourage entrepreneurship, particularly in science and math among young people.

The self-directed approach of hackerspaces offers an enticing alternative to conventional education. People are free to try, fail and fiddle at their own rate. Learning through collaboration offers a chance to gain the skills without staggering tuition fees or constrictive deadlines. HACDC is a blank slate bustling with tools, opportunities and energy.

HACDC shows another side of the District’s character, putting a spin on its notorious “drive.” It isn’t homogenous, but collective; it is filled with driven people who are more curious than ambitious.

HACDC and the trend it is a part of proves that innovation isn’t limited to the big companies or the big investors. Innovation occurs wherever people have a collaborative space with an equal desire to learn and teach with others. HACDC builds such a resource from the ground up, and does so without snobbery or exclusivity. To anyone with interest and passion, they say, “Don’t be bored. Make something.” •

The race to save honeybees and the initiative to go green, has taken flight here at American University. Founded in 2011, the AU Beekeeping Society is headed by faculty advisor Professor Eve Bratman of the School of International Service and is currently based in MGC. The AU Beekeeping Society is one of several urban beekeeping communities in the DC area. George Washington University has an apiary and a bee lab and the University of the District of Columbia hosted an introductory beekeeping course this semester sponsored by the Northern Virginia Beekeeping Consortium. SIS Senior Lauren Dryburgh, vice president of the beekeeping society, says that AU does not currently have much of a rapport with its fellow beekeeping communities in the District, but upcoming events planned among the universities have the future buzzing with bright prospects.

At a general interest meeting, Professor Bratman compared the multitude of options in beekeeping technique and equipment to a “choose your own adventure.” With the honeybees' future at stake, and the opportunity to practice urban beekeeping in a nationally recognized arboretum, the AU Beekeeping Society welcomes all “newbees” interested in or passionate about developing the skill of urban beekeeping. The AU Beekeeping Society offers a unique way to participate in the environmental initiative that not only cultivates a personal relationship with nature but also presents the opportunity to draw a sweet reward. -Emily Olsen

Brendan Agnew is a junior studying economics.

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

8

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

NEWSWIRE JUSTICE: PART OF THIS COMPLETE BREAKFAST

T

he power of positive thinking is well known, but who knew it could mean seeing Jesus’ face on a grilled cheese sandwich?

According to a new study from psychologists at NYU, seeing Jesus or other “morally relevant stimuli” in unexpected places relates to a person’s subconscious need for justice. These stimuli often appear to people when they’re distracted by moral concerns or stressful situations in their personal lives, like a sick family member. In other words, when bad things are happening, people want to see Jesus on their potato chips.

At least a little bit. A New York Times article compared this phenomenon to walking down a street when you’re really hungry. Normally, you wouldn’t notice the smell of a food truck all the way down the street or spot someone eating muffin at the bus stop. But, now that you’re hungry, you’re much more likely to notice these little things that reinforce how you are already feeling.

This is the “moral pop-out effect,” and the forthcoming study links it to a subconscious need for justice. During the study, participants were shown one of two versions of a news article—an “unjust” scenario where a murderer is at large and a “just” one where the murderer is arrested.

People who read the unjust article were more likely to recognize and remember “moral words” in the article than people who read the just article. Researchers believe that this demonstrates participants’ subconscious effort to restore justice to the situation.

So next time you’re making breakfast and see the Virgin Mary, ask yourself: deep down, was I looking for this? And then sell it on eBay before heading out in the pursuit of justice. -Eleanor Greene

putting in your 77 cents toward gender equality

mind the wage gap

Words by Casey Chiappetta // Infographic by Ben Gregson

Following President Obama's State of the Union Address, Twitter was cluttered with #madmen. It wasn’t about Don Draper or Madison Avenue, but rather about progress in regard to women’s rights and wages.

“You know, today, women make up about half our workforce, but they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns,” Obama said in his speech. “That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. … It’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a Mad Men episode.”

Women in the 1960s, the period in which Mad Men is based, earned 59 to 64 cents for every dollar a man made. The current 77-cent figure is an average—not taking into account time off, job sectors, time in the workforce or other factors. When those factors are accounted for, the gap is smaller. But it still exists.

On the public policy front, there have been attempts to increase women’s wages, with varying success. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Equal Employment Opportunities Act, which combatted discrimination based on sex, creed, religion, color or national origin.

In the 1980s, there was a push for comparable pay—paying men and women the same for equivalent jobs. But what did “comparable jobs” mean? Garbage collectors (a job deemed undesirable) were paid as much kindergarten teachers (a job deemed important, as they were educating future generations). However, there were also questions about whether or not it was tampering with the market and creating disincentives for certain industries and comparable pay stopped.

In 2009, Obama signed the Lily Ledbettter Act, which was meant to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act, in most simple terms, works to end workplace discrimination. For example, if women discover information about salary structure, they can file an equal-pay lawsuit. It also puts a 180-day statute of limitations on filing an equal-pay lawsuit.

But does the wage gap—this 77-cent figure we keep hearing—really exist in the context we think it does? And what implications does this have?

AU Professor Daniel Lin teaches in his microeconomics class that wage discrimination is unsustainable, as artificially high wages will be phased out in a competitive market because companies will offer more competitive wages to those discriminated groups. Gary Becker from the University of Chicago pioneered this neoclassical theory.

Others say the wage gap doesn’t exist in the context we think it does, and that women’s choices and job sectors are to blame. Following the State of the Union, the Daily Beast ran a story “No, Women Don’t Really Make Less Money than Men” by Christina Hoff Summers. Summers writes that men choose to major in inherently higher-paying fields such as pharmacy, mathematics, engineering where women major in psychology, education, social work, and the arts. According to Summers, these choices lie behind the wage gap.

9

However, a study conducted by the American Association of University Women in 2012 found that immediately out of college, women make 6.6 percent less than men due to employer’s belief that women will take time off to become mothers. This gap only grows as women age and is more prominent among minority women.

So why hasn’t this wage gap been phased out? And does it only exist because of differences in job sectors?

Caren Grown, a professor at American University and co-director of the Program on Gender Analysis in Economics and co-principal investigator of the Gender Asset Gap Project, said Becker’s theory on discrimination has been discredited on both theoretical and empirical grounds.

She said there are superior neo-classical, institutionalist and feminist theories. Feminist and institutionalist theories point to unequal power relations in the family and discrimination in the workplace. Among neo-classical theories, the theory of statistical discrimination, based on imperfect information, better represents empirical evidence.

lack of flexibility. If, for instance, you think you’re going to be a mother later in life, you may want to choose an occupation that offers you more flexibility. And, unfortunately, a lot of those occupations may be lower paid and have less opportunity for advancement.”

As a result, all societies have to various degrees, occupational and job segregation by sex. In female-dominated sectors, workers tend to make less money than in male-dominated sectors. More interestingly, women that work in male-dominated sectors make more than women working in female-dominated sectors. The same goes with men who work in female-dominated sectors––they earn less than what they might in maledominated sectors but often still more than women in those sectors.

