Issue 10 of The Current

VIEWPOINTS

ENTERTAINMENT

EC accommodates gender-neutral housing; all you have to do is ask.

Students make road trip to local wolf sanctuary in Naples.

HEALTH & FITNESS

SPORTS

Check out page 19 for non-dairy alternatives.

Senior Darrien Mack shines in all-star game.

Vol. 4, Issue 10 April 5, 2013

photo illustration by Alex Zielinski

What debt looks like: students struggle with loans

By Aaron Levy News Editor Pursuing higher education is an investment. Just like buying stocks or purchasing collectible sports memorabilia, one makes short-term sacrifices for a greater payoff years later.

Why, then, do many students not actually end up making short but rather long-term sacrifices, and how, for that matter, do so

many students find a way to afford a postsecondary education? More often than not, the answer is a student loan.

The cost of attending Eckerd for the 20122013 academic year including tuition, housing, meal plan, activity fee, etc comes to just under $46,000. The problem most students run into when paying for college is not knowing which loans to take out. All too often, when grants aren’t big enough and one’s pockets aren’t deep enough, students look to

borrow money and repay it after graduating.

Dean John Sullivan is the dean of admissions and financial aid here at Eckerd. Both he and Dr. Patricia Watkins, director of financial aid, work with prospective and returning students to advise them on the best possible payment plans.

“This is your financial aid, this is what it’s going to cost, and this is what you will owe,” Watkins said of the financial planning guides Eckerd has been providing for the families

of admitted students for about the last ten years. “We felt that would be a good way for families to plan and make sure they can make financial arrangements for that difference.”

At Eckerd, around 58 percent of students take out loans to help pay for their education.

Despite the guidance Eckerd offers, many students remain in the dark when it comes to understanding the process. “I can honestly admit, before I even started the entire loan process, I wasn’t exactly page aware6of the differSee LOANS,

Tuition rise may push EC into the $50,000

By Elizabeth Tomaselli Editor-in-Chief If things continue down the current financial path, Eckerd might find itself in a new financial bracket in 2014. The $50,000 bracket.

Next year, tuition will increase by four percent and room and board by three percent for 2014, an average overall 3.8 percent increase.

With this increase, President Donald Eastman notes the school was able to increase financial aid for freshmen by more than 6 percent.

“The reason you do that [increases] is so that you’ve got some flexibility in dealing with students at different kinds of income levels,” Eastman said.

Part of the need for price increases comes from having the opportunity to remain flexible in helping students with scholarships and financial aid packages.

If expenses keep rising and next Please Recycle

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NEWS 2-8

year’s tuition increases by 4 percent, currently about double the rate of inflation, Eckerd’s tuition will tip past the $50,000 a year mark.

“Out of that money alone, just tuition, room and board, we’re projecting $1.4 million in additional income for next year than we had this year,” Eastman said. But it’s not just the growing needs for financial aid and scholarships that raise the demand for this income; it’s yearly operational costs.

“The conversation that’s being had on lots of campuses is ‘what can you do to control the costs,’” said Dean of Admissions John Sullivan.

“There are just so many things out of our control.”

Though Eastman says the college doesn’t anticipate an increase this year, the college’s electric bill has gone up as much as $300,000 a See TUITION, page 5

VIEWPOINTS 9-12

photo by Carver Lee The entrance of the historical downtown YMCA.

Downtown YMCA gets restored

By Carver Elliott Lee Graphic Design Editor

The YMCA building at 116 5th Street South was once described as one of the main nerve centers of community life in St. Petersburg.

Now, 77 years later, Historic YMCA Inc. hopes the community will assist their efforts purchasing and restoring the historic building to its

original glory.

Commissioned in 1925 and opened in 1927, the now Historic YMCA Building is a 51,000+ square foot landmark that served as the YMCA campus for the city of St. Petersburg for 74 years, until 2000.

A 1935 article in the St. Petersburg Times described the structure as not just a big building on Fifth Street, but as “an old friend with a

heart and soul.”

This heart and soul are not only represented in the buildings function, but rooted in its very creation.

In 1925 the building was built with $550,000 ($5.3 million on 2013 dollars) that came directly from the community, making it still one of the largest community-funded projects in St. Petersburg history. Inside Seethe YMCA, pageMediterra7 and out, buildings

ENTERTAINMENT 13-16 THE QUICKIE 17-18 HEALTH & FITNESS 19-20 SPORTS 21-24

The Current is a free, biweekly student newspaper produced at Eckerd College. Opinions expressed in this publication are those of the writers.

2 News

the current

April 5, 2013

LET’S BE BRIEF Global

North Korea declares “state of war” cnn.com

Following the country’s other verbal attacks and threats toward the United States and South Korea, North Korea has recently released a report that states North Korea is in a “state of war” with South Korea. The report came from Korean Central News Agency and also includes a threat toward the United States, claiming that the state will “dissolve” U.S. mainland. Technically, North Korea and South Korea still remain at war since the conflict in 1950 which ended in an armistice. South Korea has claimed that it is not a new threat. A day before the report was released, the same news agency reported that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has already approved of a plan to prepare rockets for U.S. targets. The U.S. and South Korea are monitoring the movements North Korea’s rockets.

March proves deadly month for Syria AP

Syria has faced its bloodiest month yet in the two-year-old conflict between the Syrian government and rebel groups. In March, more than 6,000 deaths were recorded from both signs according to a leading rebel group April 1. However, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights has stated that it is likely much more than the 6,000. According to the Observatory, both sides have a tendency to under-report their death tolls. While the activist group that originally stated the number blames the high death toll to the increase of heavy shelling and more violent clashes, the increase in casualties also reflects the spread of hostilities in the civil war.

Amanda Knox case heads back to court nytimes.com

A new trial has been ordered by Italy’s highest court for Amanda Knox. In 2007, Knox had originally been put on trial for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher while studying abroad in Italy. The ruling by the Court of Cassation for the acquittal to be overturned means that Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito will be reheard in Florence later this year or earlier next year. The two were convicted in 2009, but had been acquitted by an appeal jury 18 months ago. They had been sentenced to 25 years in prison. The acquittal was overturned thanks to the prosecutors and lawyers of Krecher’s family who challenged the ruling.

New Argentinian pope named

AP Pope Francis has been named the successor to Pope Benedict XVI after only two days of deliberation from the Cardinals. Already considered different from his predecessors due to his origins in Argentina, Pope Francis has started to turn heads with some of his actions. Soon after being elected, Pope Francis decided to continue with his simple style.

He has focused on the poor and have even spent time holding mass in delinquent centers. His actions on Holy Thursday raised many more eyebrows when he washed the feet of two women, one a Serbian Muslim and the other an Italian Catholic. This is normally reserved for men only. Pope Francis’s actions have been greeted with mixed responses.

Local Shooter caught in Citrus County baynews9.com

Deseray Lynn Bowles, 24, was killed in a shooting in Floral City. Police are searching for 29-year-old Gregory Holub in connection with the shooting. Local residents were deeply disturbed by the violence, which occurred unexpectedly in a normally quiet neighborhood.

One such individual, Adolf Ruta, expressed his shock at the incident. “Big cities and so forth you are kind of used to hearing about it but here is a bit different,” Ruta said. Authorities describe Holub as a 6 ft, 180-lb caucasian man. Holub was apprehended and placed under arrest in Ocala April 1.

Manatee population decimated by red tide tampabay.com

About 200 manatees have been killed by a red tide algae bloom that started last fall in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists and manatee protection groups say that these deaths, combined with about 80 more deaths on the Atlantic Coast, amount to about 10 percent of the Florida manatee population. Although the bloom has recently ended, the manatee population will continue to feel its effects. According to Kevin Baxter of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, “Once the bloom has disappeared we typically see manatee deaths from Red Tide continue for a couple of months.”

The total number of deaths this year, 426, might break the record 766 set in 2010.

National

Gay rights head to Supreme Court

nbcnews.com Protesters lined the streets of D.C. as the Supreme Court sat through two days of testimonies dealing with Prop 8 and DOMA. The Court listened to two cases about marriage. Hollingsworth v. Perry questions whether state laws defining marriage as between one man and one woman can be defies the 14th Amendment, directly challenging the California’s Prop 8. United States v. Windsor asks if Defense Against Marriage Act, which federally defines marriage as one man and one woman, is unconstitutional. DOMA originally passed back in 1996 and was signed by President Bill Clinton.

The court has yet to make an official decision on either case although at least four of the Justices suggested that DOMA discriminates against gay marriage by blocking federal government.

Texas DA killed in home

AP In Kaufman, Texas, residents were struck by the murder of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife. Saturday, March 30, they were found shot to death in their home. This murder comes a few months after the murder of Assitant District Attorney Mark Hasse who was shot in a parking lot near the courthouse Jan. 31. Since the attack on Hassee, McLelland had openly spoken about constantly being armed and extra careful to protect himself. He had also accepted 24-hour security for him and his family for a month after the attack.

As of Sunday, Sheriff David Byrnes had not given details about how the murder was committed. FBI and Texas Rangers have also joined in the investigation of the McLelland murders.

Dentist exposes 7,000 to HIV

abcnews.go.com Dr. Wayne Harrington, an oral surgeon in Oklahoma, may have exposed 7,000 his patients to HIV, hepatitis C and hepatitis B. The State Dental Board has now issued free exams to all of the patients. The accusation came to light after one of his patients was found positive for HIV and hepatitis C without having had any other known risk factors.

After the accusation, a surprise inspection from Oklahoma’s Board of Dentistry many health violations including the use of used needles, rusty instruments on infected patients, pouring bleach on wounds, expired drugs and unlicensed dental assistants in charge of administering medication. Harrington is being investigated by the state bureau of narcotics and the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency. He has already surrendered his dental license after having practiced for more than 30 years and may face criminal charges.

95 car pile-up kills three on Virginia-NC line

AP On an interstate near the Virgina-North Carolina line, 17 separate crashes resulted in a 95car pile up. The crashes killed three and injured 25 more. The crashes occured within a mile span near Fancy Gap Mountain and at about 1:15 p.m. March 31.Heavy fog is considered to be a factor in the pile-up and that drivers may have been going too fast. The center of the wreck is believed to be made up of eight of the vehicles. Some of these vehicles even caught on fire.

The wreck caused traffic along Interstate 77 to be backed up for eight miles in the southbound lanes. Authorities closed the northbound lanes for emergency vehicles could have access to the wreck. Those stranded who were taken to nearby shelters and hotels by school buses.

Campus Campus grumble allows for student feedback A new anonymous feedback and complaint service called Campus Grumble allows student feedback to anything on Eckerd’s campus. Anonymous users can post a “grumble” to a main page with an accompanying icon referring to a dining, residential, parking or otherwise categorized complaint. Each “grumble” contains a “proposed solution” and “response” section so the progress of each complaint can be tracked. Students can also comment below each grumble to share their thoughts on each issue and vote on specific topics to support and bring attention to them. The forum is accessible at eckerd.campusgrumble.com.

Bon Appetit offers online menus

eckerd.edu

In response to student requests, Bon Appetit has reminded students of it’s online menu.

This menu lists the menus for all three of the company’s locations on campus. These menus are constantly being updated with what will be available every week at Cafe Bon Appetit, Triton’s Pub, and the CEC Cafe. An email was sent out by Bon Appetit manager Kathy Mills to advertise this useful way for students to decide what they want to eat. The email also included the hours of each location on campus for students to plan where and when they’ll eat.

Local downtown business under FBI investigation tampabay.com

FBI agents raided the headquarters of Universal Healthcare in downtown St. Petersburg March 28. The HMO insurance company’s former top executive Dr. Akshay Desai is under suspicion for fraud and embezzlement. Desai, who founded United Healthcare in 2005, is accused of misappropriating company funds in several instances. In one of the company’s leaner years, Desai is reported to have earned nearly $2.5 million in bonuses. Many are concerned about the economic impact that the collapse of the insurance company, which employed hundreds of people and had its $9 million headquarters on Central Avenue, will have on the local economy.

Oldest living American dies at age 113 in Clearwater

tampabay.com Elsie Thompson, who has been America’s oldest citizen since January, died March 21 at her condo in Clearwater. Originally from Beaver Falls, Penn., Thompson would have celebrated her 114th birthday April 29. At the time of her death, she also held the record for fourth oldest living person in the world. According to accounts, she was known to take walks, get manicures, sing, ballroom dance and play the piano. She was said to avoid meats other than salmon and chicken. The title now belongs to Jeralean Talley — also 113 — who also holds the record for oldest living black person in the world.

EC aims for “scalable” campaigns Elizabeth Tomaselli

It’s not every year a college can raise $82.7 million for a capital campaign — a month early. The James Center for Molecular and Life Sciences was an impressive fete, a capital campaign that raised $2.7 million more than the intended goal and earlier than deadline.

According to President Donald Eastman, it will be another five to 10 years before Eckerd sees that kind of large capital campaign again. In the meantime, the college intends to focus on what Eastman calls “scalable campaigns.” While it’s still early, and quite soon after the last campaign, these scalable campaigns would most likely be more along the lines of program improvements, as opposed to a larger campaign which might involve buildings or growing the endowment. “It would be travel money or helping put together some kind of an academic program, or support an academic program one way or another,” Eastman said.

As for specifics, Eastman says improvement suggestions might come out of conversations with donors or recent conversations with the collegial chairs.

Visit us online at www.theonlinecurrent.com

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April 5, 2013

News 3

News Students reflect on experiences with cancer

By Hailey Escobar Asst. News Editor It’s the disease that keeps on taking. Cancer affects all of us, whether we are patients or those who care for family and friends who have been diagnosed with the disease. It’s difficult to meet someone whose life hasn’t been touched by cancer in one way or another. Eckerd is no exception.

According to a 2013 report from the American Cancer Society, there are approximately 13.7 million people alive that have had cancer as of January 1, 2012. In 2013, it’s expected that 1,660,290 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S., and 580,350 Americans will die from it.

