Oct. 4 issue

It’s October, so bring on the fall seasonal beers! Check out this week’s style section to learn about the best seasonal beers and find out how you can drink away October with classier brews than those cans of of Natty Light you’ve been putting down every Friday night.

George Mason University’s Student Newspaper

PG. 5

www.broadsideonline.com

October 4, 2010

Volume 87 Issue 6

Mason Dining’s inmate work-release program draws attention University did not hire prisoners because of Sodexo workers’ strike as indicated in Fairfax Times story Kevin Loker Connect2Mason Executive Editor The September strike among Sodexo-employed dining workers has drawn attention to Mason Dining’s preexisting program with inmates from the Fairfax County Jail.

The work-release program, which Mason Dining began participating in during the fall of 2008, allows non-violent offenders to take positions on campus through the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office Pre-Release Center. According to a Mason Dining representative, 16 inmates currently work at on-campus dining locations.

This came to the forefront of attention on Mason Dining practices when a recent account in the Fairfax Times said more inmates “were in the process of being hired to pick up the slack” during the Sept. 8-9 strike in which several dozen dining workers walked out of their jobs and protested working conditions alongside organizers and other support from the Service Employees International Union.

According to Sodexo’s Director of Public Relations Alfred King, the representation is inaccurate.

“No pre-release employees were hired because of the strike,” said King in an e-mail interview earlier this month. “And yes, despite SEIU's attempt at disrupting our activities, Sodexo continued to conduct its normal business operations, including the hiring process.”

A “small number” of those in the hiring process at the time of the strike were participants in the pre-release program, said King.

According to the head of Mason’s dining operations, many of the program participants began work before the strike. Eleven of the 16 participants in the program started as early as August.

Story taken from Connect2Mason

Photo By Stephen Kline

Wizards Training camp came to the Patriot Center last week and brought the crowd along with them.

Wizards kick off season at Mason NBA team did week-long preseason training at Patriot Center Cody Norman Asst. Sports Editor Promptly at 11 p.m. on the night of Sept. 27, the doors to the Patriot Center flew open and the rush began. Students pressed their way to the front of the line, hoping to claim a seat in the first row of the arena. They had been waiting all day in anticipation to see an NBA team up close, waiting to catch a glimpse of their favorite player.

Back in June, Monumental Sports and Ted Leonsis purchased the majority share in the Washington Wizards franchise. Leonsis held a press conference, along with an allemployee meeting, to announce his acquisition and invited Head Coach Jim Lar-

ranaga to the celebration.

During the festivities, Wizards’ President Ernie Grunfeld told Larranaga that the franchise was exploring the option of holding their preseason training camp on the campus of George Mason University.

“It’s just a natural to have the Wizards train in the area they play,” said Barry Geisler, General Manager of the Patriot Center.

Larranaga mentioned the idea to Geisler, who contacted the franchise to set up a meeting. In the past, the Wizards have held their training camp at Virginia Commonwealth University. Because VCU has a permanent wood floor – not an NBA quality floor – the Wizards trucked two full bas-

ketball courts to Richmond, Va. The Patriot Center is equipped with an NBA-style basketball floor but the lack of retractable seating on the sides of the floor disallowed the team from setting up their typical, two-floor facility.

The Verizon Center staff, however, was able to make it work. They slid the normal Patriot Center floor toward the west end of the arena to make room for a half-court on the east end.

From there, all that was left was the finalization of details and the planning of the first midnight tip-off in NBA history.

After months of preparation and planning, the event became a reality.

SHAFTED: Lt. Jim Jeckell, a fireman with the city of Fairfax who has responded to calls about stuck elevators on campus, has the following tips for students in the case that they get stuck: 1) Press the call button, and wait to talk to the Customer Service Center.

2) If no one answers the call button, use your cell phone to call 911. Try to give specific information as to the location of the elevator and floor you might be on.

3) If you do not have a cell phone, press the alarm button on the elevator to attract attention. It sounds like a fire alarm.

4) Under no circumstances should you try to force open the elevator doors and attempt to exit the elevator on your own. Nor should people try to open the hatch.

5) No untrained person should try to force open the elevator doors from the outside and attempt to rescue people stuck in elevators.

Jeckell stressed that people stuck in elevators should just stay in there and try to be patient until they are rescued.

“We don’t want you coming out of that car,” Jeckell said. He said it is much more dangerous to try and exit an elevator when it is stuck than it is to be trapped in it. He said an injury can occur if a person is trying to exit the elevator and the elevator starts moving again.

“Make the call. We’ll get you out,” Jeckell said.

Crime Beat Reporter Police records show there were 16 calls to the George Mason Police Department reporting people trapped in elevators on campus Aug. 27-Sept. 20.

That number is five times higher than what Quality Elevator Co. officials say they usually get. Quality Elevator Co. is in charge of the

were introduced one-by-one.

The team ran through over an hour of drills and intersquad scrimmaging before ending the event by throwing T-shirts into the crowd.

Several players remained on the floor until 2 a.m., signing autographs and talking with fans.

“There was a lot of excitement. Great crowd. All the kids were into it. As far as the fans, it was a very enthusiastic night,” said Washington Wizards’ coach Flip Saunders.

All signs point to a second annual midnight tip-off occurring in the Patriot Center at Mason next year.

“As things stand now, it won’t be the last time we do training camp here [at the Patriot Center],” said Geisler.

Number of people trapped in elevators five times higher than normal

DON’T PANIC

Antonieta Rico

More than 4,000 students were squeezed into the north side of the Patriot Center to witness the first official practice of the Washington Wizards’ 2010-2011 season.

“I thought we’d get 1,000 but, obviously, we got many more than that … it was great how the university community embraced the event.”

Larranaga added, “For me, as the head basketball coach, you like to see the enthusiasm for any basketball event … there were 4-5,000 students there for the opening tip-off. So we’re hoping to get them back and then some for the Mason Madness [on Oct. 15].”

Following a live music performance from Mambo Sauce, the Wizards’ players

maintenance of a majority of the elevators on campus.

Tammy Wright, a certified elevator inspector with Quality Elevator Co. said that the first weeks of school do tend to coincide with a higher number of service calls because of students moving in to the dorms and carrying furniture on the elevators.

Wright said that it is hard to give an average of how many calls they get

regarding people stuck in elevators on campus, but she said three calls a month is “normal,” and that legitimate calls, where they actually find someone stuck in an elevator when they arrive, are even fewer.

Jessica Chung, a sophomore communication major at Mason said she was stuck in one of the elevators at the Johnson Center for about five minutes before the elevator started working on its own.

Chung questions how good the maintenance is on the elevators, but said she still feels elevators on campus are safe.

“Now I just don’t get on that elevator anymore,” she said in an e-mail.

Wright said that in addition to semiannual and annual inspections required by the state, visual inspections on the elevators are done on a monthly and quarterly basis.

All service calls that the company receives from the university are looked at, she said. The company also maintains one technician on-site at Mason eight hours during the working day.

Other technicians are on call 24-7.

There was another recent incident at the Hampton Roads dorms, in which students had to be rescued by the fire department from an elevator, but a check of campus elevator maintenance records provided by Facilities Management show that elevators on campus are up to date on their annual inspection.

Christy Hogan, a project engineer with Facilities Management, made inspection records available to Broadside. Not all the records for the campus elevators were available, however, because some of the campus elevators are so new that they have not yet been turned over by the construction company to Facilities Management, campus officials said.

The Hampton Roads elevators have not yet been turned over to Facilities Management, but a check of one of the elevators in the dorm shows an

up-to-date inspection is posted inside the elevator.

Although Virginia code says that certificates of inspections must be posted in or near the elevator, Mason officials say that most of the ones on campus are not kept in the elevators because of fear of vandalism.

The code allows for the records to be made available to the public at the building operators’ office.

Commerce I, located on University Boulevard, has a certificate of compliance on file with the expiration date of Dec. 31.

However, Tara Anderson, a permit technician with the City of Fairfax, said that the last record of an inspection for the Commerce I elevator is from 2008.

A person who answered the phone at the National Elevator Inspection Services said that they hold the contract for the inspections at the Commerce I building and that the inspection was indeed past due.

However, the records provided by Hogan show that American Elevator Inspection Services, Inc. conducted an inspection of the Commerce I elevator in 2009.

As of Friday morning the city of Fairfax did not have that record.

Both NEIS and AEIS are independent elevator inspection companies who perform inspections for elevators on campus but are not associated with Quality Elevator Co., of Bladensburg, Md., who performs the maintenance for most of the campus elevators.

See SODEXO, Page

Blown arrestor cuts power to Fairfax Campus Lights out across campus for an hour and 30 minutes Kevin Loker Connect2Mason Executive Editor George Mason University’s Fairfax campus experienced a power failure Saturday afternoon. A blown arrestor in the metering box is reported to be the cause of the outage, according to a representative from the electric power company.

Students, faculty and staff – and alumni on campus for the weekend’s Alumni Weekend festivities – were put in the dark for about an hour and 30 minutes, from approximately 2:40 p.m. until Dominion Virginia Power authorities returned power to the campus at about 4:10 p.m.

Several events moved locations or improvised when the lights went out. Four instances of individuals getting stuck in elevators, including those in the Shenandoah, Dominion and Potomac Heights residential halls were also reported.

Mary-Earle Farrell, director of development for the College of Health & Human Services, was trapped in an elevator in classroom building Robinson B. “I was terrified,” said Farrell, who remained stuck in the elevator for a reported hour and fifteen minutes until firemen from the Fairfax County Fire Department arrived to unlock the doors and retrieve her.

“I want every police officer to have keys to open the elevators,” said Farrell. GMU Police Department officers, including Officer Brian E. Higgins, were available and responded to the scene, but unable to reach Farrell because of access restrictions.

According to Higgins, the police department “was flooded with calls.”

