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108th year issue 69
Downtown festival expands
Police investigate bomb MICHELLE SUTHERLAND editor-in-chief
At about 2:50 a.m. on Aug. 1, a citizen reported hearing gunshot or an explosion to the police, according to a media release issued by Blacksburg Police. The police investigated the 400 block of Harrell Street, and determined that "an improvised explosive device detonated near several parked vehicles, causing significant damage to a privately owned passenger vehicle," the release said. Blacksburg Police is leading the investigation, with asisstance from the Virginia State Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI and other local law enforcement agencies, the release said.
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Thousands of people will step into downtown Blacksburg August 3 and 4 for live music, crafts, food and to reunite with friends. Downtown Blacksburg Inc. will present the 32nd annual Steppin’ Out festival, which has more vendors for 2012 than ever before. Admission, downtown parking, and bus shuttles by the Blacksburg Transit will all be free for the festival, and there will also be the Canine Corral on the Henderson Lawn for dogs to be watched and cared for while festival goers walk the streets. Dylan Locke Productions organizes the music for Steppin’ Out. Dylan Locke said there will be three stages — the community stage, acoustic stage and the
ton
Tennis Courts
BY CHELSEA GILES| features editor
Virginia Tech fine arts major Sarah Vernon designed the t-shirt image for Steppin Out.
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main stage. “What I’m excited about this year that I haven’t done in the past is bring in a Zydeco band in, and they’re directly out of Louisiana,” Locke said. “It’s the real deal, its authentic Zydeco music.” The main stage usually shuts down at 10, however there will be an hour extension Friday night for the Zydeco dance party. “Zydeco is like gumbo, it’s all different styles in a pot mixed together, so it’s a lot of French Creole, R & B, very dansical,” Locke said. “It’s very lively, energetic and fun.” Downtown Blacksburg Inc. director, Laureen Blakemore, said the estimate of attendees to the festival is 35,000 to 40,000 over the two days, but it is hard to get an accurate count because it is free.
more info Where Downtown Blacksbug
When Aug. 3-4 Cost The event is free, as are parking and shuttle buses for the days
see THOUSANDS / page six
blacksburg, va.
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Federal penalties Language department expands loom for Penn State DEBRA HOUCHINS news staff writer
JEREMY ROEBUCK & SUSAN SNYDER mcclatchy newspapers
PHILADELPHIA — In 2002, when a Penn State University football standout was accused of a dorm-room rape, the details were easy to come by. After all, the alleged assault became a national news story when coach Joe Paterno allowed the accused cornerback to suit up for a postseason game despite the pending criminal charges. The only place the curious couldn’t find notice of the case was Penn State’s federally mandated campus crime report. It was never listed, even though that was required by federal law (the player was ultimately acquitted). In fact, the university reported no sexual assaults involving students on or off campus that year. “It was an obvious error and could not be correct,” said S. Daniel Carter, then a senior vice president for the Clery Center for Security on Campus. “I personally knew of other incidents that had been reported in 2002.”
The incident is just one example of what former FBI Director Louis Freeh described in a report issued last month as the university’s consistent and at times systematic failure to follow the Clery Act, a federal law requiring universities to provide accurate reports of crime on their campuses. If true, those shortcomings are likely to loom large in the U.S. Department of Education’s probe into Penn State’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse case — an investigation that some campus security experts have described as the Education Department’s largest Clery investigation to date. In November, the department requested a host of documents from Penn State, including logs of all crime reported to any campus security authorities from 1998 to 2011. Should Penn State be found in violation, it could face fines of up to $27,500 per incident as well as a possible loss of federal aid including see ABUSE / page three
While Virginia Tech is known for its excellence in fields like engineering, agriculture and football, foreign language studies isn't one that usually comes to mind. The staff and faculty of the Office of Foreign Language and Literature, as well as the students involved in the program, aim to change that. In the past few years, the size and scope of the department has grown significantly. “I came to VT in 2008. Since I was hired, the department has nearly doubled in the number of tenure and tenure track faculty, from 14 to 28, I believe,” said Dr. Debra Stoudt, a German professor and associate dean in the college of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Financially, the funding to the department depends on enrollment. “Funding has increased to pay for faculty salaries...if for nothing else, just to cover the cost of the new professor,” said Robin Pennington, an office manager for the department. Stoudt says that while the teachers have been integral in the growing success, that it's students who are rev-
ving up interest in foreign language and international travel. Interest extends outside of the actual department, with an increasing number of engineering and architecture students in opting to study and work abroad. Stoudt explained that the cycle starts when students are bold enough to step out of their comfort zone and participate in internships and study abroad programs. Those students return to the U.S., bringing their experiences back with them and getting more students interested in going abroad themselves. “Our students are very active in getting the word out,” Stoudt said. She went on to say that cultural and language clubs are also inf luential in encouraging students to seek out opportunities abroad and in the classroom. “It teaches new perspective, it definitely opened new doors for me,” said Philipp Kotlaba, this year's Outstanding Senior of the Foreign Language Department who participated in a study abroad in Berlin for the summer 2010, then interned with the Bundestag, Germany's Parliament, the following
summer. “It helped me stand out in law school applications.” said Kotlaba, who received three degrees in German, international studies and psychology, and will be attending Yale Law this fall. But the students aren't the only ones to thank for the department's expansion. “The growth of program is first and foremost students, but I like to think the faculty has had something to do with it too," Stoudt said. "We're good teachers interested in innovation looking to develop our program.” Less traditional languages have also gained popularity. This summer, for the first time since 2008, Virginia Tech offered a faculty-led study abroad program in Kyoto, Japan. For spring semester of 2009, only two Japanese classes were offered, both of which were elementary classes. The planned trip to Tokyo that summer was canceled due to lack of student sign-up. For the upcoming fall semester, Japanese language classes will range from the elementary to advanced levels, with five classes offered in total.