“It’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a Mad Men episode.”

“If you’re an employer and you don’t have perfect information on every individual applicant but you think that women, on average, have higher turnover rates than men because they take time off from the labor force, you may not want to hire them or you may pay them less because you don’t want to invest in training them and eventually lose that investment in their human capital, even if you as a worker have no intention of taking time off,” Grown said. “That kind of statistical discrimination can endure over time.”

Grown said these gendered social norms are often the culprit.

“Women’s choices are also conditioned to some extent by expectations about their roles as mothers [and] careers as well as what are ‘appropriate’ jobs for women in balancing those roles,” Grown said. “And they may be related to real barriers that exist in the labor market, like

Grown said that there has to be an institutional and social change to reduce occupational segregation and gender pay gaps. If employers made it easier for mothers to continue working through flextime, in which employees are expected to be at work for a few hours a day and then can finish the workday at home, and telecommuting, working virtually outside the office, women might be able to change the perception they will leave the workforce to become mothers.

“I also think that we have a whole lot more to do about changing the social norms surrounding male caregiving,” Grown said. “And once you start to have men who participate more within the home, I think you’ll start to see some changes.”

Fatima Goss Graves, the vice president of education and employment at the The Women’s Law Center, an organization that works to advance women’s rights within the workplace, said, “There’s no question that one thing that contributes to pay discrimination is stereotypes about women overall, women’s commitment to work, women’s value to work and the time spent in motherhood.”

However, she said she is seeing some changes on the federal level but more clearly on the state level. This year, New Hampshire unanimously passed a bill that banned retaliation against workers who discuss their wages. States like Vermont, New Jersey, New Mexico, Illinois and Colorado already have these equal pay bills in place.

“What’s been really good to see are the recent articulations of economic agendas that help women more broadly, and we’ve seen both the House and the Senate and some states have done the same, and these agendas really outline the plans to advance women’s security in a way that’s systematic,” Graves said.

Right now, there needs to be the same push seen in individual states for equal pay legislation on the federal level. It’s time we leave this #madmen era once and for all. •

Casey Chiappetta is a freshman studying international studies and Arabic.

She is a staff editor for AWOL.

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

10

investigating sexual assault on campuses

standing with survivors Words by Haley Hawkins // Illustration by Ellyse Stauffer

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s dignified image was tarnished in 2012 when they shamed a student during a judicial hearing .

Landin Gambill, who reported that her ex-boyfriend raped her, was met with degrading and accusatory questions during the ensuing honor court hearing. According to Caitlin McCabe and Paula Seligson of The Daily Tar Heel, after Gambill’s ex-boyfriend was found not guilty, she was then charged by the honor court with creating an “intimidating and hostile” environment for her ex-boyfriend on campus.

Gambill was one of five women who filed complaints with the US Department of Education early last year against UNC over its internal process for handling sexual assault cases.

11

On the heels of Gambill’s case, numerous other stories arose from colleges mishandling sexual assault, creating a nationwide stir. In response, colleges have tightened up their procedures for dealing with sexual assault allegations.

Sexual Violence in the United States Sexual violence is a prevalent and personal issue. As a crime that affects many people, it has a lasting impact on our culture as a whole. And college campuses are notorious for instances of rape and sexual assault.

This issue “affects such an extraordinary number of people,” said Scott Berkowitz, president and founder of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). “The lifetime risk is one out of every six

AU’s Judicial Process

women and the risk in college is even higher. This is a violent crime that can have tremendous long-term effects on victims.”

“Three out of 100 perpetrators will ever spend a day in jail,” reported Daniel Rappaport, American University Sexual Assault Prevention Coordinator. “And I would be hard-pressed to think it’s even that high, as rape is an extremely underreported crime. Not because people don’t always bring things forward, but because when people do have the courage to bring an assault forward and attempt to go through the process, it’s not assured that the process will move forward at all, nevertheless be a fair system to receive any sort of justice.”

A few key national policies already govern how colleges handle cases of sexual assault.

The Clery Act, also known as the "Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act," sets forth procedures that colleges or universities receiving federal funding must follow. Accordingly, these institutions log and disclose on-campus crime statistics, issue warnings about crimes that threaten the campus community and devise emergency responses. It was amended in 1992 to include the consideration of rights of sexual assault survivors. The majority of these rights deal with informing students of their options after reporting (including the option to notify external authorities and the ability to obtain counseling services), accommodating changes in academic or living situations if requested and educating the campus community on sexual assault.

Title IX of the Act—predominantly credited with prohibiting gender discrimination in sports—defines sexual violence as an instrument of discrimination. Therefore, mishandling of a sexual assault case constitutes a Title IX violation. This is why colleges retain Title IX coordinators on staff to insure that their institutions are following the letter of the law.

“The increased visibility of Title IX strongly encouraged a lot of universities to review everything they were doing around sexual violence, which is and was fantastic,” Rappaport said.

Recently, the White House released a memorandum detailing a proposed task force to protect students from sexual assault.

“Many schools, AU included, had already begun to put some things in place that met those standards,” Associate Dean of Students Michelle Espinosa said. “So, for instance, a couple of years ago we revised the policies with definitions, including the definition of consent. We also revised the student conduct process for sexual assault that allows the complainant to appeal.”

Director of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution Services Rosie McSweeney also pointed to changes in standard of proof as a positive change in sexual assault policy. While federal law does not require a particular standard of proof, many colleges changed their burden of proof stipulation in recent years from “beyond a reasonable doubt” to a “preponderance of the evidence,” in response to national legislative pressures.

Rappaport also said that AU, in comparison to other universities, seems to have “more of their ducks in a row” when it comes to sexual assault support services and following the regulations national legislation has set forth.

But despite the national trend to revise sexual assault case procedure at an institutional level, the subject itself remains taboo. Popular discourse on survivors’ rights is essentially non-existent. So, the average person that may be affected by sexual assault most likely doesn’t understand the process of filing a case on a college campuses, even with all the recent changes.

At AU, there are three primary steps that occur in a sexual assault case: the report, an investigation and a judicial hearing. The progression of a case relies on the choices of the survivor, or “complainant” in legal terms.

For instance, a survivor may choose to report to a confidential resource, but not request an investigation. Or, one may request an investigation, but choose not to go through with a judicial hearing.

“Prevention needs to be part of the college culture. Students need to know that the college is holding them to a high standard of behavior and the college needs to be able to demonstrate that someone who is victimized is going to be treated fairly.”

Rappaport is a resource on campus for survivors of sexual assault. His position, which originally required him to report cases of sexual assault to campus authorities, changed in 2011. He is now a confidential resource.

Students are encouraged to seek support from him, even if they choose not to report.

The AU Counseling Center is another confidential resource for survivors.

Resident assistants and AU administrators are not confidential.