Story taken from Connect2Mason

2|

News Event Calendar

Broadside

5 Monday, October 4, 2010

Getting to know Peter Pober Head of Faculty Senate talks business, life

Monday, Oct. 4 Bolivian Dance Workshop Johnson Center, Dance Studio 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Oct. 5 On Exhibit The 1960s: A Time in Transition Fenwick Library, Room 204C 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Staff Senate Meeting Johnson Center, Room 311D (Fairfax); Occoquan, Room 221(Videoconference to Prince William); Original Building (Videoconference to Arlington) 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Photo Courtesy of Facebook

Peter Pober is the head of the University Forensics team.

Gregory Connolly

Wednesday, Oct. 6 Cultural Fusion Fairfax: Kickoff SUB I, Quad 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Green Machine Concert Center for the Arts, Concert Hall 7 to 9 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 7 Job and Internship Fair Dewberry Hall 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Latinization of the U.S. Discussion Panel SUB II, rooms 5 and 6l 7 – 8:30 p.m.

For more events and activities, check out: today.gmu.edu

POLICE FILES

News Editor Meet Peter Pober. If you think you are busy, stop dead in your tracks and consider this – he is the head of the George Mason University forensics team. He is the chair of the Faculty Senate. He is a professor of communication. And what is he reading for fun?

Oh, just Plato’s Phaedrus.

This is Pober’s eighth year at Mason following a 15-year stint with the University of Texas at Austin, one of his alma maters. He was working as a communication professor and the head of UT’s forensics team when a national search went out for a new director for Mason’s forensics team.

“Though I wasn’t looking for a change, I put a file together,” Pober said. He quickly found himself on the short list of candidates for the job.

“I felt a genuine draw here,” Pober said.

“I felt wanted. I’ve continued to feel that way every day. I think the energy here is invigorating and I think there’s a genuine concern for the educational process.”

Pober had no ties to Northern Virginia other than brief visits to the District of Columbia when he was younger.

“I love being in the D.C. area,” Pober said. “The opportunity to wake up and say ‘I want to see any artist at the Smithsonian’ is mind-blowing.”

Pober did his undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania. While there, he picked up three bachelor degrees in cultural anthropology, psychobiology and pragmatic linguistics before applying to graduate schools and focusing on communication.

UT was interested in starting a forensics team during Pober’s search for a graduate school. When he was accepted to the university, he started their team as his assistantship for his masters in communication with an emphasis on performance studies.

In addition to the forensics team, his responsibilities as a professor and his interest in the arts, Pober chairs Mason’s Faculty Senate.

“The senate has just now seated its new standing committees,” Pober said. The university has also established its committees for the upcoming school year to work through numerous issues in conjunction with the Faculty Senate.

One issue facing Mason is the March of 2011 visit by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a regional accreditation agency which operates from Texas to Virginia and every state in between.

Pober said each university that is up for reaccreditation must draft a plan it will enact as part of the process. Mason must be reaccredited every 10 years.

“After a lengthy process and many proposals, it was decided to focus on undergraduate scholarship,” Pober said. “This is the notion of scholarly endeavors, or creating the scholarly undergraduate.”

The Faculty Senate is also looking at a proposition from the Office of Equity and Diversity Services which will deal with consensual relations between faculty and students.

“There had been some question as to whether or not there was a codified response to such relationships,” Pober said. “A document was drafted to clarify how to deal with such relationships.”

Other issues the Faculty Senate is considering include an upcoming, one-time three percent bonus for Mason faculty, dual enrollment credits, online evaluations for courses and changing the length of the exam schedule to avoid a repeat of last year’s

fiasco.

“The snow disrupted exam week, which lead to students having more than two exams in one day,” Pober said.

Pober’s interest in forensics can be traced back to the seventh grade, when an English teacher took him aside and recommended he speak to the high school forensics coach when he entered the ninth grade.

After 34 years, Pober’s involvement in forensics is as strong as ever.

“Most people think forensics relates to CSI and that’s true in the sense that they’re both the search for truth through argumentation and evidence,” Pober said. His forensics background deals with public speaking and literary performance instead of fingerprints and DNA. The Mason forensics team, founded in 1971 when Mason was an extension of the University of Virginia, focuses on public speaking on familiar news stories to more unusual issues. Another component is literary analysis, which deals with approaching literature that promotes an argument or shows a piece of literature to the audience in a new light, Pober said.

“I really see the forensics team as a family,” Pober said. “I’ve been blessed to be the best man in 10 weddings of former students.

Most of my dearest friends are former students.”

Pober is also interested in the culinary arts, and each Thanksgiving he prepares an elaborate dinner for family, friends and former students.

“Working with the forensics team keeps me young and motivated to know as much as I can about what’s going on in the world and to support students in their endeavors to learn about the world,” Pober said.

Pober said the skills one acquires on the forensics team can be applied to numerous mediums.

“The skills learned in forensics team make better researchers, writers, speakers, performers and, in general, a more knowledgeable person due to the need to keep up with present knowledge,” he said. “Forensics team hopefully makes better citizens because of that knowledge.”

Northern Neck Internet

Fiasco

Counterfeit Bill SUB I A counterfeit ten dollar bill was received at Student Union Building I. The incident was reported to the Secret Service. (45/Arnold)

Sept. 27

George Mason’s Board of Visitors has five new members.

Theft From Building (Delayed Entry) HQ Complainant stated that person(s) unknown stole their laptop, carrying case, and two Blackberry phone batteries while it was left unattended. (53/Colson)

Sept. 28

Vandalism Robinson Hall A A faculty member reported a golf cart was turned over on its side by person(s) unknown near Robinson Hall A. (50/Issa)

Motor Vehicle Accident Rappahannock River Deck A Cue bus struck a vehicle which was stopped in the roadway. A summons was issued to driver of the stopped vehicle. No injuries were sustained in the accident. Damages estimated at $2,700. (58/Duangrat)

Internet connectivity disrupted; ITU recommends wired connection Kathy Morgenegg

Sept. 30

Sept. 29

Broadside Correspondent Warrant Service HQ Elias Yazigi, 20 (GMU student) of McLean, VA and Anthony Sargon, 20 (GMU student) of McLean, VA were served with outstanding warrants for Aiding and Abetting Underage Possession of Alcohol. (10/Ganley)

Medical Assist Southside Dining A GMU employee got debris in their eye while cleaning a grill. The employee was transported to Inova Access for further evaluation. (39/Ortiz-Duran) Simple Assault Enterprise Hall A GMU professor was assaulted by a student. This case is under investigation. (39/Ortiz-Duran)

Police Files are taken verbatim from www.gmu.edu/police.

Broadside does not make any changes to public records.

Throughout the past few weeks, George Mason University students living in the dorms have experienced difficulty connecting to MasonResNet, Mason’s residential wireless internet network. The problem has been especially prevalent around the Northern Neck residential area.

“When we install wireless access points in a new building, it’s difficult to tell exactly how many we need and where they should be located until the building is occupied,” said Randy Anderson, director of Network Engineering & Technology. “It has become apparent that Northern Neck requires additional access points to provide good service, so we are working to add more.”

ResTechs in the building, who stopped by when the problem was first being reported, were unable to fix it and suggested the use of Ethernet cables as an alternative. Even though the cable provides students with a hardwired connection to the internet, it is often slower than wireless.

“Our staff is actively working on a plan to add more access points to fix weak signal areas

in all residence hall buildings,” Anderson said.

Though over 90 percent of the Mason campus has had wireless Internet access since 2004, there are still problems to be addressed.

Some areas of campus are particularly difficult for wireless capability due to location or construction, such as the Student Apartments and the University Townhouses on Chain Bridge Road.

Many residents do not own Ethernet cables and are hesitant to invest in them.

Students instead prefer to wait and see if they can regain their wireless connection, which they also say is more convenient to use on campus.

“The truth is that wireless service is not, and may never be, as secure and reliable as a wired connection due to inherent limitations in the technology,” Anderson said. “You will always get the best performance from a wired connection.”

The majority of residents in Northern Neck claim to have lost their Internet around Sept. 21.

“We actually thought about getting our own connection because we need the Internet,” said Meg Patrick, a senior living in Northern Neck.

“Our Network Operations group has been watching support calls to identify patterns, and sometime within the past two weeks determined that more access points are needed in Northern Neck,” Anderson said. The first call about issues in Northern Neck was on Sept. 8 but was not part of a pattern.

Many professors post assignments on Blackboard and communicate by e-mail, making it difficult for students with fluctuating connections to keep up with classes or communicate with teachers.

The Johnson Center offers computer labs for student use, but these are often full and are not always convenient.

“My roommate contacted housing, and then after that I think she contacted the IT people,” said Deanna Andrews, a senior living in Northern Neck. She also said though the connection had been sporadic over the past week, her entire suite lost their connection at one point.

“We just got ours back this morning [Sept.

29],” Andrews said.

The ITU Support Center maintains students should rely on an Ethernet connection with the wireless network serving as a backup.

Broadside

News

Monday, October 4, 2010 |

BOV holds first meeting Board extends Merten through 2013, approves new construction Gregory Connolly News Editor George Mason University’s Board of Visitors met last Wednesday for its first meeting of the 2010-2011 year, approving several measures as well as welcoming five new members to its ranks.

“Things went very smoothly,” said Peter Pober, chair of Mason’s Faculty Senate. “The meeting was very productive.”

The governor-appointed board that primarily deals in oversight and policy making for Mason has extended President Alan Merten’s contract to serve as president through July 2013, said the board’s rector, Ernst Volgenau.

The board approved the formation of the Office of Global Strategy, which will act as a liaison between Mason and various international institutions, Pober said. In addition, the board approved changing the name of the Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering to simply the Volgenau School of Engineering.

The board approved a new Master of Engineering program called GeoConStruct, derived from Geotechnical, Construction and

Structural Engineering.

The board approved a measure to consolidate the Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology with the Department of Molecular and Microbiology. The new department will be known as the School of Systems Biology within the College of Science, said J. Thomas Hennessey Jr., chief of staff for the Office of Mason’s President.

“More than anything, it provides a unified department on those key areas that were in the past separated,” Hennessey said. “It’s absolutely a positive change.”

The board approved a number of 9C and 9D bond sales to fund several projects across the Mason university system. These projects include new student housing, renovations of existing housing, Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning work at the Aquatic and Fitness Center, life and safety improvements for the Field House and the phase II addition of the Krasnow Institute.

