Student Life | April 20, 2007

QUESTIONS ON CONSENT | YES AND NO IN SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS | SCENE, PAGE 8

STUDENT LIFE

THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS SINCE 1878 VOLUME 128, NO. 75

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FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2007

Colleges protest US News rankings Questions for Paul

BY BEN SALES SENIOR STAFF REPORTER In protest of the way in which the US News and World Report rankings portray the University community, several universities across the country have refused to fill out the peer review survey, an important component of the Report.

Christopher Nelson, president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, said that he would not fill out the surveys because he believes that rankings do a disservice to prospective students and their families.

“It is about the students.

We know that families need valuable information in order to exercise freedom of choice. You want to look at

[many factors] and we ought to be providing those, but they are missing from any of these rankings,” said Nelson, who has not filled out the survey in ten years.

The peer review component of the survey is worth 25 percent of the overall ranking and asks college and university presidents to rank other schools on a 1-to5 scale.

Robert Morse, US News director of data analysis, said that the rankings should not be taken as more than a collection of statistics and that the colleges protesting against the rankings falsely accuse them of measuring things that US News does not examine.

“US News has never portrayed the rankings as having

the ability to measure everything about an institution, and they are not meant to be a tool to compare all aspects of the school, what is going on in the classroom, what students are actually learning,” he said. “The schools themselves are not measuring those things either.”

The US News rankings system is one of the most comprehensive and is thought by supporters of the survey to represent an objective measure of the education provided by different schools.

Another school that has issues with the US News rankings system is Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) in Bronxville, NY. SLC stopped including SAT scores in its admissions criteria and thus could not submit the scores

to US News.

SLC’s president then claimed that US News devised a formula to estimate what the students’ scores would be; a formula that Sarah Lawrence officials say is not representative.

“We do not feel that the way US News represents us is accurate,” said Judith Schwartzstein, SLC’s director of media and community relations. “They cannot come up with an accurate representation in the absence of real data.”

The decisions of some schools to refrain from taking the US News survey comes as part of a larger movement among liberal arts colleges to personalize the admissions

Rusesabagina: A conversation with Student Life

See US NEWS, page 2

CANDLELIGHT VIGIL

EITAN HOCHSTER | STUDENT LIFE

Paul Rusesabagina, the subject for the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” visited campus on Wednesday to speak at the Assembly Series. During the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, Mr. Rusesabagina used the hotel he managed as a safe haven to save Tutsis from execution.

BY SARA RAJARAM ASSIGNMENTS EDITOR Before a packed audience at Wednesday’s Assembly Series, Paul Rusesabagina described in vivid detail his experiences during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Following the lecture, the internationally recognized humanitarian sat down with Student Life to discuss today’s most urgent global confl icts, future reconciliation between Rwandans, protests against Rusesabagina and the movie “Hotel Rwanda.”

EITAN HOCHSTER | STUDENT LIFE

“We gather tonight as a community, mourning our colleagues at another great institution,” said Chancellor Mark Wrighton. “An event like this reminds us that each life is precious, that each life has bounded potential.” Students gathered in the quad for a vigil organized by the University. Chancellor Wrighton, campus ministers and other students spoke, expressing grief for the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy. “It’s a horrible tragedy and it really is a crisis,” said Betsy Nichols, a senior at the vigil. “I’m impressed with how many people around the nation are coming together and holding vigils. We all understand the pain, even though we can’t feel it ourselves.”

Students prepare for summer with help of Career Center

BY JACQUELINE BRIXEY CONTRIBUTING REPORTER As the end of the semester draws near, students are finalizing their plans for the summer.

Many will intern at companies all across the nation including Double Feature Films, the FBI, MTV, General Mills and Goldman Sachs, among others.

Career Center Director Mark Smith said that the importance of an internship is twofold: while internships allow students to try out a potential career, they also serve as an opportunity for skill development and social networking. “[Internships] give an inside look and an opportunity to start building contacts

and relationships within a company or firm,” said Sally Pinckard, associate director of Undergraduate Career Advising in the Weston Career Center. “This is important because internships are also an early look at the intern as potential for full-time hiring.”

As she further explained, interning is also beneficial for a firm, since it will not have to re-teach the skills necessary for the job.

According to Smith, the use of the Career Center has increased dramatically over the years as more students begin to recognize the importance of internships and the opportunities provided by the Career Cener.

In 2003, there were approximately 1,400 appoint-

Baby animals invade campus What are you lookin’ at? At cute, baby animals on our Web site of course! See what all the fuzz wuzz about at CPC’s petting zoo with our online photo exclusive. www.studlife.com

ments for internships, compared to more than 6,000 this year.

Jacqueline Cohn, a sophomore and a psychology major, will be interning with Double Feature Films and Reveille Productions in Los Angeles.

She decided to use the Career Center because there are alumni in the production business that are “very willing” to help University students.

The Weston Career Center, a part of the Business school, has also seen an increase in usage by students.

Evan Sharp, a senior and Career Peer at the Career Center, said that he found his past three internships using the Weston Career Center.

He has interned at Goldman Sachs in New York City and

will be working there in the coming summer as a fulltime employee.

But, not all students used the Career Center to find internships.

Sophomore Jay Werber found success instead in the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and will be participating as a Research Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta for the summer. He found the REU program last year and conducted research at Professor Al-Dahhan’s lab.

Neither the Career Center nor the Weston Career Center had statistics for the rate of acceptance for internship applicants who use their services because students usu-

See INTERNSHIPS, page 2

Swing batter, batter Wash. U. softball swings into action. The team swept Blackburn College and their victory will continue in their coming games. Check it out! Sports, Page 3

Student Life: How accurate is the movie “Hotel Rwanda” in its portrayal of your actual experiences?

Paul Rusesabagina: “Hotel Rwanda” is a portrayal of what was going on in the Mille Collines Hotel during the genocide. Almost 100% of it is a true story. A few composite characters have been made here and there.

Also, a few events have been portrayed less violently compared to real life.

SL: Was there ever a moment when you wanted to evacuate?

PR: I never had that moment. All the opportunities I had to leave the hotel, I never left. My own conscience was telling me that if I was to leave then those refugees will be killed. Up to that time, I was the only person who could speak for them.

SL: You’ve recently received criticism from some survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Specifically, President Kagame has accused you of misrepresenting actual events to profit from people’s hardships. How do you respond to these claims?

PR: President Kagame, like Habyarimana who was the president before him, is a dictator. Those people would always like to hear you speaking about others, but not them. They want me to speak only about those three months of the genocide, but the genocide did not come from nowhere.

He, like many others, is afraid to face our history. If we want to reach a solution, we need to face the past. We need to see what happened, why it happened, who did it…we should not keep quiet

INSIDE: Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Forum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Sudoku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

because I call that silence complicity. Silence is agreement.

SL: Many people say that while genocide was occurring in Rwanda, the world “stood by and did nothing.”

Is history repeating itself today in Darfur and is the international community once again standing by to watch genocide occur?

PR: Actually, history repeats itself because, for so long before the killing takes place, the world is always there to see how situations always start to escalate. This was the case in Cambodia, with the Jewish Holocaust, Rwanda and the Romanian Holocaust. The whole world was watching, seeing the situations escalating, and they never did anything. It is the same thing in Darfur. Since 2003, more than 250,000 people have been killed. And the world just closes its eyes and ears and doesn’t want even to talk about it.

SL: Does the U.S. have responsibility to step in now in Darfur?

PR: The U.S. can stop what is going on in Darfur. The U.S. administration recognized Darfur as a genocide in March 2005, when Colin Powell was still the secretary of state and foreign affairs.

Declaring it as a genocide is good, but it is not enough. We need to join words with actions.

SL: Was the punishment of the leaders of the Rwandan genocide adequate?

PR: There was no punishment. Most of the genocidaires are free all over the world. War criminals are free.

Justice has been a very big issue in Rwanda and it still remains an issue. Of course, reconciliation has not yet started, because you cannot reconcile a nation without doing justice, without speaking. Through dialogue only we fi nd solutions.

SL: Is complete reconciliation between the Hutus and Tutsis possible?

PR: Reconciliation is very possible. If you go back in history, each and every [Rwandan] has been involved in one way or another. The only solution for us is to sit around a table with young people who can ignore what has happened in the history.