“The involvement of my role as someone goes through a judicial process is optional,” Rappaport said. “If they so choose to have me take part, I will do that and support them in any way that I can. My role as an advocate can be utilized throughout the entire process. I can sit, provide support and advocate in every meeting if someone wanted that.”

After getting support from Rappaport, a survivor can choose to request an investigation. Espinosa is then responsible for the investigation proceedings.

According to Espinosa, she will conduct an investigation with the consent of the complainant and also inform him or her of the option to report to the DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). In that case, the two investigations would run simultaneously.

Finally, after Espinosa reviews the findings of the investigation with the complainant, he or she may choose to go through with a judicial hearing.

Rosie McSweeney first meets with the complainant to discuss what they want to get out of the judicial process. Then, she administers and monitors a conduct hearing facilitated by an extensively trained conduct council, composed of a student, a faculty member and a staff member.

McSweeney noted that two, maybe three, cases of sexual violence run through the entire process at AU in a given year.

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

12

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

“The task of the conduct council is to: one, determine what sexual activity occurred and two, if consent was given,” McSweeney said.

Though the council understands case-by-case sensitivity, certain steps can be taken to decrease discomfort for the respondent and the complainant, such as visual barriers between the two parties.

If the respondent is found guilty, the council then determines a consequence. Based on the prior record of conduct and level of the offense on the part of the respondent, consequences can include removal from housing, a no-contact order, suspension or dismissal from AU.

DC Campus Policies Other DC universities have taken measures to improve sexual assault response and reporting. Since the Clery Act requires colleges to report crime statistics, including sexual violence, annually, anyone can access records of on-campus sexual assault online through campus public safety.

“It really took a lot out of me. I think it was worth it though. If I didn’t tell anyone, he’d just keep doing it.

He’d still be here.”

On the issue of disciplinary action, GWU and UDC are the only two colleges of the ones reviewed that explicitly specify “one-year suspension” and “interim suspension,” respectively, as consequences for sexual assault.

Sexual assault creates issues not only in colleges but also in the lives of affected people and in the nation as a whole. We live in a culture of sexual violence, where an American is sexually assaulted every two minutes. Only about 40 percent of these crimes will be reported to police. The statistics are even higher on college campuses.

“Prevention needs to be part of the college culture,” Berkowitz said.

“Students need to know that the college is holding them to a high standard of behavior, and the college needs to be able to demonstrate that someone who is victimized is going to be treated fairly.”

Sexual Assault at AU Jessica, a senior at AU, is a survivor of sexual assault and chose to go through the entire judicial process in spring 2013. Her resident assistant learned of the sexual assault and, being a non-confidential source, had to report it to Espinosa.

“Dean Espinosa told me I didn’t have to press charges or anything,” Jessica said. “It was up to me whether I wanted to go through with it or not.”

Jessica decided to press charges, both on-campus and with the MPD. She said that since the case with the MPD was eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence, the internal campus process allowed her an avenue through which to have her case heard and “get something done.”

According to each school’s latest annual crime reporting, in 2012, the George Washington University and the University of Maryland had the most reports. In both records, 10 cases of on-campus sexual violence were reported. That number is seven for AU; four for both Georgetown University and Catholic University; two for Howard University; and one for the University of the District of Columbia.

While the University of Maryland had 10 cases of forcible sexual offenses reported in 2012, only two were investigated because survivors chose whether or not to pursue legal action. The other eight were handled through confidential resources.

Differences in proceedings, at least among DC universities, tend to appear in the areas of judicial board make-up and recommended consequences for sexual offenses. All of the codes reviewed for this article contained explicit definitions of consent and sexual assault and specified either a “preponderance of the evidence” or “more likely than not” burden of proof.

Most DC universities, including AU, establish judicial hearing boards composed of students, faculty and administrators. George Washington University and the University of Maryland give students more power on the judicial hearing board than AU or Catholic University.

For example, at GWU, the board consists of five students, as well as faculty members and administrators. The minimum presiding student board members is set at three; however, a case can go through the judicial process and be decided without the physical presence of faculty members or administrators.

The entire process took about three months, ending in May 2013. During that time, Jessica said Rappaport served as “the best campus resource” and Espinosa provided her with informational support.

However, the process was still far from easy.

“The accused was on my floor,” Jessica said. “But even though he was on my floor, they actually gave me the chance to relocate to another dorm. I kind of wish that they would change that policy. They said that you have to find a person guilty in order to move them off a floor.”

Jessica stayed away from her floor for about a day, before deciding that she felt isolated and needed to move back.

Even though she and her accused assaulter were issued a no-contact order, Jessica still had to choose between feeling isolated or living on the same floor as her assaulter for three months.

“I thought they treated me fairly,” Jessica said. “I think the only issue was how long the process took. I guess it made me feel like they didn’t care. I even asked them, ‘Do you guys not care?’ And then they gave me the option to move off the floor, but I’m not the one that did anything.”

The accused was ultimately found guilty of sexual assault and suspended from AU. Jessica said the process was long and difficult but worth it in the end.

“As a woman at this school, I would hope that another woman would never have to have this happen,” she said. “It really took a lot out of me.

I think it was worth it though. If I didn’t tell anyone, he’d just keep doing it. He’d still be here.” •

Catholic University does not explicitly state the composition of its judicial board members, instead defining the board as comprised of “community members.”

Haley Hawkins is a freshman studying journalism.

13

photo essay:

college cuisine confessions Words and photos by Pamela Huber

Our lives run on food. Food nourishes us; it comforts us and it can make us feel happy and guilty simultaneously. College complicates food. Buffets in the dining hall and cheap take-out entices on-thego students who don’t have the time—or the money or proper kitchen—for groceries or cooking.

College fridges offer a view into their owners’ lives—do people prefer fresh or frozen produce, drink alcohol, concern themselves with health ideals or even have the means to properly nourish themselves? Peering into fridges lets us peer into people’s personalities by seeing how each person styles, or does not style, his or her life around its sustenance.

Students find frozen food convenient—even frequent cooks generally prefer frozen over fresh produce because it cuts costs and increases ingredient longevity.

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

14

AMERICAN WAYWAY OF OF LIFELIFE MAGAZINE AMERICAN MAGAZINE

Noelle, the Avalon Noelle’s parents pay for her groceries.

Favorites: Fruits & Avocados Vices: Macaroni and cheese & Tostitos

Noelle’s food lifestyle is “healthy but not restricting.” She said her dad gives her EagleBucks for grocery money so that she can only buy groceries at Whole Foods, which helps her eat healthy. While living in an apartment gives her a large kitchen, she said, “I don’t like leftovers, so I don’t cook as much as I would like to.”

15

Karri, Rugby House Karri’s parents give her a weekly grocery allowance, and she pays to eat out.

Favorites: Mashed Potatoes Vices: Take-out Chinese

Karri lives with five other housemates, mostly fellow members of the women’s club rugby team.