While the bond sales have been approved, contractors must still be selected, Hennessey said. Representatives of Mason can request that bonds be sold by the state to fund new projects. Bonds are sold to various groups, in-

cluding investment groups, insurance companies and investment corporations.

The board approved building plans for the Prince William campus, including a mixed-use facility adjacent to the Hylton Performing Arts Center and an expansion of lab space which Hennessey said was “desperately needed.”

The approved measures now go to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia for approval.

Five new members were appointed to the board, which now has 16 members. Each member has a four-year term, resulting in four vacancies each year. The fifth vacancy was the result of a resignation.

The new members are C. Daniel Clemente, chairman and CEO of Clemente Development Company Inc.; R. Carter Pate, managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers; Mark F. McGettrick, executive vice president and CFO of Dominion Resources Inc. and a 1980 graduate of Mason; Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer, president of MediaSpeak Strategies and a 1987 graduate of Mason; and DavidImad Ramadan, president of Rama International Inc. and a 1993 and 1995 Mason graduate.

Combating sexual assault

Microfinance?

Upcoming conference to discuss economics, poverty eradication Gregory Connolly News Editor Opportunity International will be hosting a conference on microfinance Thursday through Saturday at the Crystal Gateway Marriot in Arlington.

The event will feature Sheryl WuDunn, the co-author of “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide;” Roger Thurow, a former Wall Street Journal reporter; Claudia J. Kennedy, retired U.S. army general and Dale Hanson Bourke, President of the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia.

The conference will in-

Debate to focus on Latino, Hispanic graduation rates Kathy Morgenegg In an effort to involve faculty members in Hispanic Heritage Month, the Office of Diversity Programs and Services has developed “Food For Thought,” a debate concerning a March study on Hispanic/Latino graduation rates.

The debate, which will take place Tuesday from 1-2 p.m. in Room C on the third floor of the Johnson Center, will cater to uni-

Photo By Antonieta Rico

Rubi X. Chavez, a Mason graduate, demonstrates self-defense techniques against Lt. Kevin Barrett, an officer with the GMUPD, last at a gym on campus. She took a previous RAD class as a member of the GMUPD Police Cadet Program.

Sandra Evans, a senior Psychology Major at Mason, demonstrates self-defense techniques against Lt. Kevin Barrett, an officer with the GMUPD, last Tuesday at a gym on campus. She took a previous RAD class as a member of the GMUPD Police Cadet Program.

Rape Aggression Defense Class to teach self-defense Antonieta Rico Crime Beat Reporter With national statistics stating that 1 in 3 college women will experience a sexual assault in their lifetime, being a victim might seem like an almost unavoidable part of being a woman. However, George Mason University instructors for the upcoming Rape Aggression Defense class do not think that has to be true.

The Mason Police Department is offering a two-day RAD class, Oct. 16-17, from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Recreation and Athletic Complex. The class is free to all female students as well as other women affiliated with the university like faculty, employees and family members.

Instructors for the class hope

that women will come away from the experience knowing they do not just have to put up with a harasser and that they have many options in preventing or dealing with an attack.

“You can do something. You don’t just have to take it,” said Lt. Kevin Barrett, an officer with the Mason police department and a RAD instructor. Barrett said he hopes women will learn to have “greater self confidence in themselves … in their ability to realize that they don’t have to just be a victim.”

The self-defense class can give women a sense of empowerment, said police sergeant Patricia Millan, another RAD instructor.

She said it teaches women to speak up if they feel uncomfortable or do something about a harassing situation. The first part of

Peace Corps at GMU The job market is global.

You should be too.

the class is lecture and techniques and during the last part of the course women will learn handson self-defense methods.

Millan said the class is the first step in making a plan in case of an attack.

“It takes that freeze factor away,” said Rubi X. Chavez, a Mason graduate who took the class as a member of the Police Cadet program.

She said she learned how to think fast and respond in case of an attack. “It challenges you to step out of this gentle and shy personality, and be aggressive,” Chavez said.

But aggressive does not mean you are rude or ready to fight, Millan said.

In the class, teaching a student to be aggressive means students learn to be confident when

Life is calling.

How far will you go?

800.424.8580 www.peacecorps.gov

Thursday, October 7

For more information contact Janet Schuhl at jschuhl@peacecorps.gov.

Information Table Job & Internship Fair JC, Dewberry Hall 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

This could be your photo Submit y our phot os for a Broadsid chance to e’s next be featu is sue. re d in E-mail p hoto@bro adsideon line.com.

versity faculty. To increase attendance, it is scheduled during lunch hour instead of in the evening.

“We will be looking at how this research will impact Mason or how we want to implement it,” said Jennifer Crewalk assistant director of Hispanic/Latino student affairs for ODPS. “It’s a development piece for faculty and staff,” said Joya Crear, director of ODPS. “It provides some exposure to heritage month.”

Parents invade campus Family Weekend Starts Friday Ramy Zabarah Broadside Correspondent As we wrap up our fifth academic week, students are more excited than ever to bring their parents to campus and show off their school spirit and sparkling clean dorm rooms, although the latter may not be 100 percent accurate.

This year’s Family Weekend is bound to be full of fun and entertaining events for everyone to enjoy, including dinner receptions, campus tours, an opera and a special performance at the Patriot Center by Saturday Night Live writer, cast member and comedian Seth Myers.

Family Weekend, sponsored by Orientation and Family Programs and Services, is scheduled for the weekend of Oct. 15-17, and Assistant Director Katie Murray is expecting an exceptionally large turnout.

“We are experiencing record-high attendance numbers this year,” said Murray. “We sold out the Mason Inn for Family Weekend, as well as two other hotels in the Fairfax area.”

According to Murray, the Mason Inn has been completely booked for Family Weekend for over a month now, running out of vacant rooms only after the second Freshman Orientation this summer.

Murray, along with the rest of Orientation and Family Programs and Services, is very excited for another successful Family Weekend.

Aside from great entertainment, wonderful accommodation and a unique perspective of the George Mason University campus, Family Weekend is always a great way to bring students, parents, siblings and faculty together to celebrate success at the number one university to watch.

Maybe it’s time to get some rest Sleep is not a priority on campus, but experts say it should be Emma Kouguell Connect2Mason

Peace Corps is growing and has thousands of new volunteer jobs available for 2011!

Apply now for programs departing next year.

telling a harasser to leave them alone and also learn to protect themselves from potential attackers, said Chavez.

“You have to be aggressive to defend yourself,” Chavez said.

The class is free of charge for Mason female students and other women affiliated with the university, but non-Mason women can also take the class for $50.

Another class will be held Nov. 20-21 at the Prince Williams Campus in the Freedom Aquatic and Fitness Center.

To sign up for the classes contact Barrett at 703-993-2800 or stop by the Police and Safety Headquarters building, in front of the Rappahannock River Parking Deck. For more information you can also send an e-mail to rad@gmu.edu.

clude keynote presentations and breakout sessions discussing the role that savingsbased microfinance plays in eradicating poverty.

There will also be a discussion on how to help smallholder farmers in Africa become more productive and make their operations more sustainable. Another theme of the conference is providing support for millions of women entrepreneurs worldwide.

The conference begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday, runs 8 a.m.-9:15 p.m. on Friday and 8 a.m.-noon on Saturday.

Young professionals and Mason students can get a special ticket rate of $75 by visiting www.opportunity.org.

Food for thought Broadside Correspondent

Photo By Antonieta Rico

3

Story taken from Connect2Mason

Snuggled in bed and about to drift off to sleep sometime after midnight, the nightly laughing crew commences in the hallway and your roommate bursts into the room with her boyfriend.

There goes your peaceful sleep.

Sleep deprivation affects 80 to 90 percent of college students, and getting a good night’s sleep is essential to staying healthy but is often overlooked, according to Patrice Levinson, a nurse practitioner at George Mason University.

“The best thing is to have a consistent sleep-wake schedule,” said Dan Gartenberg, a graduate student studying psychology at Mason. Most people need seven to eight hours of sleep, though it can vary according to the individual.

Gartenberg said sleep deprivation has short-term effects such as increased blood pressure and desires for fatty foods, a weakened

immune system, a harder time remembering things and a decrease in sense of humor.

He also said long-term effects include an increased chance for obesity and developing diseases and a decrease in life-span.

Will Mullery, a sophomore graphic design major, gets around six hours of sleep every night but said it works for him and does not affect the quality of his coursework.

“I’m a little more tired than most people, but I’m used to it,” Mullery said.

Kathyrn Makin, a sophomore English major, had trouble sleeping her freshman year because of disturbances like laughing and yelling in her residence hall. She got around five hours of sleep every night and experienced some of the short-term symptoms of sleep deprivation.

“It was like being on autopilot.” Makin said. “I could think, but you don’t really think when you get that little sleep for so long … my body wouldn’t let me wake up.”

While Makin was up late at night because of external disturbances, other students stay up by choice. Mason students reported pulling all nighters for homework or social reasons and having trouble staying awake in class or sleep-

ing all day.

Cynthia Lehman, a professor of communication, said that morning classes are sometimes difficult because the students stay up late and do not participate as much as they do in her afternoon classes.

“You become nocturnal when you go to college,” Lehman said.

According to Gartenberg, the idea that staying up late or pulling all nighters will help prepare for a test is a misconception because it negatively affects cognitive skills.

“Pride in not sleeping much is like pride in not exercising," Gartenberg said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Gartenberg also corrected other misconceptions about sleep.

He said people should only go to sleep if they are tired. Caffeine and exercising before bed disturbs sleep, and alcohol does not help people fall asleep, but rather disrupts sleep and decreases its quality.

Mason has options to help students combat sleep deprivation.

The Office of Housing and Residential Life has quiet hours starting in the dormitories starting at 10 p.m. on weekdays , 12 a.m. on weekends and 24 hour courtesy hours during final exams.

“I think they [quiet hours] are very well enforced,” said Brad Menerd, the assistant director for Residence Life. “It’s something we really push for with the RA’s [resident assistants] … We don’t get complaints.”

