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APRIL 19, 2011
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Today: Partly Cloudy
HOME AWAY FROM HOME
High: 58 • Low: 48
Amy Zhang will put her undefeated home record to the test on Senior Day tomorrow at the Atlantic Club, where the Scarlet Knights played their home matches this year.
Family, friends start scholarship to honor student
TUESDAY
Solar canopies to be installed on Livingston
BY ARIEL NAGI BY ANASTASIA MILLICKER
CORRESPONDENT
ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
In honor of a community activist and former student, the University, friends and family of Pamela Schmidt — a University student murdered last month — are teaming up to form a scholarship in her honor. Schmidt was allegedly murdered on March 13 by her boyfriend William Parisio, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, in his Cranford, N.J., home. Parisio is awaiting trial. “Pamela touched the lives of hundreds of people, always seeking ways to bring together family and friends and to assist others in need,” said David Finegold, dean of the School of Management and Labor Relations. “To recognize and remember Pamela’s legacy, the School of Management and Labor Relations is proud to establish the Pamela Schmidt Award for Outstanding Service to the Community.” PAMELA The scholarship will be SCHMIDT awarded to a School of Management and Labor Relations student transitioning from an undergraduate program at the University to a graduate program, said Mark Magyar, one of Schmidt’s former professors. The student must demonstrate academic excellence and strong community leadership skills both inside and outside the University community. Schmidt, who was a School of Management and Labor Relations senior, was also an undergraduate transitioning into a master’s degree program at the University. She double majored in psychology and labor studies, with a minor in human resources management. The award is intended to reflect Schmidt’s community involvement and her academic excellence, said Magyar, a part-time lecturer at the University. “She was not only a strong academic student but also somebody who was caring and involved in the
SEE STUDENT ON PAGE 4
JEFFREY LAZARO / ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The University plans to add more to the total of solar panels on Livingston campus, where one farm already exists across from the Livingston Recreation Center.
SEE CANOPIES ON PAGE 4
Sensors aim to monitor smoker activity BY TABISH TALIB CORRESPONDENT
The University’s Center for Autonomic Computing developed a wireless sensor project that detects human motion and can further medical research. The sensors, which are small devices that attach to the body, contain accelerometers and gyroscopes that measure movement and can tell what action a person is doing, said Alex Weiner, a School of Engineering junior who is fine-tuning the algorithm of the sensors. Dario Pompili, assistant professor in the Depar tment of Electrical and
CONGRESSMEN TAKE PART IN TENT STATE UNIVERSITY OPENING Rep. Frank Pallone, D-6, cut the official ribbon that opened Tent State University yesterday at a kick-off ceremony where Rep. Rush Holt, D-12, spoke in support of the movement. Holt opened his speech with a history lesson, specifically focusing on the GI Bill, which passed in 1944 despite the economic crisis of the time. “What the countr y did in 1944 instead of saying ‘Oh my god, we’re in debt. We just can’t do anything’ [is] they passed the GI Bill. [They said,] ‘We’re going to send more than a million soldiers to college. When they come back, we’re going to pay their tuition and pay them to attend,’” he said. He said most of the bill’s beneficiaries were students who came from families who never set foot on a college campus, he said. “The economic benefits of the GI Bill … continued for years. So now they’re saying, ‘We’ve got a deficit and we’re badly in debt. I guess we’re just going to have to cut the tuition, cut the tuition
The Board of Governors approved a $40.8 million operation to install 32 acres of solar canopies on Livingston campus within the upcoming months, making it one of the largest installations of its nature in the country. The University will install more than 40,000 high-ef ficiency solar panel canopy structures over two parking areas on Livingston campus, said Joseph Witkowski, director of Utilities Operations. The project will be constructed at the Yellow and Green parking areas near the Rutgers Athletic Center and at Lot 105, and will not only conver t sunlight into electricity but also provide cars shelter from rain and snow, he said. “The canopies will generate eight megawatts of power,” he said. “It will generate 11 percent of the electrical demand needed for Livingston campus
assistance for students at Rutgers and all over the country,’” Holt said. Holt mentioned how the federal budget cuts that Congress passed last week could possibly affect Pell Grants. “[The potential new budget] would cut [the grant] down to about 12 percent of the costs of attending Rutgers. Well, if you have to make up the other … 88 percent with loans or work, you can’t do it. I would imagine some of you just can’t,” he said. Holt encouraged students to take action against the cuts and make their voices heard. “Yell and scream. Let people know that you [are a] political force … find those 30,000 Rutgers students … who will lose their Pell Grants entirely,” Holt said. Tent State University, which started in 2003, focuses on policies that pose a threat to higher education while maintaining an emphasis on democracy beginning at the student level with lectures and events throughout the week. — Anastasia Millicker
Computer Engineering, said the project could help behavioral scientist Theodore Walls from the University of Rhode Island with his research into smoking habits. Pompili said smokers may not give an accurate self-repor t on their smoking habits, so doctors can rely on the sensors to give a better repor t, which can ultimately result in better care for the patient. “There is a lot of bias in self-reporting. Maybe the smoker smokes more because of the stress of the self-reporting, or he reports a lower amount,” he said. A smoker would need two wireless sensors — one on the wrist and the other on
the shoulder — for a computer to understand when and for how long they were smoking, Pompili said. “The accelerometer captures motion on all three axes, and the gyroscope measures angular velocity,” he said. The sensor project is an extension of former graduate student John Paul Varkey’s research in monitoring smoker’s actions, Weiner said. The sensor can detect the difference between an arm in the resting position and one raised to the mouth while smoking. The computer is programmed with a supervised learning algorithm, in which
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MOVIE MAGIC
INDEX UNIVERSITY A new honor society inducts 315 students who demonstrate leadership qualities.
OPINIONS RUPA is being unfairly blamed for the chaos that followed Rutgersfest.
UNIVERSITY . . . . . . . 3 METRO . . . . . . . . . 6 STATE . . . . . . . . . . 9 OPINIONS . . . . . . . 10 DIVERSIONS . . . . . . 12 CLASSIFIEDS . . . . . . 14 JEFFREY LAZARO / ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Filmmaker Yaba Badoe speaks to the crowd about her film “The Witches of Gambaga,” which screened last night in the Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building on Douglass campus.
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