Friday, February 26, 2010
An independent, student-run newspaper serving the Virginia Tech community since 1903
www.collegiatetimes.com
COLLEGIATETIMES 107th year, issue 24
News, page 2
Features, page 5
Opinions, page 3
Sports, page 6
Classifieds, page 4
Sudoku, page 4
Need for Speed
COURTESY OF DANIEL LIN
DJ Reid Speed builds the power of her music during Saturday’s performance at Awful Arthur’s in downtown Blacksburg. She played for two hours after bolting from a plane in Roanoke and driving to Blacksburg.
‘Nasty’ beats, ‘filthy’ bass make their way to the ’burg RYAN ARNOLD features reporter Reid Speed’s ponytail bounced as frantically as the Awful Arthur’s crowd she entertained Saturday evening. Behind a turntable setup, the petite performer aggressively bobbed her head while the speakers pulsed. Based out of Los Angeles, DJ Reid Speed creates dance ready music mixes that fuse a breadth of styles. “In the flow of a two-hour set,” she said, “if you’re going from 170 (beats per minute) to 140 to 130 and back up again, you can keep it interesting and it doesn’t have to get boring.” At the slower end of that beat spectrum resides a rising musical genre called “dubstep.” The dubstep sound is unhurried and loaded with heavy, nearly omnipresent bass — its advocates describe songs with words including “nasty,” “filthy” and “grimy.” Born of this millennium, dubstep permeated Blacksburg in recent years through several conduits. During his 2008 abroad studies, senior marketing major Ian McGlumphy glimpsed dubstep in an Amsterdam coffee shop. Once stateside, he promptly broadcast his new tunes. A radio DJ for WUVT since freshman year, McGlumphy released dubstep into southwest Virginia airwaves. Yet while McGlumphy had considerable reach, he said his showcase wasn’t the original. Houseparty audiences peeked dubstep through local acts such as DJ Chup and DJ Class-A. A taste for Chupa Chups lollipops led to the name DJ Chup, while Class-A refers to top-level audio amplifiers. Like McGlumphy, both DJs latched onto dubstep in Europe, which is where its roots formed in the early 2000s. DJ Chup, senior electrical engineering major Sam Wells, worked near London in summer 2008. Class-A, senior chemical engineering major Steve Morris, had a more ingrained experience. “Pretty much my entire teen years (were) in the U.K.,” Morris said. “It’s definitely influenced my music tastes I feel like more to the electronic side.” Although dubstep has a detailed ancestry of electronic music styles, the DJs said certain characteristics make it unique. They acknowledged a layer they call the “wobble.” Dubstep producers often manipulate bass with computer software to create a fluctuating effect. To get an idea, say “womp” repeatedly at varying speeds. Granted, the “womp” plays at rumbling frequencies that approach human auditory limits. “Hope you got some real speakers for this one,” McGlumphy said on WUVT last Thursday, “that’s the only way you’re going to hear it.” The growing infusion of vocal clips also differentiates dubstep from its instrumental relatives. “A lot of producers will just take a sample and build a song around that sample,” Wells said. Snippets from British film are common. McGlumphy said he recently heard morsels of animated sitcom “Family Guy” in a dubstep track. see REID SPEED / page two
International tension strands students IRANIAN STUDENTS FACE DAUNTING PROCESS TO RENEW VISAS, CANNOT RISK RETURNING HOME LIANA BAYNE news reporter Virginia Tech graduate student Ali Tamijani hasn’t seen his family since August 2007. “There is no way I can go back home,” he said, “because I cannot tolerate the risk of not being able to return.” Tamijani, the current president of Tech’s Iranian student society, is just one of many Iranian students who study in America but are not able to visit their families back home in Iran while on breaks from school. He, along with former Iranian student society president Alireza Salmanzadeh, also a graduate student, have been working with the GSA to try to publicize and address problems facing Iranian students studying in the United States. Tamijani said the Iranian student society has been trying to meet with congressman Rick Boucher to speak with him about its issue. “It is difficult,” he said of arranging a meeting, “but possible.” In September 2009, the GSA issued a statement of support for the Iranian student society’s cause. “The Graduate Student Assembly recognizes that Tech has a large number of Iranian students who contribute significantly to the mission of the university and their respective departments,” the statement read. “Therefore, the Graduate Student Assembly supports a change in the current Iranian student visa policy which would allow Iranian students more flexibility when they return to Iran for obtaining a new student visa to re-enter the U.S.” “I was happy that the majority voted,” Tamijani said. “At least we brought up this issue at Tech.” There are about 100 Iranian students studying at Tech, Tamijani said,
making the Iranian community the fourth largest international population on campus. However, Iranian students frequently have problems with getting student visas. Currently, all Iranian citizens can only be issued single-entry visas because the country is classified as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Department. Other countries that fall into that category are Cuba, Sudan and Syria. All international students, including Iranians like Tamijani and Salmanzadeh, who wish to study in the U.S. must apply for a F-1 student visa through the state department. Because there is no American embassy in Iran, Iranian residents wishing to apply for this visa must first travel to a nearby country such as Turkey, Cyprus or Dubai. “It’s very costly,” Salmanzadeh said. “I paid $15,000 going back and forth.” Salmanzadeh said he waited four months to get visa clearance. Because of the long wait, he had to defer from fall semester to spring semester. Tamijani was slightly luckier. His clearance only took two months. However, he said, some students experience a wait of up to a year. Once students are cleared to enter the country, they effectively cannot leave. The visa clearance lasts for three months and students are allowed to stay in the country with an expired visa for the duration of their schooling. If they choose to leave the country, however, their visa almost certainly will have expired and they will have to go through the application process all over again. Salmanzadeh said he has not seen his parents for two years. “There are some specific times you want to be with your family,” he said. “My only sister is going to be mar-