Greenberry’s Coffee Co. closes MICHELLE SUTHERLAND
collegiatetimes.com august 2, 2012
editor-in-chief
Greenberr y's Cof fee Co., located on the first f loor of Newman Library, has closed down for good. "My understanding is that they were making a profit, but they didn't meet their projections," said Laura Purcell, communications coordinator for the library. The shop opened in November 2011 and signed a five-year contract with the library, but broke it earlier in July. Gre enb er r y 's gave
the library 24 hours notice before shutting down. Greenberry's was not affiliated with Dining Services, which declined expanding to t hat place when it was originally vacant. It did not accept Dining Dollars or Flex Dollars, although it did except Hokie Passport. On average, the coffee was more expensive there than at other locations on campus and around Blacksburg. A small coffee was $1.85, compared to $1.70 at Au Bon
Pain, which does accept meal plan money, and $1.50 at Starbucks. It took the library about a year to get Greenberry's establ ished as a tenant. The process includes a university required bidding process and other legal steps, according to Purcell. She said the library hopes to find a new tenant in a shorter amount of time, although the emphasis is on finding a good fit.
Abuse: Penn State did not report other known charges
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grants, loans and work-study payments. A department spokeswoman refused to discuss the current status of the investigation. But Carter, the campus safety advocate who now works for a Virginia-based family outreach center, suspects that Penn State’s eventual fines could exceed the largest Clery penalty ever assessed — the $350,000 paid by Eastern Michigan University after administrators there intentionally mischaracterized the 2006 murder of a student in her dorm room as a death by natural causes. Carter said Penn State is hardly alone in failing to fully meet Clery reporting requirements. A 2002 Justice Department study found nearly twothirds of campuses fell short of full implementation. And since 2007, the Education Department has initiated 78 investigations and assessed fines totaling $1.4 million for noncompliance. “So many people view the Clery Act as a bureaucratic obligation,” he said. “Many schools were ignorant to the requirements, and when they did become aware of them, they met with institutional resistance.” The law is named after Jeanne Clery, a Lehigh Un iversit y f resh ma n who was raped and murdered in her dorm room in
1986. It requires universities to disclose all sexual assaults, murders, robberies and other crimes that occur on campus and in the surrounding community. Police as well as other des-
told, “We don’t have the money,” the Freeh report said. And even once risk-management assessments flagged Penn State’s spotty record meeting the act’s requirements, “awareness and interest in Clery Act compliance … remained siglackThe football program in par- nificantly i ng ,” Freeh ticular opted out of most of said. “The university’s the university’s Clery Act, incomplete implesexual abuse awareness mentation of the and summer camp proce- Clery Act was a contributing facdures training.” tor in the failure to report child sexuFreeh report al abuse committed by Sandusky,” he said. When a mother ignated campus authori- reported in 1998 that the ties — including coaches former assistant football and athletic directors — coach had inappropriately are responsible for pass- touched her 11-year-old son ing on reports even if they in a football locker room do not result in criminal shower, Penn State Police charges. Chief Thomas Harmon At Penn State, Freeh found emailed Gary Schultz, then few officials were aware of the university vice president the Clery Act and its require- in charge of campus police: ments, and those in charge “We’re going to hold off on of monitoring compliance making a crime log entry. received little training and At this point in time I can were often overworked. justify that decision because From 1997 to 2007, one of the lack of clear evidence university police officer was of a crime.” assigned to compile Clery No charges were filed, but reports. When he asked police generated a 90-page for more personnel to han- report on their investigadle the job of monitoring tion. The incident was not on-campus crime as well included in Penn State’s as incidents involving stu- annual crime statistics dents off campus, he was as required by the Clery
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Act. Three years later, three Penn State officials — Schultz, then-president Graham B. Spanier and Athletic Director Tim Curley — agreed not to notify authorities when a graduate assistant reported seeing Sandusky molesting a boy in a locker room shower. Their email exchange did not indicate any attempt to determine whether the alleged incident should be reported under the Clery Act, Freeh noted. “The football program in particular opted out of most of the university’s Clery Act, sexual abuse awareness and summer camp procedures training,” according to his report. Penn State spokesman David La Torre said university president Rodney Erickson has accepted the Freeh report and its findings. The Freeh group made preliminary recommendations for improvement in January, and the board of trustees immediately began taking steps, he noted. “President Erickson takes recommendations to the Clery Act very seriously,” La Torre said. But publicity surrounding the Sandusky case and the Freeh report has brought new attention to the Clery Act, campus safety advocates say. More schools are following in the lead of universities like Lehigh, which began train-
ing administrators annually on the law after Clery’s murder and repeatedly informs students and faculty where they can find crime statistics for the Bethlehem, Pa., campus. “We follow the letter of the law,” said Lehigh Police Chief Edward Shupp, who investigated the freshman’s slaying as a young sergeant. “In fact, we go above and beyond what is required. We feel the more education that’s out there, the better for everyone involved.” Penn State has also taken steps to improve its Clery compliance since Sandusky’s arrest, including hiring Gabriel Gates as its first fulltime Clery Act compliance officer. “Now, certainly not in any way that they would have wanted, Penn State has become a leader in this area,” Carter said. Since Gates started, the university has identified more than 3,000 employees and volunteers who have reporting responsibilities under the law and have provided training to about half. The rest will attend mandatory training sessions in the near future. The university’s board also plans to review annually the campus’ Clery reports. “My focus hasn’t been on the past,” Gates said. “I’ve been given a clean slate to build a robust compliance program with a focus on the future.”