Their fridge is massive and stocked full. Karri said she cooks a couple times a week on calm nights and eats leftovers for the rest of the week.

“Rugby season I pretty much let myself eat whatever I want,” she said, singling out sources of protein such as cheese sticks and yogurt.

The large household means occasional family dinners, and the housemates share communal perishables. When listing off her freezer contents, Karri included, “frozen hash browns for hangover tomorrow” and went on to qualify, “It’s more of a rugby hangover than an alcohol hangover because I’m going to wake up tomorrow and feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.”

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

16

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

Jack, the Avalon Favorites: Fruit Vices: Coffee Eddie, the Avalon Favorites: Lobster Rolls Vices: Cigarettes and Wine Roommates Jack and Eddie are both members of fraternities whose parents pay for their food—“but not the booze fridge,” Jack said. Jack “tends to eat pretty healthy,” preferring Whole Foods to fast food. Eddie’s food choices depend more on money—if his parents give him $50 a week, “I’ll definitely find a way to spend $10 on beer… I’d rather have that than food.”

True to form, Eddie said nothing in the fridge belongs to him. The freezer is all but empty except for an ice luge and margarita mix, and Jack just has some vegetables and expired ham in the fridge. But between the freezer contents, a pitcher of jungle juice and the separate booze fridge, the alcohol collection is stocked.

Pamela Huber is a sophomore studying literature. She is a staff editor for AWOL.

17

Photo courtesy of Paul Davis

diplomacy blossoms

the secret history of dc's favorite tree Words by Jimmy Hoover

It is late March in Washington DC, well into the world’s most popular tree blossom festival; and yet winter, like a sozzled old man in a bar, is dragging its feet out the door. Underfoot the ground gives a little, sodden with melted snow. Jinsam Choi walks behind former SIS Dean Louis Goodman with caution so as not to scuff his shoes. Choi is a documentary filmmaker from the Korean Broadcasting System putting together a feature on the species Prunus yeodoensis, known to many as cherry blossoms and to less as Yoshino cherry trees. In the last few years, new evidence has shed light on where the trees originated and Choi is hoping to document these discoveries in time for the year’s annual flowering. Accompanied by a translator and assistant, Choi follows Goodman behind the East Quad building where a small grove of aging cherry trees droops over the landscape. Choi fixes his camera on the former dean, who, standing before the old School of International Service, begins to recount a story of war, beauty and science: it is the story behind the Korean cherry trees of American University. *** April, 1943: a different crowd stood together alongside Nebraska Avenue. Far from the theater of the Pacific where America was fast at war with Japan, a Harvard-educated Korean politician named Syngman Rhee bent down to plant the first cherry tree at American University. AU students, faculty and Korean women in traditional hanboks gathered about him with folk music ringing in the air. As Rhee spread soil over the sapling, AU President Paul Frederick Douglass read from the Korean Declaration of Independence. The goal of the ceremony: to bring an end to Japan’s nearly 40-year occupation of Korea. For the white-haired Dr. Rhee, this was denouement to a lifetime spent in waiting.

A new book by scholar Young Ick Lew titled, “The Making of the First Korean President,” details Rhee’s campaign to win over American public opinion and liberate Korea from Japanese control, a feat in which American University itself played a role. Rhee, who went from political prisoner to a student at Harvard and Yale to president of the Korean provisional government in exile, worked in Washington DC to rally political allies for his cause. One was the 37-year-old Douglass, whose parents had been Christian missionaries in Korea during the 1930s. While it is not known how the two men met, according to Lew, Rhee installed Douglass as the head of the Christian Friends of Korea (CFK), a newly-formed organization composed of religious associates and other missionaries. With the CFK, Douglass urged members to lobby their representatives for Korean independence.

By the tree planting in 1943, anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States was rampant. After the attack on Pearl Harbor two years earlier, four Tidal Basin cherry trees were cut down by vandals in suspected retaliation. All around the country, the government interned Japanese Americans in camps, and soon even began referring to the Yoshinos along the Tidal Basin as “Oriental” cherry trees.

With the trees’ reputation on the wan, Rhee saw an opportunity.

The cherry trees, Rhee said, were another example of the Japanese exploiting Korean resources. On the day of the planting, he claimed in his speech that the species originated in Korea, announcing to the crowd that this grove would reclaim from history the original ownership of the Yoshino from Japan. They would be known as “Korean Cherry Trees.”

Though he was heard loud and clear, Syngman Rhee’s claims would go unsubstantiated for nearly 70 years.

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

18

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

After the war, Rhee became the first democratically elected Korean president. But for all his hopeful idealism, Rhee turned despotic. His southern regime brutally and routinely repressed the slightest inkling of communism. This manifested itself tragically in 1948 on Jeju island—an ancient landscape of trees, mountains and waterfalls just off the south coast of the peninsula. In the early spring, amid the island’s flowering trees, an episode of police violence incited a communist uprising. Rhee’s government sent in paramilitary troops against the insurrection, and Rhee himself declared martial law on the island.

A truth commission has since reported over 14,000 deaths from the rebellion. Eventually, a group of students successfully called on him to resign, and Rhee disappeared from South Korea’s political arena in 1960 at age 84. He died in 1965. Today, Rhee is remembered as a quazidemocratic dictator, best known for his stern anti-communist actions. *** On the top shelf in Dean Goodman’s office in the new SIS building rests a porcelain bowl of light turquoise, a present from South Korean president Kim Young-sam. The gift is one of many items from the country collected over the years. No longer the dean, Goodman still teaches classes in the SIS, under the title “Dean Emeritus.” Goodman still remembers what first piqued his interest in the trees.

“They came originally from Korea. Their growth was improved by the Japanese when they cultivated them for more than 100 years and this a joint contribution to the world.”

For years, the ambassador’s inquest went unanswered, but in time, the truth would bud anew. In 2009, a pair of researchers looked into the matter on their own. Dr. Eun Jeu Cheong, a Korean American working for the United States Department of Agriculture’s research division and Dr. Chan Soo Kim of the Korea Forest Research Institute took several cuttings from AU’s trees. Using the leaves’ DNA, Cheong cross-analyzed the trees with the Tidal Basin specimens. Not only were AU’s trees the same as those along the Tidal Basin, but they both shared genetic material with the wild cherry trees of Jeju island. Dr. Cheong confirmed what had gone unrecognized for centuries: the trees were originally from Korea. Syngman Rhee was right.

Upon hearing the findings, Goodman flew to Korea with Cheong and Kim to present the results at the Korean Foreign Research Institute’s annual conference. News of the discovery rocked the event’s organizers so drastically that Dr. Cheong’s findings became the theme of the conference. The Institute even decided to hold the conference on Jeju island.

