climb the mountain hi
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september 1, 2010
t h e i n de pe n de n t s t u de n t n e w spa pe r of s y r acuse , n e w yor k
Change of direction
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Dream school A university opens to raise awareness for undocumented students. Page 9
LGBT Resource Center appoints young, but experienced director By Rebekah Jones
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Too much news? Angela Hu discusses the problems with today’s news environment. Page 5
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Carry that weight Pulp finds the best gyms on campus for all types of people. Page 11
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Freshman move in Alongside senior standouts Doug Hogue and Derrell Smith, freshman Marquis Spruill has emerged as the third starting linebacker for the SU football team. Page 20
kirsten celo | asst. photo editor
Things you didn’t miss
A female student makes the trek up the hundreds of stairs leading to Mount Olympus. Although the beginning of school may bring the reunions of friends and parties, it also brings the inconveniences of buses to South Campus, high humidity, 8 a.m. classes and the long climb up to the top of the Mount.
Tragedies in Pakistan felt by students By Andrew Swab Staff Writer
As water from the Indus River flooded Pakistan in the beginning of August, one of Imran Khalid’s friends had gone hiking and found himself stranded on the country’s mountains for seven days. The family of another friend of Khalid’s had to be airlifted by helicopter to avoid the flooding. “Imagine Katrina, times 10,” said Khalid, an environmental and natural resources doctoral candidate at the State University of New
York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. “That’s when you realize the impact of the floods.” Khalid is originally from Rawalpindi, in the northwest and near the nation’s capital of Islamabad. As Syracuse University and ESF students with ties to the Pakistan area feel the effects of the flooding, the university has provided counseling. But some at the university are also calling for more active relief efforts. “I think it’s not getting the attention it deserves,” said Maliha Aque-
el, a broadcast journalism graduate student on a student exchange program from Lahore, also in northwest Pakistan. The devastation in Pakistan is widespread. From Kashmir to Karachi, one-fifth of the country was fully underwater at one point, covering an area the size of New England, as the Indus River overran its banks. The population affected is roughly on par to that of New York state, according to an article published in see pakistan page 7
Millions donated for construction of law building By Rebecca Kheel Asst. News Editor
A summer donation of $15 million to the Syracuse University College of Law will be used to kick-start a fundraising effort to finance a new state-of-the-art law building. The new $85 million to $90 million building will provide a unified facility for the entire law school, which is currently housed in two buildings, E. I. White Hall and Winifred MacNaughton Hall, said Kevin Quinn, senior vice president of public affairs. “The goal is to have a 21st-cen-
tury building for the law school,” Quinn said in an e-mail. The $15 million naming donation, the largest in the 115-year history of the law school, was made in June in honor of two alumni: Robert Emmet Dineen and Carolyn Bareham Dineen. Their children, Kathryn Dineen Wriston, Carolyn Dineen King and Robert E. Dineen Jr., himself an alumnus of the law school, made the donation. “We’re very enthusiastic fans of Syracuse University and the College of Law because of all it did for our parents,” said King, a
federal appeals judge in Texas who received an honorary degree from SU in 2006. The siblings decided to donate to a new building named after their parents because they believed the law school is in desperate need of an upto-date, unified facility, King said. Giving the law school what it needs most was the best way to honor their parents’ memory, she said. “It simply needs to be more efficient,” she said. “The two buildings don’t work particularly well together. The school needs a unified place see law school page 4
Staff Writer
Chase James Catalano scratched the peach fuzz on his head, likening himself to Fozzie Bear from The Muppets as he characterized his latest haircut. Blond, short and tousled curls budding out in all directions, stomach protruding over his belt and a multicolored tie fixed tightly around his firmly-fitting shirt, the resemblance is uncanny. If Fozzie Bear juggled being the director of one of the highest ranked queer resource centers in the nation and teaching an online class to a college more than 200 miles away while simultaneously completing his doctorate of education, the two would be one in the same. Catalano replaced founder and former director Andrea Jaehnig as director of the Syracuse University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center on Aug. 1. The center will hold a student social tonight for students and LGBT Resource Center staff. Aside from his duties as director, Catalano works on completing his doctorate in education and teaching his social diversity in education online course at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Admittedly, his plate is full, he said. “Careful time management and flexibility,” he said with a chuckle. Casual, friendly and with a confidence void of panache, as he said, he “passes.” “I look ‘normal,’” he said. “I look like your typical white guy walking on campus.” Catalano said he will have to learn when and where to let people in on his secret — he wasn’t born a man. Starting over in a new community — a community he only visited once before interviewing for the director position, a community unaware of just what letter, or letters, in LGBTQQA he represents — Catalano said it will be a challenge choosing the time to be “out.” Being a transgender person who “passes,” he said, can create lead others to question his place as director of the center. Getting acquainted and sharing his story - he had his operation in the fall of 2005 - with the campus and its officials is his first project. But Catalano has big plans in the works.
What’s in a name? D. Chase James Catalano still remembers the day he met a mechanic at a Jiffy Lube in Hadley, Mass. Tuesday was discount day for oil changes. While the mechanic was working on his car, Catalano caught a glimpse of his nametag. “Chase — I like that name,” he recalled saying to a friend.
see catalano page 7