When Eckerd’s Chelsea Kuhs was in the fourth grade, she hit her head while playing on the monkey bars. Her dad took her to the hospital just to make sure everything was okay. They didn’t expect to see a tumor on her right frontal lobe on the CAT-Scan. After a ninehour, risky surgery to remove most of the tumor, a seizure that temporarily took away her ability to walk and years of check-ups, Kuhs is now 11 years in remission and a junior at Eckerd College, helping organize teams for this year’s EC Relay for Life. “I really think that it really makes you think that life is pretty short and you never know what’s going to happen,” she said.

Behind those who are diagnosed are the caretakers — family members and friends who work to keep the patients’ hopes up. Some keep memories alive if their family member or friend passed away and some students even understand just how difficult it can be to hold the hands of their loved one at their bedside.

Senior Samantha Hagar lost her father, Brad Hagar, in 2010 to bladder cancer. He had been diagnosed on his 61st birthday, March 19, and passed away June 26, just two weeks before his son,

courtesy of Chelsea Kuhs Local cancer survivors and Dean Annarelli, left, participated in the 2012 Rely for Life.

had on people was tremendous.”

Then there’s Sophomore Amanda Whelden, who lost her mother in 2009 after a long battle with breast cancer, along with fighting a heart condition and HIV. While Whelden’s mother had a difficult battle; with surgery to hopefully remove the tumor, to the relapse and growth of the cancer, she also remembered that her mother didn’t let the disease stop her. She continued to live life to the fullest, a lesson that Whelden will continue to hold onto. Her experience has lead to her decision to study alternative medicine.

At Eckerd, there is a place for students and faculty alike whose lives have been affected by cancer.

EC Colleges Against Cancer is a club that promotes cancer awareness around campus and plans all year for the annual Relay for Life in the spring, which raises money for cancer research and awareness programs. In addition to fundraising, the event also honors those who are survivors of cancer, battling cancer or who have passed. This year’s relay is at 5 p.m. April 12, and will be held once again on the soccer field. This year’s theme will be Hopestock.

Steering the helm of the organiza-

tion is Haviland Kebler, whose own past experience inspired her participation with Relay and beyond. “I was inspired to participate in Relay For Life by my friend who is a cancer survivor. He has inspired me not only to Relay for the first time, but has also inspired my career plans.

I plan to attend medical school to become a pediatric oncologist.”

We hear stories about cancer every day from friends, family members and even the media. However, when it’s not directly affecting us, we can think that it could never happen to us.

There are easy ways to help prevent cancer: eat right, don’t smoke, exercise, wear sunscreen and sunglasses and get tested regularly.

Millions of dollars are given every year to fund various research organizations in hopes of finding a cure. Some cancers have even gotten easier to treat and have high survival rates. Hopefully, with more people promoting hope, health, research and strength, treatment will continue to easier. Most importantly, like what Reuben learned from his experience, “Strength comes from within. It’s amazing how life can keep moving forward.”

SCSB clarifies process

conduct officer, a conduct hearing with at least one Dean and one conduct officer and a Conduct Review Committee which is comprised of a Dean, a faculty member, two staff members and one member of the SCSB. Depending on the seriousness of the incident, students will be sent to one of these forums.

When an incident is assigned to the SCSB, two members meet and read through the cases assigned to their forum. This process is called critical reading. After reading each case, the appropriate charges for each alleged violation are assigned to each student along with the date and time of their meeting on Sunday.

Late Tuesday or Wednesday morning, the Clerk of Notice reviews all information from the Critical Reading and emails the notice letter to each charged student. All letters are sent through email. No notification is placed in the student mailboxes since SCSB and the Office of Community Standards is now paperless.

On Friday, another SCSB member checks to see which students have read their SCSB notification email. If a student has not opened the email, that member re-sends the email to them in hopes that they will see it prior to the meeting. Students have until 12:00 p.m.

Friday to notify the SCSB about rescheduling their meeting or accepting the chagres. Students who accept responsibility for all charges do not have to attend their Sunday

meeting. (More information regarding conduct processes can be found on pages 55-61 of the EC-Book).

The Sunday SCSB meetings begin at 10 a.m. when students are called in individually or in groups, depending on the situation. Students are asked a series of questions and are able to tell their side of the incident to the SCSB. Following the discussion with the student, the Board members deliberate and vote on whether they believe the student is responsible, not responsible or if there is no finding (not enough information to determine responsibility).

The SCSB then assigns the appropriate sanctions for each violation.

All fines, assessments, housing probation, and disciplinary probation come from a standard set of rules sanctioned by the deans. On Mondays, the Clerk of Sanctions sends emails that notify students of all findings and sanctions assigned to their case. Then, the cycle repeats.

It is important for students to know how the conduct process works so they know what to expect if they are ever called in front of SCSB or a different forum. It is a complicated process which myself, the deans, and other faculty members work hard to maintain each week.

All policy violations can be found in the EC Book. If you have any further questions, feel free to stop by the SCSB office in Brown Hall or email us at SCSB@eckerd.edu.

I have been on the Student Community Standards Board (SCSB) since my sophomore year at Eckerd. In my senior year, I am now the director of SCSB. I do not think most students understand the conduct process at Eckerd College because they do not care how it works until they become a part of it.

As the director of the Student Community Standards Board, I have been able to see the inner workings of the conduct system and have immense respect for the hard work the deans, faculty members and students do to keep our Eckerd Community the best that it can be. Many students email me or come to Sunday meetings not knowing what to expect, so I hope this article will shed some light on how the conduct process works.

The conduct process really begins with Resident Advisors or Campus Safety. One Assistant Resident Coordinator (ARC) is on call each week. Under them, two Resident Advisors (RAs) are on call Monday through Thursday, and four RAs are on call Friday through Sunday.

On weekends, RAs go on rounds twice throughout the night; at 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. Starting this year,

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Digital battlefield

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Holocaust memories

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St. Pete YMCA

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By Rhemy Brezin ECOS President

Hagar’s half-brother, was born.

Hagar explained that when her father found out about the tumor, due to the cancer’s high survival rate, they didn’t think much of it.

However, they later found he had a more aggressive strand of the cancer than expected. Hagar attended every one of her father’s surgeries.

“It’s so easy sometimes to dig yourself a hole and fill it up with denial, and that’s never the answer,” Hagar said when asked what she would tell others who are going through what she did. “It’s important to be strong, but also be reasonable. Really, the only thing you can do is be by their side as often as you can and never take anything for granted, especially your family.”

Junior Jonathan Rueben has also experienced a loss due to cancer.

Rueben lost his mother Denise in 2008, when he was only 17. She had been battling cancer since he was in seventh grade. She had gone through a period of remission, but then was re-diagnosed with a rare breast cancer, which she eventually lost her battle to. When asked about what he remembers most about his mother, he said, “I will remember her smile, sense of humor and optimism. The impact that she

By Justine Black Student Community Standards Board Director

INSIDE NEWS

Campus Safety officers have accompanied the RAs on their rounds.

If the RAs or Campus Safety officers see something that is a violation of any Eckerd College policy, they take the students’ names and write incident reports.

Campus Safety officers and RAs then submit all their incident reports to the Office of Community Standards the following Monday.

On Tuesdays, the Community Standards Incident Review Committee (CSIRC) meets to discuss all incident reports written from the previous week.

CSIRC is comprised of the five Associate/Assistant Deans of Students, the Coordinator for Community Standards, the Director of the Student Community Standards Board, the Director of Campus Safety, the Associate Director for Residence Life and the Coordinator for Outreach Services.

After reviewing all reports, CSIRC determines into which forum each report will be heard.

Some may be assigned for further investigation, or referred to another office on-campus.

For those cases involving student conduct there are four separate forums: the Student Community Standards Board (SCSB) which is an entirely student-run board, a conduct conference with a Dean or

Visit us online at www.theonlinecurrent.com

I gave the State of ECOS Address March 27. I’d like to reiterate a few of the main points here for students who were unable to make the event.

Executive Council started off the year with multicolored and glitter covered office walls, thus we spent the beginning of our time together learning how to remove paint from walls and glitter from carpet.

Everything after that has been one learning experience after another. Eliza Van Dissel, our executive vice-president, has worked diligently to recruit and build a young and active Senate. In turn those senators have striven to be good and fair representatives of their complexes and provide financial support for complex events and improvement projects. In addition, Eliza has spearheaded the Re-Rev project for the Fitness Center which recycles energy from the ellipticals to the power grid. We look forward to that being installed soon.

Vice-President of Academic Affairs Erin Stringer, has focused on providing diverse CPS speakers and gluten-free food and drink options at Pitchers with Professors.

Vice-President of Financial Affairs Brady O’Donnell, has been incredible at processing student reimbursements and, along with the Financial Affairs Committee, ICV requests for clubs and students.

Langdon Evans, chief of staff, has spent many a long hour contracting and acquiring the Student Discount Cards which are valid until December 2013. Greg Johnson, Parliamentarian, has published a website that covers the club chartering process.

But there are many other areas of ECOS that we are proud to say have been incredibly successful as well this year: The Current has been named Best Small College Newspaper in the Southeast and is continuing on to the national competition.

EC Triathlon has qualified for Nationals in Tucson, Ariz. and will be competing in May. EC Pride has planned a week of LGBT Awareness events that will culminate with the Drag Show on April 19.

This year our slogan has been, “We aim to please.” I couldn’t be more proud of Executive Council and all aspects of ECOS this year and I am looking forward to that success growing with the 2013-2014 Executive Council.

Contact Rhemy Brezin at ecospres@eckerd.edu

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the current

Spring Break 2013 April 5, 2013

Students bring back photos of their spring break trips from all over the globe

“I went on an EC service trip where I made a new friend at the rehabilitation center at the Nicaraqua Zoo and named him Bubbers. I fed him a piece of mango while he hung onto the cage.” Mike Geibel.

“I participated in the Spring Break trip to the Bimini Biological Field Station in the Bahamas. This photo was taken on our last day “Instead of going somewhere warm and tropical I headed straight when we went out baiting for Great Hammerheads. This was by far north. Instead of having drinks with little umbrellas, I had hot coco my favorite part of the trip. I highly recommend this trip to anybody with little marshmallows and instead of getting sand in my sneakers interested in sharks and a great adrenaline rush.” Cam Raguse.

I got snow in my boots. After three years of living in Florida, I must admit the experience was amazing. After a snow storm hit, we headed out to the local hill to go sledding. For almost an entire afternoon we built ramps and tracks in the fresh snow from the storm. I have to admit that even after three years in Florida I still believe that snow trumps sand any day. Yet I might be bias because of the major air I caught off the snow ramps I built.” Kat Oglesby.

“For Spring Break, I went on a service trip to the Arutam community in Ecuador with a group of 14 spectacular individuals. During our week there, we hiked through the Amazon jungle, built a bridge for the community, learned about the culture of the indigenous Shuar tribe and more. This amazing experience took us to some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, and in this picture we were watching the sunset over the Andes and the Tungurahua volcano.” Sophia Faiella.

“I spent my spring break with my dad in Doha, Qatar (where he lives), Dubai and Abu Dhabi. This photo was taken at the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. All women were required to have their arms, legs and heads covered during the tour, so we were handed burkas in a ladies dressing room upon entering.” Liz Tomaselli.

“The group that did service in the Dominican Republic had an amazing time learning both Dominican and Haitian cultures, exploring waterfalls, teaching English and starting a garden for the “I went on a trip to Quebec City, Canada. I loved going against local neighborhood. Here, the group is standing around a nearly tradition and playing in the snow. This street was covered in a few feet completed composting outhouse we helped builld that will serve by the time we left. This street is filled with restaurants, like my favorite, many in the neighborhood.” Sarah Kollar.

Le Lapin Saute. Their specialty is rabbit. Delicious,” Jeralyn Darling.

“Senior Laura Lea and I are holding a little Shuar girl “I went on the trip to Ecuador and stayed with the Shuar people.

“I went to Puerto Rico for a week. In that time I visited El named Nunqui after working a long day constructing a This is a picture of Chris Higgins after making his second kill (the day Yunque rainforest, Presented Marine Science research at the GSA SE bridge in a small Shaur community deep in the Amazon Conference, went to several beaches, explored beach caves, roamed the before the tribe asked him to kill a rooster). They prepared the wild jungle of Ecuador.” Henry Ashworth. streets of San Juan and much more. Here is a little taste.” Chris Moore. armadillo for a meal later that day. It tastes like steak.” Alycia Ayrea.

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drunk on

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-Prof. Fait Muedini have been affected by the legislation reacted with heightened concern.

As this controversial definition covered several U.S. states in their entirety, eyes have turned to state governors to see how they protect the rights of their respective citizens. Muedini likens this case to security legislation in Arizona that raises concerns over racial profiling.

He confirms that state governments do have the authority to enforce policies to ensure these legislations do not threaten civil liberties, but cautions that “it remains to be seen how [policy] will develop” as the present situation is still quite new.

To the relief of many activists nationwide, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did overrule the Department of Homeland Security decision March 8. Their stipulation states that an electronic border search requires at the very least “reasonable suspicion.”

Many have criticized this overruling as far too ambiguous and at odds with the mandate by the Fourth Amendment that searches have warrants. At the same time, dissenters such as Judge Milan Smith pleaded that the restriction hampers the task of border security and provides incentive for terrorists who feel they are safe from potential searches.

The discussion inevitably falls to the security policies of the Obama administration, but the President himself has little authority over the legislation or its appeals.

“He could make statements on it, but where all the attention is, is on the Supreme Court and lower

court districts.” As the conflict continues to unfold, Muedini instructs us to focus our attention on the courts where the majority of the battles will be fought, “especially at the Supreme Court.”

In the wake of the back-and-forth between Homeland Security, the Court of Appeals and the ACLU, some are questioning the lack of media coverage in major news outlets. Ian Mark of New York University’s Washington Square News insists that the original DHS decision violated national law.