Travelling with the scientists and a prominent Korean member of the SIS faculty, Goodman was met with gratitude and plaudits. But one event from the trip still causes him to bristle. At a dinner conference where many locals from the island had come to hear the team’s findings, Goodman began to tell the story with the help of a translator. When he mentioned Rhee's name, he said that the audience "just went cold." He later realized that he was speaking to the descendents of the residents killed in the 1948 massacre who still harbored the resentment of unrighted wrongs.

But Goodman knew that this shared history was larger than an individual. On the last day of his trip, Goodman reached Gwaneumsa. At the foot of Mount Halla mountain, an ancient Buddhist temple stands among the original Yoshinos which have grown wildly since anyone can remember. In April’s light mist, he looked out to the the endless blossom of pink swaying in the wind. ***

Upon his appointment to the dean of AU’s School of International Service in 1986, Goodman set himself up in an office overlooking Nebraska Avenue. Each spring, he recalls, long black limousines would pull up unannounced, and out would come groups of older Korean men. From his office, he watched as one after another approached the blooming cherry trees to tie a thread around them.

“I would go out and say, ‘Welcome—what are you doing here?’ And they had no idea it was American University,” Goodman said. Many of these men, he learned, participated in the Korean independence movement. They were at AU to pay homage to the struggle's most famous participant, Syngman Rhee. The threads were a wish-making tradition in Korean culture.

“There was a knowledge in the Korean community about these trees.

Korean Americans and Koreans, not just in Washington, but from New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, would come here,” Goodman said.

But his full understanding of their significance was still years away.

In 2005, the Korean ambassador to the United States, Lee Tae-sik, approached Goodman at a diplomatic reception. Lee was curious about AU’s grove: was what Syngman Rhee believed about the trees’ origins true? Were they in fact Korean?

19

The campus where Choi and his documentary crew stand could hardly be more different than the planting ceremony 71 years before.

Today, a busy stretch of Nebraska Avenue cuts right behind the grove, and numerous buildings and offices have risen. Today, the Yoshinos are dying. Each year, the campus arboretum has to remove dying limbs and trunks from the trees, a process which by now has littered their structures with stumps and scars. But still and unaltered is an exchange of stories and friendship, which will take place in an air of understanding, even diplomacy. Goodman looks to Choi and his crew with a countenance befitting to the ceremony.

“Today what we all want is for Korea and Japan to get over it,” he said. “[And] to recognize that it’s a shared culture. There are lots of things that are shared between Korea and Japan and these cherry trees could be [one of them]. They came originally from Korea. Their growth was improved by the Japanese when they cultivated them for more than 100 years and this a joint contribution to the world. Because these cherry trees not only grow in Japan, Korea, and the United States but all over the world. And they’re very beautiful.” •

Jimmy Hoover is a senior studying journalism and Spanish.

rediscovering dialogue // descubriendo el dialogo de nuevo

the oas in the twenty first century Words and Photo by Jose Mejía Sierra

As a resident of the United States, you have Inter-American rights, defined by the Charter of the Organization of American States and the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man. It is one of the basic instruments of the Organization of American States (OAS), an entity that most people have never heard of before.

The people who work for the OAS are among the most dedicated I have ever met during my time as an intern to the Permanent Mission of Ecuador. From a Caribbean ambassador with a Johns Hopkins degree to the cadre of former foreign monsters, the capability and commitment of these individuals’ gives warrant for optimism in the future of the organization in which they serve.

Occupying the stately corner of 17th and Constitution, the OAS is a Pan-American international organization, consisting of 35 independent member states from the western hemisphere. Its work centers on democracy promotion, human rights, security and development.

Que es el futuro de la Organización de Estados Americanos? En el momento que se encuentra Latino América, la misión de la OEA está en crisis.

Está encadenada por los vestigios de la guerra frio y con una mentalidad de un lado contra el otro. La nueva izquierda de American Latino está en muchas formas rechazando el corriente sistema Inter-Americano. Con entidades como UNASUR y ALBA, nuevos foros se están manifestando dentro de las Américas. Hay un futuro para le OEA? Para formar una respuesta es crucial recordar y redefinir como la OEA aun pude afectar cambio positivo.

Durante mi tiempo como pasante en la Organización, conocí a persones sumamente dedicadas a su trabajo. Desde un embajador del Caribe graduado de la Universidad Johns Hopkins, a los numerosos ex cancilleres, la capacidad y el compromiso de estos individuales da mucho optimismo en el futuro de la organización en la que sirven.

Los pillares que integran la OEA son la democracia, derechos humanos, seguridad, y el desarrollo económico. Con la sede principal en Washington,

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

20

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

Tracing its roots back to the 1889 International Conference of American States, it is the world’s oldest international organization.

It became a commercial bureau to promote fraternity and trade between states while maintaining the status quo. It was a gesture of American goodwill to Latin America. The OAS Charter was signed in 1948, a year after the Rio Pact.

The modern OAS is a participatory forum and mechanism for collective action. It is an entity similar to the UN, exclusively for the Western Hemisphere. Each member nation accredits a permanent diplomatic mission to the organization, with a Permanent Representative heading each post as his or her ambassador to the OAS.

La historia de la OEA comienza con la Conferencia Internacional de Estados Americanos en 1889. En los primeros días, la organización se desarrolló con un enfoque comercial para promover la fraternidad y cooperación económica entre los estados miembros. En un sentido fue una gestión de buena voluntad de los EEUU. Pero también fue una organización comenzada para el mantenimiento del statu quo del poder de este país. Después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el Tratado de Rio fue firmado en 1947 y el próximo año la carta de la OEA fue finalmente firmada en Bogotá, Columbia.

Today, the OAS has reached a plateau of faltering relevance. As less and less people know about it, the organization’s ability to carry out mandates diminishes drastically. The OAS suffers from a profound inability to grow into a new role away from its defining crisis, the Cold War.

La OEA moderna es diseñada como una entidad participativa con mecanismos para acción colectiva. Membrecía está restringida a naciones Americanas, pero setenta naciones de partes distintas del mundo se encentran como observadores permanentes. Cada estado miembro acredita una misión permanente a la OEA, dirigida por un representante permanente que se encuentra como Embajador o Embajadora de su país a la organización.

“Economies are rising, and democracies are maturing. So too must the institutions that serve them.”

La OEA tiene un gran problema de marketing y de una audiencia menguante para su trabajo. Esta disminuida relevancia está basada en le inhabilidad de la OEA a crecer a un nuevo rol, fuera del marco de la guerra fría y hegemonía de los Estados Unidos Americanos. Aun no se encuentra con un mandato cambiado para el siglo veintiuno.

In a speech last year, Secretary of State John Kerry declared the Monroe Doctrine to be dead. However, the vestiges of the Cold War and Monroe Doctrine continue to muddle the OAS' ability to meet goals.

Ambassador Fernando Suarez, a former deputy chief of the Ecuadorian Mission, says Latin America is in a period of profound change.

“Economies are rising, and democracies are maturing,” Suarez said.

“So too must the institutions that serve them.”

