The Emory Wheel
INDEX
Emory Events Calendar, Page 2
Police Record, Page 2
Student Life, Page 9
Crossword Puzzle, Page 8
Staff Editorial, Page 6
Sports, Page 11
Since 1919
The Independent Student Newspaper of Emory University
Volume 96, Issue
www.emorywheel.com
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
40
Every Tuesday and Friday
FEATURE
TIBET WEEK
Diplomat Discusses End To China-Tibet Conflict By Bradyn Schiffman Contributing Writer
Julia Munslow/Asst. Arts & Entertainment Editor
A professional fire twirler performed on Asbury Circle on Monday afternoon as part of Emory Student Programing Council’s Dooley’s Week kickoff event, DooLuau. The event also featured free food, giveaways and other performances.
SPC: Four Months, Forty Members, One Week Over the past four months, 40 Student Programming Council (SPC) members leveraged their entertainment industry connections and a large and undisclosed budget to put together this year’s Dooley’s Week. These 40 members, armed with a chunk of every student’s contribution to Emory’s Student Activity Fee (SAF), receive the budget go-
ahead from the Student Government Association (SGA) every year. SPC cannot publish their budget, as this would hinder negotiations and in some cases violate contracts with entertainment contacts, according to the council’s members. With the SGA’s stamp of approval, SPC members spent months booking artists through industry connections and research. While the members have been unable to gather student input due to fears of raising student
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
DINING
By Lydia O’Neal News Editor
expectations too high, as well as the constraints of the negotiation process, they are attempting this year to integrate student responses and are always subject to administrative oversight, according to SPC members. This year, the SPC Speakers Committee landed former “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) writer John Mulaney for Thursday night’s Dooley’s Week comedy show in the Glenn Memorial auditorium. For the culmination of Dooley’s Week events,
the Dooley’s Frolics and Dooley’s Ball Committees chose rapper J. Cole and house music duo The Knocks, respectively. They’ve brought performers like Kendrick Lamar, Passion Pit, OneRepublic, B.o.B and Chance the Rapper to McDonough Field in the past five years, along with stand-up comedians Amy Schumer, Hannibal Buress and Rob Riggle.
See A LOOK, Page 4
By Luke White Senior Staff Writer The 48th Legislature of the Emory Student Government Association (SGA) passed three bills on Monday evening, including one that mandates clubs to submit specific plans for how they intend to use at least 70 percent of the funds they request during the budgeting process, and two bills proposing the appointments of new members to SGA administrative positions. Vice President for Finance and College senior Patrick O’Leary submitted Bill 48sl23 proposing that SGA require student organizations to submit justifications for a minimum of 70 percent of the funds that they request during the club budgeting process. As part of this bill, no more than 30 percent of a club’s yearly funds may be allocated unless that club has submitted an organized plan for how it intends to use the money or unless the SGA vice president for finance decides otherwise. Additionally, the bill would require all anticipated events to be accounted for within the club’s submitted budget. “This [bill] ... will allow student organizations to budget more
See BILL, Page 5
A small but passionate crowd of about 25 Emory students, alumni and employees gathered in Winship Ballroom on Monday evening to discuss the University’s upcoming decision regarding their food service contract. The talk, organized by Emory Students and Workers in Solidarity (SWS), examined the choice — between Sodexo, the University’s current food provider, and the California-based Bon Appétit — as well as the cultural questions it raises, both on campus and across the nation. The event was moderated by Ed Lee, senior director of debate at Emory’s Barkley Forum, and immediately launched into an extended history of the criticism leveled at Sodexo. SWS formed in 2010 in response to workers’ complaints that the University’s food contractor had been named in human rights reports, interfered with workers’ freedom of association and denied workers’ access to health insurance. Ross Gordon (‘13C), an employee of the Barkley Forum — a group that aims to encourage campus debate — laid out the SWS mission statement early in the talk: “Sodexo should not be the food service contractor at Emory, because of what they’ve done and their international practices.” A lengthy dialogue ensued, splitting the audience into three factions to discuss the larger issues of wealth inequality in America. “It’s difficult for us to have a conversation about what’s going on
NEWS Nursing School
graduate program ranked
10th in nation ...
PAGE 3
at Emory without talking about the issues that are going on in the global and national economy,” Lee said. As the groups reconvened, the conversation shifted to personal anecdotes of interactions with Sodexo employees and managers. Neil Shulman (‘71M), an associate professor in the School of Medicine, kicked off the group discussion by recalling the Emory of his youth. “In 1967 ... when summer break came, they’d find the cafeteria workers other jobs on campus. Everyone had health insurance. That’s not the case today,” he said. The fact that Sodexo employees do not get health insurance was a common complaint among the audience. Shulman told tales of several food workers stricken with medical conditions who refused to take a medical leave for fear of being fired. Lance Howell (‘11C), a Michael C. Carlos Museum employee, spoke of his first experience with SWS as an undergrad and the racial undertones of wealth inequality. “This situation resonates with me as a black person, because I’d go through campus hearing stories of people who looked like me, trying to make an honest living,” Howell said. “They couldn’t get 15 minutes off to see a doctor.” The students in attendance, even those not affiliated with SWS, were vocal in their agreement with the organization and their condemnation of Sodexo. “I think the contract should definitely treat the Sodexo employees like regular Emory employees,” College
See SODEXO, Page 3
OP-EDS A student’s
response to the re-election of
Netanyahu ...