“At a time when the media refuses to cover illegal actions of the government, it is even more important for the public to be informed.”

Security, politics, legislation, definitions, jurisdiction, authority, media; the devil is to be found in every last one of the details. At the heart of the debate lies the timeless priority clash between national security and civil liberties.

Professor Muedini does not believe we will see an end to the discussion any time in the near future.

“These are issues that the government has to deal with in accordance with a new kind of war that they didn’t have to deal with before…but you have many organizations such as the ACLU who are quick to criticize these types of policies, that say that they’re actually harmful for longevity of trust in the government.

“Unfortunately this debate won’t end any time soon, and I think as policies continue, reactionary ‘decisions’ will be the discussion in the next years if not decades.”

The last spring break of my undergraduate career, 2013, was one of the worst weeks of my life.

“How was your Spring Break?” friend X asks, her skin bronze from the a service trip to somewhere gorgeous in the Caribbean planting organic gardens, saving orphans or something along those lines.

“I worked on my thesis…” I trail off. My eyes glaze over and I get horrible PTSD-like flashbacks of the lonely nights when the library exiled me to the Palmetto Coffee House, where I continued to pour over my computer screen until my vision was blurry. Some nights, I’ll confess, more than a few beers got me through to the dawn while I worked myself into a state of OCD, tweaking the dimensions of figures or reconciling conflicting sources.

Friend X gives me a nervous look and leaves me staring off into nothingness.

Every little fact of our vast and ever growing body of knowledge represents often untold hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, even centuries of thought and labor. Thomas Edison’s quote comes to mind, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” Regardless of his awful treatment of the brilliant Nicola Tesla, I think Edison was onto something. I once happened upon a similar vein of thought on the back of my Fundamental

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learn responsibly

By Norris Comer Columnist

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“At a time when the media refuses to cover illegal actions of the government, it is even more important for the public to be informed.”

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The Department of Homeland Security announced a series of decisions that caught the attention of security experts and civil liberties advocates alike.

The quick summary that made its rounds in news and opinion circles appeared straightforward enough: all border searches of electronic devices are, in fact, constitutional.

As is often the case with legislation, much of the story can be determined by breaking down the elements of that one unassuming little sentence and determining what each word means to the people and organizations involved.

The question of whether these searches are constitutional refers to the Fourth Amendment, which grants U.S. citizens the right to protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures” and introduces that infamous piece of justification, “probable cause.”

Traditionally, land borders have been granted some degree of exception to this amendment in the name of national security.

As it turns out, this concept of the “border” can be found at the center of the discussion.

Homeland Security asserted that a “border“ stretches 100 miles inland from its point of origin-both by land and by sea. This includes many of the United States’ most populous cities. It stretches across entire states (Florida among them). It encompasses two-thirds of the American population.

Political Science Professor Fait Muedini explains that much of what goes into defining a border is tied to political issues.

The focus on immigration reform, especially near Mexico, plays a large role in determining border policy.

“It goes into discussions of ‘immigrants’ and jobs and… how that’s being framed, and so I think a lot of that has to do with politics, arguably sometimes more than security.”

All the same, those who would

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Digital battlefield opens to Fourth Amendment border legislation

By Carolyn Moritz Staff Writer

News 5

April 5, 2013

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Physics book, after throwing it against a wall. The picture of the author Douglas C. Giancolli looked up at me with the Matterhorn on the horizon behind him, “Physics is like climbing a mountain: its takes effort, and the rewards are great.” I took a ragged breath and went back to reading about electric batteries.

Despite the hard work of everyone, the modern world still hasn’t fully explained the concept of gravity. Sure, advancements spearheaded by fellows like Newton have mathematically explained how an object falls because of gravity, but not why. Think about that for a moment. One of the most pervasive forces that we deal with everyday is largely a mystery. There is some hope that the CERN Large Hadron Collider, and the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle will offer some answers, but why exactly mass exerts a gravitational force is still unknown. Even after hundreds of years and the combined brainpower of the entire human race, we still don’t know why the apple fell off the tree.

And yet we plug onwards, together. It is an interesting dilemma that a scientific mind must come to terms with: a belief that just about everything can be figured out and the certainty that one will never know it all. For the contributions of everyone who worked themselves to misery Spring Break 2013 on their thesis or other academic endeavors, I salute you.

Sustainability update: Live in a green dorm

Tuition set to rise 4 percent in 2014;

From TUITION, front cover year. Other yearly expenses include program enhancements, new books and maintaining subscriptions for the library, as well as annual maintenance, like repairing sidewalks. This summer in particular, Eastman says the school is facing $1.5-$1.7 million in timesensitive roof and air conditioning repairs.

According to Eastman, over the next year, the increase in employees’ standard healthcare package will also cost the college an additional $350,000, and The Affordable Care Act may cost the college another $150,000 to $300,000.

Add to this the faculty raise pool of 2.5 percent this year and next year.

“Every percent that you increase faculty salaries costs us about $120,000, every percent that you increase staff salaries costs us about $130,000,” said Eastman.

There’s a worry about the sustainability of such increases, which isn’t just an Eckerd problem, but

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more of a general problem for the future of higher education.

The sustainability of this higher education, tuition-driven business model is a question all colleges and universities are grappling with.

“We haven’t, at Eckerd, and nationally, seen another model that works, unfortunately, “ said Sullivan. “Those are always really difficult conversations, knowing that this isn’t easy for our families and that it does put burden on them.”

However, where other schools might have the luxury of dipping into their endowment to help offset costs of financial aid or upgrade or repair facilities, Eckerd falls a bit short. Eckerd’s endowment has grown by $29 million under Eastman—now at $48 million and growing—but it’s still on the small side compared to its older counterparts.

Sullivan says that while there are many factors that might influence this potential four percent increase

Visit us online at www.theonlinecurrent.com

within the next year, including the state of the economy and the persistence of rising operational costs, the school is preparing for the potential impact on admission.

“It is something that we worry about all the time,” Sullivan said, particularly as the college aims to predict the point at which students can no longer afford to attend, which Sullivan acknowledges is a point that has already been reached for many families.

In anticipation, Sullivan says the college will continue to help people understand the value of an Eckerd education through stories and examples. For this, they’ll focus on collecting more data about what students are learning through their experiences here, and also from graduates.

“Statistics are important, but having good and complete stories about different types of people is more powerful, people can relate better to that,” said Sullivan.

photo by Evan Bollier The Gamma Freeman dorm.

By Evan Bollier Columnist

Did you know that Eckerd has a specific environmental themed dorm on campus? It’s the Gamma Freeman house. If you are interested in what it means to live sustainably, or are interested in environmental initiatives, please consider choosing the Freeman house next year.

There will be many opportunities to get involved with the community vegetable garden, the Gamma garden, the recycling program, beach cleanups, organic cooking events, among other exciting dorm events.

Residents will be given a small recycling bin in each room, encour-

aged to turn off lights when possible, ride share with friends, and use only Energy Star rated appliances.

Have your own ideas of what it means to be sustainable in a residence hall? Even better!

Rising Sophomore Alexandra Mezentsev will be the Residential Advisor for the dorm, so please feel free to contact her with suggestions and for more information.

Contact Alexandra Mezentsev at admezent@eckerd.edu

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6 News

the current

April 5, 2013

Students voice frustration with loans Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Tomaselli thecurrent@eckerd.edu Managing Editor Jeralyn Darling News Editors Kelly Coston Aaron Levy currentnews@eckerd.edu Asst. News Editors Hailey Escobar Political Consultant Ethan Packey Viewpoints Editors Ely Grinfeld Alex Roberts currentviews@eckerd.edu Entertainment Editor Ian Lindsay currententertainment@eckerd.edu Asst. Entertainment Editor Hayden Johnson The Quickie Editors Rose Kraemer-Dahlin Taylor Glaws currentquickie@eckerd.edu Health & Fitness Editor Caroline Campbell currenthealth@eckerd.edu Asst. Health & Fitness Editor Lizzy Brophy Sports Editor Mike Geibel currentsports@eckerd.edu Asst. Sports Editors Colin Casey Will Creager Dominick Cuppetilli Graphic Design Editor Carver Elliot Lee Photo Editor Alex Zielinski currentphoto@eckerd.edu Asst. Photo Editor Dominick Cuppetilli Web Editor Greg Reilly Asst. Web Editors Hailey Escobar Web Master Vincent Lynch Faculty Adviser Tracy Crow Director of Finances Kevin Boyd Director of PR/Advertising Arielle Burger currentads@eckerd.edu Director of Communications Cait Duffy

The Current is a free biweekly student newspaper at Eckerd College. Offices are located upstairs in Cobb at 4200 54th Ave S, St. Petersburg, FL, 33711. Opinions expressed in this publication are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect those of EC students, staff, faculty and administration.

The Current welcomes letters to the editor. Submissions should be typed and not exceed 400 words.

Writers must include their full name, graduation year and contact number.

Faculty and staff should include their title, department and contact number. All submissions are subject to editing for the purposes of clarity, style or length. The Current holds the right to reject any letters deemed inappropriate. Letters can be sent via email to thecurrent@eckerd.edu with subject “Letter to the editor.” _______________________________ The Current will run full-length articles covering any arrests that present a clear danger to the community.

Charges that would be investigated under this policy include robberies, assaults, weapons charges or illicit drug manufacturing, such as methamphetamine. The Current will continue publishing a small police blotter for felony arrests, and misdemeanor charges against student government leaders, Residential Advisors and staff members of The Current. We learn of arrests through searching the police arrest database by entering Eckerd’s address, as well as from tips. Questions and comments can be emailed to thecurrent@eckerd.edu.

from LOANS, front cover process, I wasn’t exactly aware of the difference [between federal and private loans], so I just took my loans out with CitiBank,” says Sophomore Selena Bachelder.

Generally, there are two ways to get a student loan: through the federal government and through private lenders. Federal loans are significantly more user friendly and designed to make repayment flexible.

Keeping in mind that institutions of higher education have existed since the Colonial era, federal student aid is still in its relative infancy. It wasn’t until The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the G.I. Bill, that the government made it feasible to go to college if you couldn’t afford it. Two years of military service earned you three years of college completely paid for. At the time, that was usually enough to earn a degree.

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space and America scrambled to beef up its science and math programs with the National Defense Education Act of 1958, student loans were born. Known today as The Perkins Loan, the bill introduced a low interest, needbased program for students. Still, it wouldn’t be until The Higher Education Act of 1972 that federal financial aid would resemble what it is now.

Today, federal loans aren’t unlimited. Freshmen can only borrow $5,500 per year. Sophomores can borrow $6,500 per year. While juniors and seniors can borrow $7,500. If federal money is enough, most students graduate owing less than $34,000.

“If a person takes 10 years to repay the loan, they’re paying around $300 per month, which is less than a lot of car loans,” says Watkins.

There are other benefits of borrowing from the government. “If you enter public service and take an extended repayment on your loan, once you’ve worked 10 years in a non-profit sector, you can have your loan canceled,” explains Watkins.

This is called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program.

The amount that is canceled is not subject to tax penalty like it is when you file for bankruptcy. Not a bad deal for students at all, especially at Eckerd where lots of students go into the non-profit sector after graduation.

While government spending on loan programs has gone up considerably over time, federal dollars have stopped going into grant programs. The ever widening gap between the two is a big part of the problem. The federal grant programs have not kept pace.

Being deemed “eligible” for aid from the government is a complicated matter that no one seems to be happy with. “The way the FAFSA calculates my expected family contribution is completely screwed up,” says an Eckerd junior who asked to remain nameless. “My brother has Crohn’s disease and I have had various other financial difficulties in my family. The $40,000 a year the FAFSA thinks that my family gives me is actually more like $100. That’s $100 in an entire year.” The loans this student took out will land her in the ballpark of $200,000 in debt.

The government will pay for some of your tuition, no strings attached, if indeed deemed eligible by the annually re-submitted FAFSA form. This is done by way of a Pell Grant, named for education activist and Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell. That seems like a pretty great deal for students who could use some help, right? The fact of the matter is that there just isn’t

enough money to give some to everyone who genuinely needs and could use it.

Watkins had more to say about this. “The eligibility for the federal Pell grant has been declining. If you bring in more than $40,000 for a family of four, you may not be eligible for a government Pell Grant,” she says. That isn’t even enough to fully cover a year of room and board fees at Eckerd.

“It is increasing the burden on the families, but it’s also placing the burden on the institutions. In particular, institutions whose endowment isn’t very large, like Eckerd,” says Sullivan. “We try to operate under a philosophy where we give some aid to a large number of students, rather than giving a large amount of aid to a select small number of students.”

All of these reasons and others are why students have traditionally turned to banks and private lenders for more money. Getting private loans used to be easy. Not any more.

Whereas hundreds of lenders were at one time available to make sure everyone and their dog could get a student loan, things have changed since the economic downturn of 2008. There are now only a handful of private lenders.

Sophomore Kelsey Hayes is one of the students who felt she had nowhere else to turn. She took out private loans with Wells Fargo and Citi Financial that will land her many tens of thousands of dollars in debt. And she says she feels taken advantage of by the lenders.

“After talking to other students, yes I do. I took out so much in private loans and many of them have only taken out about half of what I have,” she said. “My mother cannot be my co-signer due to not having good credit. I have to find someone just to co-sign in order to take out the loans.”

Another student forced to make tough economic choices is Senior Kevin Burdick. Shopping around colleges in high school, Burdick was looking at Temple University in Pennsylvania and Ursinus College, a small private school with a tuition similar to Eckerd’s. Ursinus was

data source: Student Debt Project

willing to match Temple’s $11,000 tuition.

“I told Eckerd about what they were willing to do and Eckerd’s response was ‘their pockets are deeper than ours.’” Burdick ultimately invested in Eckerd because he wanted to play baseball and live near the beach.