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crimeblotter time
offense
location
status
7/1923/2012
2:30pm 2:30pm
Follow up to larceny of a projector
Burchard Hall
Inactive
3/1 12/31/2011
12:01am 11:59pm
Fraud
The Richmond Center
Active: referred to other law enforcement agency
7/2426/2012
5:30pm 8am
Larceny of construction equipment
Center for the Arts
Active
7/27/2012
1:07am
Driving under the influence of alcohol
Otey Street
Cleared by arrest
arrestees
Christopher Mayfield, 21
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College students must read more in free time When it comes to whether or not college students are reading or writing enough, the hard truth is that we're not. Numerous studies have been devoted to assessing this. These studies have covered a wide range of what one might consider reading, from assigned academic reading to reading for pleasure. The studies have churned out some interesting results and shed a revealing light at how students approach reading both inside and outside the classroom. Despite boasting enormous workloads, juggling multiple classes and labs and passionately longing for a few more hours during the day, it appears that students are missing out on a critical component of higher education. In a recent book and its accompanying study, "Academically Adrift," written by Richard Arum, a professor at New York University, and Josipa Roksa, an associate professor at the University of Virginia, a startling number of students are shown to be deprived of the adequate means to improve their critical thinking skills, analytical reasoning and written communication skills. Most of these afflictions cite lower enrollment in reading and writing-intensive classes during the first two years of college. Approximately 32 percent of 2,300 undergraduates at 24 four-year universities over the course of an average semester did not take "any courses with more than
40 pages of reading per week." And 50 percent of students "did not take a single course in which they wrote 20 pages over the course of the entire semester." In order to assess how these students were learn-
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(A) startling number of students are shown to be deprived of the adequate means to improve their critical thinking skills, analytical reasoning and written communication skills.” ing in college, subjects took the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized exam that is essay-based and open-ended and judges key critical thinking and analysis skills. Researchers were not surprised that students who took more reading and writing-intensive courses in college saw the most gains their ability to practice those key skills. Assigned reading, or lack thereof, is not the whole story. Studies have shown that reading outside of typical classwork, reading a novel or general non-fiction for pleasure, has been associated with heightened creativity and with improved academic success. But college students aren't doing enough pleasure reading either. Published in July 2011, a study called "Reading, Risk, and Reality," conducted by Julie Gilbert, an assistant professor, and Barbara Fisher, an academic librarian, at
Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., assessed the likelihood that students read outside their assigned work in college. Again, the results revealed much about reading in college. As many as 90 percent of students surveyed suggested that they enjoyed reading for pleasure, but nearly 90 percent of students read for pleasure less than 3 total hours during week. 10 percent of students don't read for pleasure at all. Students in pre-professional programs spend the least amount of time reading outside of their assigned texts including engineers, nurses, business majors, etc. So far it is unclear as to whether or not extended practice in reading or writing diminishes these students' critical thinking and analysis skills, considering their strong exposure to problem solving in hands-on learning experiences in the lab and in the field, but it is clear that many of these students struggle to even reach out towards reading for pleasure. So why aren't students reading enough? Many of survey respondents cite a lack of time as the culprit, reasoning that they spend so much time between attending class and completing assignments that they run out of hours during the day or are mentally burned out from homework and other academic endeavors. Picking up a popular novel simply does not fit into their daily schedules or within the confines of elaborate examples of multitasking. This arises in stark contrast to the amount of time students spend on the couch or online browsing various outlets of leisurely activity. At
least 90 percent of college students identify themselves as social network users, and one study suggests that watching television is a preferred activity for students who have free time to spare. Other information published in studies and in the press has revealed that students spending their free time online encounter distractions so intense that multitasking deadens function more so than usual. Juggling multiple interests on a wide range of websites, students struggle to focus on singular tasks and browsing time spills over into more productive activities. Students struggle to read
the lecture, many students are otherwise distracted by fruitless temptations. An associate professor at University of Colorado at Boulder, Diane Sieber, conducted a small, personal experiment where she compared the exam grades of students used their laptops in class to students who didn't. Students who used their laptops in class scored on average 11 points lower than students who did not. Some critics of the data argue what we consider reading in the digital age. They argue that college students spend more time than ever reading and producing text, even if it is words sent or received in a text message. The Students spending their argument focuses free time online encounter on college students' of distractions so intense that understanding the digital medimultitasking deadens func- um, which far outour pretion more so than usual.” stretches decessors' knowledge and efficient use of the subject. It serves not as a detriment to our learning environentire articles, are bombard- ment but as a necessary adaped with ads and meaningless tation to the times that are indulgences in guilty plea- changing. sures on YouTube and other Either way, it would do us similar websites. some good to browse the bestEven in the classroom, when seller list and pick up a new students have the best chance release off the shelf. Leisurely to engage in academic tasks, reading can serve as a much laptops and other digital greater use of the little free devices serve as a barrier to time and allows us to expand full, undivided attention to our academic skill-set beyond the material at hand. Many assignments and mountains professors are going so far as of homework. to ban such use of electronics ERIC JONES in their classrooms and have -regular columnist found that while some students use their laptops responsibly - junior to take notes or supplement -psychology major
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collegiatetimes.com august 2, 2012
