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MONDAY MARCH 28, 2011
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Today: Sunny
GREAT ESCAPE
High: 45 • Low: 28
Sophomore reliever Rob Corsi pitched his way out of a jam yesterday to preserve the Knights’ lead against Louisville in the final game of the series.
U. Senate meets new vice president of public affairs
DANCE AND DINE
BY AMY ROWE ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
JEFFREY LAZARO / ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Dancers of Team Technique perform last night for students who attended “Dim Sum Night,” an event hosted by the Rutgers Cantonese Club at the Livingston Student Center. Proceeds from the evening will be donated to Action Against Hunger, an organization devoted to ending world hunger.
University President Richard L. McCormick introduced the new vice president for public af fairs to the University Senate at its meeting Friday in the Multipurpose Room at the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus. Pete McDonough Jr. ser ved as the director of communications during the Gov. Chris Christie-Todd Whitman administration and is a founding par tner of the Princeton Public Af fairs Group, McCormick said. McCormick said McDonough’s 30 years of experience in state and federal government will help him best represent the University among legislators. “We’re fortunate to have recruited him,” he said. McDonough, who succeeded Jeannine LaRue after her four years as vice president for public af fairs, said he hopes to secure funding from policymakers in representing the University. “I want to increase awareness of Rutgers University’s presence with policy makers to enhance the likelihood of a
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RUPA adds third act to Rutgersfest BY MARY DIDUCH EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
For University students questioning why this year’s Rutgersfest had only two performers when the Rutgers University Programming Association (RUPA) announced the line up last month, don’t worry — there is a third. RUPA added YelaWolf, a rapper from Alabama signed under Eminem’s Shady Records label, two weeks ago, said Jessica Bruno, RUPA vice president of
INDEX UNIVERSITY A student group holds a coffeehouse to raise funding and awareness of the global water crisis.
OPINIONS Rebecca Black is going to donate some of the proceeds from her song “Friday” to relief efforts in Japan.
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concerts and coffeehouses. Before the addition, only rapper Pitbull and electronic artist 3OH!3 were slated to perform. The decision to add a third act was never out of the question completely, said Bruno, a School of Arts and Sciences junior. The committee discovered YelaWolf and wanted to allocate more money to the concert to have him perform. “We were actually looking through the budget and at the fact that Rutgersfest needed a little more umph,” she said.
The committee also felt YelaWolf would appeal to both a different group of hip-hop lovers as well as the general University audience, Bruno said. “I think he added to the lineup we already had,” said Elise Powers, incoming RUPA vice president of concerts and coffeehouses. While some students may not know who YelaWolf is, part of RUPA’s goal with Rutgersfest is to showcase emerging artists, Bruno said.
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Programmers stay up late for first hackathon BY KRISTINE CHOI STAFF WRITER
College hackers from around the countr y flooded the Hill Center on Busch campus on Saturday for the University’s first annual HackRU hackathon. HackRU is a 24-hour programming event that invites programmers from all over to congregate, create applications and compete for prizes, said Sameen Jalal, event coordinator of HackRU. “It is the largest event of the year hosted by the Undergraduate Student Alliance of Computer Scientists (USACS),” said Jalal, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore. The winning team of the competition, comprised of computer science majors Paul Meskers, Welf Ludwig and Yifu Huang, presented a music hack application called “.Medley” where users can log in to create playlists and share them with different media platforms.
“It’s really exciting,” said Ludwig, a School of Arts and Sciences junior. “We never expected it. I don’t think any of us went in thinking we were going to win.” Meskers, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, agreed and enjoyed seeing their idea come to life. “We just kind of wanted to go in and see what we could make,” he said. “It was cool as we were seeing it actually start to take shape. And once it was something useable and we started to play with it, it was genuinely fun to use — and I want to use it.” HackRU’s sponsors, such as Google, Yahoo, StackOverflow and General Sentiment, held presentations of their application programming interfaces that would be available to the programmers when creating their applications. Participants had 24 hours to use the tools to create something that has not been created before, Jalal said. “The things we’re looking for in the contest are creativity, how unique
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Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services secretary, led a conference call to show how young adults can take advantage of the health care act.
National youth identify benefits of health care BY RYAN FLOOD STAFF WRITER
National youth groups discussed the benefits of the Affordable Care Act for young people during a conference call Friday with Health and Human Ser vices secretar y Kathleen Sebelius. Groups like Campus Progress, Student PIRG and Young Invincibles all participated in the conference, which included student speakers from the Young Invincibles and Student PIRG. “Americans in their 20s are almost twice as likely to go without health insurance as older adults,” Sebelius said. “One of the
groups that benefits most from the law is young Americans.” Sebelius said the Af fordable Care Act allows young people to pursue career paths without worr ying about getting a job that provides health insurance. “Under the af fordable health care act, ever y young adult can stay on their parents’ plan until 26 as long as their insurance qualifies,” she said. Emily Schlicting, a senior at the University of Nebraska who is diagnosed with Gaucher’s disease, believes the act helps with her medical insurance.
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