THE DAILY TARGUM
Volume 141, Number 112
S E R V I N G
T H E
R U T G E R S
C O M M U N I T Y
S I N C E
TUESDAY MARCH 30, 2010
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Today: Heavy rain
STREAKING
High: 51 • Low: 43
The Rutgers baseball team rides a six-game winning streak, including a weekend sweep of Georgetown, entering today’s game against Wagner at home.
Buyout plan to swap old faculty with new
COOKING UP SCIENCE
BY GREG FLYNN CORRESPONDENT
MAYA NACHI
The Food Network’s very own Iron Chef winner Alex Stupak conducts “Molecular Gastronomy,” a science-themed demonstration of his cooking skills yesterday in the Busch Dining Hall. A food sampling immediately followed, and many guests got a first taste of the chef’s work.
A new buyout plan proposed by the University this week looks to replace 300 senior faculty members in order to inject new blood into the classroom. In a letter to the University community, University President Richard L. McCormick said although the program brings up costs, the program saves the school money. The buyout will replace senior faculty with junior appointees or leave the positions vacant. McCormick said the program also enables the University to reinvest its resources in new faculty members who work on the emerging boundaries of their disciplines and bring new expertise. Vice President for Undergraduate Education Barry V. Qualls said new blood creates new ideas and leadership to address issues large and small. “New people are fresh. They have very different points of view, they have a different education than those of us who have been here a good number of years, a different education means you see the world differently,” he said. “People who were
born during the world of the Beatles and people who were born during the world of Ronald Reagan are very different people.” As of June 30, 2010, eligible faculty must be full-time tenured faculty members, at least 65 years of age, must have at least 25 years of service to the University and be a member of the Alternate Benefit Program, according to a University Media Relations press release. The University will provide each of the participating faculty members with either one lump-sum payment or two installments based on his or her years of service to the University and their salary as of July 1, 2010. The program is only offered for a specified period of time and eligible faculty must decide to participate by May 15, 2010. Participating faculty will voluntarily relinquish their tenure and vacate their positions effective July 1, 2010, according to the release. Participating faculty will receive about one week’s pay for every year of service up to 25 years, as well as a twoand-a-half week’s pay for every additional year of service.
SEE BUYOUT ON PAGE 4
First-year students greet college life with dynamic seminars BY DEVIN SIKORSKI CORRESPONDENT
With the immense pressure first-year students feel when star ting out at a large college, the University of fers a program that tries to ease those over whelming emotions. The Byrne Family First-Year Seminars allow first-year students entering the University to take off-the-topic classes formatted on a pass/fail basis. The courses offered through the seminar program are different from normal
INDEX PENDULUM Students share their opinions on how Gov. Chris Christie’s budget affects the University.
classes due to the laid-back atmosphere and small environment, said Director of First-Year Seminars Kathleen Hull, via email correspondence. “Since the size of the classes only allow a maximum of 20 students, the members of the class and the professor get to know each other,” she said. “Because there are no grades, both students and the faculty have the freedom to explore ideas without the pressure of a regular, graded course.” School of Arts and Sciences sophomore Keith Flyer said the seminar he took as a first-year student offered him an opportunity
he might not have received without the size and format of the class. “I [wound] up getting an internship through the seminar,” he said. “A visitor to the class was offering an internship at the end of class, so I went up and he said ‘Welcome aboard.’” The program, which started in the fall of 2007, differs each semester and provides unique and interesting topics for students to choose from, Hull said. “We offer almost 150 of these small seminars per year, and many of them are ver y unusual,” she said. “Each seminar is
created fresh, just for this program, by professors who are interested in working with first-year students and sharing their research passion with the class.” Hull said this year offered an array of different topics, including “Is it Possible to Build an Artificial Person?” and “Kitchen Chemistry and Food Physics: The Science Behind The Food You Eat.” “Students can take a course that piques their interest, whether it fits into their major or not,” she said.
SEE SEMINARS ON PAGE 4
Event links green issues, economy BY COLLEEN ROACHE CORRESPONDENT
Money doesn’t grow on trees, but global warming is one environmental issue that just may bring some green to several businesses’ pockets. OPINIONS Julia Friedman, a student at Florida leaves the Edward J. Bloustein School strawberry crops of Planning and Public Policy, to rot after wasting lectured about the economics of millions of gallons climate change last night in the of water and Philip Alampi Seminar Room in causing sinkholes. the Marine and Coastal Sciences Building on Cook campus. UNIVERSITY . . . . . . . 3 “The problem with all this is that there is a lack of informaPENDULUM . . . . . . . 7 tion,” Friedman said. “When you WORLD . . . . . . . . . . 8 eat something, there’s a label on it … but when you turn on the OPINIONS . . . . . . . 10 lights, you don’t know what exactly the carbon content is. You DIVERSIONS . . . . . . 14 don’t know what you’re putting into the environment.” CLASSIFIEDS . . . . . . 16 As greenhouse gases contribute to a number of environSPORTS . . . . . . BACK mental ills, such as rising sea levels and changes in agricultural ONLINE @ patterns, it is important to lower DAILYTARGUM.COM the level of these emissions, Friedman said.
“The idea with carbon emission reductions is that we want to do this in the most costeffective way,” she said. Still, it is neither cost-effective nor practical to send everyone who pollutes to prison, Friedman said. Instead, principles from economics can be employed to influence humans’ impact on the world around them. Friedman discussed high taxes on carbon emissions as a possible solution to the problem but said determining an adequate tax rate and measuring each firm’s emissions presents challenges to this option. Ultimately, a cap and trade system, in which the government places a limit on carbon dioxide emissions and requires companies to purchase permits that limit them to that amount, is the best route, she said. While similar plans have been used overseas and in some regions of the United States, there is no nationwide cap and trade policy. Other issues, like health care, are
dealt with at the environment’s expense, Friedman said. “[President Barack] Obama talked about it a lot, but it kind of gets put on the back burner,” she said. Friedman’s presentation was just one of several co-curricular lectures for students in Assistant Professor Lisa Rodenburg’s “Readings in Environmental Science” class, a weekly supplement to their residence in the Bunting-Cobb Residence Hall on the Douglass campus. The women learned much from Friedman’s presentation. Jia Guo, the teaching assistant for the course, said Friedman’s lessons tied into what the class has been studying well, as their last two lectures had been about global warming. “I think it’s quite new, even to me,” she said. “I think it’s interesting. I learned from it, too.” For students in the class, some concepts were confusing at times, but generally, the lecture was enlightening.
SEE ISSUES ON PAGE 4
SKYLA POJEDNIC
Julia Friedman, a University student, discusses the various economic effects of global warming issues yesterday in the Marine and Coastal Sciences Building on Cook campus.