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AUSTIN, Texas — “You’ve got mail.” There was a time, say about 1998 when the hit romantic comedy of the same name made its debut, that the phrase was cute. Email was a fast, special way to be connected. AOL’s ringy-dingy reminder was charming. Then email stopped being cute and special because everyone had it. Then it stopped being charming because it never stopped. Now we find ourselves stuck with the most ironic of unintended consequences of the once efficient email: Its vast inefficiency. The email is frequently followed by the text: “Did u get my email?” Or worse, the dreaded phone call to ask the same question. The sheer volume of corporate email is a pretentious sign of importance; the more you get the higher in the corporate pecking order you must reside. Work matters go to die in graveyards of never-ending, corporate email chains. Email now consumes much of our work week, driving down efficiency and productivity. It’s gotten so bad there’s an unintended consequence to the unintended consequence: We may actually be mercifully approaching the end of email. Email was actually born nearly 50 years ago in 1965 on the campus of MIT as a way for computer users to share messages. I will confess my own guilt: I was an early adopter of email in the late 1980s and early 1990s when all things Internet were just obscure enough to be interesting and just accessible enough to be free or cheap. I
would dial up my Compuserve (What happened to them?) account and patiently wait while my computer connected. And sure enough there might be three or four emails, usually work-related. Or perhaps there was one from another long lost, nerd friend. And as a nerd, I confess: It was fun. So the movie was fun and cute, too. On screen, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, at the direction of the late Nora Ephron, encountered each other in person as work rivals fighting over the book store business. (What happened to that?) But they were also, unknown to each other, electronic pen pals who bit by bit fell in love. All through email. Email was personal after all. And of course, the movie ended with true love begun on AOL but unveiled in a Manhattan park. Fast forward to today. Each day, 250 billion emails are sent; that number is in the process of doubling, according to Messagemind, a New York email software company. They contain spam, viruses, malicious code and phishing scams from unknown Russian gangs and enterprising Nigerian criminals. At work, this once speedy form of communication — “Sure.” “Yes.” “No.” “Let’s meet on this.” — is the least effective way to get anything done. I know one publishing executive who consistently apologizes by email for not responding to emails he says are important. He is very polite in his apologies. And then he proceeds to not respond. I had
one exchange go on for two days with someone else only to settle it in two minutes on the phone. The email is the new conference call. Which is the old meeting. And as the old saw says, “When you’re in a meeting you’re not working.” The same is true of email: When you’re managing it, you’re not producing. My friend Mark Seiler, president of a beverage company, notices that emails take on lives of their own inside larger companies; vast numbers of executives and assistants are weighing in, positioning an issue in a certain light for advancement or credit. Or waiting on others to respond first. What could be settled in a 10-minute phone call or a 20-minute face-toface meeting stretches out over days and then weeks and then months. Phil Herring, an apartment manager, got 1,500 emails over a weekend in his last job; he got a new one. Shawn Lively, a magazine publisher, gets so little face time with clients and vendors that most think she is a man. Trust me: She isn’t. It turns out that workers spend 41 percent of their time going through business email, according to a paper by Messagemind. And not just in this country. In Great Britain, not only did one in five workers say they spent that much time on email, according to an IBM study, but 20 percent of the time the email was just useless, pointless or sent to the wrong person in the first place. Volkswagen has reportedly banned corporate email
to workers with Blackberry devices (What happened to those, anyway?) during nonworking hours. And Atos — a global information technology company — has purportedly vowed to stop using email by 2014. These last two tidbits come from IdeaPlane, a London company that is part of a cottage industry trying to divert the torrent of email into more efficient channels of communication. Email efficiency expert Marsha Eghan estimates that workers lose at least an hour a day to on average 15 “email interruptions” — not just checking email but email that makes them stop doing what they’re supposed to doing. The research firm Basex estimates that interruptions total $650 billion in annual losses. So, people like Eghan offer coaching, advise a week for emptying the inbox and even provide posters. But the best idea may come from the London company, which advocates that companies ditch email. Amen. But in favor of what exactly? A phone call? A meeting? A Star Trek communicator? No. It turns out that enterprise social networking will replace email. Gartner, the IT research firm, predicts that in 2014 companies will substitute enterprise social networking for email in 20 percent of their communications. In other words, Facebook for business. Awesome. I’m sure that will work.
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RICHARD PARKER -mcclatchy newspapers
LETTER TO THE EDITOR FLAME’s message is biased propaganda I would like to thank Nabeel Chohan for writing this letter in response to the statement released by the editor of Collegiate Times. I would also like to point out that these ads have been running for several months and you can find them all at http://www.factsandlogic.org. The articles presented by FLAME all have
a strong anti-Arab message and are simply propaganda to help strengthen the right-wing Israeli government and justify the routine murdering of Palestinians by Israeli troops. While it is no secret that Israel is not well-liked in the Middle East, most of the countries that the articles claim are actively trying to destroy Israel have been undergoing reform
and regime change under the Arab Spring uprisings. These Arabs are working to free themselves from oppressive regimes and establish a better life for them and their children, much like the protests seen in Israel lately. The start of the Arab Spring protests and uprisings in 2011 are credited loosely with the self-immolation of a Tunisian man who lit himself on fire after his business suffered from harassment by
the police. An Israeli veteran performed a similar act last week to protest the treatment of veterans. This act came after large protests against inequality and economic hardship under Netanyahu's government. The motivation behind these horrific acts of protest are not identical, but show that the Israelis and Arabs have more in common than FLAME would like you to believe.
collegiatetimes.com august 2, 2012
The Collegiate Times, a division of the Educational Media Company at Virginia Tech, was established in 1903 by and for the students of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The Collegiate Times receives no funding from the university.