Burdick believes his debt will be in the six digits after graduation. “I can’t complain about my time here, but the loans I will have to pay off from Eckerd, and the rest of my education after Eckerd, is almost impossible,” he says. “Money is just as important as any other decision you make when picking a college.”

Watkins isn’t blind to sacrifices families make. “We realize that many times, families don’t have the ability to pay that difference between financial aid and the bill with their own resources they end up borrowing additional funds,” she admits, “but you have to ask yourself if you can you afford $700 a month once you graduate?”

Max Martinez, former managing editor of The Current, graduated in May. He says he borrowed nearly the entire cost of his education: $35,000 a year for four years.

“Today, that’s costing me roughly $1,200 per month. I’ll be paying for Eckerd until I’m 37,” he says.

Martinez isn’t mad at the banks.

He believes the banks are just filling the gaps that colleges create.

“The universities are the ones that raised the price of a degree to new heights, unattainable on an average middle-class income,” he says.

Eckerd’s tuition has recently been rising by several percentage points every year. Most of that is because of maintenance costs out of the school’s control like electricity and air conditioning.

Sullivan and Watkins say they do see a small number of students who are swamped with six-figure bills to pay, but the number is steadily declining. “We had less than ten people graduate with over $100,000 in loans in 2012,” she says.

They both explained that they strongly encourage students to use private lenders as a last resort. “In many instances, the interest rate is

variable for the life of the loan.

We’ve heard about these loans going up as much as 25 percent per year,” says Watkins. “They use the loans for a lot of things other than direct tuition. That’s when you hear ‘I’m $100,000 in debt.’”

Students chasing after money in private loans will most likely need a co-signer and variable interest rates are a real possibility too, co-signer or not. One doesn’t have to look far to find private loan horror stories.

According to huffingtonpost. com, when Rutgers student Christopher Bryski died two years after suffering a traumatic brain injury in 2004, his father and co-signer was still held liable for the $44,500 in private loans from KeyBank.

After an online petition gathered 77,000 signatures, the bank eventually freed the family from the debt.

In most instances, not even death frees the borrower from making payments.

Eckerd’s financial aid team realizes that what is available doesn’t minimize the sacrifice involved with an education, and wants Tritons to know that they understand and support the student body as best they can.

“We know that this is a sacrifice.

Many of us who work in the institution payed for all or a part of our undergraduate education,” said Sullivan.

“We give over $26 million away in Eckerd scholarships and grants.

That far exceeds what we get from the federal government for grants, which is roughly around $3 million in federal Pell Grant,” said Watkins.

Still, Kelsey Hayes is not content with the help she has received at Eckerd. “I need help finding other ways to pay for school other than loans, and they just tell me to apply for scholarships. That is all well and good, but it is very difficult to find scholarships for students already in college.”

Both Watkins and Sullivan acknowledge the system is flawed.

“The way financial aid is determined is not a true indicator of what families can contribute. It’s a way to take limited funds and give them to individuals with the least ability to pay,” says Sullivan. “I don’t see the federal government returning to a point where the majority of what you get from them covers the majority of the cost of an education.”

“I think admissions should be more lenient for the qualifications of applying as an independent,” says Junior Amira Bundy. “I am basically an independent but I don’t meet the criteria, and therefore I can’t apply for it.”

Bundy added that she holds deep admiration for what Watkins does for students. “Dr. Pat is amazing. I am going to her for any and all assistance in the future. She is so understanding and genuine. I love her.”

One thing that essentially everyone I asked agreed upon is that four years of the Eckerd experience is worth the sacrifice. “Someone even called it the Ivy League of the south the other day which I thought was really funny, but it made me feel good about spending so much money on it,” says Chelsea Gribbin, who just graduated in January.

Sullivan and Watkins said there is something called The Bailey Family Foundation Scholarship. It is offered to existing high school and college students in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee Counties for a maximum of $5,000 per year. It’s hard not to appreciate free money, even if it is a small fraction of tuition.

Sullivan suggested websites like FastWeb.com and our old friends from high school, Collegeboard. org, for scholarship search services.

Is there an easy answer to paying for education? No. but one has to decide how much value there is in an education, and that is different for everyone. College isn’t a down payment on a job or financial security. It’s an investment in yourself.

Visit us online at www.theonlinecurrent.com

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the current

News 7

April 5, 2013

ASPEC member shares Holocaust experience

By Anna Klingenberg Contributing Writer Eleven million innocents were killed by the influence of Hitler. Six million were Jewish.

ASPEC member Henry Goldsmith was just eight-years-old when his parents put him, along with his younger brother, on a train bound for England out of Germany. Goldsmith was born in June of 1931, in Hanover Germany.

His parents, Richard and Greta, each owned a local business and never imagined what was to come.

The rescue trains that transported the children from Germany to England were called the Kindertransport. Thanks to the Kindertransport, hundreds of children made it out of Germany safely before the Nazis could force them into concentration camps.

Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) was a series of attacks on Jews on the night of Nov. 9, 1938. It was that event that prompted Goldsmith’s father to move his family out of the country. When reminiscing back to being on the train, Goldsmith can only remember feelings of fear.

After a year and half in England, Goldsmith and his family packed up once more to move to the

United States via ship to Canada in August of 1940. They found a home in New York. The impact of the events was too much for his father, who then decided to leave the family. Greta took Goldsmith and his brother to New York, while his father went on to Australia.

In 1952, Goldsmith married his wife Carla and stayed married for 44 years until she passed away. In 1953, Goldsmith was drafted in the Korean War and stationed in Virginia as an instructor. He served two years before returning to New York.

Once he returned home, he went into retail. While working in retail at J.C. Penney Company Inc., Goldsmith and Carla had three children: Stanley, David, and Vickie. Goldsmith decided to get a law degree to prove to people that he could still accomplish anything. Goldsmith said, “I just decided it was time to take care of number one,” pointing to himself. Although he received his law degree, he never practiced law.

Goldsmith is now remarried to his wife Dorothy and been with her for 11 years. Mrs. Goldsmith also belongs to ASPEC and very much enjoys it. She spends a lot of time reading. In 2005, Goldsmith went back to Hanover Germany

for the first time since leaving in 1938. Mrs. Goldsmith accompanied him. The two participated in a program where Holocaust survivors and their families can spend a day visiting sites and learning about what happened to their home after they left. Goldsmith was able to visit the place where his parents store once was and the home they left behind so many years ago.

Goldsmith made his way from being a poor Jewish immigrant, to happy retired American. “There is still a great commitment in the Jewish family that they won’t forget what happened in the holocaust [so] that they can pass it on to the next generation,” Goldsmith said, as he has done with his children.

Because he may never be back to Hanover again, his trip in 2005 was closure for him. Goldsmith hopes that Americans won’t forget about what happened in Hanover Germany, and also remember the millions of people that lost their lives. He also believes that his story does not begin to cover the whole picture of what happened in Germany. Goldsmith said, “I don’t know what my life would have been like if I got out a year or two earlier or later, you had to be lucky.”

photo by Anna Klingenberg ASPEC member and Holocaust survivor Henry Goldsmith.

St. Pete YMCA gets makeover from YMCA, front cover

and out the building’s Mediterranean Revival theme is complemented by a variety of textures and styles from around the world.

“The building was built in the 20s, with World War 1 behind us and no idea of the Great Depression that was to come. The building showed that the community wanted to open up and be inspired by the world, not look back at what transpired,” explained Eric Ihlenfeldt, the Executive VP of Business Development for the project.

For almost 10 years Creative Director Thomas Nestor has been working on the idea of a multi-venue place in St. Petersburg that would serve as a recording studio, record label and production house, all supported by an concert venue/special event center. Then, in May of 2012, Ihlenfeldt approached Nestor with the idea of combining the multi-venue project with a music museum. “The museum concept, as a non-profit, could raise the money so we wouldn’t have to do the standard bar/ nightclub or restaurant business model, the goal being a non-profit afforded us more options to pay the bills and to do the things that we really love by giving back to the community,” said Nestor.

Immediately, Nestor knew The Historic YMCA building was the ideal location for this venture. Currently, the buildings owner VPC3 II has an offer from a bank to demolish it and put in a drive-thru facility. Nestor now holds a binding purchase contract on the landmark. Historic YMCA Inc, a non-profit organization, whose mission is to save the historic property from demolition, assist the rehabilitation efforts and maintain the unique structure as a public use facility.

Collectively they aim to reach the goals set forth. In November 2012, Nestor made an initial down payment of 20,000. $52,000 is now invested towards closing but the total purchasing cost of the building is $1.4 million. Once purchased, the $3.7-$5.2 million dollar construction project can begin.

To raise these funds and awareness to the project, Historic YMCA hosts an open house every Saturday at the building, often with live music provided by local artists. Everything about the project

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remains true to its community-based origins. “We need the community to rally behind this. This isn’t about me, it’s about we,” said Nestor, explaining that St. Petersburg did it once before, certainly we can do it again.

Once the project is completed, the restored building will house a variety of music-related businesses, including a concert venue/special event center, recording and sound studio, music school and music therapy classes, film and video editing studios, a publishing house and event production headquarters.

As written in the project brief, “These complimenting operations will reawaken this Historic Landmark to a whole new generation and with our planned additions to the gym, basement, VIP balcony and rooftop respectively. The new community center will host 60,000 square feet and six floors of unbridled creativity and energy for these businesses co-existing daily.”

If you or anyone you know would like to assist seeing this project bring new life to the old Historic YMCA Building investors, sponsors and donors are asked to call/email the group directly at (727) 686-2163 or Info@Historic YMCA.com

Photo exhibit takes over Cobb Gallery

By Hailey Escobar Asst. New Editor

The historic YMCA.

photos by Carver Lee The YMCA under construction, the lines on the floor depict the walls of old dormitories.

Visit us online at www.theonlinecurrent.com

Works of art have come and gone through Cobb Gallery. The latest edition to these works is the photography of Herb Snitzer, a guest artist in the Eckerd Visual Arts Department. His life as a photographer spreads over 50 years of experience. The 38 prints that will be on display until April 5 provides a glimpse of that career.

The pictures in the exhibit are a collection of musicians, artists, writers and more captured in the photography, many of whom have since passed. “Herb told me the other day that a sobering thought for him is that all the personalities surrounding us in this first room of the gallery have passed away, except for one, who is now in hospice care,” describes Professor Arthur Skinner in his gallery director statement. Skinner has known Snitzer for several years.

Snitzer’s journey to being the artist that he is today did not start with photography. He began as a furniture designer, but it soon gave way to his career in photography. Living in New York in the mid-to-late 50s at the time, he soon found himself developing as an artist and meeting many well known artists such as Louis Armstrong, Tennessee Williams and Bette Davis.

Looking back on his career, Snitzer said, “After 53 years of making images I am still fascinated by the way images are made by slow steady work. I am not interested in digital images or the way images are made. I am sure I as seen as a dinosaur by young photographers.

So be it.”

In his artist’s statement available on his website http://www.herbsnitzer.com, Snitzer talks about his experience as a photographer and his love for art. “Art has the capacity to transform and transcend that which is pedestrian and commonplace, giving the viewer (in the case of visual art) the opportunity to see and think about why the artist has produced the work in the first place,” he wrote.

Snitzer’s work has been displayed in England, Switzerland and throughout the United States. He has been the author of six books and recently just moved back to St. Petersburg. His studio is now located on 4th Street South.

A closing reception will be held April 5.

8 News

the current

April 5, 2013

Brought to you by Career Services

Coming to America: Prof. Yani Angulo-Cano’s story

By Sabrina Lolo Asst. Web Editor

Dear Lindsey, I remember reading that only half of vacant job positions are actually advertised. If this is true, how am I supposed to find a job when the perfect one may be unannounced?!?

-Still Searching Senior Dear Still Searching, A good friend of mine who teaches Yoga and practices Ayurvedic Medicine would argue that the perfect job is found when your face is pointed in the right direction and you begin walking. However vague this may seem at first, it is essentially true.

It’s not a myth that an estimated half of jobs are not posted publicly. Many companies first post opportunities internally—this gives current employees a chance to advance or refer contacts that they feel would be well-suited for the position. If these opportunities aren’t filled by that method, then that company may choose to go “public” to find candidate. In the case of small businesses, which make up an estimated 99.7% of all employers according to the Small Business Association, jobs may not be posted at all, and may come from personal recommendations, word of mouth, or a sign in the window!

Sound hopeless? It’s not. The key is NETWORKING. You should get to know people in the professional world. Visit job fairs and attend specially-designed networking events in your city.

There are even events designed for young professionals. Another important resource to tap into is the alumni network.

These are former students that were in your shoes once and are willing to connect with you and share their experiences.

They may even be privy to some of those internal postings I mentioned earlier.

In fact, Career Services receives several internship and job referrals directly from alumni each semester that get advertised in the weekly e-mail blasts.

So go out and meet people!

Talk to your professors, friends, and family about what you are looking for. Seek out networking events for young professionals and attend career fairs. Trade business cards and send out your résumé.

Make a profile on LinkedIn. After having done all that, you can ask yourself “Am I facing the right direction? Am I walking?”

Best of luck!

Lindsey

Have a career quandary?

Write to Dear Lindsey at dearlindsey@eckerd.

Since Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959 after overthrowing former dictator Fulgencio Batista, waves of Cubans have immigrated to the Unites States. Florida, particularly the cities of Miami and Tampa, has especially been affected by the influx of Cubans.

I wanted to be able to get a firsthand account of what life was like in Cuba during the Castro regime and what it was like coming to America. So I interviewed Professor Yanira Angulo-Cano, or Yani, as her students call her, about her experiences.

Yani was born in Manguito, Matanzas, Cuba and arrived to the U.S. in May 1980 on the Mariel Boatlift, a massive emigration of more than 100,000 Cubans who departed from Cuba’s Mariel Harbor. She was 9 years old at the time.

