The Statesman Volume 57 Issue 18

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The Statesman informing stony brook university for more than 50 years Monday, February 17, 2014

Volume LVII, Issue 18

sbstatesman.com

REBECCA ANZEL/ THE STATESMAN

Library employee Kristin Cinar removes snow from her car after Stony Brook's first snow storm of the semester brought seven inches of snow.

Three snowstorms means triple the work for SB Facilities and Services

By Kelly Zegers Staff Writer

Within the first few weeks of this semester, snowstorms have brought students three days of cancelled classes and brought the university three days of snow removal efforts. President Samuel L. Stanley made the decision to cancel classes in deliberation with the Emergency Management office, according to Assistant Vice President for Facilities and Services Terence Harrigan. Considerations included timing of the snow and its expected impact on the region. “Despite the large residential

student housing population, we also need to consider the students, faculty and staff that travel from off campus and throughout the NYC metro area,” Director of the Office of Emergency Management Lawrence Zacarese explained via email. The recent cancellations included fitness classes at the Campus Recreation Center, suspension of SBU Transit services, early closure of Student Health Service and Stony Brook Child Care Services. The budget for snow removal varies from year to year. “We can spend an average of 50k [sic] per snow event in extreme circumstances and as low as a thousand dollars

for light snow events,” Director of Residential Operations John Sparano wrote in an e-mail. The budget for residential snow removal includes plowing and salting contract labor, hand shoveling contract labor, internal maintenance and custodial labor and bulk purchases for hand and street ice melting efforts. Regularly consulting with Emergency Management, Facilities and Services conducts snow removal for West Campus in order to keep the main roads open. After that, they move to secondary roads and parking lots as the storm winds down, according to Harrigan.

The budget covering labor and materials for West Campus is $75,000—the same as last year. “Routinely the costs exceed that amount,” Harrigan wrote via email, “There are emergency funds set aside to cover the additional snow removal costs.” Coordination among various university departments is essential in undertaking the task of dealing with the snow. The Office of Emergency Management works mainly with Campus Operations and Maintenance to organize snow removal efforts and emergency communications. Emergency Management collaborates with

partners such as the National Weather Service to track forecasts and make informed decisions about closings and delays, according to Zacarese. He explained that such communications occur days in advance and throughout weather events. Before each of the storms in the past weeks, Emergency Management has posted weather updates on Twitter and SB Alert. As for the snow removal, the responsibilities are divided between the University Hospital, academic buildings and residences, according to Director of Residential Operations

Servant Leader interns and tutored 50 third grade students from the Longwood and Wyandanch School Districts. Ninety percent of those third graders were below the poverty line, and all are invited by Stony Brook to participate again this year. The debut of the program is considered a success by Stony Brook staff, and program co-director Cheryl Hamilton believes it was mainly because of the student volunteers. “I'm not sure [the servant leaders] even realize the impact of their efforts, but it is clear that they have inspired this group of third-graders to become Stony Brook University scholars,” Hamilton said in a press release. SBU became involved in the Freedom School program when President Samuel L. Stanley reached

out to Marian Wright Edelman, founder of CDF, to establish a Stony Brook chapter of the Freedom School. Edelman helped to bring the Freedom School program to 91 cities nationally since it was founded in 1992. Since then, 11 colleges, including SBU, have participated. The student participants from Stony Brook did not know what to expect from the program but joined to give back to the community. “I never really worked with children, so I was apprehensive,” junior political science major Angelique Lucien said. “But I felt as if the cause and the meaning behind it was so vital. Young people are

By Cameron Boon

to back losses, and eight wins out of their last 10 games. Senior Chilkira Goodman scored a team-high 21 points and a career high in rebounds with 16. Also, junior guard Jessica Ogunnorin, from Greece, added a double-double as well, finishing with 10 points and 12 boards. The UC Riverside transfer put the Seawolves up for good off a layup with 16:31 to go in the second half. Stony Brook moves up to 9-3 in the America East, while improving to 18-7 overall on the season. The Seawolves have a tough finish to their season in the final four games, as they will take on Maine on the Feb. 22, and then finish their season with perennial conference power Albany.

Continued on page 3

Children’s education program hopes to continue success SB Seawolves continue hot streak

By Ryan Wolf Staff Writer

This summer, Stony Brook University students will travel to Wyandanch, Long Island with the hopes of helping children in povertystricken neighborhoods to increase their interest in learning. The initiative, called the Freedom School program, is part of SBU’s continuing two-year partnership with the Children’s Defense Fund. According to the program’s website, it “boosts student motivation to read, generates more positive attitudes toward learning, and connects the needs of children and families to the resources of their communities.” The six-week experience will mirror last year’s summer program, where SBU students served as News

Arts & Entertainment

Continued on page 3

Assistant Sports Editor

It is a game of two halves. That is the basketball saying for teams that start roughly, or teams that start really well in games. The former was true for coach Beth O’Boyle and her Seawolves Women’s Basketball team as they started very slow, but were able to bounce back for a 79-68 win at Tsongas Center on the campus of UMass Lowell. Shannon Samuels hit a threepointer with 5:48 to go in the first half for the River Hawks, putting them up 25-17, which would be the biggest lead of the game for UMass Lowell. Samuels finished with a game-high 35 points. After that, it was all Stony Brook as they won their third in a row after back Opinions

Sports

Stony Brook continues to invest in infrastructure.

Campus Spotlight: Amr Selim

French horn player started musical roots in Egypt.

Confessions of a science professor

Seawolves get back on track

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MORE ON PAGE 9

MORE ON PAGE 12

Construction projects continue

Professors focus more on research than teaching.

SB Seawolves defeated UMass Lowell 78-68.


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