The OAS cannot mature further with the current lack of trust that plagues it. The US plays a key role in making the OAS more inclusive and transparent. And currently, the US is losing legitimacy in the global community.

A young diplomat, who wished to remain anonymous, entered the organization believing that he could create change and that the OAS was an impartial forum.

“I didn’t believe the stories people told me about US control of OAS,” he said. But, after working at the OAS for two years, he reached the conclusion that US hegemony dictated policy.

The OAS has administered scholarships, ID cards and has tried fighting transnational crime and domestic violence. Think of any issue plaguing society today and there is most likely an inter-American mechanism or commission tasked with solving it. If the OAS is to be successful, it must tailor its objectives and build broad support among societal actors.

Efficacy must be the new measure of success. We can be hopeful that the OAS' goals can be revitalized for this new century. •

21

DC la OEA se encuentra aún como la organización pan-americana más estabilizada. Su membrecía es hecha por los 35 países independientes de las Américas.

Hablando con el Embajador Fernando Suarez, quien fue el segundo a cargo en la Misión del Ecuador, explicó que América Latina está en una época de cambio profundo.

“Economías se están fortaleciendo y democracias están madurando," dijo Suarez. “También tienen que madurar las instituciones.”

La OEA no puede madurar aún más con la falta de confianza en su trabajo que existe. Los EE.UU. lleva un papel clave en afectar una transformación en la OEA, a través de instituyendo una política más inclusiva y transparente en la entidad. En actualidad, los EE.UU. está perdiendo legitimidad en el orbito del hemisferio.

Un joven diplomático, quien pidió no ser identificado, entró en la organización creyendo que podía ser parte de hacer un cambio real y que la OEA era un foro imparcial.

“Yo no creía lo que la gente me decía sobre los Estados Unidos en la OEA", dijo. Pero después de haber trabajado para la OEA durante cinco años, llegó a la conclusión de que la hegemonía de EE.UU. dicta la política en el organismo.

Otro problema grande es que los programes de la OEA han llegado a tener un ámbito muy ancho. Por eso resultados concretos han disminuido.

La OEA administra becas, da tarjetas de identificación en selectas áreas, y trata de luchar contra el crimen transnacional y la violencia doméstica.

Piense en cualquier tema que plaga la sociedad, y es más que probable que existe un mecanismo o comisión interamericana para resolverla.

La eficacia debe ser el nuevo estándar para medir el éxito en la OEA. Hay razón para tener gran esperanza que los objetivos de la OEA pueden ser revitalizadas para esta nueva época. •

Jose Mejía Sierra is a sophomore studying international studies.

connecting with incarcerated writers

but still i soar Words by Alexa Marie Kelly

Photo

Zoé Orfanos once taught a convicted murderer how to use Google.

She was volunteering with Offender and Restoration, a nonprofit in Arlington, Virginia. Currently, she continues her passion for prison reform teaching incarcerated men how to write poetry.

Orfanos doesn’t know her students’ alleged crimes at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, and she doesn’t want to know.

But the American University senior hopes she can make a difference in the lives of these men.

She said her first class went pretty well. Her students were attentive and excited. “Later my supervisor David Clearwater was saying it was probably because they think that any good skill they might have will make it so they won’t have to go back there [to jail],” Orfanos said.

The Montgomery County facility is well-funded and relatively safe for volunteers. It houses pre-trial offenders and convicted offenders with sentences fewer than 18 months, and the facility offers what Orfanos called “alternative programming.”

“I passed a meditation class on the way in,” she said. Inmates can have their sentences reduced if they commit to classes like the one Orfanos teaches, an unusual system in an American jail.

“You really get to see a human side to these guys that not a lot of people see,” Orfanos added.

Over eight weeks, Orfanos will teach the basics of poetry, and the students will write poems using the devices they learn. In the first class, they studied repetition. As a group, with Orfanos’ guidance, they brainstormed a poem about an unusual repeating element: a spoon.

“In what situation would a spoon be important enough to merit being in a poem?” Orfanos said. “We had the spoon at the beginning of our conceptual poem, you’re eating ice cream with your spoon in your house, and at the end you’re picking your spoon out of the ashes of your burnt house. And it was just devastating.” Despite the dark topic, Orfanos delighted in the students’ enthusiasm.

The incarcerated students aren’t allowed to write with normal sized pens because someone in this facility was once stabbed with a pen. “They issued small blunt pens.” Orfanos said. “I don’t know how a man with a giant hand can write with a tiny pen.”

Overall, Orfanos hopes her class is a small step toward larger prison reform. With many inmates returning back to jail, the U.S. has what Orfanos called a “broken system.”

Her goal is to show one or two of her students that they can write, that they have a skill and are good at something.

“One guy asked me last class, can you study poetry in college?” Orfanos said of her first, small victory. •

I Soar E. Coleman I age and age through the rays Of my childhood days, As my furnace gets big inside, I begin to open my eyes There’s a problem.

Why can’t I love without hate?

But I hate love Because every time I love, my heart breaks One love was so great I would give my life for her to come back Just a baby and now she’s gone I loved her as soon as she was born Now everyday I tend to mourn and mourn Next thing you know I was kicked outta school Left behind because I broke the rules I guess that means I’m a fool Am I? Momma told me God ain’t gonna keep giving me favor with the law Now look where I am Locked up behind bars Yet I got my GED in two weeks And got my diploma Now I’m only a few steps from getting home There is a God There’s a God behind bars Outside of bars there is a God I might be closed in, behind locked doors But still I soar I soar I soar I soar I soar.

E. Coleman is a student in Zoé Orfanos' poetry class.

Alexa Marie Kelly is a sophomore studying public communication. She is a staff editor for AWOL.

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

22

Photo

addressing suicide in prison

behind bars and out of hope Words by Rain Freeman

Suicide haunts jails across our country. Unfortunately, the Central Detention Facility, DC’s city jail, is no exception.

More than half of all prison and jail inmates in the United States have mental health problems, according to a 2006 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Another BJS report that year found that suicide caused 32.3 percent of deaths in local jails.

According to the DC Department of Corrections, two suicides were committed from 2009 to 2012 at the Central Detention Facility. In 2013, there were three suicides between January and September.

use of isolation not only escalates the inmate’s sense of alienation, but also further serves to remove the individual from proper staff supervision.”

Hayes’ claim that isolation negatively affects inmates is not new.

American University Professor Robert Johnson wrote in 1978 that isolation could “undermine preferred coping strategies” among selfdestructive adolescent inmates.

Solitary confinement, according to Johnson, “exposes men to special environmental challenges and calls for special psychological resources. Those unable to martial appropriate responses are abandoned to defeat and left to ponder, alone and unaided, the nature and import of their failure.”

The Department of Corrections is not the only organization hoping to improve inmate suicide prevention. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (ASFP) and other non-profit organizations support research in under-informed areas to better understand mental health issues, such as preventing suicide.