“It was very frightening. I didn’t know what was going on because my parents did not share the information with me,” said Yani as she recalled the experience. “They were afraid that I would make comments at school and this was supposed to be a secret because people who acknowledged that they were leaving would suffer retaliation from mobs that would beat us.”

The weeks leading up to the departure were especially scary.

Children wore pañoletas, which were scarves worn around the neck, at school to symbolize that they were a part of the Party. “There was this entire act of stripping this person, their

identity as a student and letting them know that they didn’t belong anymore,” Yani said.

Before they boarded the boat, Yani and her family were placed into concentration camps for two weeks before they departed in the Mariel port. According to her blog, the Manguito Review, she “had to leave bed, home and familiar surroundings, board a shrimp boat, plunge below deck, and attempt to sleep despite being shaken by a rough sea.”

Upon their arrival, Yani and her family were processed in Key West. “They had to give us papers because we didn’t come with any,” Yani recalled. “We were stripped of everything we had. We basically only came with our clothes.”

They were there for three days until they were released under the sponsorship of her aunts who were already living in the States and moved to West Palm Beach.

When asked about what it was like to adjust to a new culture, she said it was difficult. “In Cuba, I lived with my extended family, such as my grandparents.

I lived in a small town and I knew everyone in that town. When I came to the U.S., all of a sudden, I just had my brother and parents, and both my parents had to work.”

For the first time in her life, Yani had to walk herself to school and back and letting herself into the house. “I remember having to let my brother in, who was 3 years younger than I was, and making him a snack because there was nobody else in the house.”

Yani also faced other difficulties, such as making new friends, learning a new language

Life lessons from Morocco

By Malena Carollo Foreign Correspondent MOROCCO-- It’s drizzling and miserable outside, typical weather for Ifrane.

The ladies dressed in white uniforms cleaning the cafeteria during off-hours left the windows open to air the room out, and my fellow student Stanislas Phanord and I still have our jackets on. Even after all the traveling he’s done, his warmest outfit is a heathered-gray pull-over from H&M under a black fleece.

A blue beanie hides the too-short haircut he fumbled his way through asking for down at the local market—his “Mr. Clean” look, as he describes it.

Away from the constant barrage of culture outside, Stanislas is calm and collected. One hand is in his pocket, the other curled around a plastic cup of Moroccan tea in front of him, borrowing heat. Years later and thousands of miles away from where everything happened, he’s finally ready to talk about what he calls the “most pivotal moment” of his life with me, one of the few outside people privy to the information.

At 17, Stanislas ran away from home. It was a night during his junior year of high school. Stanislas stood in the foyer of his third-floor apartment, his mind racing.

“Are you really going to defend him for doing this?” he yelled, bleeding. His 12-year-old brother, Esaie, stood behind him at the opposite end of the hall, witnessing the scene.

Am I really going to call the police? Stanislas thought. What’s going to happen if I call the police?

photo by Malena Carollo Stanislas Phanord.

Am I really just going to go back to my room and act as if nothing happened?

No. Emboldened, he walked down one floor and knocked on a neighbor’s door, asking to use her phone.

“My stepfather just attacked me.”

Just moments earlier, his mother had returned from work a little earlier and a bit angrier than usual, Stanislas remembers. They got into an argument. It wasn’t an unusual scene—their relationship had been deteriorating for some time as Stanislas became less happy with her decision-making for him and his two younger brothers, Eisaie and Fredly. This time, though, his stepfather got in the middle, striking him in the mouth.

Stanislas was shocked—and even more shocked by his mother’s reaction. “She said that she didn’t see anything, even though she was standing right there,” he recalls.

He waited in his neighbor’s apartment for the police to arrive.

This was the first year he and his stepfather were in the same country. Stanislas’s family originally lived in Haiti, where his father still resides, and though his mother remarried when he was in fifth grade, his stepfather didn’t immigrate to the U.S. until Stanislas’s junior year of high school.

An hour passed before two uni-

and at first not being able to perform as well academically as she did in Cuba because she didn’t know the language as well.

Yani has done great things with her life since that night 30 years ago.

She is now an assistant professor of Spanish here at Eckerd while also running her blog.

She received her B.A. in Spanish and Criminology and her M.A. in Spanish Foreign Language Education at the University of South Florida. She received her Ph.D. at Florida State University in Latin American Literature as well and teaches Elementary Spanish, Intermediate Spanish, and Advanced Spanish Conversation.

She is well respected in the Eckerd community and loved by all her students. “Professor Yani is one of the best Spanish teachers I’ve ever had,” said Sophomore Brittany Mitchell. “She’s always so enthusiastic with her students.”

Yani’s husband is also Cuban and they have a 12-year-old son.

They still try to instill in their son a love of the Cuban culture. On the 30th anniversary of the Mariel Boatlift, when he was 9 years old, Yani took her son to Key West and showed him where she first arrived. “I wanted him to relate to me and my experiences. I asked him, ‘How would you feel if, right now, I put you on a boat and take you to another country with nothing but your clothes. What would you do, how would you feel?’ I wanted him to realize what I went through at that age.”

Yani’s son can speak Spanish fluently. But even though he’s

formed officers met Stanislas at the apartment to take his statement.

After hearing from him and his mother, they determined Stanislas to be the aggressor, though he was the only one with physical damage.

Lacking the support of both the law and his mother, he grabbed a backpack, filled it with clothes and his school books, and headed back to the foyer. For a moment, he hesitated. The woman who had given birth to him hadn’t been there to protect him when he needed it most—he didn’t consider her to be his mother anymore. Shouldering his bag, he walked out the door with no intention of returning.

“Actually, at the time, I didn’t really care what happened to me,” he said. “I just didn’t want to be there at that moment.”

Stanislas’s eyes search the table we’re sitting at in the Al Akhawayn University cafeteria, hands on either arm of the lime-green plastic chair. Now 22, the way he talks about the event is as if he’s told the story a hundred times, and I have to move the recorder closer to him to catch his soft-spoken voice.

“I felt terrible, I felt like I was in complete darkness,” he said. “I mean I wasn’t even doing well in school so it wasn’t like I had a future. I felt like I was definitely going to be another statistic.”

If you spent even 10 minutes with Stanislas today, you’d never guess the constantly-grinning student had such dark days. The first occasion we spent time together was a month ago at dinner in the other side of the cafeteria we were now in, and a mutual friend of ours was talking about Stanislas’s “amazing” experience in Geneva.

“Geneva?” I asked.

Stanislas explained he’d just come from seven months in Geneva on a research internship at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) through his home institution, Northeastern University. Born in Haiti but raised in Mattapan, Mass., the self-proclaimed “Boston boy” hadn’t even traveled as far as New York when he left for Switzer-

courtesy of Eckerd College Prof. Angulo-Cano.

fluent, he regularly tells his mother that he “doesn’t feel Cuban.”

“But that’s the difference between immigrants from Cuba and from other countries,” she explained. “People that are living here from Puerto Rico or Mexico or Ecuador are able to go back and forth so their children grow up with a sense of the culture and learn to love the country their parents are from.”

It’s very different for Cubans.

Once Cubans leave the country, they must sever the ties because it’s nearly impossible to go back.

“Maybe one day that will change.”

Check out Yani’s blog to read about more of her memories of leaving Cuba at:

http://manguitoreview. blogspot.com/2010/05/ mariel- then-and-now. html land.

Northeastern has a unique fiveyear system where students spend four to six months on an internship working full time in an area of interest related to their studies, making up the class time in a fifth year.

Though he entered college with the idea of becoming a psychologist to work with underprivileged youth, Stanislas recounted, he was steadily becoming more interested in foreign policy and working with organizations with wider reach than one-on-one sessions. As his fourth year began, he decided to intern in Geneva, Switzerland for six months, the humanitarian capitol of the world.

I exploded with praise. What an exciting alternative to the average college experience. In what I came to know as typical Stanislas fashion, he became immediately embarrassed. Eyes wide and blinking, grinning ear to ear, he shook his head in protest, but the smile from his face disappeared. He became serious. It was a wonderful opportunity, he said, emphasizing how grateful he was for the experience—it was something he hadn’t taken for granted, even a little.

After a favor and few attempts at convincing him to do an interview, Stanislas finally agreed to sit down with me. He brought his other hand out of his pocket, covering the other side of the cup of Moroccan mint tea. The breeze from the open window wasn’t welcome.

After he ran away, he said, he was taken in by a friend’s family for a year before moving to another friend’s house—a Haitian family.

He found a job at the local Stop & Shop in the deli department slicing meats and cooking chicken, supporting himself for the rest of high school.

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the current

April 5, 2013

Viewpoints 9

Viewpoints EC accommodates gender-neutral housing

By Rachel Beck Staff Writer As the Supreme Court considers the case for same-sex marriage, LGBT rights are at the forefront of public debate like never before.

Eckerd College strives to be welcoming and sensitive to the needs of all students: one way the school can accommodate students is by offering gender-neutral housing options.

There are many ways Eckerd could incorporate gender neutral ideas to accommodate transgender students. For instance, some advocate a genderneutral policy all over campus.

“There are students that need it, I know that. They just haven’t come forth for whatever reason yet,” said Justin Long, Director of Housing.

Even though requests have not yet been made, Housing provides options to transgender students by willing to work with them on an individual basis.

I advocate that for now, transgender students should make their voices heard by talking to Housing, demonstrating the extent to which there is a need for gender-neutral thinking.

Once a need has been realized, transgender students, their allies, and Housing can work together to adopt a one-house or overall gender neutral campus solution.

Long assures students that all they need to do is ask, and special-needs housing can be arranged on a case-by-case basis.

However, there ought to be clearer guidelines and a more open forum for students who feel uncomfortable by the housing process.

At Eckerd, LGBT students have led the way before in creating new housing options. In fact, Omega became coed when a gay-identifying student wanted to live with female friends on campus. This occurred about 10 years ago, according to Associate Dean of Students Lena Wilfalk, and because of its success the tradition stayed. Now Nu is coed.

There is an important distinction between coed housing and gender-neutral housing. Coed housing can be used to describe when men and women live on the same floor but must room with

Satire

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Video games are a form of art

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Kappa skate park

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Student reflects on his service in Belize

By Ryan Wheeler Staff Writer

ation where they only have one dorm that’s this [gender-neutral], I feel like people are not going to want to live in that dorm,” she said.

Indeed, students may feel that they have to be LGBT to live in the dorm, and other students may use the dorm as a target for discrimination.

On the other hand, Eckerd can be seen as a very open place. “So far I haven’t met with much discrimination on campus,” said Krajnik.

A gender-neutral house could bring up some uncomfortable issues for students, but just because these issues are uncomfortable doesn’t mean we should ignore them. “Having a gender neutral house on campus would force students to reflect on their own opin-

When most people think about spring break, they conjure up all of the traditional images: crowded beaches, girls in bikinis and a lot of booze being consumed. Eckerd isn’t the most traditional place, so it’s no surprise that many Eckerd students choose to spend their spring breaks doing service, myself included.

The Office of Service Learning has numerous trips from Iceland to Panama. All the students have to do is apply, pay and go.

I was fortunate enough to go on the trip to Belize led by Devon Williams and Elliot McDaniel. Let me take the opportunity to thank both of them here, it was one of the most amazing, worthwhile weeks of my life.

Our adventure started off early Saturday morning, and when I say early, I mean we left Eckerd at 2 a.m. to drive to Miami so we could catch our flight to Belize City. Everything went smoothly and we arrived in right on time.

Our service was to work at Liberty Children’s Home, an orphanage, for the week. The director, Delfena Mitchell, provided us her place to stay and picked us up from the airport. Even though we were all very tired from traveling our group decided to take a spur of the moment trip to a Mayan ruin that was only about an hour away We arrived at Altun Ha, the 2,000 year old ruin, and were shocked to find out that we literally had the whole place to ourselves.

We spent an hour and a half getting a private tour of the place, climbing three of the four temples and tak-

see HOUSING, page 10

see BELIZE, page 10

illustration by Alex Zielinski

a roommate of the same gender, such as in traditional housing.

Omega and Nu can also be defined as coed because students of the opposite sex can live together in the same suite, but must have roommates of the same gender.

While coed housing can provide flexibility for many transgender students and other students who feel uncomfortable with the provided choices should have options available to better accommodate their needs.

Some people may be unfamiliar with the exact definition of “transgender.” “The prefix trans means across or through, as with ‘transportation,’ and ‘transcontinental,’” said Sophomore Adrien Krajnik. “So, literally speaking, transgender means that a person

Mumble this grumble

By Rose Kraemer-Dahlin Asst. Viewpoints Editor Have you noticed a slew of messages in your Gmail asking, “Have you seen the formal responses to these ‘Grumbles’?” You may have grumbled and deleted these, mumbled in agreement to these or you may have left them untouched —emails incessantly adding to the mound of “The Unread,” otherwise known as your inbox.

Admittedly, I’ve gone down each of these paths, until the other day when I accidentally clicked on a ‘Grumble’ hyperlink. It opened to another tab with a page displaying two el-

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INSIDE VIEWPOINTS

is moving across gender lines.”

Currently, the best way for transgender students to attain the right housing is by talking to Long or Wilfalk. However, one can still explore the effects of a hypothetical genderneutral house or dorm on campus.

Designating such a house could accommodate transgender students by allowing them to live more comfortably with their roommate. “A dorm like this would allow anyone who doesn’t quite fit the gender binary to be generally more comfortable with on campus housing,” said Krajnik.

While allocating one house at Eckerd as gender-neutral could be a solution, there are a few concerns. Sam McBride, president of the EC Pride club, has some reservations. “I think if it’s a situ-

ements that immediately caught my eye: a categorized and color-coded open forum of ‘Grumbles’ and a bright green button for me to click and submit a ‘Grumble’ of my own.