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2 STUDENT LIFE | NEWS

Senior News Editor / Sam Guzik / news@studlife.com

FRIDAY | APRIL 20, 2007

STUDENT LIFE One Brookings Drive #1039 #42 Women’s Building Saint Louis, MO 63130-4899 News: (314) 935-5995 Advertising: (314) 935-6713 Fax: (314) 935-5938 e-mail: editor@studlife.com www.studlife.com

Pulse

Compiled by Shweta Murthi

Friday, April 20

Undergrads assist in NASA Phoenix mission to Mars

BY PUNEET KOLLIPARA SENIOR STAFF REPORTER

Copyright 2007 Editor in Chief: Erin Fults Executive Editor: David Brody Managing Editors: Mandy Silver, Shweta Murthi, Mallory Wilder Senior News Editor: Sam Guzik Senior Forum Editor: Nathan Everly Senior Cadenza Editor: Brian Stitt Senior Scene Editor: Felicia Baskin Senior Sports Editor: Trisha Wolf Senior Photo Editor: David Hartstein Forum Graphics Editor: Rachel Harris Information Graphics Editor: Meaghan Willard News Editors: Josh Hantz, David Song, Andrea Winter News Manager: Elizabeth Lewis Assignments Editor: Sara Rajaram Forum Editors: Tess Croner, Jill Strominger, Christian Sherden, Dennis Sweeney Cadenza Editors: Elizabeth Ochoa, David Kaminksy, Cecilia Razak, Michelle Stein Scene Editors: Lana Goldsmith, Indu Chandrasekhar Sports Editors: Andrei Berman, Unaiz Kabani, Allie Wieczorek Photo Editors: Lionel Sobehart, Eitan Hochster, Jenny Shao Online Editor: Scott Bressler Design Chief: Anna Dinndorf Copy Chiefs: Willie Mendelson, Indu Chandrasekhar Copy Editors: Maria Hossain, Brian Krigsher, Julia Jay, Cecilia Razak, Puneet Kollipara Designers: Ellen Lo, Jamie Reed, Chris Maury, Kim Yeh, Dennis Sweeney, Courtney LeGates, Laura McLean General Manager: Andrew O’Dell Advertising Manager: Sara Judd Copyright 2007 Washington University Student Media, Inc. (WUSMI). Student Life is the financially and editorially independent, student-run newspaper serving the Washington University community. First copy of each publication is free; all additional copies are 50 cents. Subscriptions may be purchased for $80.00 by calling (314) 935-6713.

Student Life is a publication of WUSMI and does not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the views of the Washington University administration, faculty or students. All Student Life articles, photos and graphics are the property of WUSMI and may not be reproduced or published without the express written consent of the General Manager. Pictures and graphics printed in Student Life are available for purchase; e-mail editor@studlife.com for more information. Student Life reserves the right to edit all submissions for style, grammar, length and accuracy. The intent of submissions will not be altered. Student Life reserves the right not to publish all submissions.

International Fashion Show The African Students Association (ASA) and Vietnamese Students Association (VSA) are collaborating to host a multicultural fashion show. The show will start at 7 p.m. and dinner will be served at 8:30 p.m. There will be beautiful clothes, fantastic performances and delicious food. If you would like to help out as a model or if you have any clothes that you would like to be in the show, contact ccukatu@wustl.edu.

Watch your classmates strut their stuff from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Graham Chapel; tickets are $5 and will be sold in Wohl and Mallinckrodt.

Pride Alliance BBQ Join Pride Alliance for some free BBQ during Celebration Weekend! Are you a vegetarian? Not to fear—they will have vegetarian options as well. Other free goods include buttons, magazines and Frisbees. Bowles Plaza, Friday 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Holi on the Swamp What could be more fun than 20,000 water balloons on the Swamp? Join Ashoka for the annual Holi celebration, the Indian festival of spring. The muddy action begins at 4 p.m. and ends at 6 p.m. So bring your friends and some old clothes for good fun.

Saturday, April 21 Children’s Film Symposium What’s a better cheap date than a fi lm screening of Poland’s “I Am” on a Saturday night? The fi lm, about a young orphan who falls in love with a well-brought-up girl, is part of the third annual Children’s Film Symposium, sponsored by the Film and Media Studies department. The fi lm airs in Brown 100 at 4 p.m., with other fi lms being screened all day long.

Warning: brief scenes of female nudity are present.

Asian Night Market If you’re tired of eating the food served on the 40, come to Gregg walkway between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. to sample food from a variety of student groups. There will also be performances outside Ursa’s Fireside ranging from Spirit of Korea hip-hop to Hawaii Luau and the WU Step team. Drop by and join the craziness hosted by Asian American Association.

Sunday, April 22 Classical Music Trio Eliot Trio, consisting of three music faculty members, will perform piano trios of Franz Joseph Haydn, Camille Saint-Saëns and Johannes Brahms in Whitaker Hall auditorium. The music begins at 2:30 p.m. and is free for students. Tickets are $10 for staff and faculty and $15 for the general public.

If you’d like to place an ad, please contact the Advertising Department at (314) 935-6713.

If you wish to report an error or request a clarification, e-mail editor@studlife.com.

Washington University has become one of the leading institutions in preparing NASA’s Phoenix Mission, which will send a lander to Mars to search for signs of microbial life.

The University’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences has worked for several months to assist NASA in choosing a suitable landing site for the spacecraft using imaging data from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), which is an instrument in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

“HiRISE showed that our initial landing site had way too many rocks, rocks the size of the lander,” said Ray Arvidson, a professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

“If you hit a rock, you know, we’re done.”

NASA had already chosen a landing site last fall, but high-resolution images of Mars’ surface indicated that it was covered with too many rocks; junior Tabatha Heet and freshman Lauren Barry worked from September to March looking for a replacement site.

Arvidson, who chairs the Landing Site Working Group responsible for finding a landing site, said that the originally proposed landing site would have only had a 60 to 70 percent success rate.

The minimum necessary success rate is 95 percent.

After six months, the students found a landing site rated 98 percent safe and it will be proposed as the final landing site at a NASA conference in June.

Arvidson asked Heet to assist in finding a new landing

site. For Heet, a work-study student working for Arvidson, the opportunity to work in such a project initially came as a surprise.

“They started getting back high resolution images of the proposed landing site and they realized it was covered with rocks, so they had to rush to find a new one,” said Heet. “I was the one who got the job of counting the rocks and finding a place that was relatively rock free.”

Large rocks could puncture the spacecraft and the spacecraft might damage itself by landing on a rock and tilting over. Large rocks could also prevent the spacecraft’s solar panels from deploying properly. Without the solar panels, the lander would have no power to operate its seven instruments.

In addition to not having too many rocks, the ground must have a slope of no more than 16 degrees.

Heet had the tedious task of manually analyzing images of large areas of Martian surface for rocks. Using thermal imaging data for easier rock detection and a software program known as ENVI for drawing vectors on them, she could determine how large each rock was, count the number of rocks and then eliminate bad landing sites.

“It was sometimes kind of tedious,” said Barry, who assisted Heet in counting rocks.

“But it was really cool to remember that it was Mars, and when you actually thought about that and looked at the image and you realize that you’re looking at rocks on Mars, it’s kind of humbling.”

“Measuring those rock sizes and tabulating all that information, it was pretty much all done by Tabatha

Heet and Lauren Barry,” said Arvidson.

The Phoenix mission, spearheaded by the University of Arizona and the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida in August and will arrive at Mars in May of 2008.

Specifically, the mission will land in the high northern latitudes of the Martian surface, where it will dig through and collect water ice, which is just centimeters below the surface and will be analyzed for organic compounds and indicators of life.

“Liquid water is the elixir of life, so it might be one of the last viable habitats for Mars,” said Arvidson.

The University is also responsible for designing the craft’s robotic arm, which scoops up the ice and puts it through a motorized grinder, and for maintaining the Geosciences Node, an online database of planetary data that includes data from the Spirit and Opportunity missions.

Heet also assisted software engineers at the JPL by helping them calibrate software that they developed to detect rocks automatically.

With the software near completion, Heet’s rock-counting days appear over.

“I’ve been communicating with the JPL for several months now to get everything fine-tuned,” said Heet.

