The Daily Targum 2010-12-08

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THE DAILY TARGUM Vo l u m e 1 4 2 , N u m b e r 6 5

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

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 8, 2010

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Today: Mostly sunny

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

High: 34 • Low: 22

The men’s basketball team held off non-conference foe Marist yesterday to improve to 5-0 this season in the friendly confines of the Louis Brown Athletic Center.

Organization links Jewish, Arabic students BY ANDREA GOYMA STAFF WRITER

culture to University residence halls, arranging them by campus within 10 minutes. Pharr said they recognized the appeal of Sporcle as universal because of the broad array of topics covered. It has become not only an educational tool but also an entertaining distraction to one’s day. School of Biological and Environmental Sciences first-year student Aakash Panchal used to play Sporcle during his free time. “Sporcle not only tests your general knowledge and broadens your learning horizons, but [it] also helped me learn over 300 Harr y Potter characters,” Panchal said.

A new student organization, Rutgers Shalom/Salaam, hopes to unify Jews and Arabs on campus through community ser vice, cultural exchange and mutual respect. Co-founder and co-President William Eastman said the organization, which star ted in September, intends to engage people using a nonconfrontational approach that shifts the focus away from politics. “We feel that our amiable actions speak louder than political words,” said Eastman, a School of Arts and Sciences junior. Bahaa Hashem, Eastman’s partner in leadership, said Shalom/Salaam ultimately hopes that students treat all people, regardless of their backgrounds, with an open mind. Eastman and Hashem, a Jewish-American and a Muslim-Egyptian respectively, both come from cultures that are normally hostile toward each other, said Hashem, a School of Arts and Sciences senior. Despite their backgrounds, the two have become great friends. “We have chosen love over hate and to learn instead of to refute. Our hope is that others can follow,” Hashem said. Like Hashem, Amjad Saeed, co-founder and treasurer, said the club wants to encourage people to learn about an individual’s character, rather than judge based on race, ethnic background or religion. “We believe that peaceful unity can be worked toward by first learning to recognize and embrace the similarities you share with others,” said Saeed, an Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy sophomore. The friendship between the organization’s founders, Eastman, Hashem, Saeed, School of Arts and Sciences junior Vianney Ausseil and Rutgers Business School sophomore Jane Vorkunova, ultimately inspired the club’s formation, Saeed said.

SEE TOP ON PAGE 4

SEE STUDENTS ON PAGE 4

KRISTINE CHOI

School of Environmental and Biological Sciences senior Sajith Herath uses Sporcle, a website with different trivia quizzes. The University placed in the top 50 schools with the most students using the site, according to statistics that are updated daily.

University ranks in top 50 on Sporcle BY ANASTASIA MILLICKER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

With finals approaching, many students are looking toward Sporcle — a website that offers fast-paced online trivia quizzes — as a means of distraction. The amount of students who play has grown enough to place the University among the top 50 schools that use the site, said Derek Pharr, Sporcle’s vice president of products. They rank the number of colleges that use their website at any given time. The statistics, which are updated every Tuesday morning, are generated based on a number of different factors that vary for each school, Pharr said.

“The rankings are computer-generated and based on a number of factors … including the number of visits per user, number of games played, number of page views and average time spent on the site,” he said. The University is not in this week’s top 25, but it consistently places in the top 50, and Pharr said the website’s staff would love to see it get higher. “In the summer of 2007, Sporcle was created as a tool to help memorize common things, such as presidents of the United States, capitals and overall a way to memorize data, and we have been building ever since,” said Matt Ramme, Sporcle’s creator. Sporcle challenges players to select from a wide variety of topics ranging from pop

Students win top prize for business program BY DEVIN SIKORSKI ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Three students in the University’s Center for Supply Chain Management proved victorious at a competition in Arizona over the weekend, beating out topranked programs to bring back the first award for the new program at the University. School of Arts and Sciences seniors Mikhail Naumov, Arnab Sengupta and Jaysai Ghayal received $2,000 in prize money after judges at the Institute for Supply Management 11th Annual Ser vices Conference deemed their presentation the best. But seeing as the center is relatively new, Ghayal said the real prize was being able to network with students in longer established programs from other schools. “It was the people at the conference and their willingness to help us out,” he said. “The business

cards that we got from people and the follow-ups that I’ve been doing are what I’ve been winning.” Although Sengupta holds a procurement job at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Plainsboro, N.J., he said the competition and conference proved helpful in advancing his knowledge and experience as an employee in the world of business. “I was able to interact and network with not only people in higher positions but with students from other schools,” Sengupta said. “Just to interact with them and find out how their program worked definitely broadened my horizons.” During the competition portion, the three students developed a solution for a business case study of ser vices procurement problems, Naumov said. After their presentation on the last day of the conference, Naumov and his team defeated SCM programs

SEE PRIZE ON PAGE 5

THE QUALITY OF GIVING

INDEX UNIVERSITY A University assistant professor finds ways to tackle potential viruses infiltrating computers.

OPINIONS Glenn Beck’s shocking opinions may make him the greatest political satirist of our time.

UNIVERSITY . . . . . . . 3 OPINIONS . . . . . . . . 8 DIVERSIONS . . . . . . 10 CLASSIFIEDS . . . . . . 12 RAMON DOMPOR / ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

School of Arts and Sciences junior Chris Larlee discusses the effects of donating 10 percent of one’s income to charity last night at Scott Hall on the College Avenue campus during an event organized by the University’s Giving What We Can. For the full story, see PAGE 5.

SPORTS . . . . . . BACK

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The Daily Targum 2010-12-08 by The Daily Targum - Issuu