Although I haven’t submitted anything yet, I’ve happily read through many ‘Grumbles’ regarding food services on campus as well as a few on utility troubles in dorm complexes. To each of these the ‘Grumble’ administrators provide a response, efficiently transferring the issue directly to the appropriate department, i.e. Bon Appétit Management or Facilities Services.

ECOS Vice President Eliza van Dissel is one of these administrators for Eckerd’s Campus Grumble, reading each post as they come through. “My hopes for the Campus Grumble website are multifaceted. Not only does it give students an accessible outlet in order to express what they want to see changed or improved on campus but it also provides them the opportunity to suggest a solution for the problem.

From my point of view, this will only deepen students appreciation for the campus and for the administrations solving the ‘Grumbles’.”

Visit us online at www.theonlinecurrent.com

As Eliza mentioned, students have the ability to propose a solution to the issue at hand that is, in my opinion, the best aspect of Eckerd’s Campus Grumble.

Submitting here is not a passive act: you are showing you’ve done your research and that you are invested to helping the situation improve. If you find that another student posts the ‘Grumble’ you have in mind, agree with it by clicking the ‘Mumble’ button. If you wish to add to it or challenge it, you can reply by posting a comment.

“The website will also make it easier for ECOS to more effectively represent the needs and desires of the greater student body” Eliza adds. “If the forum continues to be used at a progressive rate, I hope that it will be able to address a multitude of campus perspectives including the respECt campaign and other issues of campus culture.”

Dean James Annarelli is also confident in the Campus Grumble initiative. “While we have worked hard to create multiple fora within the Student Life Program for students to express see GRUMBLE, page 12

illustration by Alex Zielinski

10 Viewpoints

the current

April 5, 2013

First Times Digging up some history

By Jeralyn Darling Managing Editor On the last day of spring break, my mom finally cashed in on her birthday present — a fossil hunting canoe trip on the Peace River.

It was my first time fossil hunting and looking for shark teeth, and I hadn’t seen my mom in a while, so I was pretty excited for the day.

We met in Arcadia, about halfway between home and Eckerd, and drove into the dirt parking lot where our cars would sit as we paddled upstream. We checked in and went on our way to change into more appropriate attire.

I hope I didn’t look as awkward as I felt.

With a tiny tank top, shorts and a purple bandana over my hair I popped on the water shoes my mom had picked up at Walgreens on her way. She decided matching black and pink shoes for both of us were the right way to go.

We gathered our buckets, towels, baggies, sifters and shovels of all sizes and marched toward the dock. The digging only made me realize that my mother (whose age I will not state for the record) is stronger than I. I believe she owes it to her gardening.

We embarked on the river and got right to digging. The process was simple: dig a deep hole, scoop some out from the bottom, plop it on the sifter, sift away the sand and clay, check out the goodies.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the amount of history in each shovel full. Shark teeth, fossilized clams and a bunch of shell prints, possibly a molar of sorts, fossilized barnacles maybe, it was incredible how rich the earth was with the history of what had lived there before. My mom loves geology and I don’t get to see enough of the earth sciences. I spent the day wondering how old the fossils were and figuring out which way the river was flowing to discover catches on the banks where the fossils may have piled up. It was also one of the best times I’ve ever had with my mom. Until the rain came.

I checked my weather app after I saw the ominous black clouds start to gather. Severe thunderstorm warning. Great. We dragged our canoe onto the bank and marched up the side to sit in a clearing under some trees. It was pouring. I mean three inches in 30 minutes pouring. And then lighting struck just a few yards from where we sat.

We shivered and huddled together under our only cover, an already soaked towel, and laughed and pushed through our last dig’s worth of fossils. My back may be peeling away the last remnants of the sunburn from our trip, and the ridiculous water shoes are sitting in my back seat (that reminds me, I should get those out), but I won’t soon forget the day my mom and I shoveled away layers and reveled a piece of geological history.

“True Belizer” shares experience from BELIZE, page 9

-ing pictures. It was a nearly perfect way to start out our week in Belize.

After that, Delfena took us to Liberty to meet the kids and see what kind of service we were going to be doing. The kids all immediately ran up to us when we got out of the van and were so energetic that we stayed for nearly an hour playing with them.

Monday, we woke up and settled into our routine for the week which consisted of beginning work at Liberty at 9 a.m until 11:30 a.m., breaking for lunch until 12:30 p.m. and then working until the kids got back from school—which was around 3:30.

The two biggest things we did for Liberty was completely revamping the on-site preschool’s arts and crafts room and digging out a drainage ditch near the main gate.

It was incredibly hot in Belize the week we were there, with temperatures hovering around 95 degrees. But we all got used to it, eventually, and a week of being hot really isn’t that bad when you realize who you are doing it for. After we were done working each day we stayed and played with the kids for a couple of hours before their dinner. It was during these few hours that we learned the most about them and ourselves.

All the children at Liberty are 13 years old and younger and have been severely abused in some way or another. None of us had ever really worked with kids like that before so it was a very enlightening experience to say the least.

Every night after dinner we had group reflections where we discussed what we learnedabout the kids at Liberty, the culture in Be-

We were all sad on Saturday after having to say goodbye to all the kids; the last excursion we went on was definitely needed.

We drove for about an hour and a half to Crystal Cave, a nationally protected site, where we spent the day swimming, diving, hiking and floating through some of the most breathtaking forest I have ever seen.

I can’t recommend going on a service trip enough. Going to Belize was my second one and I’m sure I’ll go on many more in the future. I just can’t say how thankful I am for everybody that went with us, Belize will be something I remember for the rest of my life.

courtesy of Alexandra Roberts Students at Liberty Children’s Home in Ladyville, Belize.

Integrating gender-neutral housing from HOUSING, page 9

-ions about that, and maybe it might even change their minds,” said the transgender student source.

There are other issues that could arise out of a gender-neutral house on campus. Some people argue that a gender-neutral house could motivate heterosexual couples to move in together, causing problems.

Jamey Handorf, assistant director of Residence Life, agreed. “From what I have read, some issues that have arisen at colleges that do offer gender-neutral housing is people choosing to live with their significant other. This causes issues from a ResLife standpoint if the relationship were to deteriorate, and the roommates would need to be separated.”

Though this could be a cause for concern, overall, Handorf and the Residence Life staff wish to make students comfortable with their housing. “Ultimately our goal is to provide students with a place they can feel safe and comfortable,” said Handorf.

“And if we get the sense that gender neutral housing would help us reach this goal we would certainly investigate it further.”

Wilfalk echoes the concern of heterosexual couples moving in together if there was a house on campus that was gender neutral, allowing men and women to live in the same room.

There have been problems before in Housing when couples in Omega moved in together and then broke up. “It puts a lot of

PerspECtives

“I want to play with my hotwheel race cars. I also have a police car I like to play with.” - Blain Stevens, Pub Staff Jessica Stevens’ son, age 4

lize or really anything. But more often than not we ended up talking about what we had learned about ourselves. Having to hear about what some of these kids have gone through, from their own mouths, was one of the most difficult things I have ever experienced.

I can’t speak for everyone in the group, but I know that after developing relationships with these kids throughout the week, leaving them was harder than I could have ever imagined. We learned so much from these children, just through the sheer force of their positivity and willingness to keep going and living, I am truly thankful for that.

stress on the suite, and the other students in the suite,” she said.

While a whole house designated as gender-neutral may not be on the horizon for Eckerd, Housing aims to maximize student comfort. Long and Wilfalk want to work with transgender students to accommodate their needs, though as of yet they have not had requests for this type of housing.

“We are small enough and personable enough that it would be discrete, as much as a student would like for it to be discreet,”said Dean Wilfalk. “And we would just work with the student on an individualized basis to try to accommodate. But we have just not had a request.”

It is too late in the semester to have a gender neutral house designated for the next academic year, but transgender students should talk to Housing now to get the right accommodations for next year.

“There should not be a stigma with any student who is transgender to think that we’re not going to help them,” Long said. “Just because the option’s not noted out there, in the grand scheme of housing, doesn’t mean the options not there. We’ll figure out a way to accommodate them.”

The only way that policy will change on campus is if there is a need for it to change. Transgender students and allies should talk to Housing to show that gender neutral ideas could benefit Eckerd students.

If many speak up, perhaps a house on campus could be arranged. Until then, Housing will accommodate all students to the best of its ability.

What is on your bucket list for the rest of the semester? What must you do?

“To go on a cruise somewhere awesome...like the Bahamas! Or the Dominican.” - Ana Zubia, junior

“To leave Eckerd with as many feelings of contentment and enjoyment as I currently feel from the knowledge I’ve gained through academic success.” - Adah Binnie, senior

“To get fit and to learn kiteboarding.”

- Sarab Singh, sophomore

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the current

April 5, 2013

Spring breakers go without a break

By Riley Huff Staff Writer

Here is where we immortalize the funniest quotes from EC students and faculty. No names, no shame.

Follow us on twitter: @TheECCurrent Psychology Professor I just wanted to recycle, baby. #ClassProject

“Bikinis and big booties, y’all, that’s what life is about!” James Franco screams in the trailer for 2013’s “Spring Breakers.” Filmed here in St. Petersburg, Fla., the movie’s plot overall is far from an accurate account of the average college student’s vacation.

Still, these words could practically serve as a rallying cry to the hundreds of thousands of young adults looking for a good time after midterms.

History indicates the party is down here in the Sunshine State, too. In the late 1930s, swimming teams from northeastern colleges

Psychology Professor It is always funny when people give up and change their names. #RollCall

Creative Writing Professor I love the work, but just letting you know you did your one masturbation poem for the semester. #TouchySubject

Psychology Student So that is why you told us to read the book, because all the info is in there. #StudyGuide

Literature Professor He’s this seething, boiling pot of racial angst. #Tension

photo by Maggie Miller Freshman Olivia Coleman holding a sloth in Costa Rica.

began training in Fort Lauderdale, and drinking heavily between practices. Ever since, Florida has been the hotspot for Spring Break.

Throughout the 20th century, notions of spring break as representational of America college hedonism developed. Meanwhile, trips to the southernmost parts of the States have increased.

When it comes time to get away from school, most have looked to sunny Florida beaches.

So then the question remains, what do the students of Eckerd College, who go to college in the partying capital of the nation, do during spring vacation? Well, first off, a lot of drinking takes place. Alas, tradition is not completely foregone. No matter where a student is, whether on or off campus, alcohol is at all times accessible and consumed often.

Yet in a surprising twist, little partying happened on campus during this year’s spring break. Sophomore Adrien Krajnik was asked to describe his break on campus in only one word. “One word?” Krajnik said. “Mellow.”

He was also asked if he would have rather spent his vacation up in the much rowdier Panama City Beach partying with crowds of other college students. “I would have freaked out about the amount of money I was spending,” Krajnik said. “It would have been greater than any fun I’d be having.”

When students did choose to venture off on their own, the pursuit of pleasure and immediate gratification was not usually the primary goal. From the booze-drenched roots of this student holiday has branched a number of alternative trips to a variety of places.

Spring break service trips covering ground from Iceland to Guatemala and everywhere in between have grown significantly in popularity.

Freshmen Olivia Coleman and Krista Keisu cared for animals at a wildlife sanctuary in Costa Rica.

Many different tasks were involved including building a sloth enclosure for the area. “It takes some burdens off their hands,” said Coleman.

New practicum offers global perspective to West Lodge residents

By Carolyn Moritz Staff Writer Note: This article is a satirical piece; its contents are not to be taken literally.

The Foundations Collegium is pleased to announce the curriculum for the new Global Perspective option: West Lodge Practicum.

Credit is offered to Eckerd students who reside with international students enrolled in the English Language Services (ELS) program in the West Lodge dormitories.

The rigorous curriculum provides students with crucial life skills such as tolerance for other cultures, problem solving and communication.

Just a few practicum components are illustrated below: Rest and Revelry Seminar is a semester-long immersive course that takes a hard look at sleep schedules and leisure habits in international environments.

The student is encouraged to participate in one of many available research opportunities: Friday Night Festivities: A Case Study in Adrenaline; Siesta and Sanity; The Multilingual Guide to Intoxication, and many others.

Some projects may require previous foreign language experience.

Intercultural Discernment is a two-week workshop intended to refine the pupil’s speculative faculties.

Each day, students select a lunch table at the CEC cafeteria with no fewer than three or four different nationalities present.

The purpose of the exercise is to help all students learn to determine when an individual’s actions can be blithely attributed to “culture” and what behaviors count as authentically bizarre.

Students will become familiar with the United Nations’ International Standards of Normality and will be expected to defend their results before a panel of professors.

Evasive Methods provides degree students with a unique insight into one of the most prestigious advantages of the native speaker: control over information flow.

Students will learn how to skillfully navigate the tepid waters of Questionable Conduct and how to use language and cultural preconceptions to their favor.

Grades are determined by a practical examination in which students stand in front of the Student Community Standards Board and illustrate why their most recent offences were “probably just the ELS kids or something.”

The Practicum is expected to become available in the fall semester of 2013.

We look forward to active community involvement and are excited to engage the student body with continued opportunities for academic excellence.

For full course listings, please consult the 20132014 Course Catalog.

photo by Alex Zielinski A side view of West Lodge.

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In fact so much work lay waiting for those who voyaged to the sanctuary that Eckerd students had time for little else. “We’d wake up at 6:30, work until 12, have lunch, a break, maybe go to the pool, work until 5:30 or 6, eat dinner and sleep,” Coleman mentioned. Still, she claims it was worth the time.

For a little more than $700, the two of them spent their week in a way they feel was much more worthwhile than the typical extravagant partying scene. To Keisu, it was not only satisfying as an enjoyable but short-term experience.

“It helped shape you as a person too,” she said.

Maybe this is why the trips have seen a swell in interest. Competition for this Belize trip was tough as around forty students applied for fewer than fifteen spots before break.

To some college kids, Spring Break 2013 might have resembled the aforementioned “Spring Breakers” in perhaps more ways than intended. However for many students, the infamous vacation period did not match up with director Harmony Korine’s vision of pleasure-chasing youth culture whatsoever.

