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STUDENT LIFE
THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS SINCE 1878 VOLUME 128, NO. 62
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2007
OK Go, Reel Big Fish to headline W.I.L.D. BY SHWETA MURTHI NEWS EDITOR Alternative rock band OK Go will take the stage as W.I.L.D. headliner this spring, joined by ska-punk band Reel Big Fish and Cut Chemist, a hip hopstyle opener. The announcement came during last night’s Ben Kweller performance at the Gargoyle and was met with mixed reactions.
OK Go is best known for the music video “Here It Goes Again,” which featured them dancing in time on treadmills. The group, consisting of four members, won a 2007 Grammy award for “Best Short Form Music Video” and is known for their distinctive “geek” rock look. Cut Chemist, a solo turntablist, was a former member of Latin-funk band Ozomatli and
underground rap group Jurassic 5. His song “The Audience is Listening Theme Song” has recently been featured in an Apple iPod commercial. “[Cut Chemist] doesn’t have a lot of name recognition, but he’s a legitimate artist. Last night when we were putting the names on the underpass, people were excited. It’s not straight hip hop—it’s different than what we’ve done recently,”
NEWS EDITOR Five Washington University students will be leaving for Madagascar to create a business model for the village of Mahabo, Madagascar over spring break. The students, who will be working with the Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT) and the national not-for-profit Blessing Basket Project, aim to make environmental conservation an economic reality and to assess the impact of bringing new wealth to poor villages. “It’s less of a business model than a perspective on how you can bring new markets to rural villages through creative combinations of people or companies,” said Kenneth Harrington, director the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurship, who will also be going to Mahabo. The business models will help produce profits for basket weavers, a common profession in rural African villages. Currently, basket weavers sell their products to foreign companies and make 50 cents off items that may sell for as much as $30, with most of the profit going to the middlemen. Blessing Basket Project, founded two years ago, increases the villagers’ wage to seven dollars. MOBOT has chosen the Project for its venture in Mahabo hoping that this increased profit will encourage the villagers to find alternative methods of survival besides deforestation, which has become a problem throughout Africa. “The issue is how can you conserve the environment if people are basically at the subsistence level and starving,” said Harrington. “There are 77 villages in
Madagascar where the forest will be destroyed unless we come up with an environmentally friendly plan.” The five students, coming from a variety of disciplines including economics, social work, finance and law, will assess how the Blessing Basket Project affects Mahabo. They will document the current state of the village by interviewing many of its 9,000 residents, some of whom are government officials, and will see what happens once new money enters the village. “If good things happen—we hope to increase the wealth by 20 percent—the hope is that it starts entrepreneurial growth which is good for the villagers and the environment,” said Harrington. Senior Russell Kohn is excited about the possible economic, social and political implications of this work. “Part of what’s interesting about [the theoretical implications] is that they are so far reaching,” he said. “On one hand you can talk about this from an economic standpoint—the effects of economic aid and how that aid should be implemented. From a social perspective, you can view the social norms that will affect how people perceive us and our involvement in the project. This project allows for the abstract but forces us to talk about them on the ground,” he said. He is also anticipating the chance to get in touch with a foreign culture. “This is an opportunity like no other, to be able to go to Madagascar, not as a tourist, but also not completely disconnected from local resources,” he said. “We will be completely immersed
See MADAGASCAR, page 2
decently large music festival.” After the announcement of Reel Big Fish as one of the acts in spring W.I.L.D., a Facebook group was created in protest named “Say NO to W.I.L.D.,” which had 138 members as of Thursday. “It demonstrated that there are people on this campus that were really looking forward to hip hop. There are always going to be some people complain-
ing,” said Hovey. “The reaction was a little bit more intense than in the past. I think 95 percent of people that show up will have a good time.” In response to some criticism that Team 31 did not give ample opportunity for students to provide input, Hovey said that they were working in conjunction with the Office
See W.I.L.D., page 2
BEN KWELLER SAILS INTO PACKED GARGOYLE CROWD
WU students bring wealth to old villages BY JOSH HANTZ
said Hovey. Hovey explained the difficulties Team 31 faced in getting the band lineup to match students’ requests. “When we only have one day to pick from and a limited budget, the odds of us getting the fi rst and second choices are pretty slim. The reason we didn’t get Lupe Fiasco, our fi rst choice, is because they are playing Coachella which is a
LUCY MOORE | STUDENT LIFE
Ben Kweller performs in the Gargoyle on Wednesday, Feb. 28 to a crowd of over 500. Kweller put on an energetic show, switching between the piano and guitar, and even singing happy birthday to a crowd member.