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Thousands: Steppin’ Out this weekend from page one
“It’s cited as one of the biggest festivals in Southwest Virginia,” Blakemore said. “There’s usually something for everybody.” Blakemore said the footprint of the festival is the biggest for this year than it has ever been. There are up to 250 vendors particpating Steppin’ Out 2012, because many of them go to other festivals and tell their fellow vendors about how great it is, she said. Steppin’ Out has become a reunion event for many according to local author Charles Lytton. “People come from 50-100 miles away knowing that they’re going to see certain people,” Lytton said. “It’s that type of environment, and you see big kids, little kids and older people and even ancient people. “I think of it as a friend reunion,” he said. Blakemore said that it is an ideal time for Blacksburg locals to reconnect with each other after leaving for vacations, students come back into town, and alumni like to enjoy the town during the summer. Creating a line-up of music that appeals to this diverse group is a pleasant challenge, according to Locke. He said the Blacksburg music scene is not as good as it could be for a college town, however the students who attend the festival can discover local bands that they enjoy. “A festival like this is a good way to do that,” Locke said. “It’s fun turning people on to music that they haven’t heard.” The festival’s music schedule includes local, regional, and even national bands, which are showcased on their related stages. According to Locke, the community stage will host organizational activities of the community such as martial arts, dancing, music, and theatre. The acoustic stage will showcase most of the acoustic bands, then the main stage will have a variety of the acts. “Local and regional is the point of it,” Locke said. “We’ve got some authentic old time music out of Floyd County, and that’s good to bring into Blacksburg.” Live music, crafts and food
have been the main features of Steppin’ Out since its beginnings. The original reason for starting the festival was local merchants wanted an event to boost business in the summer when the town was deserted after students left and to give back to the community. Steppin’ Out was not the original festival, however. Four years before the first Steppin’ Out was the Wild West themed Deadwood Days in 1976. Mish Mish owner, Steve Miller, said August was the middle of the summer then, since the school year was from late September through June. “We kind of stole the idea of it from Deadwood, South Dakota,” Miller said. “You would actually see people riding horses down Draper Road with revolvers on their hips.” The festival was on a small part of College Avenue and Draper Road and was not as family oriented as it is today, Miller said. “The whole theme of the thing was different, because it was Western and wilder,” he said. Deadwood Days existed for another two years before the town of Blacksburg shut it down and another year went by before Steppin’ Out was established. “We went back and said that we would like to do this again,” Miller said. “So we changed the name and made it more family friendly.” Now, Miller said, it is a popular event for Southwest Virginia where craftspeople from all over come to town, and it provides a nice venue for live music. “It’s a family event, and it’s easy to come in,” Locke said. “If you spend time in Blacksburg, you know it’s a great place, and I think people want to come back and enjoy that.” Downtown Blacksburg Inc. distributed a Steppin’ Out festival map and schedule pamphlet to businesses downtown for attendees to use. The website, blacksburgsteppinout.com, also has links for more information about vendors’ locations and descriptions of the bands.
Artist paints the town CHELSEA GILES features editor
A local community-oriented artist designs prints from his own sketches that bring the town of Blacksburg and the Virginia Tech campus to cartoony life. George Wills has lived in Blacksburg since he was in the third grade and has developed his own interpretations of his hometown as a full-time artist. Though Wills has done fineart pieces in other media, his cartoon-like prints of iconic buildings in the area have fueled his popularity among both alumni and townspeople. Wills said that he applies a cartoonish and contemporary style to his artwork, because it’s fun and represents the memories people have of the town. He said that his prints are created as memory gifts, because they are mostly bought as presents. He said that the creative and humorous aspect of them makes them conversation pieces, which is what people like. “It seems a little more exciting than strict representation-
Hysteria R
al work,” Wills said. “They’re memory images, and that’s what people have an emotional connection to.” Wills’ artwork is showcased in the Matrix Gallery. He also manages his pieces on an Etsy account, which he said is helpful for alumni who are no longer in the area and want a piece that captures their memory of a certain place. “If it’s something special in their memory then it’s more than just a building,” he said. “It’s the fun aspect, the friendship aspect that the businesses hold for people, particularly for students who are only here for four years where they often have first dates or it’s where they hung out with their friends, I’m capturing the moment.” The Lyric Theatre’s Executive Director, Susan Mattingly, said that local artists have a unique insight into the community and its culture, and Wills’ work especially has a sense of authenticity. “It’s lively, and he just captures the essence of our community in a wonderful way,” Mattingly said. “He catches the iconic locations, and that is why his stuff sells so well.”
COURTESY OF GEORGE WILLS
She also said that most Tech students are in town for only four years, yet they develop an affection for the local places, which Wills is able to preserve. “It’s a snapshot, but it’s more than a snapshot,” Mattingly said. “There’s an artistic license that he brings, like putting aliens over the Lyric. “It just captures the mood in this time and this place.” As his work became more popular, Wills was given personal requests for places in town and on campus. He said that he originally only wanted to do town representations, see GEORGE WILLS / page eight
Fri and Sat 7:00 & 9:15 Sun 3:00, 7:00 & 9:15 Mon 10:00am, 7:00 & 9:15 Tues-Thurs 7:00 & 9:15
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No monkey business in new memoir tion to his work was vitriolic, and it bolstered Smith's attempt to maintain his sanity when the publication of his first work of journalism, a guardedly positive piece on electroshock therapy for the Atlantic magazine, drew an avalanche of controversy and a $23-million lawsuit filed by the director of the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry, a violent opponent of the treatment. "Monkey Mind" never shies away from the truth, whether Smith is talking about his unexpected reaction to his father's cancer diagnosis (excitement, liberation), his nearly mythological sweating problem (addressed with Maxi pads inside his shirts), or his rude, inconsistent behavior toward the woman he eventually married. As important as his commitment to unrelenting selfrevelation is his awareness of the people listening to this story. He gives us a reason to stay with him on every page.
