The Daily Free Press
Year xli. Volume lxxxii. Issue xci.
[
MVP MEARS? Sociology prof. nominated “Most Valuable Professor,” page 3
Thursday, April 26, 2012 The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University
CHEERS, LONDON Hamedy bids goodbye to London in her final column, page 6
]
www.dailyfreepress.com
FRIED FRIARS
Softball sweeps doubleheader from PC, page 8
WEATHER
Today: Rain, High 62 Tonight: Rain, Low 45 Tomorrow: 58/37 Data Courtesy of weather.com
City launches annual Boston Shines cleanup Friday Bill aims to freeze
interest rate for fed. student loans
By Mitch Harkey Daily Free Press Staff
Although Boston Mayor Thomas Menino had a head start on the Boston Shines initiative by sweeping outside in City Hall Plaza, on Friday and Saturday residents throughout Boston can participate in the yearly neighborhood cleanup and volunteer program. The city will provide volunteers with tools and materials to clean up their neighborhoods during the weekend, according to a press release from the mayor’s office. “Boston Shines is a true community event as thousands of volunteers and residents gather each year to help clean up our city and show pride in their neighborhoods,” Menino said in the release. The focus of the cleaning efforts is on neighborhood business districts and recreational areas, said Katie Ward, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office. Now entering its 10th year, this community-wide effort normally receives a good turnout and is expecting to see about 6,000 people, said Chris English, the Dorchester neighborhood coordinator in the city’s Office of Neighborhood Services. “The purpose of this event is to get people from across the city involved in cleaning up their neighborhood,” English said. English said there are no real challenges to Boston Shines this year. “We are pretty experienced in coordinating the whole thing,” he said. “It’s just a
By Meg DeMouth Daily Free Press Staff
ILLUSTRATION AUDREY FAIN/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
The annual Boston Shines initiative to clean up various neighborhoods in the city will take place this upcoming weekend.
matter of getting the volunteers the materials they need and organizing on the back end.” Many neighborhood associations around Boston are joining in the effort. Groups such as the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council, the Chester Square Area Neighborhood Association and the Garden Club of the Back Bay are encouraging residents to participate in the initiative on their websites. The Neighborhood Association of Back
Bay is also coordinating the annual Alley Rally with this year’s Boston Shines, according to the NABB website. “NABB members are encouraged to join their neighbors, including groups from the fraternities of some of our Back Bay schools, in sweeping the alleys and side streets,” according to a statement emailed to The Daily
Shines, see page 2
BU students use dating websites whether serious or not By Alex Falco Daily Free Press Staff
About 10 percent of Boston University students are on Datemyschool.com, a dating site aimed at college students, company officials said. Gunita Singh, the marketing ambassador for Datemyschool.com at BU, said the dating site has created a presence on campus. “Things are just a lot more fast-paced these days, and the relationships we form and maintain are often secondary,” Singh, a College of General Studies sophomore, said. “While technology is definitely a contributor to that, one can argue that the secondary relationships are the only relationships we’re going to have with things like Facebook, Twitter.” BU falls behind other universities where students use Datemyschool. Thirty percent of students at Columbia University go on the site, as do 25 percent at New York University, she said.
College of Arts and Sciences freshman Christina Clay said her friends signed her up for an online dating website as a joke. “It’s more of a joke than using it to actually get a date,” Clay said. “If people use [the sites] to actually find dates, then that’s good, but I don’t think that the interest is too high.” Singh said, however, online dating isn’t always a joke. “While I feel college is definitely the platform off of which you can form solid, perhaps lifelong relationships, it is also very difficult to form those close-knit relationships that you often hear about that our parents had back in their day,” Singh said. However, Clay said dating websites form an insincere connection, much like social media websites do. “It’s all dehumanized,” Clay said. “With busier and busier schedules, I could see people using it more than actual interaction, which I don’t think is a good thing.”