Her work is not done yet, though. Along with Arvidson, freshman Rebecca Greenberger and graduate student Selby Cull, she will be traveling to Tucson, Arizona over the summer to help operate the spacecraft’s robotic arm while it is on the Martian surface.

INTERNSHIPS v FROM PAGE 1 ally apply directly through the companies in question.

Pinckard estimated that 90 percent of the business school students who apply get an internship of some kind.

Cohn said she applied to around 10 or 20 internships, hoping to at least get one internship somewhere.

“That’s probably why I applied to so many companies,” she said.

Some students have been

denied internships and others have even been waitlisted.

This was the case for Lizzie Schwartz, a junior who was waitlisted for an internship in social work at the Jewish Federation in Chicago.

Schwartz was surprised to find that waitlists even exist for internships.

“Waitlisted? What am I applying for—college?” she said.

Students also voiced hav-

ing “back-up plans.” For Koziatek, he would have looked at the Medical School labs if Pfizer did not work out.

Werber had a back-up plan as well.

“I applied to 10 REUs, because I knew that getting into them is not easy,” he said. “If I didn’t get into any of them, I would probably search for an internship a little more, but would be perfectly fine working in a restaurant or something back home.”

US NEWS v FROM PAGE 1 process.

Nelson stated that placing colleges on a numerical ranking reduces their value while eliminating crucial evaluation of the college experience.

“Student experience cannot be captured by a number on a scale from one to 3000,” he said. “I think we are perpetuating an evil when we

participate in the rankings because they are not giving the families anything valuable at all. They do not make any effort to measure anything that is important. What is important is what is going on in the classroom, what students are learning.”

Despite his actions, Nelson does not believe that the protests of St. Johns or the sev-

eral other colleges against US News will have any real effect on the magazine.

“I do not think we are going to have any influence on US News,” he said. “We are not boycotting because we think they will stop. We are boycotting because we think it’s wrong.”

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Senior Sports Editor / Trisha Wolf / sports@studlife.com

FRIDAY | APRIL 20, 2007

STUDENT LIFE | SPORTS

3

SPORTS

SOFTBALL

Bears wallop Blackburn in doubleheader sweep

BY ANNA DINNDORF SPORTS REPORTER There are wins and then there are slaughters. Washington University’s 23rd-ranked softball team absolutely domi-

nated Blackburn College in a doubleheader Wednesday, combining for 34 runs, 36 hits and 10 home runs in the two-game sweep. Despite being five players short for the away games, the Bears defeated Blackburn decid-

edly in the first game 10-0, then went on an all-out offensive rout in the second game, winning 242 and scoring 15 runs in the first inning.

“It was a little challenging, but we still managed to work

hard together,” said senior captain Jamie Kressel of playing short-handed. “It ended up being a lot of fun when we’re all hitting the ball well.”

Wash. U. got the offense going in the second inning of the first

SCOTT BRESSLER | STUDENT LIFE

Freshman Ashton Hitchcock gets a hit against Illinois College at home on Thursday, April 19. The softball team won both of their doubleheader games against Illinois.

game. After a leadoff double by junior Amy Vukovich, classmate Krista Swip hit the first home run of her career to put the Bears up 2-0. Two batters later, junior Kaylyn Eash connected as well, making the score 3-0. The Bears added two more runs in the inning with RBI singles by sophomore Lindsay Cavarra and senior Laurel Sagartz.

Wash. U. added another run in the third and two runs in each the fourth and fifth. Kressel homered in the fifth, the first of four by Kressel on the day. Her performance moved her into first on the Wash. U. all-time home run list, with 30 in her career.

Sagartz pitched five shutout innings for the complete game, holding Blackburn to just two hits and striking out eight.

Sagartz lowered her earned run average to just 0.32 on the season, which leads all of Division III. If the first game showed dominance, the second game was an absolute blowout, highlighted by a 15-run first inning. Blackburn got off to a rough start with some poor defense and the first three Wash. U. batters reached on errors to load the bases. Following a strikeout by Cavarra, Sagartz connected for a grand slam to put the Bears up immediately 4-0. Kressel and Vukovich each had 3-run homers in the inning as well and Blackburn racked up five errors before three outs were recorded.

Wash. U. put up a couple more runs in the second on Kressel’s

third homer of the night, a tworun shot that scored freshman Caitlyn Hoffman. Kressel is just the 25th player in Division III history to hit at least three home runs in a single game.

The homer-happy Bears added seven more runs in the fifth to seal the victory, as Eash, Kressel and Sagartz each connected to bring the home run total up to ten on the evening, shattering the previous single game record of four. Their 24 runs also set a new school record.

The offensive success did a lot for the team mentally as well.

“I think it makes us much more confident going up to the plate and it really just was a lot of fun,” said Kressel. “It brings our team closer together.”

Eash pitched for the victory in the second game, giving up two earned runs and scattering six hits over five innings while striking out two. The win moves Eash’s record to 2-1 on the season.

Wash. U. continued its string of strong performances on Thursday, sweeping a doubleheader at home against Illinois College. The Bears won the first game 4-1 and the second 6-2.

After Thursday’s games the Red and Green extended their win streak to 13 games.

The Bears next chance for dominance comes Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. versus Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. They return home on Saturday April 28 playing Maryville University at noon.

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4 STUDENT LIFE | FORUM

Senior Forum Editor / Nathan Everly / forum@studlife.com

FORUM

FRIDAY | APRIL 20, 2007

Our daily Forum editors: Monday: Christian Sherden ctsherde@artsci.wustl.edu

Wednesday: Jill Strominger Friday: Tess Croner jlstromi@artsci.wustl.edu tacroner@wustl.edu

To ensure that we have time to fully evaluate your submissions, guest columns should be e-mailed to the next issue’s editor or forwarded to forum@studlife.com by no later than 5 p.m. two days before publication. Late pieces will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

We welcome your submissions and thank you for your consideration.

Reflections on Monday morning

BY SARA REMEDIOS STAFF COLUMNIST

T

here aren’t actually words for what happened Monday morning in Virginia, and God knows a lot of people have been looking for them. I’ve heard things like “tragic” and “devastating” thrown around, describing the “mass shooting,” the “massacre.” They all ring just a little bit hollow.

I grew up in Virginia. A big chunk of every graduating class at my high school goes on to Virginia Tech and my two childhood best friends are roommates there. You can tell me all you want that what happened was a “devastating blow to our society” and a “tragic massacre,” but you’ll have to forgive me—somehow, it feels wrong to phrase the events and emotions of Monday, the fear for the lives

of people I’ve known for as long as I can remember, in the same terms I used to discuss the end of “King Lear” last week in my Shakespeare class.

Maybe that’s unfair. There are similar themes: lives lost senselessly, shock and betrayal, a community torn apart. What happened in Blacksburg was a modern tragedy unprecedented in this country; maybe the language of the sensational, the language of epic heartbreak and ruined innocence…maybe those are the right terms.

Maybe, but I’m not convinced. Watching the news yesterday, someone a lot smarter than me said, “It’s sad that things can’t just happen anymore.”

At first the idea angered me—things shouldn’t just happen! There damn well should be recognition for lives lost, should

be an attempt to understand what transpired. We may never make sense of the deaths of those students and faculty, but that is absolutely not an excuse not to try.

Or is it? I was thinking about it this morning, still shaken despite knowing that all of my own friends and acquaintances survived, and it struck me: understanding isn’t the point.

When we look at Columbine and now when we look at Virginia Tech, as a society we try to understand what went wrong and how we can fix it. We condemn the alienation, we condemn the social prejudices, but for all that condemnation we’re frequently left a step backwards from where we began. The senselessness frustrates, the pain scabs over with anger and instead of being left comforted we are left furious, vengeful. We

blame society without including ourselves in it; we lash out at those who would seek to recriminate us for behaviors few ever undertook with malice.

The conclusion frequently reached is that WE are not the ones to blame: to blame are those who create and perpetuate the conflicts; to blame is everyone else.

So, instead of healing old wounds, we inadvertently create new ones. We mourn and then, rather than solving the underlying problems, we stigmatize those seen as part of the “problematic” groups. Pain breeds fear and fear breeds hate and what sparked our tears in the first place becomes simply another battle in the war that is made of society.

It shouldn’t be about that.