Instead many students traded the season’s characteristic self-indulgence for opportunities both to volunteer abroad and relax on campus.

photo by Jeralyn Darling Jeralyn Darling enjoyed her break in Quebec’s Ice Hotel.

Thank you from your editors The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) recently announced The Current received first place for Best Small College Newspaper (enrollment under 5,000) and Best College Website in the southeast region.

The Current will now advance to the national competition. The editors and writers of The Current would like to thank you for your continued support as we strive to protect and progress the EC community.

Visit our site to see foreign correspondent Malena Corollo’s response to Princeton alum’s letter about finding a husband in college. www.theonlinecurrent.com

12 Viewpoints

the current

April 5, 2013

Video games breaking through as art form

By Conor McKenna Contributing Writer I feel that it is a commonly shared opinion to view video games simply as a juvenile game instead of an art form. I feel a need to address this problem— video games are a form of art.

Before we can declare video games as art or not as art, we need to understand what art is. Art, to me, is communication of any form to an audience. This includes music, paintings, movies and dance—all of these can be considered as art forms.

Video games are most commonly argued as art by their graphical aesthetic, musical composition and narrative abilities. For example, play “Bastion,” by Supergiant Games. Its artistic visuals include the style of hand-painted scenery and fantastical imagery along with a famous and highly praised soundtrack, which is a perfect fit to the game’s setting and unique story.

All these factors of music, visuals and narrative communicate to the player directly. This is important in art as it expresses a message to the audience that directly affects their gameplay. Video games are especially good at this because they have the ability to communicate through all

three aspects while interacting with the player. Like other art forms, video games establish an emotional connection and can execute this in a unique way, such as the players relationship with Alyx Vance in “Half Life 2” as it develops over the course of the game with distinctive dialogue. But in this way, the audience is emotionally invested by interaction, something movies, books and music can not accomplish.

And, if video games are art, who is the artist? I would have to say the designers and developers are the key artists, yet the game mechanics and the players themselves can be seen as the artist as well—the game is what they are perceiving it as.

With the poor examples we currently see in the video game industry, it’s hard to understand why video games are art. Most people I’ve met who haven’t considered video games as an art form usually think so when thinking of the first person shooters with over excessive violence, enhancing stereotypes and no real moral or purpose, like “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” or “Dead Island.”

A common, and probably the best, argument that doesn’t consider video games as forms of art derives from the idea that by giving

the audience control, you are incorporating your own will, thus ruining the narrative integrity of the artwork and distracting the focus on what the art is communicating to us.

By the player controlling a part of the game, the game loses its emphasis on artistic narrative and communication. I have to argue that while some video games may not have a strong narrative or strong message, the gameplay mechanics enhances this medium as being more artistic medium.

Sophomore Ian Anderson of the SAVEGAME club says it best.

“They combine the visual, the auditory, the written word and then they put on top of that the power of control. This final touch, the idea that you choose your own fate, is the most interesting to me because it is so unexplored. It allows the artist to tackle the concept of fate, destiny, and the role of the individual in altering them, in a way never before possible.”

It’s this interaction in video games between the game and the player that, when done correctly, can enhance the feel or the communication of the game.

Ian Anderson’s example, “Metal Gear Solid 3,” puts the player in a situation where the character

you are playing has no control, and neither do you, in the case of murdering a person. Anderson explains “You want to not pull the trigger, you want to run and you want to do anything but end the life of this human being, but in a powerful symbolic move, the developer takes away your control”.

My own example about the art of interaction in video games would be “The Walking Dead.” In several moments throughout the game, out of nowhere, you are required to make incredibly hard decisions, sometimes choosing between the lives of two people. When you choose, you see only your character standing with a choice on either side of you, and a bar slowly draining, putting pressure and time on your situation.

The developer is forcing you to make an extremely difficult choice.

Video games can have the artistic visualization of Van Gogh, the musical compositional genius of Beethoven and the vastness of an engrossing narrative such as J. R. R. Tolkein’s work, all while being blended in with how you play the game.

Of course, as a medium there can be some setbacks as to why video games don’t want to be seen as art.

Video games are art, but in some cases may not deserve our respect.

This is the same problem that we see in Hollywood: that bad and poorly made movies or video games are/can be embracing stereotypes and simply made for the profit, selling to a predictable 18-30-yearold, straight, male demographic.

Both art forms are being undermined with released titles with the sole intention to make a profit.

We see many examples of this instead of artistic and progressive titles that embrace the integrity of video games. These poor examples negatively cloud common judgment of video games to be a boy’s toy where you can kill people. Video games aren’t seen as an interactive, narrative art form, but rather seen as a negative and stupid waste of time.

We see these problems frequently today, especially with all the new “Call of Duty” titles. This common misconception is a major problem for the integrity of video games and this medium being seen as art.

I would like to see more games in the industry such as “Bioshock,” “Bastion,” “The Walking Dead” or “Portal.”

In these video games, we can find captivating visuals, sound, narrative and gameplay giving respect to video games and video games as an art form.

illustration by Alex Zielinski

Students “mumble” grievances on new forum from GRUMBLE, page 9

opinions and concerns about issues on campus, I certainly understand that some students might feel more comfortable expressing a concern in a forum like Campus Grumble. I fully support any responsible effort that furthers campus conversation about important issues and that allows students’ voices to be heard.”

I wholeheartedly agree and believe that Campus Grumble is a site we should take serious advantage of, where our voices will be heard and taken into professional consideration. Our input matters here and takes effect in Campus Grumble’s open forum of grumbling, mumbling and proposed solutions.

Campus Grumble’s president John Kirkpatrick is also congratulatory of the kickoff ’s success. “The student government at Eckerd Col-

lege is honestly a great example of a responsive organization that does and hopefully will continue to make waves on their campus with Campus Grumble,” said Kirkpatrick.

We’ve to thank dean Annarelli, Justin Long, and ECOS, with extra thanks to Josh Annarelli and Eliza van Dissel for their joint effort in making Campus Grumble possible.

Even in its relative newness, it is already proving its effectiveness in the Eckerd community, strengthening communications between students and administration as well as improving campus wide issues that might be accidentally overlooked.

It is the perfect combination of a suggestion and complaint box, and certainly acts as a more proactive initiative than either on its own could accomplish.

courtesy of John Kirkpatrick Promotional photo.

photo by Caroline Campbell Students skate boarding in the Kappa courtyard.

Kappa skaters grind new park

By Ryan Wheeler Staff Writer Junior Joe Whalen spearheaded a trip with his friends Kevin Peterson, Charlie Colvin and Will Ribbeans to a mutual friend’s house off campus to bring a skate park back to his beloved Kappa.

Admittedly the Kappa skate park isn’t much; it consists of just two, three-foot quarter pipes that are set up caddy corner to each other in the Kappa courtyard. However, for what it lacks in jumps, bowls or other traditional skate park features, the uniquely “Eckerd” set up at Kappa more than makes up for in atmosphere.

While it would certainly be nice if Eckerd funded a real skate park on campus, the grassroots park currently at Kappa isn’t half bad. It is so quintessentially Eckerd for the students to bring their very own skate park to campus, rather than having to travel somewhere else.

Skaters from all around campus have spontaneously gathered at the skate park to simply shred, hang out and just enjoy skating. A steady crowd of at least eight skaters has reportedly been using the ramp, according to Kappa residents. The only real concern for the

skate park is that the two quarter pipes are made out of wood, which means they are susceptible to rotting when they eventually get wet.

“These ramps are like our puppies here at Kappa, we know we can’t have them forever, but we are gonna love them while they’re here,” said Whalen.

The Kappa skate park isn’t just being used by kids at Kappa though. Freshman Chris Mutterer, an Iota resident, has been enjoying the newfound skate park.

“I love skating back home, so it is really nice to be able to continue to do it here at Eckerd with all my friends,” Mutterer said.

If the ramps do end up staying at Kappa for some time, it could easily become a new spot for Eckerd students to hang out.

With its prime location next to Kappa Field and South Beach, this new little skate park could see more and more students as word spreads throughout campus.

This is undoubtedly good news for skaters, who really don’t have many options here at Eckerd. So far, Campus Safety has had no issue with the ramps, telling the skaters it is okay as long as nobody uses the ramps at night—a small price to pay for getting a place to skate.

Adam Colby, the director of emergency management and campus safety confirms, “It is not up to Campus Safety to approve or disapprove of the skate ramps,” said Colby. “The decision is made by the housing department. If housing approves the skate ramps, then Campus Safety does; if housing does not approve of them, then Campus Safety enforces the regulations of the College.”

According to the Associate Director of Residence Life Jamey Handorf, “We in Housing and Residence Life are aware of the skate ramps in the Kappa courtyard,” said Handorf. “As long as the ramps remain in good repair and don’t pose an obvious safety hazard, we are not going to have them removed. If they start to go into disrepair, and do pose a safety hazard, we will require the residents of Kappa to repair them, or have them removed.”

Of course, there are the health benefits to having a place to skate without interrupting traffic or pedestrians. This gives the students a chance to get some good exercise, because they can skate for hours without worrying about being kicked out of a spot, or there being too many cars. Plus they get to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather as well. Junior Chris Athing said, “I think that these ramps are a good way for kids to get outside and be active, maybe something the school should fund in the future.”

Though the ramps aren’t professionally made, or very big, and the pavement isn’t very smooth, it doesn’t matter. Could everything be better? Yes, but that isn’t the point.

The skate park is something that was brought here by Eckerd kids, for Eckerd kids, that is being embraced and enjoyed by Eckerd kids.

It’s the ideals of the Eckerd community in action, and nothing could be better than that.

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the current

Entertainment 13

April 5, 2013

Entertainment INSIDE ENTERTAINMENT

Howling for hope

Student visits local wolf sanctuary

Female YouTubers

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Playstation 4 release

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Fashion column

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By Caroline Campbell Health and Fitness Editor My ankles cracked and my back popped as I stretched. We drove two and half-hours from St. Petersburg to Naples to arrive by 9 a.m.

As we congregated outside what seemed to be a residential home, a small howl reached our ears followed by a whole pack of howls.

They knew we arrived. My friends and I exchanged glances while mischievous smirks crept across our faces as the haunting noise of the wolves greeted us at Shy Wolf Sanctuary.

Tours are free and start at 9 a.m.

A reservation is recommended because group sizes vary. Our group consisted of just seven of my friends and our tour guide, Nancy Smith the President of Shy Wolf Sanctuary. She gave us an educational introduction about animal rescue and the importance of spaying and neutering our pets.

Then she got to the good stuff, the wolves. We learned that every wolf in the sanctuary had been rescued and most had to be rehabilitated. They never breed the animals and some of the wolves are able to be adopted after rehabilitation.

We learned the sad stories of the wolves and the abusive homes they came from. Many had been left in the wilderness chained to trees, or abandoned in houses. Almost all of them had made full recoveries, from broken spines and necks, to open wounds. Some had witnessed traumatic events involving their owners on drugs, murdering other animals in front of their eyes.

Freshman Tiffany Imbert knows the Sanctuary well as a resident of Naples. “Well the last time I was

promotional photo

“Fight Club” author delivers again

By Hayden Johnson Asst. Entertainment Editor

photo by Caroline Campbell Katie Taylor and other vistiors playing with wolves.

there they were trying to educate people about owning exotic pets like panthers, wolves, foxes, and the like,” Imbert said.

“The people there love the animals too and you can see it. They almost seem like they love their animals more than people. I also liked hearing the wolves howl at night whenever I slept in that area.” Imbert continued, “As a local I love what they do and I love that they’ll let anyone in because its a chance to educate people and help save some wonderful creatures.”

Many of the misconceptions of were able to walk into their cages and pet them. Wolves are territorial, not in the sense of a guard dog, but in that they hide from humans, and are very shy when people enter their homes. Some of the wolves were more social, while others stayed hidden. Each wolf had a unique personality. Some acted like dogs and wagged their tails and wanted to rub on us and lick our faces, while others barked then went and hid. Some were too aggressive to pet or enter their cages.

We took the lead of Nancy and either sat on benches or knelt down. By doing so, we instantly became less intimidating to the wolves. Like most dogs, they want to be face to face with you to smell your breath and look into your eyes.

Dancer was the one wolf that stood out to most of us. We entered her cage and all took seats on tree limbs, stumps or sat on the dirt floor. She had been rescued and rehabilitated from a broken spine.

See WOLVES, page 15

“The Heist” deluxe version is more than catchy

By Jennifer Lincoln Staff Writer Macklemore, Seattle native and hip-hop/rap artist, was a successful artist before he met Ryan Lewis (his friend and producer). He started out with his first EP “Open Your Eyes” in 2000, and since then has topped the charts with The Heist, aided by Lewis.

Macklemore and Lewis’s independently produced debut studio album, “The Heist”, exceeded already high expectations, peaking at number two on the Billboard 200 Chart and debuting at number one on the Billboard Top R&B/ Hip-Hop Albums. The album starts off with its explosive first number, “Ten Thousand Hours,” which chronicles Macklemore’s realization of his rise to fame.

The Heist is filled with anything from fun “dance around with your friends until the sun comes up” tunes “Can’t Hold Us, “Thrift Shop” to songs about tough breakups “Thin Line,” equality “Same

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Love,” reminders to not become too materialistic “Make The Money,” substance abuse and recovery “Neon Cathedral,” “A Wake, Starting Over,” songs about having fun and just enjoying life “Cowboy Boots,” “Wings,” “White Walls,” “Gold,” the reason why he chose to independently produce “Jimmy Iovine” and even an instrumental “BomBom.” The real show-stopper of the album was “Thrift Shop,” obviously, achieving the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as reaching number one in seven other countries. “Thrift Shop” sold over three million copies, and continues to frequently appear on the current hit radio stations, even though it came out in early October. With lyrics like, “Draped in a leopard mink, girl standing next to me, probably should’ve washed this, smells like R. Kelly sheets” and “They be like ‘Oh that Gucci, that’s hella tight’ I’m like ‘Yo, that’s fifty dollars for a t-shirt,’” it’s hard not to burst out singing along.