COURTESY OF THE MONKEY MIND CHRONICLES
collegiatetimes.com august 2, 2012
As a memoir of illness, Daniel Smith's "Monkey Mind" is a perfect 10. The author's account of his experience with anxiety disorder holds nothing back. Hilarious, well-informed and intelligent, Smith conveys the seriousness of his situation without becoming pathetic or unrelatable, and what's more, he offers useful information for both sufferers and nonsufferers. As someone in the latter group, someone who has never understood or sympathized with people who drive themselves nuts worrying all the time, I found this guided tour entertaining and educational. I learned the difference between fear and anxiety, between an anxiety attack and a panic attack, how these troubles start and why they never really end. "The story begins with two women, naked, in a living room in upstate New York." In what is possibly the most awful story of losing one's virginity ever recorded, 16-yearold Smith was on a road trip from his childhood home in Plainview to a Phish concert when he was taken advantage of while drunk and stoned by a pair of unappetizing older lesbians. This terrible experience set off a nightmare of despair and anxiety. "In this powerful new state, in which memory and disgust banded together like some neurological death squad to hack apart serenity, there was ... nothing in the world that did not speak to my anguish. ... I couldn't even watch a commercial on television, because the mere sight of children playing on a swing set reminded me of the innocence I believed I had lost." To make matters worse, the poor boy confessed every detail of the debacle to his horrified and outraged mother, sobbing in her arms. Fortunately, Marilyn Smith was herself a lifelong anxiety
sufferer who had become a therapist. What she couldn't do for her son with sympathy, hugs and conversation, she made up for by doling out Xanax and sharing a copy of the guided relaxation tape she had made for her clients. Sensibly, she found him another therapist but, unfortunately, the squat blond woman was a body double for one of his violators. "It was as if Esther had returned to help me sift through the confusion she had wrought, only now she wore long floral skirts and accepted Blue Cross Blue Shield." By his senior year of high school, Smith had calmed down. But this false respite was blown to bits the day his parents drove him up to Brandeis University, where the mere sight of his classmates brought on Terror Code Red. "They wore expressions wide with opportunity, of almost limitless choice, of restrictions lifted, slates cleaned, surveillance minimal. They were joyful and unhindered, electric, confident. ... My parents thought they were dropping me off at a respected liberal arts college, but where they had really dropped me off was Jewish Mardi Gras." Th is environment was a nightmare for Smith. Even when he tried to hide in the bathroom and freak out, he found the place overrun by vomiting partyers. Ultimately he buried himself in the library, where he found a savior and a kindred spirit reading Philip Roth. Thanks to Roth, Smith began to see his anxiety not just as a humiliating handicap but as an ethnic birthright, a membership in a historically important club, a literary merit badge. Smith also saw in Roth's relentlessly honest if brutally flawed protagonists the possibility of "defiance in the face of shame." This was Roth's own approach when public reac-
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MARION WINIK mcclatchy newspapers
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George Wills: Prints ......radio for everyone resemble cartoons
COURTESY OF GEORGE WILLS
The Cellar Restaurant is brought to life in Wills’ cartoon representation.
collegiatetimes.com august 2, 2012
from page six
history within the buildings to capture, and downtown has some unique qualities.” Wills said his favorite place to sketch or do work downtown is Bollo’s Café and Bakery, because it is a unique spot that he can depict in many ways. “I have a continuous gallery in Bollo’s,” he said. “They allow me a lot of leverage as far as the cartooning work I do in there.” Bollo’s barista Filica Jackson said Wills started his sketches of their different coffee f lavors, which has grown into a collection that hangs on their wall. “We’ve always enjoyed
them,” Jackson said. “Then as he started hanging those up and giving them to us, we started having other pieces of his work hung up.” Jackson said t hat since Wills grew up in Blacksburg, he is familiar with the local businesses and establishments and has a sense for the people and places and how to represent them. Though his prints are his most popular items, Wills said simple sketching and creating colors are what he enjoys the most. No matter what media he is working with, Wills said that his work as an artist is always growing, and he has never had to take a step back.
Summer practice gives hope to Hokies
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You can practically hear the angels singing. Why? Tech football, or at least some semblance of it, starts up again on Tuesday when the Hokies open their summer practice. Watching Logan Thomas and company don pads once more will certainly make the wait for Labor Day seem considerably more bearable, but that’s not to say that summer practice will be all fun and games. Instead, there are a handful of burning questions that need to be resolved after the team last stepped on the field for spring practice, and every Hokie fan should be watching closely to see how they’re addressed. It might not seem exciting, but one of the more important question marks is the offensive line. When the team broke practice this spring, there seemed to be a basic consensus involving who would start where, but the unit still didn’t see a lot of time together. Andrew Miller will surely anchor the unit at center as the group’s lone returning starter, but the game experience of Nick Becton, David Wang and Vinston Painter will also surely help things run more smoothly. The trio is slated to start at left tackle, left guard and right tackle respectively. The one true newcomer, transfer Brent Benedict, earned a lot of hype in the spring for being a former SEC prospect and is slated to start at right guard, but saw limited time on the field. This summer, Benedict and the rest of the group are likely to get a lot more time together, and they’ll finally be facing up against a defense that is starting to get healthy for the first time in months. The health of the defense is another interesting facet that should be on display next week. Bruce Taylor and Tariq Edwards form the heart of the team’s linebacking corps, yet they’re also both coming back from major foot injuries and figure to return to action this summer. Edwards may be on the shelf until mid-August, according to head trainer Mike Goforth, so we might not get to see much of him until later, but Taylor is slated to start camp immediately.