Blacksburg shouldn’t be about that and Columbine shouldn’t

RACHEL TEPPER & KARL IMPROV | EDITORIAL CARTOON

be about that. There shouldn’t be a rhetorical dichotomy erected from the debris of a tragedy to explain it to us, to give society someone to blame.

There are, frankly, too many people to blame for that to ever be a useful undertaking—the gunman, the man who sold him the gun, the parents who let him “turn out” as a killer, the administrators who chose not to cancel classes.…Something as horrific as the shootings Monday morning should not be remembered for the failures of some to prevent it; it should be remembered for its victims and for its senselessness. Cauterizing our wounds, the wounds of an American society shocked and shaken by the knowledge that something like Blacksburg can happen, should not be the goal. We, society, are not the point. The point is the lives that

STAFF COLUMNIST

W

BY MICHELLE ALBERT STAFF COLUMNIST

A

friend of mine called me yesterday to discuss the tragedy at Virginia Tech. She told me that she couldn’t sleep at all Monday night; she was so scared. A friend of hers attends Virginia Tech and although she is fi ne, my friend couldn’t stop worrying about her. And then she expressed a larger, more general fear: Now this has happened once, who’s to say it won’t happen again?

The Virginia Tech shooter may have killed himself, but there is the possibility that someone else will decide to pick up a gun. Her voice was shaking.

Fear, it seems, is on everyone’s mind. Here, in the somewhat appropriately named Wash. U. bubble, a concern about the outside world is growing. Ever since the sexual assault on the 40, students, faculty and staff have heightened their own sense of personal security. The

new peepholes, self-closing doors and outside lights are an attempt to make our community feel safer and more comfortable. And, although some of these measures could potentially hinder social development, they will at least help stop the rash of thefts that have spread across campus this year. It might not seem fair to incoming freshmen, but having a class enter college in fear of what could happen is much worse than having to remember to prop open your door in order to encourage friendly conversation.

The shootings at Virginia Tech have sparked more widespread fear than the incident on our campus this year because, unlike the assault, the shooting was anything but isolated. It was sick, random and brutal. And there is a possibility that such an event could happen again. People should be scared. But only to an extent.

Fear can be debilitating.

It can run your entire life, forcing you to make decisions (or not) that will prevent you from entering any potentially risky situation. You won’t want to take that chance, to put yourself out there to see what could happen. Always waiting for the worst, always looking over your shoulder—that is no way to live.

The reason why Chancellor Wrighton and ResLife have been sending us e-mails about the state of the campus and the improvements in progress is to keep us informed and alert. They want to make sure we are comfortable living and studying here. College is a time to be enjoyed and that cannot happen if the entire campus is living each day terrified of what might happen. They want us to feel safe. But they also want us to be constantly aware of our surroundings. And, in this case, we need to be afraid—afraid for our own personal safety, afraid enough so we do not become complacent

and then reckless. A heightened sense of false security is more immediately dangerous than the threat of the possibility of a shooting could ever be.

We have to be able to take care of ourselves.

“Nothing can be enjoyed if it is smothered in fear.”

Hopefully, the new security measures being installed in the dorms will help foster a sense of comfort. No one should feel uncertain in their home, even if it is a temporary one. Despite everything that has happened or that could happen, life needs to continue normally. Nothing can be enjoyed if it is smothered in fear.

Michelle is a junior in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at mgalbert@wustl. edu.

Sara is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at saremedi@artsci.wustl. edu.

Two things to make this place better

BY DAVE SHAPIRO

On being afraid

were taken and the lives that have been affected. The point is the friends we lost and stood to lose.

Speaking of Monday as “the Virginia Tech Massacre” allows us to detach from it. Harping on the causes of the event and discussing it in the language and paradigm of the epic threatens to make it, for those of us not directly impacted, just another news story, just another shooting, just another social tragedy.

That shouldn’t be the point.

There are no words; looking for them does more harm than good. There are emotions: love, fear, hope and loss.…There’s prayer for those hurting. Let that be the point.

ashington University is a great place.

Compared to similar-caliber schools, we have little red tape. That said, there are a few things that Washington University student and administration leaders can do to make this school better. Here are two of them.

The January 31 issue of Student Life reported that the University received an average C- from the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Furthermore, “The University earned failing grades in Endowment Transparency and Shareholder Engagement, areas that measure how the University manages its outside investments and corporate influence regarding sustainability.” It would be too simple for me too argue that the University’s intimate relationship with Monsanto is one of the major causes of these failing grades. That’s why I’ll let the clear link speak for itself.

Despite its links to corporations with questionable environmental practices, the University appears to be making positive steps towards change. I guarantee that while we will still receive terrible marks come the next review of “Endowment Transparency” and “Shareholder Engagement,” the other areas of “Food and Recycling” and “Administration” can be a lot better.

The University needs to directly invest in groups like Hybrid Living. By giving money to students already active in the environmental community, suggestions can come a lot faster than through a University-led “Task Force.”

The Administration needs to act upon the suggestions in the April 13 Student Life Editorial. In addition, we need two recycling bins in every dorm room on campus in addition to the trash bin—one for plastics and one for paper. This would be a cheap and efficient way to drastically improve recycling.

We need more information on recyclable materials. I constantly encourage others to recycle and bemoan the lack of recycling receptacles on campus, yet I never have answers to questions I hear: “Is this recyclable?” “Can I recycle this

lid?” We need signs on campus that serve to remind us what is recyclable and what isn’t.

Put up charts around campus that show how many landfills are taken up by material that doesn’t have to be there. Encourage discourse on the negative environmental impacts we incur when we don’t recycle.

Overall, the first step to increasing sustainability is making people care. All that is left is making it feasible and/or easy. I shouldn’t have to leave the Mallinckrodt Food Court to recycle a water bottle when there are more than five trash bins staring me in the face.

Recycling isn’t easy right now.

It doesn’t take a task force to come to this conclusion.

My second area of improvement relates to the Wash. U. Bubble. It is still difficult to learn about the world outside of the Wash. U. Bubble. I already have my homepage set to BBC News, but I’d like to learn about the world when I’m not sitting in front of my computer, trying to work.

The newspapers on campus are excellent, but the New York Times is never in Whispers in the morning, when most students are there. What is happening to these papers?

I am told that the B-school kids forego the New York Times to read the Wall Street Journal. If they choose to be stupid, I’d like to enjoy my right to remain smart. Take the New York Times from the Business School and put it in Whispers. Put some newspapers in dormitories to make them even more accessible. And get rid of USA Today. If I wanted more cartoons, I’d watch the Simpsons.

Also, in light of the tragic events at Virginia Tech, I ask that Student Union ensure that the Washington University Shooting Club never becomes an official student group. The promotion of guns—shooting, more specifically—does not and should not mesh with the University’s values. We are reminded time and time again that guns don’t kill people—people with guns kill people. At what point is the death toll from gun violence high enough?

Dave is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at dshapiro@wustl. edu.

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Student Life welcomes letters to the editor and op-ed submissions from readers.

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Why do we do this? Because Google and other search engines cache our Web site on a regular basis. Our thought is this: once an article has been published online, it’s too late to take back. It is irrevocably part of the public sphere. As such, removing an article from our site would serve no purpose.

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FRIDAY | APRIL 20, 2007

STUDENT LIFE | FORUM

5

The magic of technology

BY ZACHARY STEINERT-THRELKELD STAFF COLUMNIST

A

s we lose the ability to understand how an object in front of us functions, we can only trust that it will work. This trust renders us helpless in the face of disruptions; aside from the very basics, like using a plunger or changing a car’s oil, if the technology in question ceases to function, we are helpless. Pressing the on button, turning the ignition, twisting the faucet and buying food become acts of faith, since if the technology gods are unhappy we will be helpless. Living in modern societies is to live on faith engendered by technological

“The ability to worry about small things is the takenfor-granted luxury of economic development.” and industrial growth.

This same principle applies to all technology and facets of life. Computers, now with graphical interfaces and massive processing power, work much better now than 25 years ago.

The first automobiles were scoffed at because they were loud, slower than horses and broke down frequently; today, a Honda Civic offers more amenities and power than a 1920s Duesenberg.