PAGE 7
See DALAI, Page 3
MSA ART GALA
SGA: Orgs SWS Hosts Discussion On Must Sodexo, Worker Treatment Justify Use of Funds By Ryan Smith Associate Editor
Emory kicked off the 15th annual Tibet Week with a panel about China and Tibet relations and a live Mandala art painting exhibition at the Michael C. Carlos Museum on Monday. “The Tibet struggle is much more than slogans,” the keynote speaker Lodi Gyari Rinpoche — his holiness the Dalai Lama’s special envoy to the United States — said. “[It’s about the] preservation of the distinctive personality, of who we are.” At the Mandala Art Painting Exhibit, the monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery created an elaborate and colorful sand design in the museum’s Reception Hall. On Monday evening, a professor and former diplomat held a talk titled “The China-Tibet Dialogue and Its Implications for International Conflict Resolution.” At the dialogue, the two hosts, in addition to two Emory student speakers, discussed solutions to the conflict between China and Tibet and the possibility of an autonomous Tibet. Rinpoche discussed possible diplomatic solutions to the conflict using his background in international politics while the talk’s moderator, Paul Zwier, an Emory School of Law professor and scholar on international advocacy, analyzed the relationship between China and Tibet. The two student speakers — Richard Sui, a College senior and the co-founder of the China-Tibet Initiative at Emory and Tsewang Rigzin, an Emory graduate student and the current president of the Tibetan Youth Congress — discussed their personal connections to the China-Tibet conflict. Rinpoche pointed out that Tibetan people were once skeptical and had deep mistrust for the Chinese, but
that the Dalai Lama has done a great job in engaging in peaceful discussion and negotiation. A lot of informal talks have shown that “there was serious discussion [about Tibet] among the Chinese leadership” in the past two decades that Rinpoche has been the Dalai Lama’s envoy to the U.S., he said. Despite fallouts in negotiations between China and Tibet, Rinpoche said he believed that ultimately, “there will certainly be a major breakthrough.” However, the issue, he added, is not about the Dalai Lama’s relationship with China, but about the Tibetan people’s relationship with China. Sui, a Chinese student studying at Emory, said he initially learned about hostility between Tibet and China while he lived in China. He said that he was subject to the ubiquitous idea that Tibetans are unfriendly. There has been a lot of tension between China and Tibet as the Chinese claim rule over this autonomous region while Tibetans believe in the right to autonomy. Sui described a hesitant dinner he shared with some Tibetan monks studying at Emory. He said the meal, which a friend took him to, transformed his outlook on ChinaTibetan relations. There was a huge difference, he said, between what he learned in China, and what the monks were like. Sui said he saw that Tibetans were normal everyday people who even watched Netflix. Not long after this dinner in 2011, he created the ChinaTibet Initiative, through which, he said, “we [Chinese students] can find [an importance in Tibet] greater than politics.” Rigzin, the other student speaker — who heads the Tibet Youth
C
Courtesy of Hana Ahmed
ollege senior Tagwa El Mubarak performs at the the Muslim Students Association Art Gala on Sunday evening. The Gala also featured a performance by award-winning playwright Rohina Malik and Emory’s improv comedy group Rathskellar.
INDIA WEEK
Swarup Discusses Award-Winning Novel By Luke White Senior Staff Writer
Vikas Swarup, an Indian diplomat and the best-selling author of Q & A, the novel on which Oscar winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire” was based, spoke to a group of more than 100 students and guests about his career and approach to writing at Emory on Friday evening in one of the final events of Emory’s sixth annual India Week. “If I can write, then so can anyone else,” Swarup said. “I believe that
STUDENT LIFE
Artist-in-residence hosts lightshow on the quad ... PAGE 9
creativity is not something that is confined to a select few. It is there in everyone, just in some people it remains dormant.” After Swarup’s speech in the Rollins School of Public Health auditorium, audience members stayed for a question and answer session with the author of three books, followed by a screening of “Slumdog Millionaire.” The Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning organized the event. The Halle Institute is part of Emory’s Office of Global Strategy
SPORTS Women’s
swimming team wins national championship
...
Page 11
and Initiatives and works to bring distinguished speakers from different backgrounds to Emory. Swarup grew up in the city of Allahabad in the Uttar Pradesh province of India. He said that during his childhood, “[his] best and only pastime was reading ... Books were [his] passport to a larger world full of possibility.” However, back then, he never considered a career in writing, and upon graduating from Allahabad University, he joined the Indian
See INDIA, Page 5
NEXT ISSUE John Mulaney performs for Dooley’s Week ... Friday