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5th Avenue Cinema celebrates Halloween with Cabin in the Woods Arts & Culture page 7
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Portland State University Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012 | vol. 67 no. 16 15
Responding to sexual misconduct PSU hosts OUS conference Rusne Kuzmickas Vanguard Staff
About 80 professionals from several Oregon universities came to Portland State on Friday to attend a daylong conference addressing student sexual misconduct on campuses in context of Title XI. PSU hosted the annual Oregon University System Best Practices Conference, titled “Promoting a Student-Centered Response to Sexual Misconduct.” The conference was designed to help campus leadership assess and develop institutional policies and practices. Saundra Schuster, partner with the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, was the keynote speaker for the event. She discussed strategies schools need to use to tackle sexual misconduct issues, emphasizing that gender-based violence is both a barrier to students’ ability to pursue higher education and an epidemic on college campuses. Schuster believes that schools are too concerned with “protecting their own image” and therefore choose to be deliberately indifferent. Many myths of date rape mean schools have ineffective resolution strategies and are not able to prevent the issue adequately. See Sexual Assault on page 3
Reaching for zero gravity PSU helps astronauts keep their fluids down Maya Seaman Vanguard staff
While many of us filter through our emails each morning over a cup of coffee, Portland State Mechanical and Materials Engineering professor Mark Weislogel and his team of graduate students get emails from space. While we daydream that one day our big ideas will be recognized, Weislogel’s students have theirs tested by NASA astronauts in orbit. “My involvement with the PSU-based NASA research has been simply surreal,” graduate student William Blackmore said, referring to PSU’s ongoing communication with the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The astronauts are performing experiments designed by Weislogel, more of which were delivered earlier this month during the first commercial resupply mission in the history of space exploration. On Oct. 10, Space Exploration Technologies shot an 882-pound cargo of supplies and science experiments into space, toward the space station. Along with various crew provisions, the rocket Dragon delivered the 50th round of experiments called Interior Corner Flow Vessels (ICF-2) created by Weislogel and his team. Working in conjunction with NASA and Germany’s University of Bremen’s ZARM Institute, this shipment of supplies will allow astronauts to continue Weislogel’s work on how liquid responds in zero gravity. “We are studying how fluids behave when gravity is gone,” Weislogel said. “We are studying the effects of wetting, spreading, surface tension
Karl Kuchs/VANGUARD STAFF
Brentley Wiles sets up the antigravity experiment in the Dryden Drop Tower. The tower is 102 feet tall and simulates zero gravity. and container shape on liquid configurations.” The purpose of these experiments is to find a way to modify containers so that liquid in space behaves the way it does on Earth. “When gravity’s gone, where is the liquid in your stomach?” Weislogel asked. “It isn’t where you think it is. Where’s the liquid in the fuel tank? It’s not where you think it is. It can go anywhere.” Living in a gravity-based world, this isn’t a concept we often ponder. But in space, making sure liquid is in the correct place is a weighty concern. For example, consider accelerating a spacecraft: How can it move if the fuel isn’t in the right place?
“Currently what we do is we turn on the thrusters and we force it— put it in artificial gravity—so that all the liquid comes to the bottom. And these days that’s a big waste. The fuel should just be sitting there ready to use,” Weislogel said. By using surface tension to replace the role of gravity, Weislogel and his students aim to remodel spacecraft for liquid efficiency. But since they are not in space themselves, they have to simulate zero gravity here on Earth. More specifically, they have to simulate it on campus. Running up the center of the stairwell in the bustling Engineering Building, the Dryden Drop Tower
is a 102-foot-tall chute that allows the ICF-2 experiments, encased in a 253-pound box called a drag shield, to free fall for 73 feet. This allows the experiment to experience 2.13 seconds of microgravity. A camera enclosed with the ICF-2 records the results. The drag shield plummets with the force of 14 gravitational forces, landing right above the heads of students studying below. “They’re used to it,” said Drew Wollman, an associate professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and part of Weislogel’s research team. The ICF-2 experiment itself looks See Space on page 3
Hard hat area South end construction continues Andrew Lawrence Vanguard Staff
Kayla Nguyen/VANGUARD STAFf
Anthony Forni and Branden Baker work on the ground floor of University Pointe. Construction is estimated to continue for the next two to three weeks.
From new MAX stops to the opening of an apartment building with nearly 1,000 beds, Portland State’s south campus area has been rapidly growing over the past year—and it’s not done yet. With an eight-story, 129-bedroom mixed-use building at Southwest Fifth Avenue and College Street and three new eating—and one drinking—option on the ground floor of University Pointe just next door, the changes to this far end of campus are still coming. Under construction at University Pointe are Einstein Bros Bagels, TartBerry Self-Serve Frozen Yogurt and Joe’s Burgers.
Of the three, Joe’s Burgers should be the first one students see, as it’s slated to open in the first part of November, said Brian Johnson, project manager for Walsh Construction, which also built University Pointe. A local chain with three current locations, Joe’s serves made-to-order burgers, fries, hot dogs and shakes, using local ingredients when possible and using compostable service ware, according to their website. This location will include a lounge, beer and wine, free Wi-Fi, docking and charging stations and a late-night walk-up window. As for Einstein Bros, Johnson said he believes that construction has just begun and could be done by See Construction on page 4