The Daily Targum 2010-11-30

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THE DAILY TARGUM Vo l u m e 1 4 2 , N u m b e r 5 9

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

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 30, 2010

S I N C E

Today: PM Rain

EMPIRE STATE OF MIND

High: 56 • Low: 50

The Rutgers wrestling team traveled to Albany, N.Y., last weekend and returned with a marquee victory over No. 16 Missouri and two other wins in the Northeast Duals.

Program links global students through video BY ANKITA PANDA STAFF WRITER

Although they may be thousands of miles apart, students and teachers across New Jersey can talk face-toface with peers from other countries using a new videoconferencing program. Judy Bornstein, senior technology specialist at the Center for Mathematics, Science and Computer Education (CMSCE) on Busch campus, initiated the program one year ago when she partnered up with the Peace Corps to pair teachers in New Jersey with volunteers stationed abroad. The number of teachers who showed interest in the program was so overwhelming that the CMSCE had to narrow down the list of participants, Bornstein said. “I wrote up a questionnaire that teachers filled out,” she said. “They had to indicate what type of equipment they had, what age group child they had, and they had to give me a paragraph saying how they would participate, what kinds of activities they were planning.” The Peace Corps then looked at time zones and infrastructure in choosing which schools would be able to engage in the program, Bornstein said. “I set up a phone [call with somebody at the Peace Corps] and we made matches based on age levels,” she said. “We started off with a small group of 10 or 12 volunteers who said they would be interested, and we picked time zones that were doable for the kids to talk to each other.” American teachers and Peace Corps volunteers connect with each other through a videoconferencing medium called Elluminate, Bornstein said. “Elluminate is a step above a Skype-type product because it has a whiteboard and the ability to have multiple people on it at the same time,” she said. “They can share PowerPoint presentations … and share pictures of each other, their homes and their families.” Brittany LeBlanc, a Peace Corps volunteer in Restauracion, Dominican Republic, described the

SEE GLOBAL ON PAGE 4

INDEX

RAMON DOMPOR / ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Troy Kaiser, a School of Arts and Sciences first-year student, donates blood at the Every Drop Counts blood drive yesterday in the Busch Campus Center while his friend Samantha Betruzzi, a School of Arts and Sciences first-year student, accompanies him.

Blood drive calls for FDA policy revision BY DEVIN SIKORSKI ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Although some University students came to donate blood yesterday at the second Every Drop Counts blood drive, many others just gave their signature. Run by the Rutgers University Student Assembly in the Multipurpose Room of the Busch Campus Center, the event was held in protest of a Food and Drug Administration regulation banning men who have sex with men from donating. RUSA President Yousef Saleh said it is also a good way to shed light on what he deemed an “antiquated” FDA rule. He encouraged students to donate

blood on behalf of someone affected by this policy. “Every time they get blood, they check it for banned substances or diseases and ask you many questions,” said Saleh, a School of Arts and Sciences senior. “It is just as likely to pass HIV to someone else from a straight person.” RUSA University Affairs Chair Kristen Clarke coordinated the blood drive and said students either donated blood or signed a petition to change the rule, which also asks students to notify their congressional representative. “It is a calling to the legislature to either sponsor or support legislation to reverse this ban or petition the FDA to get

UNIVERSITY

BY CHASE BRUSH CONTRIBUTING WRITER

OPINIONS The U.S. government is considering taking legal action against WikiLeaks.

UNIVERSITY . . . . . . . 3 PENDULUM . . . . . . . 7 OPINIONS . . . . . . . . 8 DIVERSIONS . . . . . . 10 CLASSIFIEDS . . . . . . 12

ONLINE @

DAILYTARGUM.COM

SEE FDA ON PAGE 6

Activists push for cleaner state coasts

SMOOTH SESSION

A University professor writes a book on a new musical art form known as the mash-up.

SPORTS . . . . . . BACK

rid of the ban,” said Clarke, a School of Arts and Sciences junior. The FDA does not allow men who have sex with other men (MSM) to donate blood because of the high risk of the donor having HIV or AIDS, according to its website. Since the regulation was put into effect during the 1980s, Clarke said the rule is outdated because we no longer live in a world uncertain about HIV or AIDS. “We have made so many advances and we know it is not just gay men that can contract HIV/AIDS. It is anyone who partakes in high risk behavior,” she said. “So

JEFFREY LAZARO / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Conducted by Ben Hankle, the Rutgers Jazz Ensemble Too performs in a free concert last night at the Nicholas Music Center on Douglass Campus.

Recent explosions in Edison and gas leaks that shut down Route 1 have prompted New Jersey residents and environmental organizations to urge the Middlesex County Board of Freeholders to pass a resolution opposing liquefied natural gas facilities off the New Jersey coast. To fuel their cause, members of environmental advocacy organizations like Food & Water Watch, Clean Ocean Action and other community activists voiced their concerns about the state’s energy sustainability at a recent board meeting. Among top environmental concerns are energy independence and sustainability, said Cindy Zipf, executive director of New Jersey’s Clean Ocean Action, a coalition of organizations that focus on protecting New Jersey’s coastal waters.

Community concerns centered on a new proposal to develop liquefied natural gas facilities off the coast of New Jersey, which would include a pipeline to transport the gas through various communities in Middlesex County. The new project, headed by the Canadian company Liberty Natural Gas, is one of three proposals to develop liquefied natural gas facilities off New Jersey’s coast and will be composed of offshore and onshore components, Zipf said. “Tankers will be used to transport the gas from foreign countries like Trinidad and Libya ... and then will be siphoned through a pipeline 36 inches in diameter which will run through some very important fish estuaries and into towns like Perth Amboy and Carteret,” she said. But New Jersey’s coast is not unaccustomed to these kinds of projects, Zipf said. Liberty Natural

SEE STATE ON PAGE 4


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