Datemyschool.com only allows students with a college ID to join, and since users can limit who sees their profiles, students can remain anonymous, Singh said. “A lot of kids who are pre-med or in the School of Management or the School of Law, understandably, they’re very concerned with their appearance and what they’re affiliated with,” she said. CAS senior Nelson Hernandez said the website might be better than a general dating website, as it is more targeted at a specific audience. “It might be a little bit safer than regular dating sites because . . . only college students can use them or there is less fear that you might get kidnapped or something,” he said. A CAS sophomore who wished to remain anonymous said she chose to use the college dating website because she felt safer using it and wanted to find potential dates who are edu-
SEE FULL STORY ONLINE
By July 1, interest rates on federal student loans could double, meaning students who take out new Federal Direct Stafford Loans will end up accruing interest at a 6.8 percent rate rather than the current 3.4 percent rate. Congress is debating whether to pass a new bill that would extend the 3.4 percent rate indefinitely. U.S. Rep. Barney Frank said he supports the bill, adding that an interest rate hike would come as a blow to middle- and working-class Americans. “We’re underfunding [education]. We’re making a mistake,” he said. “We’re denying working people the chance to go to college.” He said the debate has become divided along party lines, with many Democrats advocating for the bill’s passage and many Republicans claiming that keeping the deflated interest rate in place would put too much of an economic burden on the federal government. Putting a freeze on the Federal Direct Stafford Loan interest rate for one year would cost the government about $6 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. However, Frank said the government could make up for that added cost. “We could tax millionaires . . . cut back on military spending and excessive weaponry,” he said, adding that for this bill, “we don’t have to compromise.” The bill’s 126 co-sponsors are all Democrats, and while several Republican representatives have spoken out against keeping the low interest rates, such Republicans as Mitt Romney and Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown have recently said they are in favor of the extension. “I support extending the current interest rates,” Brown said in an emailed statement, “especially given the dreadful economy and the news that half of today’s college graduates either don’t have a job or are working in jobs beneath their skill level.” Despite the Republican majority in the House, the bill has a high chance of passing, said U.S. Rep. John Olver, one of the five Massachusetts congressmen co-sponsoring the bill. “Even Republicans agree that interest rates on student loans should not be allowed to rise,” he said in an emailed statement. “The momen-
Loans, see page 4
Menino commences You Have Rights campaign for tenants after violations By Amelia Pak-Harvey Daily Free Press Staff
AUDREY FAIN/FILE PHOTO
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino recently launched a campaign to raise awareness for tenant rights.
After dangerous housing violations in Chinatown drove many residents out of their apartments, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino launched the You Have Rights campaign that aims to increase awareness of tenant rights. The city’s campaign includes brochures and community posters that address specific problems for that community in different languages, said José Rios, the community outreach coordinator in the Office of New Bostonians. “Whether people know them or not, or they believe that they have them or not,” Rios said, “it’s that they have rights and that they deserve a safe place to live because many of the tenants in Boston suffer from different violations of their rights.” The campaign urges tenants with housing issues to call the mayor’s hotline for assistance, according to the press release. More than 70 community organizations and city departments will work in the campaign. “The great thing about this campaign is that . . . a lot of these organizations, they do a lot of
workshops in the community, and they do fight already for tenants rights,” Rios said. The city asked the Boston Tenant Coalition, which has been doing similar work for the past four years, for support in the campaign, said Magalis Troncoso, the BTC’s main organizer. “With the city helping us, it’s going to be really, really helpful,” Troncoso said. Although people call looking for attorneys to help them, the BTC has not had enough lawyers on staff because of a lack of funding, she said. Troncoso said hopefully the city will provide more resources, and at some point the BTC can have more staff providing legal advice. The campaign’s brochures, available in seven languages, list the “Top 10 Things New Bostonian Tenants Should Know,” including the legal fees charged upon move-in, proper eviction procedures and entitlement to a 30-day notice of rent increases. The Office of New Bostonians, which will be coordinating and organizing the campaign’s resources, tries to meet the needs of the immigrant community and seeks to ensure people
know the process of city government and their rights, Rios said. Rios said although it is difficult to create an initiative in seven languages, Menino pushed this aspect of the campaign and argued that the city cannot address tenant rights in just one or two languages. Troncoso said many people do not know how to speak English, so they do not know how to confirm any housing conditions. The BTC focuses on the Latino community, and all of their activities and outreach efforts are bilingual, she said. The campaign follows the evacuation of a Chinatown building in February, according to the press release. When firefighters responded to the call in Chinatown, they found that columns were missing from the building occupying 19-25 Harrison Ave. The tenants evacuated the building and moved to various living spaces throughout the city. “I want people to know that there are resources available to help them,” Menino said in the release.