free
thursday
jan. 16, 2014 high 35°, low 26°
t h e i n de p e n de n t s t u de n t n e w s pa p e r of s y r a c u s e , n e w yor k |
N • Cease fire
S • Final verdict
As N.Y. State prepares to enforce the SAFE Act on Jan. 16, local gun owners respond to the law’s effect on gun ownership.
dailyorange.com
Beat writers David Wilson, Stephen Bailey and Trevor Hass dish out their SU football superlatives and give position-by-position grades. Page 16
Page 3
P • Dream team
Through various artistic mediums, student performers come together to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Page 9
university senate
Rare
Senators discuss funding
breed bug bites
• A diving beetle from Venezuela • Colbert received a print of the beetle as a gift on his 45th birthday • Scientists discovered the beetle around Colbert’s birthday and named it after him
development editor
ESF President quentin wheeler has spent much of his career specializing in entomology by discovering and naming new species. Some of the beetles he has discovered were named for well-known figures, including Stephen Colbert, Darth Vader and Theodore Roosevelt. spencer bodian staff photographer
ESF president brings wealth of insect knowledge, enthusiastic personality
• Some species can roll themselves into an almost complete sphere • Some males have horns on their left mandible
illustrations by natalie riess art director
By Maddy Berner
By Shannon Hazlitt staff writer
I • Named in honor of the 100th anniver- sary of Teddy Roosevelt’s speech at Arizona State University • Covered in thick dark hair with golden setal pads on legs • Discovered in Mexico
n April 2005, Quentin Wheeler received a phone call while visiting London. Then-President George W. Bush was on the line, calling to personally thank him for naming the slime-mold beetle after him. “I’ve got to say it’s a lot of fun to get a call from the White House,” Wheeler said, who has discovered more than 100 species of beetles, including one named after comedian Stephen Colbert. Wheeler became the fourth president of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Jan. 2, moving into ESF’s president’s office Jan. 6. He has led efforts promoting the importance and urgency of discovering new species throughout his career, including heading Cornell University’s entomology department, serving as the entomology head at the
Natural History Museum in London and founding the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. Wheeler brings vigor and an enthusiasm for natural life to his new position. “I am just in a life-long love affair with biodiversity and nature,” Wheeler said. ESF’s remarkable influence on public science education and appreciating the wilderness, particularly in the Adirondacks, made it an appealing place to work, Wheeler said. Even as a child, Wheeler was interested in bacteria and protozoa. When he enrolled at Ohio State University, Wheeler was convinced he wanted to be a microbiologist, until a professor taught him to see insects as complex animals. He realized studying insects involved more field work. So he changed his major to entomology at Ohio State, where he completed his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees. see esf
president page 8
The conditions of both Syracuse University’s libraries and its enrollment numbers were highly debated at this month’s University Senate meeting. In addition to a greeting from Chancellor Kent Syverud, other motions were passed at Wednesday’s meeting at 4 p.m. in Maxwell Auditorium. The Senate voted to add several new classes to the university’s curricula, as well as to raise the stipend given to graduate student assistants. To begin the meeting, Syverud gave a short speech detailing his first 72 hours in office. He said he wants to continue to familiarize himself with senate operations and university management. To do that, Syverud said he wants to host a faculty forum to discuss issues facing the The Univeruniversity. sity Senate is “This is a the academic great private governing university and body of the all of us togeth- University and er can make it is made up of even better,” he faculty, students, staff, said. One of the and adminmore heav- istration ily debated members. The majority topics among of its work is the Senate was done in the SU’s increased 17 standing student enroll- committees, ment, which which report was a part of a to the full report by the Senate at Committee on least once Budget and Fis- a year. cal Affairs, presented by Craig Dudczak, committee chair and associate professor of communications and rhetorical studies. SU’s endowment, which constitutes about 4 percent of the university’s budget, is lower today than it was six years ago, Dudczak said. But other numbers, such as tuition, financial aid, student debt and
what is usen?
see university
senate page 4