Paradoxically, to become easier to use, a technology must become more complex; e.g. to have a car operate smoothly (making breakdowns a rarity) requires much more complicated engines, chassis and body work than earlier cars had. As this happens, laypeople lose the ability to understand, and so fix, the technology and full-time specialists arise to replace them. So most early computer programmers and manufacturers were hobbyists—Hewlett and Packard was founded in a garage— who could understand the complete workings of their object. Likewise even with knowledge itself: until the turn of the 19th century, a scholar was supposed to be familiar with the whole realm of knowledge, but

RACHEL HARRIS | STUDENT LIFE

specialization has made this impossible. A microbiologist probably cannot explain the origins of World War I and a political scientist will likely not be able to explain DNA replication. Specialization, the vanguard of development, has also enfeebled us.

In developed countries, we live in bubbles of technology that protect us from the natural world. Aside from nature trips or the journey from the car to some building, we do not interact with the environment. Our cocoons insulate us from reality. Only when nature violently forces itself into

our lives do we even know it exists. Today it was cold, tomorrow it might be windy, but the air-conditioning and my jacket will make sure I stay oblivious to what is actually taking place outside.

This is why power outages are so frustrating.

Electricity, the oxygen of modern life, ensures that everything we use operates without us being aware that anything is actually going on. No electricity means no computer, no lights, no air conditioning and no appliances. With the trappings of advanced technology, that we sometimes must live at

seemingly archaic standards annoys us, even though we all know the outage will only be temporary. We become so used to everything working perfectly that even a hiccup becomes a headache: if the toilet cannot flush because of a power outage, it is just as feasible to go to the bathroom outside, but one rarely does that.

Power outages literally strangle our habits of living, forcing us suddenly back hundreds of years. Communication stops, sleeping habits change and our food spoils; flux, which technology was supposed to smooth

away, barges once again into our lives. No longer ensconced, we must confront reality. Nature is so 1900.

Instead, we worry about trite events. How could she even think of wearing those shoes with that shirt? Why does this sandwich cost so much? Should I have splurged for the sunroof?

Does this soda have too many calories? And, most importantly right now, why is Sanjaya still on American Idol?

When having enough food to eat is no longer an issue, when we only have to worry about extreme weather, when

our life becomes bathed in a uniform blanket of light regardless of the sun, when an endless source of water is one twist of a knob away, when illnesses that used to be death sentences are now minor ailments and when we cannot respond if these break down—that is the magic of development.

The ability to worry about small things is the taken-forgranted luxury of economic development.

Zachary is a junior in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at zsteinert@gmail. com.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

CS40 compensation warranted Living on the South 40 is expensive Dear Editor: There is no correlation between amount of time and energy that CS40 Executives put into the organization and their compensation. We all work very hard here at Washington University.

Student Life makes classist arguments when they say that compensation should not be rewarded because the executives should be committed to the South Forty and should want to live there regardless of compensation.

Let’s face it: living on the South Forty is EXPENSIVE, around $1000/month, depending on where you live. Since it is an EXPENSIVE place, ResLife and CS40 look to level the playing field for those who cannot afford such EXPENSIVE housing, and promote socioeconomic diversity (something this University is quite bad at) among the executive board members. Without compensation, it would not be just a leadership position, but one that costs someone thousands of dollars to hold. Therefore, it is this requirement to live in a ridiculously EXPENSIVE place that necessitates compensation.

Think again, Student Life, money doesn’t grow on trees for everyone. Somehow I feel

like the next year’s staff at Student Life will still copy and paste this very same staff editorial article from two years ago like you did last year and again this week.

But no worries: I can cut and paste, too.

-Andrew Lopez Class of 2008

New security measures are flawed Dear Editor: I was very disappointed with the e-mail announcement sent by the Chancellor’s Office about security on Washington University.

The security issues at stake in the Virginia Tech shootings are not addressed the announcement or in school’s safety plan. The security issue is no longer about a short-term, isolated shooting but a highly planned, sustained and methodical act of violence.

Here are a list of six flaws within the Washington University plan that need correction: 1) There is no mechanism for locking classroom doors in the event of a campus shooter.

2) There is no widely known procedure for students to red-flag disturbing behavior to administration.

3) There is no mandatory psychological evaluation for students who have been red flagged by administration or students.

4) There is no campuswide PA system in place. Email is not a reliable method of distributing such information, as Virginia Tech has shown.

5) There are no gun-carrying bike patrols. This may not be necessary, depending on police response ability.

6) There are no posted evacuation routes off campus in case of campus violence.

“There is a need to balance students feeling safe with a campus body that is prepared to react to a shooting...”

These are six dangerous flaws in campus security that have been shown from this recent shooting.

Many of these measures will cost the school financially to implement, but that cost now is worth the reputation of having a secure campus for the future. Granted, many other security procedures must be kept confidential for their effectiveness.

Unfortunately, the ability to alert the administration to students displaying

disturbing and dangerous behavior is a fundamental key to prevention.

The false security that e-mails such as the Chancellor’s announcement create may make it easier for violence like Virginia Tech’s shooting to claim more victims because students are not instructed to prevent or prepare for such an event.

There is a need to balance students feeling safe with a campus body that is prepared to react to a shooting, but without procedures for students to address potential concerns before they happen, it is important to notify students that they are, in effect, on their own with prevention and must somehow police themselves.

-Dave Welch Class of 2008

Don’t make elitist assumptions Dear Editor: Re: “Rethink housing subsidy for Congress of the South 40 Executive Board” (April 16, 2007) When I opened to the Forum page of Monday’s Student Life, I had a strong sense of déjà vu: the topic of your staff editorial seemed strangely familiar. Hadn’t you written that one last year? And hadn’t I already written a letter in response?

With finals approaching, I’m tempted to just copy-and-paste the letter I co-wrote last spring and send that in to you—but, evidently, unlike your editorial board, I’m not one to shortcut.

Yes, CS40 executives are compensated for a portion of their housing expenses.

This compensation is put to an annual vote in front of a student-elected Assembly as part of the CS40 budget process.

If you want to compare CS40 to SU, which seems to be a theme of your editorial, try thinking of the allocation of compensation as a proposal up for block funding. A student’s activities fee does not change in any way if the proposal passes or does not pass; the vote just helps determine allocation. So if the students determine that executive compensation (or, to continue the analogy, “block funding”) is appropriate, the issue passes. It’s pretty simple.

I’m not going to rehash my argument from last year; just check your archives.

But I will respond to this

sentence: “If they [the execs] need incentives to stay on the South 40 when their very job is to make it a better place, they are not the type of people South 40 residents want in these positions.”

As one of the many Wash.

U. students who is helping pay her way through an ever-more-expensive four years here, I’m offended by your elitist assumption that wanting to live on the 40 makes it magically feasible financially. Denying compensation could make it impossible for some very qualified student leaders to dedicate time to CS40.

The residents of the 40 get this; it’s Student Life that’s seeming a little slow on the uptake.

The response I wrote last year is saved on my laptop as “Letter to the Editor 2006.” This year’s is the 2007 edition. I’m hoping it can serve as my final draft.

-Shannon Petry Class of 2008 Former Director of Finance, CS40

CORRECTION: In Wednesday, April 18th’s issue, the byline for “Professor offers insight about blacks and baseball” was incorrectly attributed to Andrea Winter. News Editor Josh Hantz wrote the article. Student Life regrets the error.

6 STUDENT LIFE | SCENE

Senior Scene Editor / Felicia Baskin / scene@studlife.com

FRIDAY | APRIL 20, 2007

Two weeks’ notice

A

s I think back to the fall of my freshman year I remember a friend of mine commenting on the stinkitude of time-limited relationships.

“It’s like, we know this is going to end soon and there’s nothing we can do about it,” he said. “So what do you do?

It’s kind of awkward in that way.”

It’s true that all of college is awkward in some fashion, but this isn’t the kind of awkward where you’re walking through Bear’s Den and all of a sudden you bump into a cute girl and spill your drink on her white blouse… with everyone watching. This is the awkward that strikes deep into your emotions, the kind that actually means some-

thing in your life.

So my friend had a valid point: what do you do when you’re with a girl and the clock is about to run out? Or what if you meet someone right now, with only a couple weeks left to the school year?

The fi rst question is more of a case by case dilemma, because the answer can’t be the same for a senior couple that’s been dating since they met at their freshman pre-o program and a sophomore couple that started hooking up last week.