Housing publishes the “Guide to Pride” and the “Roommate Bill of Rights” to help roommates have a quiet place to sleep and study. Housing also provides healthy living opportunities such as the Mindful Living Learning Community and programs such as meditation and yoga.

Student Health Services also provides information about sleep deprivation and sleep disorders and will see students who make appointments because they are having trouble sleeping.

SHS may prescribe medication or recommend herbal substances to help patients sleep, but according to Levinson, many of the students who go to SHS complaining of sleep deprivation have other symptoms, such as anxiety and a loss or increase of appetite, that point to depression.

SHS is busiest with patients coming in with sleep deprivation around finals because students have increased stress, which weakens their immune systems.

“Sleep isn’t priority,” Levinson said.

4 | Monday, October 4, 2010

Broadside

Turn off the violence

Sexual Assault Services seeks to educate about violence and abuse of female victims Gregory Connolly News Editor Turn Off the Violence week starts Monday with the Clothesline Project, which runs through Thursday.

“The Clothesline Project is an international initiative to honor female victims of violence,” said Connie Kirkland, the director of Sexual Assault Services. The project has taken place at George Mason University every year since 1997. The project features a clothesline with Tshirts that have been illustrated by students and faculty.

Kirkland said there are about 700 T-shirts from past projects that are hung up each morning and taken down at night. In addition, students and faculty are welcome to make their own T-shirts for the clothesline.

Kirkland said anyone can make T-shirts with messages

pertaining to female victims of violence as long as the message is not one of revenge toward the perpetrators.

The clothesline will be placed between Student Union Building I and Harris Theatre from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.

Tuesday features Take Back the Night, an international initiative that has been featured at Mason since 1988.

“Take Back the Night is supposed to empower young students and make them feel OK about being outside at night,” Kirkland said. “We’ll have speakers talking about services around campus and some survivors [of violence] who will detail their experience.”

Kirkland said there will also be a performance. The assembled crowd will then march around campus.

The evening will conclude with a reception at the Johnson Center.

Survivor Space, an event that allows people who want to quietly discuss an incident with counselors and advocates, will take place at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the grove between SUB I and Harris Theatre.

The counselors are from Sexual Assault Services and Counseling and Psychological Services, Kirkland said.

The final event of the week is “The Goddess Diaries,” a play written by Carol Campbell, an Oakton playwright.

“The play is about many stages of a woman’s life,” Kirkland said. It features dancers and music.

“It’s a good place to go on a Saturday night,” Kirkland said.

This will be the first time the play is performed on Mason’s campus. Admission is $5 with proceeds going to the Mason Victims of Violence Fund.

The play will be at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at Harris Theatre.

SEIU: Sodexo used inmates to interfere with strike SODEXO, from front The remaining five began during the month of September.

Denise Ammaccapane, the resident district manager of Sodexo operations at Mason, says that Mason Dining has increased its hiring efforts overall for the fall semester in order to fill positions at the expanding number of dining venues at the university.

New hires totaled 148 as of Saturday, a number which includes student employees as well as participants in the pre-release program.

“We made an effort to hire more students this year due to the success of opening Starbucks a year ago, [by] staffing mostly students,” said Ammaccapane, who says working a shift or two works for students and helps dining fill the gaps at the 28 locations, which operate almost 24 hours a day on

the Fairfax campus.

The Original Burger Company and two Einstein Bros Bagels operations are slated to open late this fall, with more venues planned with completion of University Hall and new housing areas.

SEIU maintains that Sodexo used inmates during the strike to interfere with workers’ right to stand up for their rights and unionize.

“It is appalling that Sodexo would use prisoners to try to break a picket line,” said Matt Painter, the communication director of SEIU at Local 32BJ. The sheriff's department's official employment policies for the work-release program states that "in the event of a strike, each [inmate] working at the affected business will be offered the choice of continuing to work during the strike, or refusing to cross the

picket line."

According to Ammaccapane, the then-total 14 pre-release employees came to work their normal scheduled hours during both days of the strike. Individuals may have worked in different locations, but relief work came from other sources.

“As we did with other employees, including student employees, we asked for volunteers who were willing to come to work and help out during the strike,” said King.

Several workers from a temp agency also filled in gaps in the work force.

“No participant in the program came in specifically for the strike,” said Ammaccapane.

Mason officials know of the pre-release program and have noted that such programs can reduce the chance of an inmate relapsing into crime upon completion of his or her sentence.

News

Fall Convocation President Merten to address university community Sonya Hudson Managing Editor President Alan Merten will address the university community in his annual Fall Convocation at a new location this year, the Mason Inn Hotel and Conference Center.

Students are encouraged to attend on Wednesday, Oct. 13 at 3 p.m. Merten, along with Senior Vice President Maurice Scherrens and Associate Provost Michelle Marks, will give a state of the university address that will include an

explanation of this year’s budget and academic programs.

Merten will give an overview of what is happening at George Mason University.

Scherrens will address how the state of Virgnia’s unexpected budget surplus will affect the university’s budget.

Marks will address the academic end of the university. The remarks will be followed by a question and answer session Tours of the Mason Inn will begin at 2 p.m., before the address at 3 p.m., and will continue after

the speakers, from 3:30 to 5 p.m.

The convocation and tours are free and open to anyone. Refreshments will be served.

To make it more convenient for the university community to attend, the shuttle buses that drive around Patriot Circle will stop at the Mason Inn. The buses will run every 10 to 12 minutes.

“I hope we get students there,” said University Press Secretary Dan Walsch. “He [Merten] doesn’t speak to the university community everyday, so I hope we get a good turn out”

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TPK 7th Annual Running for the Kids 5k & 1 Mile Fun Run Community Wide Event Sat., Oct. 16 In Fairfax City www.tururopreschool.org (703) 691-1006

Did you know... … that most Mason food services employees do not work for the University, but rather for Sodexo, one of the largest

companies in the world?

« WKDW 6RGH[R PDGH RYHU ELOOLRQ LQ SURÀWV ODVW \HDr, but doesn't pay its Mason workers a living wage or provide them with affordable health care? … that Mason workers have been injured on the job because they lack basic safety equipment?

… that Mason workers who organized in protest were punished by their supervisors for speaking out?

YOU CAN HELP MASON S WORKERS! Send an email to President Merten expressing your concern!

Join a student group to speak out!

If the workers are striking, bring your lunch from home!

Visit http://cleanupsodexo.org/ for more information!

We, the undersigned faculty, encourage everyone in the Mason community to THE WORKERS and OPPOSE SODEXO S UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES. Kevin Avruch Rei Berroa Debra Bergoffen D. Michael Bottoms Joan Bristol Courtney Brkic Zofia Burr Benedict Carton Michael Chang Samuel Collins Robert DeCaroli Martin DeNys Rutledge Dennis

Timothy Gibson Michele Greet Hugh Gusterson David Haines Sumaiya Hamdani Juliane Hammer Nancy Hanrahan Tamara Harvey Mark Jacobs Deborah Kaplan Matthew Karush Ted Kinnaman David Kuebrich

Meredith Lair Roger Lancaster Alison Landsberg Sharon Leon Michael Malouf Peter Mandaville Wendi Manuel-Scott Thomas McDow Michael O’Malley Paula Petrik Lisa Rabin Victoria Rader Richard Rubenstein

We support

EDUCATION, NOT EXPLOITATION!

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14

The number of countries in which Gorillaz’ song “Feel Good, Inc.” charted in the top ten.

Monday, October 4, 2010

A Capital Oktoberfest From local brews to new seasonals, Broadside has you covered Sam Adams Octoberfest

Patrick Wall Style Editor

The people of Germany love beer. It’s in their gardens and their town squares. Although consumption of the frothy beverage is declining, studies have suggested the average German drinks 116 liters – or nearly 31 gallons – of beer per year.

It’s no surprise, then, that one of the country’s most celebrated times of the year is Oktoberfest. Contrary to its name, Oktoberfest begins in mid-September and ends at the start of October.

The festival started in 1810 as a public celebration of the marriage between Crown Prince Ludwig I and Princess Theresa of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The festival was so popular with the public that it was renewed the following year.

While America doesn’t tend to celebrate Oktoberfest with the same fervor as the Germans, there are still plenty of festivities. And with those festivities comes beer.

Many domestic breweries create seasonal beers for the occasion. Here are a few of the best:

Not too heavy and not too light, Octoberfest is a perfect beer for the fall.

With hints of caramel and toffee, the beer has a sweet yet malty taste.

Enjoy with a German sausage or crab cakes for the feeling of a New England autumn.

Magic Hat Hex Like the Sam Adams, Magic Hat’s Hex is a darker beer with hints of sweetness. Caramel, apple and some bready tastes mix together in this red ale.

Magic Hat is known for its eye-catching designs, but Hex is a beer worthy of the Oktoberfest moniker.

Gordon Biersch FestBier San Francisco’s Gordon Biersch brewery might be best known locally by its Tysons Corner location, home to the giant glass boot.

But the brewery is also home to seven proprietary beers. Its Oktoberfest beer, FestBier, is ready for the season. With notes of bread and biscuit, FestBier is an easyto-drink beer for the start of autumn.

Starr Hill Festie Brewed in Charlottesville, Va., Starr Hill is a local brewery with a national reach. For fall, Starr Hill releases Festie, the brewery’s take on Oktoberfest.

Like many beers of its genre, Festie is a mediumbodied brew with a bready taste. Festie is paired well with warm, hearty dishes like chili.

Broadside

6| Monday, October 4, 2010

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An endearing comedy Small cast looks to shine in Players’ Kimberly Akimbo

PATRIOT CENTER

SPOTLIGHT Photo by Joe Milmoe

(From left to right) Joshua McCreary, Andrew Knoche, Molly Mackenzie and Michael Faulkner perform last year.

Dylan Hares Media Beat Writer This is a tale of dysfunction, hormones, and getting older. But it is also a tale of finding first love in, of all places, Bogota, New Jersey.

