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PIPE DREAM Tuesday, February 4, 2014 | Binghamton University | www.bupipedream.com | Vol. LXXXV, Issue 3
President's remarks The
For full coverage of Stengers's State of the University address, see page 4
Michael Contegni/Staff Photographer President Harvey Stenger makes his State of the University address to a crowded auditorium Friday afternoon. Stenger outlined his plan, which looked as far into the future as 2020 and included an increase in size of the student body to a total of 20,000 students.
Pink Gloves offers one-two punch Hydrofracking in NY may not pay
Women-only class teaches boxing and confidence
Experts say gas extraction less profitable than in PA Rachel Bluth News Editor
Carla Sinclair Contributing Writer Women on campus are taking a swing at strengthening their muscles and their confidence this winter. Pink Gloves Boxing is a group boxing class for females offered at Binghamton University to promote empowerment as well as physical fitness. “Pink Gloves really is focused on empowering women,” said Stephanie Stahovic, an instructor for the class and a sophomore majoring in industrial engineering. “To begin with, boxing itself is an empowering action. It’s actually pretty cool because as soon as the girls get their hand wraps on, it’s as though their entire personality changes and all of a sudden they’re filled with this confidence and determination.” The course is offered at
Michael Contegni/Staff Photographer
Xiaoyan Zheng, a graduate student studying accounting, takes hits as part of Pink Gloves Boxing, a group boxing class for females to promote empowerment as well as physical fitness. The course is offered at the East Gym on Mondays and Wednesdays.
the East Gym on Mondays and Wednesdays. The first level requires a $110 fee, while the second costs $75. The class runs for 10 weeks, from Feb. 3 to April 9, twice per week. The class isn’t limited to BU, with similar courses appearing at other SUNY schools and across the country. With the motto “It’s not exercise, it’s empowerment,” the organizers
wanted to focus on something more than slimming the waistline. “As a group fitness instructor, I’ve seen what being physically fit has done for my own confidence, as well as for the confidence of many others who have taken my classes,” Stahovic said. “When you take control of your health and accomplish goals that you have
set for yourself, your whole perception of what you are capable of changes.” The class is composed of three components. It starts with a warm-up of different drills, such as punches or defensive movements, followed by a circuit of stations where participants spend two minutes
See PINK Page 5
Professor challenges perception of WWII Carol Gluck distinguishes historical fact from memory Geoffrey Wilson Souvik Chatterjee Pipe Dream News Perception could mean the difference between fact and fiction when it comes to modern history, according to one professor. Carol Gluck, George Sansom professor of history at Columbia University, discussed at a talk Monday how different aspects of World War II have
been forgotten or embellished over time. According to Gluck, individual memories of historic events neglect the history, and more often than not, popular media eschew the facts. “Let’s face it, most people’s knowledge of history is mostly from the media, which sometimes isn’t accurate,” Gluck said. Gluck drew a distinction between memory and history,
defining history as textbooks and work by historians while memory refers to all popular views about an event, irrespective of medium. According to Gluck, memories are propagated through official media such as government monuments and museums, but even more so through mass media like TV, movies and video games. Gluck said that most memories fail to capture the
moral ambiguity of historical events, simplifying the past into a binary of good and evil. She pointed to the popular image of the victimization of Japan by bad leaders, despite the overall strength of the Japanese empire, which stretched into Taiwan and Korea. “These memories have a a long half-life, an astonishingly
See WWII Page 4
Hydraulic fracturing debates on campus and in the community frequently focus on the potential environmental and health impacts of allowing fracking in New York, but most of a presentation on campus Friday focused on the economic side of the anti-fracking cause. New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), with help from a few other groups on campus and in the community, hosted three experts in geology, engineering and the oil industry to speak about the economic potential of fracking in New York. “When you have the former Executive Vice President of Mobil Oil calling for a statewide ban on fracking, that is a pretty powerful message,” wrote Matthew Lemke, project coordinator and Southern Tier organizer for NYPIRG. According to Jerry Acton, a retired systems engineer, fracking in New York does not have the potential to be as profitable as it has been in Pennsylvania over the past 10 years. “You can’t just drill a well anywhere and expect to find enough gas to turn a profit,” said Brian Brock, a retired geologist and expert in hard rock geology. The natural gas in shale comes from the breakdown of organic matter that was in the rocks when they began to form in the Devonian era. Where black shale has a high amount of organic matter, the Marcellus shale under Binghamton is gray, meaning that only the “exceptionally rich” areas of the Marcellus can be profitable, according to Brock. By studying all 1,540 wells in the six counties and 81 towns in
Pennsylvania, Acton projected that wells drilled in New York would be low-producing. The productivity of the wells was measured in how many million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcf/d) could be extracted in the first 30 days, the period during which a well is the most productive. According to Acton’s study, the median is 4 mmcf/d in Pennsylvania. Acton’s projections predict that even the most productive wells in New York would still produce less than the median initial production (IP) in Pennsylvania. The most high-producing wells, those that produced over 7 mmcf/d, in Pennsylvania were clustered around what those in the gas industry call the “sweet spot,” where conditions are right for highly productive and profitable wells. A number of factors determine if a gas well will be productive. “To create enough gas, you need enough organic material that is heated enough, but not too much,” Brock said. “To collect enough gas, you need a shale layer that is thick enough and deep enough.” Essentially, not all shale is created equal, and it won’t all be equally as productive due to four factors: amount of organic matter in the shale, the temperature of the organic matter, the thickness of the shale and how deeply it’s buried. These factors severely limit how much natural gas can be extracted from New York. According to Acton, the poorestperforming wells in Pennsylvania were those in towns where the shale was too thin and too shallow in the ground. According
See FRACK Page 4