THE DAILY TARGUM
Volume 142, Number 45
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
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 4, 2010
1 8 6 9
Today: Rain
GLAMOUR ON THE GROUNDS
High: 56 • Low: 41
Inside Beat teams up with fashion bloggers RU Fashionistas and the fashion designers behind Gypsy Warrior Vintage to take a journey back to the Golden Era of the Old Queens campus.
Voter turnout among youth remains low
Event sheds light on technology’s impact on civility BY RYAN FLOOD
BY DEVIN SIKORSKI
STAFF WRITER
ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
A crowded room of students, professors and academics converged in the Alexander Librar y on the College Avenue campus last night to discuss the effects rapidly changing technologies have on civility at “Uncivil Gadgets? Changing Technologies and Civil Behavior.” “We want to establish a dialogue discussing what civility is, what it means, in hopes to establish a community which focuses more on being kind to one another,” said Kathleen Hull, a cofounder of Project Civility. The panelists, all professors and experts in the fields of communication or technology, discussed how changes in technology are affecting civility in society today, touching on a wide range of examples from classroom scenarios to the realm of the video game world. Privacy is a challenge as society adapts to new technologies, said Nancy Kranich, a University librarian. Society does not want to go into secrecy; people want to be known, but often do not want to control how their information is seen and used, Kranich said.
SEE CIVILITY ON PAGE 6
SCOTT TSAI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Panelists discuss the impact of new technologies on civility at the Project Civility event last night in the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus.
EDISON BRUSH FIRE SMOKE STRETCHES ACROSS CITIES A brush fire that began yesterday afternoon behind the Raritan Center business park in Edison was the source of a plume of smoke that was visible from campus, and as far away as Newark, according to an ar ticle on nj.com.
Firefighters battled the blaze for hours in the vacant marshland, according to the article. Edison Mayor Antonia Ricigliano said the fire, which took place away from residential areas, was not a threat to anyone’s safety.
“No one is in danger,” she said. Although no people were hurt, the fire did destroy an abandoned warehouse in the area, according to the article. Edison police closed a nearby park as a precaution. — Colleen Roache
Many young people were seemingly absent at the polls for the Congressional Elections Tuesday, extending the theme of teenagers and college students showing disinterest in politics. Although the exact figures have not been released, Republican candidate Anna Little’s Campaign Chair Leigh-Ann Bellew said voter turnout in cer tain towns was as strong as they expected. “But it’s a little less in [some] places. In New Brunswick, there were some wards that had really heavy turnout,” she said. “But there was one of 15 [potential] voters at 3 o’clock [Tuesday] afternoon.” Director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics Ruth Mandel repeated the fact that the voter turnout figures are not in reach at this point but added that Bellew is not far off with her observation. “If her campaign is talking about students, my guess is that ultimately the voter turnout figures will show that young people were a very small part of the voting public in this election,” she said. It is difficult to bring young people to the polls, Mandel said. The obstacle is catalyzed further if it is an off-year election. “The impression we have and from what I’ve seen from early news coverage, [the people] who turned out were Independents, older, white and male,” she said. “That’s what the expectation was.” The reason many college students do not visit the polls on the Election Day is the myth that their vote will not count because it is an old tradition, which is completely unfounded, Mandel said. “There are so many close elections in recent years that ser ve as examples of how important an individual vote is and how few votes can make a difference to the way an election turns out,” she said. “People can realize that their vote can make a difference in the outcome.”
SEE TURNOUT ON PAGE 7
Halls offer sense of community for some BY NATALY CUEVAS, MARY DIDUCH AND NICOLE JOSEPH STAFF WRITERS
School of Arts and Sciences first-year student Raza Kazmi lives in the tight-knit community of Davidson C residence hall on Busch campus. “There’s a big sense of community here. Everyone hangs out here at night,” said Kazmi of the first-year only residence hall, where a common room connects two separate halls of single- and double-occupancy rooms. But it was this residence hall where former School of Arts and Sciences first-year student Dharun Ravi allegedly streamed a webcast of his roommate, Tyler Clementi, and his encounter with another male, without his knowledge. Soon after Ravi’s actions, Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge to his death.
It may not be easy for a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer student to feel as open in a residence hall, said Jenny Kurtz, acting director of the Center for Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities. She said the experience of LGBTQ students coming out to peers depends on each individual’s situation. “A ver y common theme at Rutgers, everywhere, is that students think to themselves, ‘OK, how’s my roommate going to feel about the fact that I’m bisexual or that I’m gay and do I tell them, do I not tell them,’” Kurtz said. She said two decades ago, all the information a student received about their roommate was typically a name and a photo. Now all students have to do is log on to Facebook, and all their information is revealed.
SEE STUDENTS ON PAGE 4
RAISING MONEY FOR MIRACLES
INDEX UNIVERSITY Students can enter a competition to name the café to be installed in Alexander Library.
OPINIONS San Francisco decides to ban the sale of toys with McDonald’s Happy Meals.
UNIVERSITY . . . . . . . 3 WORLD . . . . . . . . . . 9 OPINIONS . . . . . . . 10 DIVERSIONS . . . . . . 12 CLASSIFIEDS . . . . . . 14 NICHOLAS BRASOWSKI / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Fraternities and sororities compete yesterday during “Penny Wars,” where they tried to collect the most pennies in front of Brower Commons on the College Avenue campus as part of Derby Days, a week-long event to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network.
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