Reform Jewish group hosts 100 students at weekend leadership conference BY BEN SALES SENIOR STAFF REPORTER Reform Chavurah, the Reform Jewish students’ group on campus, will be hosting a convention for the leaders of college Reform Jewish movements across the country. The program, called Leadership Training Seminar (LTS), will start today and run through Sunday. The conference also acts as the national gathering for Kesher, the branch of the Union
of Reform Judaism (URJ) for college students, of which Reform Chavurah is Washington University’s branch. Matt Adler, president of Reform Chavurah, sees this as a good chance to unite leaders. “It is an opportunity to bring leaders of all these groups together to learn leadership skills, to plan programs and meet people,” said Adler, a junior. “It is an opportunity for us to learn and grow as a group.” The conference will begin
this afternoon, and its first major event will be at Hillel with Friday evening prayers. Its approximately 100 participants will then eat dinner with the rest of the campus Jewish community. Following the meal, there will a discussion about Jewish pluralism that is open to the public. “Jewish students at Wash. U. come from a variety of different backgrounds,” said Adler. “This is our opportunity to show what it means to be a Reform Jew.
The biggest benefit is promoting a pluralistic dialogue.” Senior Suzy Goldenkranz, who will chair LTS along with sophomore Leah Bressler, said that the pluralism dialogue contributes to an integral part of the campus Jewish community. “The conference itself is based around developing our own Jewish identity and bringing it to campus,” said Golden-
See LTS, page 2
The tipping point: the psychology behind leaving a tip BY MARGY LEVINSON STAFF REPORTER For many people, tipping is a natural reflex, but how much do you actually end up spending? Two Washington University psychology researchers have started to crack the tipping code, finding that people tend to tip more for smaller bills. Professors of psychology Leonard Green and Joel Myerson studied tipping as a follow-up on another research project. “It’s an interesting area…the question why do people tip in this country. There is no single answer,” said Green. Tipping in the United States also differs from other parts of the world where tipping is not the norm. “It makes you wonder
why we tip in this country,” said Myerson. Before they turned to tipping, Green and Myerson studied how people value rewards over periods of time. For example, they found that people would rather take $25 up front rather than waiting a year to receive $100. Green attributes this finding to the fact that people often discount the future. Green and Myerson explained that this “magnitude effect” could explain desires such as playing the lottery, where people try to get all of the money up front, as well as issues of self-control. “One of the things we found was that with the delayed reward, you discount at a certain rate…larger delayed amounts are discounted proportionally less
Moving beyond the mochas Our Stepping Out team heads over to a neighborhood favorite—Kaldi’s. They discover that it’s not just the coffee that will keep you coming back. Scene, Page 6
than smaller delayed amounts.” This “magnitude effect’” seemed to fit into the arena of tipping because the size of the bill influences how much people are willing to tip. “The question we asked was, do you leave the same amount [proportionately] of tip on a $20 bill compared to a $200 bill?” said Green. “What they found is that people leave a larger percentage tip with a smaller bill than with a larger bill. Although this would still be considered the magnitude effect…it’s a different mechanism [than for discounting].” Senior Danielle Roth, who works as a waitress at Fitz’s on the Loop, found this to be the case. “We can have bills that are only $15 for two people. People
might leave four dollars which is definitely more than 15 percent but if [the bill is] $50 people will only leave 15 [percent].” The demographic of the tipper does not have a significant effect on the results, but both researchers predicted that people who have worked at restaurants probably tend to tip a little bit more. Because the demographic was not narrowed down, they looked at tipping in different areas including restaurants, cabs and beauty parlors, and found that the same conclusions were seen across the board. Green and Myerson also found out that people, on average, tend to tip a little less, percentagewise, on cabs than at restaurants
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID BRODY | STUDENT LIFE
Psychology professors Leonard Green and Joel Myerson conducted a study on how the magnitude of a bill affects the percentage that patrons leave See TIPPING, page 2 as a tip.
Where would you like to go? Wash. U. students of all backgrounds take advantage of religious trips. See where in the world these purposedriven trips have taken your classmates. Scene, Page 8
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