sports
TREVOR WHITE / SPPS
Logan Thomas’ progress will be crucial to watch during the summer. team will only look to use the hurried style roughly 10 percent of the time, but that would still be often enough to force Thomas to make a lot of adjustments on the fly, something he hasn’t necessarily had experience doing much of yet. It’s unclear how much of it the team might show during summer practice,
Hysteria R
but it will be very informative to see what they can do with it. But perhaps the most important thing fans can hope to glean from practice is how Thomas looks with a year of development under his belt. The difference in his demeanor at spring practice was striking,
as most could agree that he exhibited the cool composure that the best quarterbacks have, despite being so young. The true sign of his maturity, however, will be how he approaches reading a defense. The hurry-up offense will be a major test for him, and it will be part of the larger concern of evaluating the way he sees the field. It’s undeniable that he could make plays last year; whether he was bowling over defenders on a scramble or hitting receivers in stride downfield, he was certainly explosive at times. But the main reason the offense fell apart in the final two games of the year was that he wasn’t quite able to stick in the pocket, go through his progressions, and deliver the ball without feeling the need to take off running. If he starts to show that kind of poise on August 7, then, more than any of the other improvements listed here, the rest of the ACC needs to watch out. ALEX KOMA -sports editor -junior -communication major
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The redshirt senior was named to the Nagurski Award watch list, meaning the media considers him a contender to be the best defensive player in college football, which certainly makes the stakes pretty high. He was off to a great start last season before his injury, leading the team in tackles before he went down, so his effectiveness this year should be a major factor in the quality of the defense. Jeron Gourveia-Winslow is also coming off Lisfranc surgery, but his comeback is less crucial given the changes at whip linebacker, which is coincidentally another controversial subject to watch. At the recent ACC media days, Kyle Fuller confirmed that he’d be starting at whip for the opener against Georgia Tech. He’s played the position before rather effectively, so it’s a logical move, but it still sends ripples throughout the rest of the defense. Fuller was slated to start at cornerback and considering that converted safety Antone Exum was penciled in for the other spot, the position is now a little jumbled. Freshman Donaldven Manning could be pressed into service right away or Detrick Bonner could be moved back to corner after spending the spring at safety. That would move Boye Aromire into the starting lineup and while he’s earned impressive reviews in spring practice, that’s still a severe lack of experience for the starters on an elite defense. Regardless of their talent, it’s hard to argue with the experience that seniors Gourveia-Winslow and Alonzo Tweedy could bring to the whip spot, and it’ll be very interesting to see how the coaching staff handles the new alignment. While all these concerns may be a little technical, it’s safe to say that all eyes will be on the performance of the offense, specifically Thomas. He’s gotten a lot of press in the offseason and coaches are prepared to put more of a load on his shoulders offensively. This includes the further development of an up tempo style to throw defenses off track, and seeing how Thomas and the rest of the unit handles it should prove to be captivating. Early reports indicate that the
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VAHE GREGORIAN mcclatchy newspapers
LONDON _ With yet another seemingly immortal milestone perhaps 20 meters away and a whopping lead in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay on Tuesday at the Olympic Aquatic Center, Michael Phelps was nothing if not mortal. "I started smiling," he said. "It's the first time I think I have ever done that in a race." And why not? In the wake of his silver performance earlier in the 200-meter butterfly, Phelps' second medal of the night and 15th career gold elevated him to the stature of the most prolific medalist in Olympic history with 19. Afterward, with relay mates Ricky Berens, Conor Dwyer and Ryan Lochte alongside, Phelps, 27, couldn't bring himself to sing the "Star-Spangled Banner." Not because it had become ho-hum. Quite the opposite. "I was like, 'Sorry,
$
boys, I'm not going to be singing this with you. There are too many emotions that are going on. I'm not even going to be able to get a word out,'" he said. "I tried to hold myself together as much as I could, but my eyes were getting watery." His 18th and 19th medals enabled him to tie and surpass the record established by Soviet Union gymnast Larisa Latynina from 1956-64. From a broader historic perspective, it gave Phelps seven more than was amassed by apparent Ancient Olympic record-holder Leonidas of Rhodes over the period of four Olympiads starting in 164 B.C. Just how Leonidas might view Michael of Baltimore's feats is conjecture, but Latynina is known to have embraced Phelps. At the U.S. Olympic Media Summit in May, Phelps told of bonding with her at a photo shoot in New York,
where she gave him a nonOlympic medal of hers. And Latynina was in London on Tuesday and eager to present Phelps with his 19th medal, according to The New York Times, only to be held off by unspecified Olympic red tape. Phelps already had made a claim to be regarded as the greatest Olympian ever with his eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. But just as that seemed to suggest a superhuman quality to Phelps, the London Games _ which he says will be his last _ have represented a different sort of achievement. Phelps' aura of invincibility had dispersed amid losses to Lochte over the last few years, and his own apathy toward the sport between 2008 and about a year ago. Any remaining veneer was erased Saturday, when Phelps began the London Games by finishing fourth in the 400
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on the relay," Berens said. Just as Phelps also wanted to rally for his relay partners, they were conscious of what was at stake for him as well as the team before they romped with a time of 6 minutes, 59.70 seconds. France was second in 7:02.77, China third in 7:06.30. "We all wanted to do our part," said Lochte, part of an effort that staked Phelps to a lead of about 4 seconds for the anchor leg. "We wanted to make sure we got the biggest lead for him, so when he dove in he didn't have to work. We knew that he was sold on gold." And so Phelps attained another level, despite reminders that he's not superhuman. Or as he put it: "I've been a human being my whole life." It's just been more noticeable in London, serving as a different sort of embellishment on his legacy.
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individual medley, which he won in 2004 and 2008 and in which he still holds the world record. A night later, he was part of a silver medal-winning 4x100 freestyle team that had led going into Lochte's last leg. Earlier Tuesday, Phelps was frustrated to manage silver in another event he had won in Athens and Beijing. "He was very upset at first," coach Bob Bowman said. "Not like crying upset. He was angry. We just had to come to grips with the fact that that was that, and we had this relay coming up that was really important. " So he just got in the warmdown pool and started swimming. Really, within about five minutes he had gotten his composure and he was ready to go." Maybe with some extra fuel. "I would think a mad Michael Phelps is a good one to have
AUGUST
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10 Phelps brings in historic 19th Olympic medal
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page 11
XKCD by Randell Munroe
Regular Edition Today’s Birthday Horoscope: You’re especially charmed for your birthday month, so dance like a social butterfly. Connections this year provide fortune on many levels, as friends and organizations open previously closed doors. You could relocate this year; keep it frugal and fun.