The Mason Players are beginning their fall 2010 season of theater productions this week with David Lindsay-Abaire’s hit comedy, Kimberly Akimbo. The show revolves around Kimberly Levaco, a girl with an aging disease much like progeria, causing her to age about four times faster than usual.

“She tries to grab onto every good thing,” said senior communication major Beth Wherry, who stars as Kimberly. “By the end of every scene, something has beaten Kim back down.” Despite being jaded and sarcastic, Kimberly has many moments of being genuinely endearing—a trait that is expressed especially around love interest Jeff McCracken.

“Jeff just has a really big heart,” said sophomore undeclared major Rafael Medina, who plays Jeff. “He’s very optimistic.”

Jeff is a member of the “Junior Wordsmiths of America” and his hobbies include

anagrams and Dungeons and Dragons. “He is a very real character. I try to stray away from the stereotypical nerd,” said Medina.

Kimberly lives with her pregnant, hypochondriac mother Pattie and her alcoholic father Buddy, played by sophomore theater major Katie Brunberg and senior theater major Michael Burgos.

The relationship between the two is wonderfully dynamic and theirs with Kimberly throughout the play is complicated as everyone struggles with secrets and her condition.

“Buddy is a departure for me. He is a father and an alcoholic – two things I’m not,” said Michael Burgos. “I think I finally broke through though.”

The wonderful performances in the opening scenes given by Wherry, Medina, and Burgos get great laughs and set up the tone for the rest of the show. The next scene opens up with Pattie giving a hilarious monologue into a tape recorder for her yet-unborn daughter.

Katie Brunberg shows impeccable timing and expression and is a wonderful contrast to the otherwise calm Kimberly. Later on, the audience is introduced to Kimberly’s crazy,

homeless aunt Debra played by sophomore theater major Cathryn Benson. She has an eclectic and eccentric personality that is done wonderfully by Benson. Everything Debra does and says is so funny, it hurts.

“We’ve done so much growth as a cast,” said Wherry. “There’s been so much character development.”

“I like the intimacy of such a small cast,” said Burgos. With a group of only five, the audience is able to learn so much and come to know each actor and character.

“I’m elated with the cast and the production team. It really has been a collaborative effort,” said director and senior theater major Maxie Morales. “It’s an endearing comedy. I just love it. I’m hoping and expecting a fantastic show.”

Kimberly Akimbo features talented actors and shows a lot of great work on stage and behind the scenes. It’s truly a marvelous way to start the Fall season. Preview for the show is Wednesday October 6th and opening night is Thursday October 7th with shows through Sunday.

As midterms approach, use these tips to keep your cool at school Erin Powell Not all stress is bad, but if you are left feeling worn out at the end of the day, even to the point where you are anxious and frustrated and have trouble sleeping and concentrating, you are most likely stressed. For most students, stress is at its worst during midterm and final exams.

One way George Mason University counters stress during this time is by hosting De-Stress Fest, which provides free food and prizes right before final exams.

However, stress can creep up at any time, leaving many feeling overwhelmed. Here are a few tips to help you deal with stress throughout the school year.

1. Relax. Lighten up and don’t stress the little things. It’s not the end of the world if

you fail your first test (but if it becomes a repeated problem, then you might have something to worry about). Try practicing some breathing techniques or writing in a journal to help you feel more at ease.

2. Identify the source of your stress.

Taking too many credits? Annoying roommate? Get rid of or work through the problem. After you weed it out, you’ll feel a huge weight being lifted off your shoulders.

3. Exercise! Being fit is good for both body and mind. When you work out, your body releases endorphins that produce pain and stress relieving properties similar to morphine. From state-of-the-art gyms to daily aerobics classes, Mason has a wide variety of fitness choices for everyone to explore.

4. Get enough sleep. Pulling an allnighter might seem like a good idea at the time, but the next day it will come back to

Brandi Moorehead Sex Columnist This one is for the ladies, so guys, take full advantage of this sneak peek into your lady’s handbook.

Just please try and keep from drooling.

Here we go, ladies. Open your minds and discover your inner sex kittens!

I know when we’re young, sex is so … missionary.

Just because we’re young doesn’t mean you can’t explore and find new ways to have a blast in the sack. To do so, always follow the most important sex etiquette rule: Do unto other(s) as you would have them do unto you.

Or to you.

Sex etiquette goes along the same lines of what your mother taught you: Be polite. Other ground rules your man will love you for considering:

Patrick Wall Style Editor George Mason University is no stranger to hosting highprofile artists, and this semester is no exception. From Alice in Chains to Kid Cudi, Mason has successfully crossed genres while finding artists to satisfy students’ diverse tastes.

Over the next two weeks, the Patriot Center will play host to two equally diverse acts: experimental hip hop veterans Gorillaz and country legend Hank Williams Jr.

Hank Williams Jr.

Don’t stress!

Student Life Beat Writer

Gorillaz, Hank Williams, Jr. to visit Patriot Center

haunt you. Sleep is your body’s way of restoring energy and “re-booting” your brain for the next day. Without it, you risk side effects like depression, slower reaction times and even weight change.

5. Find something you enjoy doing and stick with it. Whether it’s weekly Wii tournaments with your roommate or watching Jersey Shore with your best friend, remember to make time for things that are important for you.

Still not enough? Check out Mason’s Counseling and Psychological Services. They provide programs to help you cope with stress and anxiety in your everyday life and even offer one-on-one counseling sessions designed to resolve issues that can cause emotional distress.

1. Warm them hands, girl! Nothing will shoot his number one player down faster than chilly, ice cube fingers.

2. Take it easy on yourself. If you’re worrying about how imperfect your body is, great sex will always be in the distance. Shut up! You’re obviously sexy. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be in this situation.

3. Don’t forget about the touch sensations that go along his penis. Think how sensitive that thing is.

So please make sure you don’t have jagged fingernails or sharp teeth scraping him.

4. Open your mouth. Tell him what you want.

Better yet, whisper it seductively in his ear and by all means, don’t be afraid to ask what he wants. How else are you going to know?

Now let’s get to the most important part about being a female. Before you can tell him what feels

After the death of his father, country music legend Hank Wiliams, the younger Williams was driven to perform by his mother. After starting out as a near musical clone of his father, Williams eventually branched out and created his own sound.

Throughout the 1960s and 70s Williams scored several successful chart hits like “All for the Love of Sunshine” and “Family Tradition.” Throughout the 80s Williams enjoyed a string of six albums which peaked at number one on the “Billboard” country charts.

Since then, Williams has enjoyed a commercially and financially successful career. He has been named Entertainer of the Year five times – twice by the Country Music Association and thrice by the Academy of Country Music.

His latest album, 127 Rose Avenue, peaked at number

good, you need to know what feels good. This means - you got it! Figuring it out by yourself. We all learn best from personal experience. Am I right, or am I right?

Most girls don’t know what feels good, because they haven’t experienced the “big O” yet. It’s not unnatural. Rather, it’s totally normal, but be excited because if you haven’t, you have a lot to look forward to.

You can practice “teaching yourself” where you like to be touched, how and with what rhythm. After you’ve mastered this, show your guy. Believe it or not, leaving the fumbling around to him will be like watching him try to find a needle in a haystack. Be his guide and you’ll be his goddess! So get to touch-

nine on the “Billboard” country charts and broke into the top 20 “Billboard” Top 200 chart.

On Saturday Williams will headline a show at the Patriot Center which will also feature Jamey Johnson, Colt Ford and Josh Thompson.

Gorillaz Experimental hip hop act Gorillaz has long been known for their creative use of animation and innovative music.

Created by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and “Tank Girl” cartoonist Jamie Hewlett, Gorillaz have released a slew of successful albums in their over decade-long career.

Gorillaz’ 2001 eponymous debut album sold seven million copies and launched the band into pop stardom. Their latest album, “Plastic Beach,” debuted at number two on the Billboard chart in March.

Since the release of “Gorillaz,” the band has only released two additional albums.

Despite this, the band has been commercially and critically successful, winning a Grammy in 2006 for their song “Feel Good Inc.” and has been nominated for six more.

The band will be performing at the Patriot Center on Oct. 11. Accompanying Gorillaz on their “Escape to Plastic Beach Tour” is N.E.R.D., the hip hop trio headed by artist and producer Pharrell.

Tickets for both shows are available at the Patriot Center box office and by calling (703)573-SEAT.

ing, girl.

Now that you’ve found the perfect ways you like to be touched, perhaps you’ve even made it to the “big O.” If you have, congratulations!

If not, don’t be discouraged. Sometimes, getting comfortable with the idea just takes a little more time.

For the ladies that have, I have great news. You can make your “O’s” bigger and more explosive.

Also try kegels. When you really need to pee and you contract the muscle to stop yourself, you’re contracting your pelvic muscle. You can strengthen this by doing exercises to tighten and let loose.

Do this in your free time: while writing a paper, doing research or finding a place to eat in the Johnson Center! You can do it anywhere. I promise no one will know what you’re doing. Sex and relationship expert Dr. Sadie Allison points out that there are awesome Kegel exercise products. Strengthen your muscle even faster. I know you’ll love the outcome.

Broadside

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Monday, October 4, 2010 | 7

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Opinion Broadside

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Monday, October 4, 2010

Broadside

George Mason University’s Student Newspaper Emily Sharrer, Editor-in-Chief Sonya Hudson, Managing Editor Monika Joshi, Copy Chief Gregory Connolly, News Editor Justin Lalputan, Opinion Editor Elizabeth Perry, Asst. Opinion Editor Patrick Wall, Style Editor Ramy Zabarah, Asst. Style Editor John Powell, Sports Editor Cody Norman, Asst. Sports Editor Peter Flint, Photography Editor Christina Salek-Raham, Copy Editor Benjamin Shaffer, Copy Editor Marine Jaouen, Copy Editor Mayank Mehrishi, Copy Editor Jared Barrale, Copy Editor

Jared Barrale, Copy Editor Heather Hamilton, Copy Editor Liz Milligan, Designer Michelle Buser, Designer Randy Urick, Photographer Stephanie Knapp, Photographer Dylan Hares, Staff Reporter Scott Miller, Advertising Director Catherine Kutz, Advertising Representative Spencer Haag, Advertising Representative Jacques Mouyal, Business Manager Kathryn Mangus, Faculty Adviser David Carroll,Tech Adviser

Postpone the party— it’s Family Weekend

Editorial Policy The letters, columns and views expressed on this page are solely those of the writers. They do not reflect the views of Broadside or its staff, unless otherwise noted.