The second question happens to be the subject of this column.

Consider this: you’ve been spending lots of time at the library and the person who sits across the table from you is a pretty brunette who makes

just end up hurting? for good conversaYou jump into this tion. Before long thing with your heart you realize that the all tied up and all two of you have the too soon you’re going same interests and to need to detach you begin to chill yourself from someoutside of your time one you care about. in the Arc (maybe, to Doesn’t sound so be exotic, you go to Ben Sales good. Doesn’t sound Whispers). Soon, you like the right choice. realize that you like It can be the right this girl and that you choice, though, and if you go wouldn’t mind taking her out about it the right way it will a bit and spending more time be. The key is casualness— together. this can’t be the type of relaBut can you do it? Should tionship where you take her to you do it? After all, there’s Kay Jewelers after a week and hardly any time left. You start a half and say, “Diamonds are to go together, go out on a forever, baby, and that’s how couple dates and before you long I want to be with you.” If know it it’s fi nals week and you go serious, you go wrong. your fl ight home is only two Getting your heart all tied up days away. Is that even worth is the wrong thing to do. it? Even more so, won’t that

Stepping

Out

BY KATE GALLAGHER AND EMILY WAS- found ourselves inside a classic 1950s-style diner with SERMAN SCENE REPORTERS This past weekend, we embarked on our fi rst restaurant review. We wanted to fi nd a place that wasn’t too far from campus, was reasonably priced, was different and, of course, served excellent food. Luckily, we managed to accomplish all of these goals during our visit to Café Manhattan.

From the outside, Café Manhattan doesn’t appear to be especially exciting. It has a plain brick façade with a discreet sign above the door.

Upon entering, however, we

bright light fi xtures, minishrines to Elvis and old CocaCola signs. We easily found a comfortable red booth and were soon greeted by our waitress.

Manhattan’s soda fountain seems to be one of the features that sets it apart from other St. Louis restaurants.

They offer floats, phosphates, egg creams, malts and milkshakes. We tried a Dreamsicle and a mint chocolate chip milkshake. The Dreamsicle proved to be sweet and refreshing, especially when the vanilla ice cream began to melt and blended with the or-

Café Manhattan

gested that we try the toasted cannelloni, which proved to be a wise choice. A large white plate soon arrived with eight cannelloni, generously sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and accompanied by a large cup of marinara sauce. Fried to perfection, each cannelloni was lightly breaded and fi lled with a satisfying, savory mixture of beef and spinach.

Deciding on the main entrées proved to be the most difficult decision of the night.

In addition to appetizers and drinks, Café Manhattan offers soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers, pizzas, pastas and desserts. We elected to go ahead and order some of the

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whether you want to get real or get out. And that can get ugly.

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When you only have two weeks you can both understand that you can’t be in it for the long haul, not now at least. Because I know that sometimes you can’t control your feelings and sometimes you do genuinely feel for the two week girl.

But don’t fret. If you’re both going back to school you’ll have another shot, and if you still want the relationship it can pick back up. If one (or both) of you is graduating, you’ve each gained a friend, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves—it’s called a “spring fl ing” for a reason.

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ange soda to create a creamy mixture of deliciousness. The mint chocolate chip shake was served in a glass reminiscent of the 1950s and was topped with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry. To our delight, we were also provided with an old-fashioned tin cup fi lled with two or three serving’s worth of extra milkshake. In fact, the shake was so expertly blended that we ended up drinking the whole thing.

Unable to choose between toasted ravioli, toasted cannelloni or bruschetta for an appetizer, we decided to ask the waitress if she had a recommendation. She sug-

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That doesn’t exclude having a good time and it definitely doesn’t exclude caring about someone else. There’s nothing wrong with getting to know another person with only two weeks left, nothing wrong with making that person feel good while she does the same for you. There’s a place between friends with benefits and a long-term deal and if you’re looking for anything significant that place is where you’ll want to end up.

Be happy. Let someone else be happy with you.

And if you’re not looking to be serious, a two week expedition into romance might be ideal, because if you keep it chilled out with a girl after a few months or a year you’re going to have to ask yourself

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café’s specials, Bob’s Pizza and baked lasagna. The lasagna came with a house salad, which came out fi rst. We were pleasantly surprised when we tasted the fresh romaine lettuce sprinkled with parmesan and St. Louis-style provolone.

The house dressing was zesty, but not overpowering and tasted similar to Caesar dressing. The salad was just the right size: large enough to be satisfying, but small enough to allow room for the main course.

Soon after the salad was fi nished, our entrées arrived. The menu described the lasagna as having a spicy sauce, which at fi rst made us apprehensive. Once we made it past the thick layer of cheese melted across the top, though, we realized that the lasagna wasn’t too spicy at all. On the contrary, the ricotta cheese was baked perfectly into the soft layers of noodles and while there was a great deal of sauce, it actually provided a substantial amount of appeal to the entrée. The parmesan, ricotta and provolone cheeses were perfectly blended.

The pizza arrived piping hot on a metal tray. It was topped with shrimp, hamburger meat, bacon and green onions along with provolone and mozzarella cheese (it also typically comes with jalapeno peppers, but we opted to

order it without). The shrimp on the pizza were quite small but tasty. Half-strips of bacon were generously distributed on the pizza and the green onions added a surprising extra sweetness, which complimented the meaty flavors.

Café Manhattan makes their pizzas with whole ground garlic and fresh spices. Customers can choose between four different kinds of crust, 26 toppings and four types of cheese.

Our stomachs full, we were unfortunately unable to try the desserts. In the future, we will have to return to taste the Manhattan ‘Works’ Sundae, which is a fudge brownie topped with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, caramel, whipped cream, nuts and a cherry. We also hope to try their New York Style Cheesecake— another specialty.

Our main piece of advice for those who want to venture to the café is to be aware of the large portions. Typically big eaters, we were only able to fi nish half of the pizza and three-fourths of the lasagna.

All in all, Café Manhattan was a delightful excursion away from Wash. U. The environment was welcoming, fun and relaxing. We would recommend Café Manhattan to anyone who wants to step back in time to get a relatively inexpensive meal just a short walk away from campus.

FRIDAY | APRIL 20, 2007

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ANNOUNCING ATTENTION COLLEGE STUDENTS: Part-time work $12 base/appt. Flexible Schedules. Customer sales/service. Scholarship opportunities. No experience necessary. Call 314997-7873.

MILDRED LANE KEMPER Art Museum hiring now for summer. Flexible schedule offered. Email donttouchthepainting@yahoo.com with the subject line ‘Summer position’ for more info.

PART TIME WORK. Great pay, ideal for student, flex scheds, customer sales/service, no exp. nec, scholarships available, can secure a summer position. Call: 314-9977873.

PLAY SPORTS! HAVE FUN! SAVE MONEY! Maine camp needs fun loving counselors to teach all land, adventure & water sports.

Great Summer! Call 888-844-8080, apply: campcedar.com

3 BEDROOM 1 Bath apartment for summer sublet on Forsyth Blvd. End of May until August 15th. A/C, free washer/dryer.

Email jijina@wustl.edu.

3 BEDROOM 1.5 BATH APARTMENT. Half block from RED line shuttle. Many amenities! For more info w w w.homeandapar tmentrentals.com Tom 314.409.2733 3 BR, 2 full bath on blue Shuttle, garage and off street parking, new kitchen, many amenities! For more info w w w.homeandapar tmentrentals.com.

Tom 314.409.2733 UNIVERSITY CITY LOOP. 3BR 1800sqft Luxury Apartment, Granite counter tops, W/D in the Apartment.

The Best in the Loop. $1,695.

314-608-2692.

CLAYTON, U. CITY LOOP, CWE and Dogtown.

Beautiful studios, 1, 2 bedrooms.

Quiet buildings. $425-$750. Call 725-5757.

CLEAN QUIET SPACIOUS 1 bedroom apt. Central air, hardwood floors, dishwasher, washer/dryer, off street parking. Smoke-free.

No pets $1600 314-3691016.

GREAT APARTMENT VERY close to campus available June 1. 7012 Forsyth.

Apt 1E. 2 bedroom, dishwasher, washer/dryer.

Contact: malabadi@wustl. edu.