Crossword 57 “Get lost, kitty!” 59 Adorn, as a birthday gift 60 Below-the-belt 61 Eight-time Best Actor nominee who never won 64 Musician’s deg. 65 Dodge, as the press 66 Address the crowd 67 Cellos’ sect. 68 Flew off the handle 69 Gumbo vegetables
Setup: Each player places their ships on “My Board” by filling in the required number of cells. Ships may not be placed diagonally or on top of each other. Gameplay: Each player takes one shot at a time. If the player calls the coordinates of a space where a ship is located, his opponent tells him so by saying "hit." If he missed, his opponent says "miss." Players mark the shots they take on their "Opponent" grid, a circle for a hit and an ‘x’ for a miss. A ship is sunk when all of its squares have been hit. When this happens, the player whose ship was sunk says, for example, "You sank my battleship." The first person to sink all of their opponent’s ships wins.
My Board Battleship:
Carrier:
Submarine:
Destroyer:
By Jeff Chen
My Opponent’s
8/2/12
ACROSS 1 Shish __ 6 2008 “Yes We Can” sloganeer 11 ACLU concerns 14 Prefix with -clast 15 Group of secret schemers 16 Neighbor of Wash. 17 1956 #1 hit for Elvis Presley 19 Cartoon collectible 20 De Matteo of “The Sopranos”
21 Fat-based bird feed 22 ’80s-’90s “Did I do that?” TV nerd 24 Having one’s day in court? 26 “Revenge is __ best served cold” 27 Mr. T catch phrase 31 Choir section 34 Cold War country, briefly 35 Chimney passage 36 Scratch or scuff 37 Ostracized one
41 Prefix with metric 42 Recipient of a princess’s kiss 44 Suffix for no-good 45 Like days gone by 47 Cornerstone principle of democracy 51 Henry __ Lodge: WWI senator 52 Final stage of a chess match 56 “Sesame Street” resident
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2 3 5 7 1 3 8 4 5 5 7 1 7 2 9 9 3 1 6 7 5 4 1 6 2 Complete the grid so that each column, row and 3x3 box contains the numbers 1-9.
DOWN 1 Friendly term of address 2 Oak tree-to-be 3 Lisa of “The Cosby Show” 4 Easternmost Great Lake 5 Reggae’s Marley 6 Supernatural 7 Au naturel 8 Stand next to 9 West of the silver screen 10 Refer (to) 11 Dependable beyond doubt 12 Kids’ secret club meeting place 13 Dispose of via eBay 18 Morales of “La Bamba” 23 Jazz motif 25 __ facto 26 Cries of triumph 28 Totally gross 29 Luggagescreening org. 30 “Exodus” author Uris
55 Fencing swords 56 Shade trees 57 Just for guys 58 Formally relinquish 62 Perón of Argentina 63 As well
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31 Car radio button 32 “Tomb Raider” role for Angelina Jolie 33 Conflict involving a fake horse 38 Workbook chapter 39 __ for tat 40 Sang like a canary, so to speak 43 Mongolian desert 46 Out-of-the-office detective duty 48 Ebert’s partner after Siskel 49 Parented 50 “Do __ others ...” 53 Bustling with noise 54 Island nation near Sicily
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7/26/12
Unscramble the letters to solve the category “The
Beach”
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a h s u i
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Volleyball players compete in summer ALEX KOMA sports editor
Ask any Olympic athlete and they’ll tell you; making the national team isn’t something that just happens. Few people know this better than Hokie volleyball players Jennifer Wiker and Morgan O’Neill, who both competed in events this summer to increase their international exposure as part of a pair of U.S. volleyball programs. Wiker recently attended the U.S. Women’s National Volleyball A2 Tournament in Columbus, OH., while O’Neill traveled to China with the BIP/USA Development Select Team for the second annual China/ USA Challenge Invitational Tournament. “These players are two rising stars in the sport, and for them to get the chance to get comfortable on this kind of stage is a huge honor,” said Chris Riley, volleyball head coach. Both programs were meant to help the players get experience in an Olympic-style setting, and particularly in the case of the A2 tournament, could even serve as auditions for future national team participation. “It was like nothing I had ever been a part of before,” Wiker
said. “It really opened my eyes to how much I could improve.” Wiker was competing against 48 other collegiate volleyball players in the tournament after being selected from an initial group of over 200 athletes. The players then trained for four days before being separated into four teams and competing against each other. “The whole experience was really exciting,” Wiker said. “My team hadn’t done well in pool play, in fact we lost every match, but we rebounded to win the whole tournament.” While Wiker only traveled to Ohio for her competition, O’Neill journeyed all the way to China for her tournament. “The trip was just mind-boggling,” O’Neill said. “It gave me a chance to see how some of the top Chinese players play and prepare, which was amazing.” During the trip, O’Neill’s team got the chance to face off against two professional Chinese teams, in addition to the Chinese Junior National Team, giving her valuable experience for her future. “When you see people that
AUSTEN MEREDITH / SPPS
Morgan O’Neill got the chance to travel to China to improve her skills. good, it really inspires you said. to reach that level,” O’Neill “This trip really made
me want to play after school.” However, before either player leaves Virginia Tech, they each have their senior seasons to complete, and these summer experiences should be influential on their final years. “These trips really added to their wealth of knowledge and will allow them to be much more in control and comfortable in the ACC,” Riley said. “Everything at our level should get much easier after those experiences." Coaches believe their participation in these programs should also help raise the profile of the program as a whole. “I think this summer gave them an understanding that the next level is attainable and brought us some relevance as well,” Riley said. “(Wiker) was out there playing next to kids from schools like UCLA, and that shows everyone that our players deserve to be here.” Team members are hoping that this summer’s results will translate into success during the year. “We’ve got a lot of returning starters and a lot of leadership in the locker room that people don’t always get to see,” Wiker said. “It’ll be up to us to encourage the freshman and learn from them as well if we want to succeed.” With preseason play fast approaching, the team will have be ready to meet the challenges of the year sooner rather than later. “The preseason will be a big test for us and have a big had in determining our RPI,” Riley said. “But everyone here is hungry to get better, and we’re focused on making the NCAA tournament next year.”