Broadside is a weekly publication printed each Monday for the George Mason University and surrounding Fairfax community. The editors at Broadside have exclusive authority over the content that is published. There are no outside parties that play a role in the newspaper’s content, and should there be a question or complaint regarding this policy, the editor in chief should be notified at the information given above.

Broadside is a free publication. Limit one copy per person. Each additional copy is 25 cents. © 2007 by Broadside . All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the editor in chief.

Corrections: In last week’s issue, the “Scholarships” article in News was actually written by Erin Powell.

Jake McLernon took the photo of Dr. Carl Mack, the national executive director of the National Society of Black Engineers.

Indoctrination or education?

Obama’s long war

What students really get on campus

President simply won’t listen Curtis kalin S o p h o m o r e

Opinion

Columnist

Recently, the war in Afghanistan reached a milestone that is not to be celebrated by Americans. It has become the longest war in U.S. history; for almost 10 years American servicemen and women have been fighting in that country.

Here at George Mason University, there are numerous active duty service men and women. The state of Virginia has around a 100,000 on active duty, and the overall active duty American military totals 1.4 million.

I hope Americans don’t need a history lesson as to why we’re there. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were planned in the mountainous caves of that nation.

The Taliban government enthusiastically sponsored Osama bin Laden’s religious holy war on the U.S. by allowing him and his al-Qaeda terrorist group to work, plot, and train with impunity within their borders.

In response to the murder of nearly 3,000 people on 9/11, the U.S. swiftly toppled the Taliban government. We also killed or captured many high profile terrorists operating in Afghanistan, while bin Laden escaped.

Many could and have argued that America’s invasion of Iraq was equivalent to taking our eye off the intended target. However, it is worth noting that while alQaeda’s Iraq operations were attempting to destabilize that nation, Afghanistan was relatively free of major hostilities.

After the surge strategy in Iraq in 2007, local Iraqi leaders turned against al-Qaeda’s tactics, which dealt a pivotal blow to al-

Qaeda in Iraq.

As U.S. forces were beating back the Iraq insurgency, violence in Afghanistan began to tick upward. One could surmise that any terrorists that were left decided to flee Iraq and take up the fight in Afghanistan instead.

Throughout 2009 and 2010, bad news has become a weekly occurrence. Violence is up, General Stanley McChrystal was fired, Afghan President Hamid Karzai effectively stole an election to remain in power, and Karzai admitted to being open to talks with the Taliban.

Last fall, President Barack Obama conducted an Afghan strategy review to determine America’s next move. This review is extensively covered in Bob Woodward’s new book, “Obama’s Wars”.

In the published excerpts, the former Watergate veteran uncovers major disagreements between Obama’s advisers. Most notably, it is reported that Obama was “frustrated with his military commanders” due to his insistence on an exit plan.

In the end the president rejected Vice President Joe Biden’s small, narrow mission and the military’s suggested 40,000 to 60,000 troop escalation.

Amazingly, it was Obama who solely designed the 30,000troop increase with a summer 2011 withdrawal timeline.

Far be it for me to question the commander in chief on this, but with what expertise did the president make this decision?

Obama ignored the only people who knew the region and the armed forces.

Did he fall back on his illustrious 18-month career in the U.S. Senate?

Also troubling is the withdrawal date itself.

It has been reported that the Taliban has been sending out leaflets to tribal leaders that the Americans are leaving. In a war

that depends on whether tribal leaders stand with you, the Taliban is making a persuasive case that they will be in Afghanistan longer than the U.S. will.

This fits with their threat of retribution to those who ally with the American and NATO forces.

Above all, the most notable and shocking revelation is why he sent fewer troops with a timetable.

Woodward notes that, “The president concluded from the start that ‘I have two years with the public on this’ and pressed advisers for ways to avoid a big escalation, the book says. ‘I want an exit strategy,’ … he set a withdrawal timetable because, ‘I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.’”

I find this jaw-dropping. The commander in chief is refusing military strategies, refusing the three decades of foreign policy expertise of his Vice President, in order to focus on…politics?

That should be the last thing to be considered. If the president believed that we should withdraw “from the start,” then why throw 30,000 men and women into a warzone you intend to abandon?

Beyond my initial admiration of our fighting men and women, I have a particular respect for those from this university who defend us.

These soldiers deserve a commander-in chief-whose sole objective is how to win on the battlefield.

If Obama does not want to be in Afghanistan, he should order the troops home today. He shouldn’t try to placate the political right by surging and pacify the political left by withdrawing.

All he’s doing is sending young Americans from this university and around the country into a war and then pulling out to satisfy his party’s electoral concerns. To play politics in wartime is as dangerous as it is reckless.

To do so constitutes the most grossly un-presidential action Obama has taken.

of the

Quote Week:

“Wise men speak when they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something”

— Plato

Want to share your opinion?

Submit your letter to the editor or artwork to: opinion@broadsideonline.com

Note: Letters to the editor are welcome and are printed on the basis of space, quality and timeliness. All submissions are the property of Broadside and may be edited for brevity, clarity and grammar. Material containing libel, racial slurs, personal attacks or obscenities may be edited or rejected. The author’s name, class year (and/or title where appropriate), major and daytime phone number must be included for verification of authenticity. The deadline for submission is Thursday by 10 p.m.

Brandon minster G R A D S T u d e n t

Opinion

Columnist

College wasn't always the cross between the bachelor party and study hall that it now resembles. As hard as this may be to believe, parents used to be OK with sending their kids to college because it wasn't as disreputable a place as a crack house.

The modern university was created as a place for society to reproduce itself. Alumni and governments funded schools to ensure that each succeeding generation of adults would be just like the one it replaced.

The social revolution of the 20th century changed all that for good, and most people say “hallelujah.”

Who wants to live in a staid society? We're much better off being open, free and questioning, and we have only the modern university to thank.

However, that line of reasoning is outdated.

While it maybe was true that college freed the minds of young people everywhere, that was only where the situation rested in the 1970s.

Since then, we've returned to the idea of lock-step indoctrination, and college is its boot camp.

A college student today might be blissfully unaware that the majority of the U.S. is seething in anger. After all, reasons the college student, this is the golden age of U.S. politics: a post-racial, post-

partisan utopia where the only subject of disagreement is whether to interlace our fingers when we all hold hands to sing “Kumbaya.”

In reality, the president is perhaps the most partisan ever, and the backlash has been overwhelming.

From a high approval rating at his inauguration, he has spent nearly two years pursuing social policies opposed by most Americans while becoming shockingly complacent to nearly 10 percent unemployment.

An incredibly active political debate is taking place in our country, akin to that of the late 1960s.

While college campuses were the focal points of that previous change, today they are largely unscathed by it.

The country revolts en masse against socialism while life on campus goes on as normal.

Students are politically liberal because their educators have taught them to be.

High school teachers largely and college professors especially are self-selected from among the most stridently-left partisans in our country, outnumbering conservative professors by a nearly 5to-1 margin, according to The New York Times.

What's more, because of their hyper-educated status, these people are less likely to think of their political leanings as “opinions,” instead viewing them as “truth.”

Throw in the lower education levels of their political opponents and it's no longer two different views, it's now the righteous crusade of enlightenment against ignorance.

It is this sense of self-satisfaction that prohibits them from

questioning their beliefs when they meet others who disagree with them.

We've all had experiences where we are “sure” of something that turns out to be wrong.

Sometimes we give in easily and admit our mistake, while sometimes we double down in our insistence.

As illogical as it is, often what makes the difference is who is telling us. Two coworkers might offer identical criticism, but the one we perceive as a friend will have an easier time convincing us he's right.

In high school I knew a boy named Robert that I would never, ever admit to be right about some item of disagreement, just because I hated him too much to think it might be true. It was not helpful, but that was how I felt.

The predominant liberal worldview, which holds that anyone without one of those ObamaO stickers on his car is a racist NASCAR-watching idiot, is not helpful.

College is not teaching this.

Instead it teaches there is a true set of political opinions, and one's enlightenment can be gauged by how closely his opinions match it.

Nowhere in the curriculum is this question taught: is there a rational explanation for my opponent's behavior or opinion?

Instead of first resorting to charges of greed, racism, sexism and homophobia, college students should be trained to first ask if the other argument is logical.

The answer might surprise them, and it might go a long way towards helping them understand how the majority of the country supports ideas they are so certain are crazy.

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down Thumbs up to the Wizards for practicing here at Mason.

It’s the most crowd support they’ll get all season.

Thumbs down to the Gunston Go Bus. I wait so long for the bus at Fair Lakes that people offer me a ride.

Thumbs up for October, now we have a legitmate reason to get wasted.

Thumbs down to family weeked.

Now instead of partying I have to clean my room.

Editorial Board: Emily Sharrer, Editor-in-Chief Monika Joshi, Copy Chief Sonya Hudson, Managing Editor Justin Lalputan, Opinion Editor Elizabeth Perry, Asst.Opinion Editor

All unsigned staff editorials are written to represent the view of the Broadside staff, a diverse set of opinions determined by the members of the editorial board. Letters to the editor, columns, artwork and other commentaries strictly represent the opinions of the authors and do not represent the official opinion of the newspaper.

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Opinion

Monday, October 4, 2010 |

9

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Moore is astonishing, appalling, and generalizes liberals I find the amount of generalizations in Alan Moore’s work both astonishing and appalling.

I am unsure whether his rhetoric is indicative of his actual position or if he is merely grandstanding, trying to provoke a response. In either case, some of the inaccuracies in Moore’s writing need to be addressed.

First, his assertion concerning college professors influencing students is illogical.