Lisa Barry, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut, holds a doctorate in epidemiology, the study of health and disease in defined populations. Currently, ASFP funds her research which evalutes risk factors for suicidal ideation among inmates in Connecticut state prisons who are 50 years and older.

The increase in suicides prompted DC Department of Corrections “It has been well-established that inmates [of all ages] have higher Director Tom Faust to ask for “the assistance of an outside consulsuicide rates than the general population. Inmates share risk factant” to evaluate and impartially judge the facility’s suicide preventors for suicide with the general population,” Barry said in an email. tion practices. Lindsay M. Hayes, an official from the National Cen“These include, but are not limited to, a prior suicide attempt and deter on Institutions and Alternatives, conducted the investigation. In pression. However, inmates also disproportionately experience other November, just after the report’s publication in September 2013, anrisk factors for suicide which may make them particularly vulnerother suicide occurred. able to dying by suicide.”

Hayes made 19 recommendations to the Central Detention Facility’s on suicide prevention practices. However, most were concerned with preventing suicide, rather than preventing suicidal ideation or suicidal thoughts. He proposed that mental health clinicians at Central Detention Facility “develop treatment plans for inmates on suicide precaution,” an idea “consistent with national correctional standards.”

According to the National Commission on Correctional Health, such precautions include describing signs, symptoms and circumstances where the risk for suicide is likely. They also try to reduce suicidal thoughts, propose actions for correctional staff and patients if suicidal ideation is present and suggest follow-up assesments by mental health clinicians.

But only two recommendations address mental health. If investigations like Hayes’ simply emphasize inmate suicide attempts rather than the mental health problems behind suicide ideation, an effective, permanent outcome will remain elusive.

To prevent inmate suicide, society must start with the root of the problem. Like garden weeds, we must pull out the roots, or they will grow right back. People still suffer.

Hayes condemned the relocation of suicidal inmates to solitary confinement. Unfortunately, this situation is happens.

“In determining the most appropriate location to house a suicidal inmate, there is often the tendency for correctional officials in general to physically isolate the individual,” Hayes said in the report. “This response may be more convenient for staff, but it is detrimental to the inmate. The

23

According to Barry, other risk factors include a history of substance abuse, trauma and poor social support before incarceration.

“Efforts to ‘deinstitutionalize’ individuals with serious mental illness in the US over the past two decades have led to the closure of a large number of psychiatric hospitals,” Barry said. “Development of community-based health services to offset these hospital closures, however, has been inadequate. Consequently, jails and prisons have become the de facto mental health institutions in the US.” If this is true, and more than half of jail and prison inmates have mental health issues, measures must be taken in the correctional community to treat mental illnesses and eventually reduce the number suicides. But where to start?

At the roots. According to Barry, there is not enough information. The correctional community needs to know more to successfully prevent suicide.

“In my opinion, as inmates are a particularly high-risk population, more research is needed regarding inmate suicide so as to inform the development of suicide prevention programs,” Barry said.

If prison is the new American psych ward, then perhaps suicide is just a symptom of a larger issue of inadequate mental health care. If prisons placed a larger emphasis on the reform of inmates, and then perhaps more of mental health problems would be recognized, and treated, before it is too late. •

Rain Freeman is a freshman studying justice and law.

Professor Profile

chris palmer Interview by Alex Mazzarisi // Photo by Rain Freeman

Where was your favorite place that you’ve traveled? Where was the most dangerous place you’ve filmed?

One of my favorite places I’ve been is Kodiak Island in Alaska. It’s so gloriously pristine, and so much of it is untouched by human footprints. This island also has some of the largest brown bears in the world; some of them reach up to 1,500 pounds. As for danger, the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done is drive from my home to the airport. Flying in a small one-seated plane and filming bears in Alaska is far safer than a car ride anytime.

Chris Palmer teaches Environmental Filmmaking at American University. Born in Hong Kong and raised in London, Palmer came to the United States and joined American's University's staff in 2004. In addition to being a full-time professor, Palmer is an author, speaker and comedian, and has produced over 50 wildlife films. He is also the President of One World One Ocean, an educational campaign dedicated to restoring and protecting the world’s oceans. He explains the necessity of diligence and having a steady moral compass as the key to a successful life, but also to keeping the world habitable for future generations.

You’ve lived in Hong Kong, London and the US. What place do you consider “home”?

Now, I consider my home to be Bethesda, Maryland where my family and I have lived for about 40 years but I still consider my original home to be Bath, England.

Growing up, what were some of your inspirations?

I really did not have much happen to me as a young person that inspired me to become interested in wildlife. Some people love it because maybe their dads took them out to Yellowstone or hunting. My parents had no interest in wildlife. I found myself drawn to environmental [sic] when I realized that I could create a life for myself that was meaningful and I realized that protecting wildlife for future generations was something I could throw my life into.

Your film Shooting in the Wild is about the dark side of wildlife filming which includes using captive animals or intentionally causing stressful situations. Do you feel that exploiting animals in film is getting worse or better?

I think things are getting better because standards are improving. I think [what] people are realizing more and more are that aniWWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

24

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

mals are sentient and deserve more understanding and sympathy than they use to get. The bad news is that networks are desperate for ratings and that competition is getting more intense. How do

What is your advice to the many film, journalism and other communication majors here at AU?

they grab attention? High adrenaline, violence, dramatic shows,

Regardless of what career path you choose, have diligence. I en-

which, when you make these shows on a limited time schedule

courage people to not waste time and also think about the values

and budget, you are forced to be unethical. I worry that we’re im-

they live their lives by. The metaphor I like to use is that life is like

proving, but not enough.

a plane. Planes go off course all the time, like we make mistakes all

Why did you make Shooting in the Wild?

of the time. But just as planes always go back to the flight plan, you

After working for over 30 years in wildlife film, I had become

have your values as a guidepost. Also, find mentors! I don’t send out a memo without my wife Gail reviewing it first. •

haunted by what I had seen. I was appalled by the lack of conservation, the deception and by the amount of animal harassment.

People have no knowledge of these things and I wanted to put pressure on broadcasters and wildlife filmmakers to do a better job.

So, what, in your opinion, would be the perfect wildlife show?

The perfect wildlife show would have some kind of environmen-

Alex Mazzarisi is a sophomore studying public communications and anthropology.

NEWSWIRE

tal message, not involve any sort of animal disturbance or harassment and not have fabrication. And it would have to be interesting! So when you see it you want to talk about it, take action, or even write a contribution to Greenpeace. It would be a well-told story with characters and people would be inspired. I would say Blackfish got close to that.

You’ve done so much; you’re an author, a filmmaker and producer and world traveler and then you became a professor in 2004. What inspired you to become a professor?

I lost a job! I applied for a very high level job but I didn’t get it.