UNIVERSITY CITY LOOP. Spacious 3BR apartment behind Cicero’s, hardwood floors, C/A, W/D, Parking $1,100. 314-608-2692.

FALL SUBLET. 1 BR Apt at 61XX Waterman Blvd. Fully furnished. $430/ month plus cooking gas and electricity.

Free internet and cable.

Available 8/1-12/31.

Interested, contact bdbaylor@wustl.edu.

SUMMER SUBLET: 1-2 roommates needed.

Available May-August. 3 bedroom, 2 bath, large kitchen. 1.5 miles from campus. Rent: $366/month plus utilities per person. Email weji@cec.wustl.edu.

SUMMER SUBLET. 2 roommates need for 3-BR apartment on Westgate. 1 large ($300+utilities; available now), 1 small ($272, don’t pay utilities; available May 25th at most). Can extend lease to Fall. Parking and laundry in next building.

10 min walk to campus, on red line route, 1 min walk to loop.

Nicky nc3@cec. wustl.edu, 651-7469891.

SUMMER SUBLET: 1 room in 3 bedroom apartment available. Rent is $367+ utilities. Located on Dartmouth Ave. Contact Shaheryar: sa10@cec.wustl.edu.

UDRIVE APT. FOR Summer Sublet! 3 BR’s available to sublet in 3BR apt. 1 full bath, kitchen, large living and dining room.

Close to library and overpass. Available June through Mid-August. Perfect for summer school. Call Caroline at 314-537-3144 or email csshaike@wustl.edu.

SUMMER SUBLET 2 Bedroom apartment at 6632 Wash Ave. partially furnished. $950/ month plus utilities.

Contact mckalish@wustl.edu.

$5000 PAID. EGG DONORS. +Expenses. N/smokers, ages 19-29, SAT>1100, ACT>24,GPA>3.0. Reply to: Info@eggdonorcenter.com EARN $2500+MONTHLY AND more to type simple ads online. www.DataAdEntry.com.

VISITING PROFESSOR AT the Med School looking to rent a 1 bedroom summer sublet close to the metro.

Contact j.knight@iop.kcl. ac.uk.

24’ TV FOR SALE. Like new 24’ TV for sale for $120.

Contact lmhoelle@wustl. edu UP TO 350 Meal Points for sale. Extremely Negotiable!

Email ccyu@wustl.edu.

WASH U MEAL Points for sale. Up to 600. Email jkrueger@wustl.edu.

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By Michael Mepham 2

3

4

Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit 1 to 9. For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit www.sudoku.org.uk.

Solution to Wednesday’s puzzle

Sudoku on your cell phone. Enter 783658.com in your mobile Web browser. Get a free game! © 2007 Michael Mepham. Distributed by Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved.

1995 VW JETTA. Graduating senior needs to sell car; 112,000 miles, new brakes, runs great. Email Arden afarhi@wustl.edu or call 240-498-5570 if interested.

1998 NISSAN MAXIMA, four door, silver, 136,000 miles, automatic, $5,200.

Contact Chris at 618-5609280 or email mitchell@wustl.edu if interested.

Open Swim • Café • Complimentary Group Fitness Classes Poolside • Social Events • Off-Season Sport Specific Training

314.935.6713 • classifieds@studlife.com

Level: 1

WASH U STUDY recruiting users of prescription stimulants, sedatives, or painkillers when not, more often or in larger amounts than prescribed. 90 minutes paid.

Contact Marisa (314-2862256 or R xdrugs tudy @ epi.wus tl. edu)

AUTOS

TYPING AND TRANSCRIPTION SERVICES (www.workinprogressllc.biz). Expertise in all academic formats.

Specializing in qualitative research transcription. Over 30 years experience. Rush jobs welcome! Contact Karen (314-732-0000 or karen @ workinprogessllc. biz) Conveniently located in CWE.

2 MALES UNDERGRADS SEEKING roommate for FALL‘07. 3 BR apartment near the loop on Heman Ave. $280+utilities.

Email wilks.jesse@gmail. com or Call 646-812-8754/ ALPA BANKER AND Caitlin Ganskell would like a roommate for their apt: 7024 Forsyth Blvd. 1E. Spacious 3 bedroom, 2 bathrooms.

Extremely close to campus.

Total rent= $416 per person + utilities. Call 785-375-7535 or email adbanker@wustl.edu if interested.

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REWARD. LOST MICHAEL Kors watch in AC Fitness Center. White leather band. Contact Jennifer to claim reward. 770-891-0467. jhgross@wustl.edu.

PRINCETON PH. D. in theoretical physics, Washington University Professor of Physics offers tutoring service to high school and/ or college students in mathematics and/or physics. Call Frank at 314-569-0715 if you have questions. Our office is centrally located at 8600 Delmar Blvd., Room 218, University City (just off I 170). We charge $50.00 per hour. Bring your textbooks and we will work through them. We look forward to seeing you.

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8 STUDENT LIFE | SCENE

Senior Scene Editor / Felicia Baskin / scene@studlife.com

FRIDAY | APRIL 20, 2007

SCENE

Ambiguous consent:

when is a yes a yes?

BY SARAH KLEIN SCENE REPORTER Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine. It’s hard to imagine waking up in the morning with a pounding head, sitting up and wondering where the hell you are. It’s hard to imagine being naked and that the person next to you is too—your friend, an acquaintance, a practically total stranger or a significant other.

You tap him or her on the shoulder. The person groans and rolls over.

“What just happened?”

“We had sex. Don’t you remember? You seemed to be enjoying yourself.”

“No.”

Faces fall. Minds race. It’s hard to imagine—let alone experience.

Cases of ambiguous consent continue to plague college campuses and Wash. U. is no exception.

The “Sexual Assault and Acquaintance Rape” page of Washington University’s website states several statistics, including one that says the majority of rapes are acquaintance rapes and that 55% of female students were under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they experienced acquaintance rape.

According to Women’s Crisis Counselor and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Students Karen Levin Coburn, many cases also

What is consent?

The male perspective

BY LANA GOLDSMITH SCENE REGULAR FEATURES EDITOR What is consensual sex? How do you know when a person has given consent? These are very tricky questions and not knowing the answers can mean serious consequences, especially for men.

Rape is something taken very seriously in our society, yet many men who are sexually active are not aware of the legal definition of consent.

Wash. U.’s Web site defines mutual consent as, “consent given freely and knowingly by both parties.” Non-consensual activity may be defined as, “sexual contact with a person who reasonably appears to be impaired in the exercise of their judgment by alcohol or other drugs.’”

Alcohol tends to be a large part of the college social scene, so does this mean that you shouldn’t have sex if you’ve had something to drink?

“Wash. U. goes by the ‘Reasonable Person Standard,’ [meaning] if you drink and are still able to make reasonable decisions, then you’re able to give consent,” said senior Jay Beermann.

Beermann is a co-president of 1 in 4, an all-male peer education group dedicated to speaking to other men about rape, assault and domestic violence. While he stresses that consensual sex is of the utmost importance, finding out if your partner is willing need not be difficult.

“Men think if they really want to be safe they have to get a written contract, which is just not the case,” said Beermann.

Another member of 1 in 4, junior Dan Tilden added, “It’s of the utmost importance to be comfortable with the person you’re with and communicate.”

In many cases, people skip conversation in hopes of avoiding seemingly awkward situations.

Yet, such avoidance only confounds problems. Kendall Smith, co-president of CORE (Committee Organized for Rape Education)

I

promotes the use of verbal communication and advises against trying to read body language to get a vague idea of whether your partner is consenting. She noted that not all of the responsibility to know where a partner stands falls on the male.

“Communication is a two way street,” said Smith.

“All men are taught that the perfect sexual encounter requires no verbalization,” said Beermann.

He is often asked what exactly a guy should say in order to know if his partner is consenting. Though there isn’t really a prescribed script, Beermann said that it’s best to be sober or at least at a point where reasonable decisions can be made. He suggests a safe way to go about ensuring your partner is okay is to say, “Do you want me to do this?” and “Is this okay?” That way, both partners are clear about where the other one stands, and can move along at a comfortable pace.

Consensual sex is important in all sexual relations, whether it is a one time thing or an ongoing relationship. Tilden noted that communication is extremely important for all aspects of healthy monogamous relationships as well as short-term relations. You shouldn’t fear sex, as long as you take the right measures to protect yourself and your partner.