There is no reason to believe that a professor's political beliefs will necessarily come out in the classroom. I would argue that the only classes where this necessarily happens would be political science courses. Many degrees of study are completely apolitical: anatomy is the same regardless of your politics, as is math. As such, I believe Moore is grossly overstating the influence professors have on students’ political views.

Furthermore, just how influential does he think professors are?

Most of the time, we students don't even regard professors highly enough to listen in class, speak up or even show up – are professors really so integral to our lives that we couldn't form political opinions without them? I beg to differ.

But I digress. If you will permit me to quote directly, this passage is exemplary of both Moore’s overall tone and my critique of it: “Liberalism is based in fanciful idealism.”

First of all, this is nonsensical.

All idealism is fanciful, be it conservatism, liberalism or monarchism. Idealisms are beliefs about the way the world ought to be; put another way, idealisms are fancies we have about utopia.

So knock off the adjective fanciful, and we're left with “Liberalism is based in idealism.” Now I ask Moore: are you trying to break some ground with that statement?

Because all he’s done is state the obvious.

My last critique – last because of letter length restrictions, not for

Faculty, students are not as Moore makes them out to be

lack of critiques – concerns Moore’s generalization of liberal ideals, which he seems to have confused with socialism's ideals. The quote "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is not a liberal quote at all. At this point, I find it pertinent to ask: Does he know who his enemy is?

But to extend the argument, let us grant that, although liberalism and socialism are not synonymous, proponents of each do share a desire to protect the people of a nation by means of a government.

Moore’s example societies, Russia, China and North Korea, do not provide universal health care.

Rather, it is Cuba, Germany, France, Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom that provide universal health care. Moore has listed the very countries that do not have the character he tried to assign.

In the Sept. 27 article entitled “Liberals and Education”, by the opinionated Alan Moore, he yet again proves his stiffness.

Read that, then read this.

His mode of thought is that professors are to blame for an illequipped education, since their mindset is in the majority.

Moore states that, “72 percent of American university and college professors claim to be liberals.”

He takes these rationalsounding words and then bends them cruelly, ignorantly claiming that professors spend their lives living “outside of business and competition,” isolated from the world.

Many professors here at George Mason University, regardless of their political affiliation, are highly qualified individuals who attained masters and doctorate degrees through rigorous real-world training.

Patrick Scanlan Philosophy

Also, you and fellow opinion columnist Curtis Kalin fail to recognize the true message of the Democrats. Both of you are focusing on cons, like increasing taxes. Many parts of the world pay higher taxes than Americans, and for good reason.

They get a better quality life where the government actually cares for them, and the Western European countries have been very progressive in this model.

Our courageous president is taking a risk for a Europeanlike change that the U.S. desperately needs.

Conservatives still squirm and say we should stick to values that landed the U.S. in an economy worse off than Singapore's.

My roommate is currently working a job as a graduate research assistant in order to complete his tedious, three-year-long doctorate program.

Might we not forget that these professors had to come up with the tuition to pay for all their higher education?

Some of them are still wracked with this debt. In fact, I do not blame them one iota for wanting to retreat into the fresh autumn breeze of campus life.

If you really think Mason is churning out more naive graduates because of their political ties, then you can't read facts well.

Many Mason students do not live the typical college life of leisure.

Instead, these students are holding down full-time jobs and still managing full class schedules, already advancing into the real world.

Robbie Krieger Senior Geography

Mountaintop removal

Being pro-constitution

Students rally to help Appalachia

What does it honestly mean?

Holly Smucker Opinion Columnist On Sept. 27, more than 2,000 people from all over the nation gathered in the District of Columbia to protest mountaintop removal mining in a movement called Appalachia Rising.

Preceding Monday’s events, a two-day conference was held at Georgetown University consisting of workshops, speakers and live music preparing participants for the day of action.

Several Mason students from the Environmental Action Group attended the conference and march.

Three students, Emily Miles, Jason Von Kundra and I, along with more than 100 other people were arrested while trying to bring attention to the issue.

Occurring specifically in the Appalachian Mountains, MTR is an extremely destructive form of strip mining where coal companies clear-cut the forests on mountaintops then blow them up with explosives to get to the underlying coal.

The solid debris from this is then dumped into the valleys, burying the forest and streams.

The liquid waste from coal washing is stored in slurry impoundments containing heavy metals that are toxic to human health.

These impoundments have frequently leaked into the streams and into ground water, harming and depleting the indigenous species.

Since many of the residents of Appalachia depend on wells for their drinking water, families throughout the region can’t drink the water from their taps.

Many people have died or become extremely ill from the combination of polluted water and coal ash disposal.

Several different workshops were offered at the conference over the weekend, including sessions on coal ash, climate change, post-mined land use and monoeconomies.

Unable to attend them all, I chose to attend sessions on natural gas hydrolic fracturing, direct action and non-violence trainings.

In the hydro-fracking session we discussed what it is, how it’s done and the effects it has on the environment.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process of fracturing rock in order to release the natural gas within the shale formation.

While not directly related to MTR, natural gas hydro-fracking is still an environmental crisis because it too contaminates ground water.

In the other two sessions we debated on what the best form of direct action is and were shown how to act when encountering the police during the Sept. 27 protest.

At the protest I was joined by a vast array of people coming from all over the U.S. and even Canada.

Many residents from the Appalachian Mountains spoke to us about their first-hand experiences with MTR and helped lead the march to the White House. Starting at Freedom Plaza, we marched through the streets of the district to the Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters where we demanded they “do their job” by enforcing the Clean Water Act. Next we stopped and

chanted outside PNC Bank because they fund MTR projects.

The march ended at Lafayette Park where several Appalachian residents spoke a few last encouraging words before those who chose to risk arrest headed toward the White House.

My friends Lianne Roe and Allison Rutledge, who are also Mason students that participated in Appalachia Rising, were there supporting me at the White House on the other side of the police tape.

Deeply concerned about MTR, Lianne told me, “I was willing to participate for three entire days and in the rain because I love the mountains.

My family is from the region and we're at risk health-wise due to valley fills and sub-standard coal ash disposal practices. It simply isn't right that the most biodiverse, beautiful and environmentally essential places in our country are being destroyed.”

Allison, also very passionate about the issue, asserts “There are people out there who don't have clean drinking water because of it [MTR].

More than 500 mountains have already been obliterated and over 2,000 miles of streams have been buried forever. This has to be stopped and it’s why I continue the fight.”

Helping to end MTR is one of the EAG’s priorities this year.

They will be taking several trips to Appalachia in October to see the devastation caused by MTR first-hand.

To learn more or to get involved, send an e-mail to gmueag@gmail.com or visit www.gmu.edu/org/environment.

Nick Garner Guest Columnist So you finally did it. A couple weeks into school, and you finally picked a weekend to make a trip into the District of Columbia.

But when you get to the Metro, you find that your excitement about seeing panda bears has given way to befuddled confusion.

Picket signs, anger towards the system…is the Million Man March today?

Never mind, all these people are white…is the Klan having a rally?

Nope, no hoods; there are lots of crosses though.

Then, as the doors on the train close behind you, you see a “Beck-Palin 2012” bumper sticker stuck to the back of a USS Ronald Reagan cap; you then realize that you’ve just bought a ticket with the Tea Party.

“I can make the best of it,” you think, as you attempt to make casual conversation with the man to your right, wearing an “Eliminate the Fed” T-shirt.

You ask the man about his views, to explain the shirt, how he disagrees with the current administration, and one term keeps coming up again and again: pro-Constitution.

You look around, and there are signs, T-shirts, stickers, all talking about restoring or supporting the Constitution.

But what does that mean?

Technically, aren’t all elected officials required by the oath of office to protect and uphold the Constitution, thereby making the term innocuous?

The term first became a salient political position with Ron Paul’s rise to national prominence during the 2008 presidential election.

Paul based his campaign around his interpretation of the

Constitution, which was simply that the Federal government ought not to act unless the actions are explicitly permitted by the Constitution.

By this interpretation, if Paul were to be elected president, he would veto any bill that failed to fit the criteria, dissolve most of the federal government and leave the rest of the responsibilities to the individual states.

Personally, it sounds to me more like a scam to get the U.S. to pay a man $400,000 per year to essentially take David Spade’s role in a Capital One commercial. But with my fears aside, there is still another problem with Congressman Paul’s position: it only accounts for one very narrow interpretation of the Constitution.

During the debates over the national health care reform bill earlier this year, a particular Tea Party sign caught my attention.

No, it wasn’t this racist one or that racist one; it had two pictures, one of the health care bill (with a page-count somewhere above two thousand), and the other, the Constitution, (touting how it was only one page).

There are many reasons why one is so much longer than the other, but for the sake of relevance, I present the issue of interpretation.

The reason why bills are so large is because some will spend pages upon pages defining different words to constrict interpretation at a later date, in order to close loopholes which may otherwise result in the bill being used in a way other than intended, to clarify purpose.

The problem with the Constitution is that it leaves so much room open to debate that it can be interpreted in many ways.

For instance, there are two types of justices on the Supreme Court: constructionists, who believe that the Constitution

should be interpreted exactly as it was intended by the Founding Fathers, as well as developmentalist justices, who see the Constitution as a “living document” which should keep in pace with a society that is continuously growing and evolving.

Unfortunately, as a result of a media that places the emphasis on the sound-byte and the 45 second video clip, a complex and nuanced subject such as the Constitution has become nothing more than a buzzword casually thrown out at Tea Party rallies.

To see the link between Paul and the Tea Party, one need not look further than Paul’s own bloodline.

When Rand Paul ran for the Republican Party’s nomination earlier this year, he received endorsements from personalities associated with the Tea Party, especially Sarah Palin and FreedomWorks, an organization responsible for helping organize the Tea Party.

Rand Paul, following in his father’s footsteps, invoked the Constitution as the basis for his positions, and with his victory came others.

Many other candidates to emerge from the Tea Party have touted the Constitution, such as Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell, Nevada’s Sharron Angle and Alaska’s Joe Miller.

From an outsider’s point of view, this tactic seems to work for these candidates, as it implies that the opposition has an anti-Constitution perspective, all while invoking patriotic images of the basest nature.