GREGORY WILSON/SPPS
Iranian graduate students Alireza Salmanzadeh and Ali Tamijani are working to make the process for renewing a visa easier for those studying in the U.S. They are two of 100 Iranians at Virginia Tech. ried in the summer, and I cannot go home.” Tamijani said while “it’s very stressful,” he “recognizes issues between two governments.” The U.S. and Iran have not had official diplomatic relations since 1980. Yannis Stivachtis, director of the international affairs program at Tech, said the issue between the U.S. and Iran is suspicion. “The collaboration is not good,” he said. “You don’t know how the student will be used.” Stivachtis said many officials from both governments are nervous about the possibility that international students could be agents for either side. “You have only good faith,” he said. “When you have paranoia, anything’s possible. Mistrust creates paranoia.” “Students are the victims in this situation,” Stivachtis said. The Iranian student society has
been working with the National Iranian American Council, a nonprofit advocacy group that lobbies for Iranian-American interests. One issue it has been working on is helping students receive multiple-entry visas. “These kids would jump through hoops to be able to go home,” said Michelle Moghtoder, director of community outreach for NIAC. “But there are no hoops even to jump through.” Moghtoder said the group is looking forward to working with Tech students. “We’re very excited to be working with such passionate students,” Moghtoder said. NIAC has worked with college groups at Georgetown, UC Davis, and UCLA, among others. “We’re trying to teach them the skills needed to get involved in politics,” Moghtoder said. “Iranians as a whole are skeptical ... older generations are
skeptical, and they’ve seen politics take a turn for the worse.” Moghtoder said younger students, especially those studying in America, are becoming more active in democracy. On April 17, NIAC will host a workshop about civic participation that will help students learn how to effectively participate in the democratic process. “Even someone who grew up in the U.S. might not know about writing letters or calling their representatives,” Moghtoder said. In addition to hosting representatives from NIAC, Tamijani also said he hopes to bring Iranian professors from Columbia and Duke this semester to talk about Iranian politics and the issues Iranian students face in the U.S. “I think of myself as a cultural ambassador,” Tamijani said. “We are trying to introduce our culture and define diversity.”
Community rallies to find bone marrow donors LIZ NORMENT & LIANA BAYNE ct staff When he graduated from Virginia Tech with a master’s degree in horticulture, Paul Stevens was searching for a job, but he has now found his calling — trying to save his life and the lives of those who suffer with him. Tech alumnus Paul Stevens spent last summer like many other graduates — relentlessly applying for jobs in a less than booming economy. “I applied for 26 jobs and only got one interview,” Stevens said. Having taught biology at the community college level, Stevens was invited back to Tech to teach freshman biology and gladly took the opportunity, teaching four classes last semester. Within a few months of teaching, Stevens realized that even teaching would become a challenge. His worries over getting a job in a troubled economy soon seemed trivial as Stevens was faced with finding the strength to get through each day. “I’d noticed some pain in my hip for a while, and when the doctor took an X-ray, he found a tumor the size of a tennis ball,” Stevens said. “I was immediately taken to Wake Forest hospital.” After two weeks of tests, Stevens received word of his grave diagnosis: multiple myeloma, cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. “It’s very rare for someone my age,” Stevens, 26, said. “The average age is around 60 or 70;
LUKE MASON/SPPS Suzanne Stevens helps her son, Tech alumnus Paul Stevens, at Thursday’s bone marrow donor drive.
they’re calling me a case study.” With the necessity of beginning treatment as soon as possible, Stevens moved back home to North Carolina to be closer to the hospital. Now in his third cycle of chemotherapy, Stevens cannot deny the severe effect the strong drugs have had on his body. “The chemicals build up in your body over time, so the longer I go, the weaker I get,” Stevens said. “I’m constantly nauseated, always tired. Just going to the mailbox and back, I get worn out.”
Reducing the number of classes he teaches from four to two this semester, Stevens makes a commute of over two hours for two days each week. “I feel bad that my students only have two days access to me in terms of office hours,” Stevens said. The frustration he experiences with the inconvenience of a lengthy commute and constant fatigue is rivaled only by the passion he has for teaching and for the university. “I love Tech and I love the students here. That’s the main reason I’m back,” Stevens said.
He admitted that somehow, despite all of the physical effects, not much has changed for him professionally. “If anything, I’m more motivated now,” Stevens said. “A lot of people I’m teaching will become doctors and workers in health sciences. Who knows, one of the students in my classes could eventually find a cure for my disease.” Senior Derek Rose got to know Stevens through his work with the Latter Day Saint Student Association. “I have been inspired so much by Paul throughout all of this,” Rose said. “I can’t even describe how positive his attitude has been, and I think it’s what has helped him respond so much better than the doctors originally hoped.” Because of his type of cancer, Stevens’ doctors informed him that he will need a stem cell donor in order survive the destruction that multiple myeloma has caused on his own plasma cells. Rose, now president of the LDSSA, has helped organize a drive with the National Marrow Donor Program to help find a donor not only for Stevens, but for the thousands of cancer patients nationwide who’s lives are depending on finding the right match. The drive, which was held Thursday in Squires Student Center, aimed at building up the waning donor registry in the New River Valley. “I think the biggest thing is that no one knows about donating,” Rose said. Freshman biology major Alex Paulini learned see STEVENS / page two