Beermann hopes to, “challenge men if they think asking for consent is a mood killer.” He went on to say that partners need to be comfortable talking about their sexual relations. “If it’s too awkward for you to ask your partner if they’re OK, are you really ready to have sex?”

For more information on CORE, visit: http://sugroups. wustl.edu/~core. For more information on 1 in 4, visit their site at: http://1in4.wustl.edu.

For Wash. U.’s policies on rape, assault and sexual harassment in particular, visit http://www. wustl.edu/policies/assault.html or talk to a Wash. U. police officer.

HealthBeat

t was my senior year of high school. My friend and I had tickets to a concert, but I found out a week before the event that I had two tests scheduled for the day after the show.

I hadn’t studied as much as usual, but decided to go to the concert anyway, taking along note cards that I read on the bus ride into the city.

The result? I stayed out later than any other night in high school, I got less sleep than usual and I aced both exams.

We’ve all been told about the importance of maintaining healthy habits during fi nals week. Eat balanced meals. Get plenty of sleep.

Take your Vitamin C. All of this advice follows the belief that having a healthy body leads to a healthy mind, which leads in turn to improved performance on exams.

While I don’t doubt this logic, I do propose that relaxation is the key to enhanced performance on exams. Forget this eight hours of sleep, 12 hours of studying routine and try doing something different—relax. This may not seem like the soundest advice and I don’t want to downplay the importance of studying hard.

Medical studies have indeed shown that relaxation can be the secret to test-success.

go unreported. Cases of ambiguous consent can be especially painful because no one is sure where to place the blame, or if blame should be placed at all.

It’s not just an issue of forgetting what happened. Sometimes the victim doesn’t say yes, but she doesn’t say no either— she didn’t know what to do.

Or the victim is psychologically but not physically coerced into having sex. Or maybe he was too drunk to refuse and his partner was too drunk to realize that he didn’t want to do it. Is that rape? And even if you can’t define it as “clear” rape, does that matter?

According to the Washington University judicial code, if a person is intoxicated, he or she is not considered able to give consent. Furthermore, the judicial code still considers it to be assault if the one committing the act was intoxicated. Thus a drunk yes is not a yes at all, even if you know the person, even if he or she is your best friend or your significant other.

“A lot of ambiguous [consent] situations happen under [the influence of] alcohol,” said senior Jess Friedman, a facilitator for SARAH, the Sexual Assault & Rape Anonymous Helpline.

“Basically, being drunk is not an excuse for doing something wrong.”

It often happens that no one intends to do anything wrong and something wrong happens anyway.

Despite its reputation for enhancing desire and lowering inhibition, alcohol muddles judgment. Someone could therefore say yes when he or she didn’t really want to, just nod and allow things to happen because there is no mental ability to resist, or say yes in the moment and then regret it later.

Ambiguous consent is contradictory—sexual activity may have seemed consensual, but in the end someone did not want it to happen.

Because people often aren’t making cogent decisions in ambiguous sexual situations, frequently the result is a lot of guilt and self blame, both for the person who felt taken advantage of and for the person who pushed too hard, perhaps accidentally.

Coburn says she often hears students say, “If only I wasn’t drunk,” and “I should have been more vigilant.”

These thoughts exacerbate feelings of lost control and they are psychologically damaging for both the victim and the perpetrator. When alcohol is involved in ambiguous consent situations, victims lose the control to make sexual choices for themselves and the perpetrators lose control to make ethical decisions.

Who do you call?

SARAH 935-8080 Women’s Crisis Counselors Karen Levin Coburn 935-5555 or 935-5040 Lisa Sinden-Gottfried 935-7105 Director of Judicial Programs Tamara King 935-4174 Student Health Services 935-6666

It is often difficult to press charges in these situations since the details are ambiguous and memory is fuzzy. Also, Coburn noted, most victims don’t want to go through and prosecute the other person.

“Other situations, [for example] where someone put something in their drink—that’s different,” said Coburn. “That’s premeditated.”

It’s more difficult to decide what is best if the victim, for example, was with a friend, but the friend reports asking permission.

Although students who wish can always investigate legal action on campus and through criminal courts, what can be done when it is unclear what happened?

Both Friedman and Coburn suggest talking to crisis services and counselors. SARAH, the Women’s Crisis Counselors and continuous psychological counselors are not there to tell the victims what to do. Rather, they exist to help victims decide what they want to do—to help them find what is the best way for them to address the issue and move on.

The healing process is all about regaining control in whatever way works best for the individual. But, there are a few ways that counselors suggest. “[Admit] the event is important,” said Coburn.

She emphasized that victims should acknowledge that the sexual situation happened and something went wrong, because otherwise the victim can go on blaming him or herself. Talking with friends and counselors can help one put the events in perspective or can help one figure out what is the best course of action.

Yet, some students do express fears of talking to friends.

Coburn has encountered victims who are afraid of saying anything because they consider Wash. U. a small community and they don’t want to alienate themselves from friends who have connections with the person who took advantage of them. According to Coburn, the fear of being the accuser silences a lot of people.

For the friends of victims, it is critical to allow the victims to come to their own decisions and not to blame them. Some students encounter friends who

push them to press charges, or ask them, “Well, what did you expect?”

These kinds of statements can push victims into further self-blame and emotional isolation. Coburn said blaming the victim happens far too often.

Thus, it is essential to provide nonjudgmental support.

Also, although Wash. U. resources are there for students of any gender or sexuality, often victims of ambiguous consent cases who are male or gay have trouble finding support or believe that people will not understand their issues.

“With male-on-male sexual assault, I think often there is a real sense of humiliation [for the victim], due to masculinity issues and perceptions of what it means to be a man,” said Coburn.

Still, it is important not to repress the issue, so that one can learn to protect oneself and also learn to trust people again.

“It’s important to feel comfortable in sexual situations,” said Friedman.

There are many outlets to express one’s anger about being the victim of an ambiguous consent situation and to take action.

In addition to counseling, Coburn suggests writing about it or, if possible, confronting the perpetrator and discussing one’s feelings.

Students can also join antirape and sexual assault organizations on campus—SARAH, One in Four and CORE are a few—to help prevention efforts and also to provide support for other victims.

A final course of action everyone can take is to protect themselves from ambiguous sexual situations, both from becoming a victim and from becoming a perpetrator.

Coburn suggests not getting so drunk that you don’t realize what is happening. Friedman noted that SARAH facilitators encourage seeking consent for anything you do in a sexual interaction.

“ASK, ASK, ASK!” said Friedman.

After all, legitimate consent is very sexy.

Relaxing can improve your performance on finals

A night of good fun or any form of just plain old relaxation before test time has been proven to yield higher scores.

Why? When we feel relaxed, we are Brooke able to focus on what we are doing and think things through clearly. In contrast, when we are stressed, our minds are too frazzled to focus. So we “blank out,” forgetting the names of the paintings we studied in art history or carelessly skipping steps while calculating the concentration of ions in solution for our

chemistry exams.

So in preparation for fi nals, I suggest we relax a little. Instead of spending hours in the library determined to do every practice problem Genkin over and over, maybe we should take more breaks, enjoy the outdoors, meet friends for lunch and go out to see movies.

Two great activities with both mental and physical health benefits are available through the South 40 Fitness Center — yoga classes and massage appointments. Yoga improves balance, strength, flexibility,

circulation, digestion and elimination. The meditative quality of classes calms the body and mind, leaving you tranquil yet rejuvenated at the same time.

Massage has similarly relaxing effects, but you may not be as aware of its physical health benefits. Massage actually improves circulation, providing oxygen and nutrients to the cells. It also stimulates the lymphatic system, which carries away waste products that have built up in the body. When you exercise so hard that you have trouble breathing, your body produces lactic acid that stores up in your muscles. The acid

is then fi ltered out of your body through the lymphatic system and the kneading and rubbing of a massage aid in this fi ltration process. The fi ltration relieves any physical tension in muscles and also prevents future cramps or discomfort, which is why your body feels so refreshed after a massage.

Just remember, do whatever it is that makes you feel relaxed (playing videogames, solving Sudoku, rock climbing, playing guitar, watching 24, etc.) during fi nals week too. I guarantee your days will be a little happier and hopefully your scores will be a little higher, too.