This tactic has worked to mobilize those already in the Tea Party so far.

We’ll have to wait until November to see if this tactic will work to win over the vote of independents.

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10

Sports

Broadside

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23

The number of games tennis player Brooke Blackwell has won consecutively so far on her current winning streak.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Stock Photo

Mason Madness returns to the Patriot Center on Friday, Oct. 15, beginning at 9:30 p.m.

The Final Countdown

Students prepare to kick off basketball season with annual Mason Madness Cody Norman Asst. Sports Editor For the second consecutive season, the VCU Rams eliminated the Patriots from the Colonial Athletic Association postseason conference tournament with a 75-60 showing on March 6.

Highlighted by a career scoring effort from sophomore forward Ryan Pearson (22 points on 10-12 shooting), the Patriots were outdone by a late shooting spree by VCU’s junior guard Brandon Rozzell.

The season was over. Players hung their heads in disappointment. But George Mason fans – students who made the three hour trek Fairfax to Richmond, Va. – joined together in a loud ovation, honoring Coach Jim Larranaga and his men’s basketball team.

And after an exciting week in which the Washington Wizards filled the Patriot Center for the first midnight tip-off in the history

“On a Friday night at 9 o’clock, I’ve got to think [Mason Madness] is the place to be.”

-Jim Larranaga, Head Coach Men’s Basketball of the NBA, the two week countdown to Mason’s very own brand of Midnight Madness has finally begun.

“Mason Madness has been one of the highlights each year. And

that event gets better and better every time,” said Larranaga.

The annual Mason Madness is expected to draw crowds of more than 3,000 students into the Patriot Center on Friday Oct. 15.

Beginning at 9:30 pm, the event will signify yet another promising campaign for the men’s and women’s basketball teams.

Performances will be highlighted by legendary NYC bucket drummer ‘Peter Rabbit’ along with special guest appearances from Doc Nix and the Green Machine, the Masonettes, Mason Cheerleaders and Urbanknowlogy 101. It will feature player and coach introductions of the men’s and women’s basketball programs, intersquad scrimmages and a slam dunk competition.

After a 238 day layoff for George Mason students and fans, the season will officially begin on Friday Oct. 15.

“On a Friday night at nine o’clock, I’ve got to think [Mason Madness] is the place to be,” said Larranaga.

Game. Set. Match.

Mason athlete excels in many facets of college life Matthew Basheda Broadside Correspondent

Calendar

NCAA athlete, ROTC cadet, junior psychology major—usually such a list would be in reference to three different college students.

Brooke Blackwell, though, wears all three titles.

What is more surprising is that it has not slowed her down one bit. An ambitious tennis player, Blackwell is currently in the midst of a 23-game winning streak. She has won every regular season match she’s played since the season-opener of the 2009 season.

Her success may seem astounding to students who barely manage to find time to balance

classes without participating in other activities. But Blackwell does not make light of the challenge she has taken upon herself.

“It’s really tough,” she said. “I have ROTC for two hours every morning, then classes, then tennis practice and sometimes even night classes after that.”

Regular ROTC was not even enough for her—she’s participating in the ROTC Ranger Challenge, a competition between several schools in certain ROTC skill sets.

Although she usually keeps tight control on her schedule, her activities do occasionally collide.

She showed up on the second day of the George Mason University Invitational tennis tournament with a neck brace.

Wednesday, Oct. 6: Men’s soccer @ Drexel 7 p.m.

She had been rappelling down the side of Fenwick Library when she slipped and suffered a nasty case of whiplash.

In addition to the injury, she was sick. But she didn’t miss a beat when asked if her injury would sideline her for the following week’s tournament; it was a definite “no.”

Blackwell’s toughness is well known to women’s tennis Head Coach Stephen Curtis. “She has a saying she tells me: ‘I’m t-u-f-f tough,’” said Curtis. “No, I say t-uf tough,” she corrects him. Such is her personality. Even in the midst of injury, she has the spirit to correct her coach on an inside joke that he has gotten wrong.

Blackwell has relied on her toughness throughout her tennis

career. She earned two letters at George C. Marshall High School in Fairfax. That translated into an undefeated season in 2007 and the Liberty District championship title.

Her success on the court has only been continued here at Mason. She went 15-10 in singles for her first season and a staggering 19-1 last year.

So what is the secret to her success? Well, she cannot say for sure, but like every athlete she has her share of on-court rituals.

“If I don’t win at least one of the first two games in a set, I won’t have anything to drink after the second game. I know it’s unhealthy, but,” she says as she smiles knowingly, “I usually win one of them.”

Photo Courtesy of Facebook

Tennis player Brooke Blackwell is in the midst of a 23 game winning streak.

Friday, Oct. 8: Women’s volleyball vs.

Georgia State 7 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 9: Swimming and Diving vs.

Navy and Loyola 11 a.m.

Saturday, Oct. 16: Men’s soccer vs.

James Madison 7 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 9: Women’s volleyball vs.

UNC Wilmington 5 p.m.

Friday, Oct. 15: Women’s soccer vs.

UNC Wilmington 6 p.m.

Sunday, Oct. 17: Women’s soccer vs.

Georgia State 1 p.m.

Monday, October 4, 2010 |

Broadside

Sports

Volleyball set for Columbus Day weekend John Kleeb Broadside Correspondent George Mason University’s women’s volleyball, after travelling to Northeastern University and Hofstra University, will return home to take on the Georgia State University Panthers and the University of North Carolina Wilmington Seahawks on Friday and Saturday at the Recreation and Athletic Complex.

Tami Audia, GSU’s new coach, was an associate coach at the University of Maryland for two years, and before that an associate coach for the Dayton University Flyers for five years.

The Panthers are coming off a 16-14 2009 season. The team was an impressive 7-4 at home but struggled on the road going 4-8 and 3-11 against conference opponents.

The UNC Wilmington Seahawks are coached by second-year coach Amy Bambenek.

Before joining the Seahawks, Bambenek was an associate coach for the George Washington University Colonials for eight seasons.

Prior to coaching at GWU she was an assistant for the Florida State University Seminoles for three years.

Last year was successful for the Seahawks who won the most games since 1996 in the process of winning the most conference games since 2002.

The Patriots have been successful at home so far this season, but both the Panthers and Seahawks will prove a challenge.

Both teams are fellow members of the Colonial Athletic Association.

tball Picks

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Cody Monika Patrick Emily Justin Peter Sonya Hudson Powell Norman Joshi Wall Sharrer Lalputan Flint Managing John

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Photography Style Editor Editor-in-Chief Opinion Editor Manager

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Pat Carroll Broadside Correspondent Coming off a tough loss to No. 7 Maryland on the road and a heartbreaking tie to the Old Dominion Monarchs in double overtime, the men’s soccer team (4-2-1, 0-0-1) looks to rebound in CAA competition against the Drexel Dragons this Wednesday in Philadelphia, Pa. Freshman goalie Sean Cote continued his great rookie campaign for the Patriots with a careerhigh 11 saves against the Monarchs, leading to a tie.

Coach Andrulis would like to see the same effort that he saw out of Cote in goal against ODU, when they visit the Dragons. This past week, freshmen forward Wesley Sever was named by College Soccer News’ list of the top 100 freshmen.

Sever, a Florida native, was the Florida 2A State Player of the Year and won three state championships.

He was also part of the U-18 National Team Camp in 2009.

The Drexel Dragons (4-2-1, 1-01) limp into the contest as they continue a three game losing streak.

With close losses to Florida Gulf Coast and William & Mary as well as a heartbreaker, two overtime loss to Bucknell, the Dragons are looking to get back on track with a conference win at home. Senior midfielder Anthony Bafile returns after suffering a season-ending injury in 2009. Bafile led the Dragons in goals and assists in 2007 and 2008 and was named to the Second Team All-CAA in his sophomore season. Junior Andrew Goldberg and freshmen midfielder Ken Tribbett complement Bafile as scorers for the Dragons offense.

The Patriots and Dragons have always been competitive; however, the Patriots have won the past two meetings. With a strong performance from Cote and a balanced attack offensively from Victor Freeman, Taylor Morgan and Wesley Sever, the Patriots should pull out a 2-0 victory on the road.

SNAP SHOTS

Chad Ochocinco: Dip of the Month Cody Norman Asst. Sports Editor It is the end of another month, ladies and gentlemen. And it is time to take a look at another one of those professional athletes that we all enjoy watching for the simple fact that they provide the world with late night comedy that rivals that of Jimmy Fallon – which, if we’re being honest, isn’t a lofty accomplishment.

After his womanizer comments a few weeks ago and his wealthy display of weak, contact-avoiding give up slides, Clinton Portis seemed like the easy choice. But with Portis in the lead for the Word’s monthly award, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco sidestepped Washington’s dim-witted running back and scooted

Photo By Stephen Kline

JaVale McGee signing autographs at the Wizards Midnight tip-off.

right into the proverbial end zone to claim September’s Dip of the Month award.

Over the last several years, we’ve all grown accustomed to watching Chad Ochocinco “act a fool.” From his creative, impromptu touchdown celebrations to his relatively new Bachelor-esque television show, Ochocinco does more than just play football. He is an entertainer, too. And a darn good one, I might add.

While all of his antics are amusing in their own right, none of them could ever top his latest miscue.

In a charity-minded effort to raise money for “Feed the Children,” Chad Ochocinco accomplished a feat that only Chad Ochocinco could ever accomplish: the toll-free telephone number listed on the box for potential

donators was wrong. And not only was it wrong, but the given number connected interested givers to a seductive-sounding woman who makes risqué suggestions before asking for a credit card number.

For those of you who aren’t following me, an incorrect prefix on the listed toll-free number connected charity-minded callers to an entirely different “charitable trust.” Are you starting to catch my drift now?

After this last blunder, it has become increasingly obvious that there are three things in life that are certain: Death, taxes and that 85 will always provide us with some quality entertainment.

And, for that, Chad Ochocinco is the proud recipient of this September’s Dip of the Month.

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Al Thornton shooting a three point shot at the Wizards Midnight tip-off.

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| Monday, October 4, 2010

Broadside