At the time I was 56, and was wondering what I would do for the rest of my life. I just happened to run into a Professor Aufderheide who introduced me to the Dean. And from there I got the job and fell in love with teaching. I loved being a Dad to my three wonderful daughters and as I learned to be good dad, I used some of the skills I that I learned to be a better professor.

You teach Environmental Film Making at AU. Some professors have the phrase “if there’s one thing I’d like you to get out of this class its….” Do you have that one specific thing?

I have students of every major take this class, not Film and Media majors. Regardless of what they are studying, I want my students to have a transformative experience. I want them to come my class and for the three and a half months that they’re here with me, I want them to radically rethink what their lives are about and come out with renewed clarity of where they’re going. I want their professional lives to be significantly enhanced and improved.

You are currently the President of the One World One Ocean Foundation, you’ve written your own book and you’re work has received so many awards. What is the key to staying humble?

I always remind myself how indebted I am to everyone else. It makes me instinctively modest when I realize how dependent I am on my support system. And I can learn from everyone, they have had experiences that I’ve never had and it’s also the realization that I am just one small piece of a society that has to take on the huge problems of the world like climate change.

25

LIGHTS, CAMERA, TAX INCENTIVES!

W

ith the latest Captain America movie opening in theaters this Friday, Hollywood’s rising star is thrust into the spotlight: Washington, DC. Our nation’s capital will be a major backdrop in one of this year’s greatest superhero movies.

Very little of the movie’s filming, however, was actually done here because of the District’s lack of a film incentive fund typically found in similarly-sized cities.

The City Council did try to pass a bill that would renew the city’s film tax credit program, which would subsidize film crews’ expenses in order to bring the city production jobs— but it failed. Comparatively, Maryland increased its production budget for 2014 from $7.5 million to $25 million.

As more and more film and television shows take place in DC, the District needs to act fast before production companies overlook it entirely. The only jobs available to local filmmakers should no longer be production units simply filming exposition shots of the Mall, the Capitol and maybe the Jefferson Memorial while the rest of the filming is done elsewhere, usually in Baltimore. Last May, the crew for the Captain America sequel shot aerial photography around Dupont Circle and the Theodore Roosevelt bridge, but shot the big action sequence way off in Cleveland.

This is very similar to Marvel’s The Avengers—the climatic battle in the middle of New York City was shot against a green screen. The city was added later by combining thousands of images to recreate the Big Apple. If DC wants to prove it is worth more than the suits who work here, it needs to stop being a supporting actor and take the lead. -Jacob Motz

One day, when I was bored in class, I read this Buzzfeed article about a new laboratory crop called, “golden rice.” It’s horrific. I refuse to understand why people don’t plant their own kale or quinoa or something so they can have a more balanced diet. But no, it falls to the rest of the world to save some lazy segment of the population. It only takes one far-away person to carelessly throw around terms like “terrible famine” or “year-long draught” or “world hunger” and presto: it becomes everyone else’s problem to fix. Scientists actually had to infuse the Vitamin A found in carrots into white rice resulting in the synthetic golden crop, just to feed people.

(un)wholesome whole foodies

shopping for change Satire by Jessica Wombles // Illustration by Ellyse Stauffer

I enjoy walking around Whole Foods because it makes me progressive. I’m not talking about the neo-hippie, trash-bag-wearing wannabe crowd; I mean the real live stick-it-to-the-man type who doesn’t conform to middle class fashion trends. So, if you’re looking for a fun weekend activity, grab your favorite Patagonia and head to Whole Foods for an afternoon of shopping among the sandalwood scented aisles.

As much fun as it is to walk around and pretend you’re a frequent Whole Foodie, there’s no point in going unless you actually buy something. Looking the part isn’t enough; you have to act it too. Trust me, it's very European.

One time, I saw this girl standing in front of the wall of organically grown nuts. She was busy filling her own mini, burlap, cinch-top bag with everything between the pistachio dispenser and the macadamia station. She was wearing acid-washed mom jeans with dark, thickrimmed, square-framed glasses and her fine, reddish-brown hair was pulled back tightly into a low ponytail. I stared at her for a solid two minutes, after which I still couldn’t decide whether she was twenty three or forty five. So far so good.

Then, I noticed the bag she was using had the “Dannon Soybean” logo dyed onto the fabric of either side. Given her clear concern for food quality she should have known that mixing organic and inorganic brands blatantly violates the Whole Foods produce-handling policy.

For the Safeway shoppers out there, soybeans are the second highest grossing genetically modified crop. By shopping carelessly enough to use an old soybean sack to store her nuts, she was risking contamination by the ghost of Monsanto's past.

GMOs are bad. Like, really bad. I swear one of these days the world is going to wake up with three eyes and a tail. Everyone says there’s no conclusive evidence that GMOs pose long-term health risks, but just look at public education. It’s no wonder these poor kids keep failing out of school when all they eat is laboratory food. Honestly, all families should just go the organic juice cleanse route. It would definitely be better than polluting their bodies with freaky chemicals, plus it's affordable.

What I don’t understand though, is why these people can’t just up and move if the land is no good. I mean, take a hint. Things aren’t going to get any better if you just sit around. Rather than complaining and expecting others to do the dirty work, people should just relocate. Moving these days really isn’t even that hard. The toughest part is finding a reliable moving company who won’t "lose" any family heirlooms.

Sure, golden rice has saved countless lives and prevented thousands more from going blind from malnutrition. But so many people refuse to acknowledge the fact that this horrific GMO problem could have been avoided in the first place if people in countries like Africa had just adapted.

You hear about these impoverished people every day. That Alyssa Milano commercial with all the starving children is the worst. All I ever hear when that thing comes on is twenty five cents a day, twenty five cents a day. I refuse to even look at it, because I always feel like she's staring into my soul.

It only takes one far-away person to carelessly throw around terms like “terrible famine” or “yearlong draught” or “world hunger” and presto: it becomes everyone else’s problem to fix.

People get all this publicity, but animals don't even have a voice. I think it’s important that people are informed of the hardships livestock face, rather than allow this maltreatment to go on ignored.

Fluffy and Mr. Whiskers are put on a pedestal while innocent cows and chickens are shipped off to the slaughterhouse. I don’t understand how people can be so speciesist. Everyone’s a hypocrite.

Like this one time, near the poultry section, there was a colorful, tribally decorated table set up with a sign across the front reading, “Investing in a Future Without Poverty.” I really think that if you’re going to promote a cause in front of the meat and poultry department, it should be for animal rights. It sickens me that more people don’t make a concerted effort to end the mass slaughter of animals when texturized vegetable protein is so affordable. For as little as an additional twenty five cents more per balanced meal, you could save countless innocent lives. And I’m sure we can all agree that life is a cause worth supporting. •

Jessica Wombles is a freshman studying communications and literature.

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2014

26

LIKE AWOL? HATE AWOL? WANT TO GET INVOLVED?

AWOLAU@GMAIL.COM college cuisine confessions PHOTO ESSAY p. 14

27

www.awolau.org