Recently, the Eckerd College

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Dance Company performed a rendition of “Thrift Shop” for the student body, peaking Eckerd’s interest in the song and Macklemore himself. Another hit from “The Heist” was the emotional ballad “Same Love” featuring Mary Lambert, which advocates for marriage equality and equal rights for people of all sexual orientations, providing encouragement during the election.

His lyrics, “When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless, rather than fighting for humans that have had their rights stolen, I might not be the same, but that’s not important, no freedom till we’re equal, damn right I support it” exemplified Macklemore’s views perfectly and his stance on the presidential election. The song that explains his rise to fame and success as an artist, Jimmy Iovine, contains the lines, “I replied I appreciate the offer, thought that this is what I wanted, rather be a starving artist than succeed at getting f----ed.”

Macklemore pens that the reasons he chose to produce The Heist

independently with Ryan Lewis included getting greedy offers by companies and becoming offended by it. Overall, the album is one of the best out there and a dynamic collection of volcanic dance music and deep meaningful tracks that will appeal to anyone’s taste in music, no matter what it is.

promotional photo

With a Burmese cat, a mini-bar, loud sex and toxoplasma gondii, Chuck Palahniuk delivers in his newest e-book single “Phoenix.”

Palahniuk is the author of many great novels such as “Fight Club,” “Choke,” “Survivor,” “Rant” and “Invisible Monsters.” With his ebook single “Phoenix” he will give you a little over an hour’s worth of reading.

The story of “Phoenix” leads you into a trail of suspense and marital tension all compacted into a single.

For those unfamiliar with e-books, a single is synonymous with a short story, but only released in e-book format. The story revolves around Rachel, Ted and their blind daughter April. Rachel is away on a business trip in Orlando while Ted takes care of April back home in Seattle in the couple’s second house. While talking on the phone to her passive aggressive husband, Rachel keeps on asking to speak with April. April doesn’t respond to her mother.

Days pass and Rachel keeps on trying to contact April through Ted with no response. The only things that she has to occupy herself in her motel room are a muted T.V., a mini-bar, and noises of the couple next door having loud sex. Tension hammers away at Rachel’s consciousness on finding out what is actually happening to her daughter.

Meanwhile, in a flashback subplot the reader learns about Rachel and Ted’s first house. The house is dark and inhabited by Ted’s Burmese black cat named Belinda Carlisle. It is 3 years before, and Rachel has just found out she is pregnant.

She is worried about toxoplasma gondii, a microorganism that lives in cat feces affecting her unborn child’s health. Pressure builds as Rachel tries to convince her passive dumb husband to get rid of the cat and to list the house.

As a fan of Palahniuk’s writing, the part that really stood out to me was that this short story was written in the third person point of view. I always felt that Palahniuk was a very strong with his use of the first person and the depth of introspecSee PHOENIX, page 16

14 Entertainment

the current

April 5, 2013

Events

April 5 - 18

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

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First Friday

Explore Eckerd

11 a.m.CPS Spring Wellness Fair

10 a.m.

College Republicans

8:30 p.m.

Hula for Happiness Bake Sale

6 p.m.

Film Aficionados Movie 7 p.m.

Night Environmental Film Festival 9 p.m.

Glow and Get it Up with Campus Saftey

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1 p.m.

Super Store Shopping Shuttle

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Pride Week

Pride Week

4:30 p.m.

Pitcher’s with Professors

11 a.m.

Saturday Morning Market Shuttle

5 p.m.

Relay of Life

9 p.m.

Another Man’s Trash

9 p.m.

Rocky Horror

Explore Eckerd Yam HaShoah

Explore Eckerd

6 p.m. CPS Advancing Women

5:30 p.m. CPS EC Annual Etiquette Dinner

7 p.m. CPS Survivor Speak Out

5:30 p.m.

Relay for Life Bank Night

7 p.m. CPS An Evening with Jennifer Key 8 p.m.

WRC Meditation

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15

Pride Week Explore Eckerd

Pride Week Explore Eckerd

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16 Pride Week Wear Your Colors

11 a.m.

1 p.m.

Tie Dye and Rainbows Super Store Shopping Shuttle Fun in the Sun Day

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Pride Week

Pride Week

6:30 p.m.

Come Out and Dine

7 p.m. CPS The Art of Healing

7 p.m.

How to Become an Entrepreneur

9 p.m.

Milk and Cookies

8 p.m.

Fuddy Meers 9 p.m.

Trivia with Pride

To advertise your event with The Current, contact Current Entertainment at currententertainment@eckerd.edu

The St. Pete Sampler Local fun and fine dining

Need to find a place to start off your day? Check out these diners around the St. Petersburg area and have breakfast outside the bubble.

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THE TIPSY TRITON Cocktails & Mixed Drinks Caribbean Dream 3 oz. orange juice 3 oz. grapefruit juice 3 oz. spiced rum Red Bull Combine rum and juice in shaker with ice. Shake well and pour into highball glass. Top with splash of red bull.

Paloma 2 oz. silver tequila Juice of 1/2 lime Salt Grapefruit soda Combine tequila, salt and lime juice over ice in a lowball glass. Fill remainder of the glass with soda. Stir well.

Note: The beverages and recipes on this page are intended for consumption only by individuals who are 21 or older. The Current does not promote underage drinking. When combining alcoholic beverages with caffeinated beverages, it is important to be aware of the potential side-effects and limit your consumption accordingly. Drink responsibly, our friends.

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A. Beverly’s La Croisette 7401 Gulf Blvd 13 mins from campus Mon. - Sun. 6:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.

4 stars $

B. Kristina’s Cafe 3590 34th St N 15 mins from campus 24 hours 4 stars $

C. Skyway Jack’s 2795 34th St S 7 mins from campus Mon. - Sun. 5 a.m. - 3 p.m.

4 stars $

D. Dome Grill Inc 561 Central Ave. 12 mins from campus N/A 3 1/2 stars $

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Beer

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the current

April 5, 2013

Entertainment 15

Director of concerts speaks out

By Mike Geibel Sports Editor It isn’t easy being the head of all concerts for a student activities board. A lot of people think it would be an awesome job to have, filled with music and fun. In reality, it’s a very difficult position that comes with a lot of responsibility and pressure.

The first thing to note about the director of concerts job is that you can never make everyone happy. No matter who performs or how little it costs or how great the show is, there will always be those students who aren’t happy. Problems always arise when trying to balance the interests of the student body with what can fit with the school. People simply have different tastes in music.

Another difficulty with planning all of the concerts for a school of Eckerd’s size is the budget. As director of concerts for Palmetto Productions this year, I received $35,000 as part of the total Palmetto budget for the entire school year. This seems like a lot of money, until you get a glance at a pricing sheet from a booking agent and realize just how little $35,000 will buy.

Not only do we put on a national act for a private show on campus, but we are expected to provide the concerts for events such as the Welcome Back party at the GO Pavilion, Spring Ball, a monthly coffeehouse series and many others. Out of that $35,000 budget come all costs for the sound system, stage, hotels, booking fees, meals, travel and anything else that goes along with putting on a concert.

By the end of this year, I will be responsible for bringing at least eight concerts to campus. That’s an average of less than $5,000 per show.

One facet of students’ discontent with the entertainment provided is the notoriety of the band or artist performing. They want to see Macklemore ($50,000-$75,000) or Fun. ($75,000-100,000) or another hugely popular act and it is simply out of our budget. Stu-

photo by Alex Zielinski Students Caroline Campbell and Jeanine O’Connell.

Naples wolf sanctuary gives back from WOLVES, page 13 Photo by Alex Zielinski Palmetto Director of Concerts Mike Geibel hard at work.

dents sometimes don’t understand how much these artists charge for a show and it can lead to feelings of dissatisfaction with the performer who is chosen.

Even some big acts that seem to be within our budget end up being too expensive when other factors are added in. Middle agents charge a standard 10 percent of the artist fee to make the contact with the artist, which can add up quickly for national acts like Shwayze.

All money matters aside, there is a lot of time and effort involved in the process. I have been in contact with Shwayze since the beginning of fall semester before finally getting the show booked and everything signed in February.

It is a long process to get a national act signed and agreed to do a campus show. After I make initial contact with the artist, the Palmetto committee weighs in, and then the Palmetto Board, and then the director of Palmetto, then the advisor until finally the contract can be run by risk management and the business office. And that’s just the first volley of negotiations.

Even when the contract gets to risk management, the deal isn’t in the clear yet. As an educational institution, Eckerd is legally not allowed to provide any alcohol or tobacco to

an artist. That means any contract requests for alcohol or cigarettes are immediately crossed out by risk management. Also, any requests that are too outrageous are cut out before the contract is ever signed.

This new, updated version is then signed and sent back to the artist to once again go back to negotiations. If I’m lucky, the process ends shortly after. In some cases, the process continues in this loop for several rounds of back and forth between the artist and the director of concerts.

The process can last, quite literally, for months until the contract is fully executed.

And then the planning begins. The stage, the lights, the sound and everything else has to be planned down to the inch and scheduled down to the minute.

Palmetto holds office hours and has an email address for those who would like to help with ideas for concerts. Palmetto Committee is also open to all students to help with events and get more input. Each of the Palmetto board members holds office hours every week. Students are encouraged to visit during these office hours to give their opinions or ask any questions they may have about Palmetto’s events.

They had found her with her back jutted to a point and her neck set crooked. Someone had severely abused this animal, and after a painful full-recovery she still gave all of her trust to humans. She rubbed up on all of us, wagged her tail so excitedly that it slapped a few of us in our faces and licked us profusely.

I could see Nancy choking back tears of joy as she repeated how special this moment was.

The care and patience of the people at this sanctuary and education center is overwhelming. They are trying to expand to their new 20 acre property they’ve purchased. They need donations to finish getting permits and to build new homes for the wolves. They would also like to build dorm style rooms in order to house more volunteers who travel just to see and help these wolves.

Junior Jeanine O’Connell accompanied me on this trip to the sanctuary. “I’ve been to Shy Wolf twice now and I’ve had a beautiful experience both times. The wolves are breathtaking and enchanting,” said O’Connell. “The volunteers there are so kind and knowledgable. Running solely on donations, they do amazing work. I want them to raise enough money to expand so much, I’ve convinced my parents to donate to the sanctuary over other charities.”

SONY PS4 announcement fails to impress gamers Conor Sean McKenna Staff Writer Sony’s Playstation 4 was announced Feb. 20, and is expected to release sometime in December. With the already released Wii U last November, we’re beginning to get a clear look at what the next generation of video game consoles will be about. With Nintendo’s Wii U and the rumored Xbox 720 or Xbox Infinite by Microsoft, Playstation joins the competition with the PS4. With many expectations for the next generation of consoles, it’s already clear how Nintendo or Sony will meet them.

When the Playstation 4 was released with great enthusiasm claiming to be the new ad-

promotional photo

vancement of gaming, telling their audience to “See The Future” as part of their ad campaign where gamers can stream new updates on the console. Though showing the actual console won’t be until E3, they did advertise and show the new controller, Duelshock 4.

The new duelshock adds much more with the touch screen, the use of the share button, and motion controls. But most importantly, the Duelshock 4 looked like a fun controller to use. The controller will work with a camera on a bar that the PS4 comes with, similar to the Nintendo Wii’s first controller and the Xbox Kinect. These are improvements for Sony that will help their next generation console.

They also introduced the connections and interactions made with the console and other Sony devices to allow the players to stay connected to videos and the Sony community.

With this you can now continue playing a game through the console on another device, much like the Wii U controller.

For the console itself, it is like an optimized PC console which is an impressive improvement with enhance PC GPU and X86 CPU. It will have an 8GB of GDDR5 of RAM. It

will have a local storage hard drive and supercharged PC architecture.

The entire announcement for the Playstation 4 felt like an embarrassing and forced lecture on why to buy their uninspired product through over exaggeration. The announcement was very depressing for me and I’m sure, many Sony fans. A big focus of the announcement seems to focus on the games that will be on the PS4, unfortunately. The games shown were things that any gamer has seen before and hiding much from the real experience of the game.

They claim their focus is on the gamer, which may be true, but they don’t understand what the gamer wants. Their effort seemed to be tricking the audience that the Playstation 4 seemed to be a good console. This console was obviously not made for the gamer, but to make more money and redeem themselves after their mistakes with the PS3.

What Sony presented looked like an upgrade for the PS3, but not a whole new console. This is what the PS3 should have been or at least an upgrade to the PS3, not an entire new console. The PS4 lacks innovation and

creativity, it isn›t what our goals should be for the next generation of gaming. Sony’s Playstation 4 is not worthy of its own title and not what gamers deserve in the next generation.

Though the Playstation 4 seems to be a disappointment as a next generation title, the Wii U has done fairly well. Nintendo has also made some good steps in the right direction with their improvements and new controller with gameplay mechanics. As for the new Xbox console, Microsoft has not released any information yet, but there has been mostly positive rumors.

The video game industry has had its advancements, and its disappointments, in the last couple years, and with the next generation coming we should see new and exciting things to look forward to. The Wii U makes steps forward while the Playstation 4 gives us disappointment. I hope we get to see what the next generation of video game consoles should be with the new Xbox console. I’m afraid the next generation will only be a slight upgrade of the old generation, with a lack of innovation, uniqueness and growth.

Top three female YouTubers channeling creativity online

By Kara Brown Contributing Writer While men may dominate the traditional media scene, there are many women YouTubers who are taking the Internet by storm.

However, female content creators on YouTube face many of the same problems as women in the traditional media scene so it is important to support them by watching their videos. Here are some channels you should check out: 1. The Brain Scoop (Emily Graslie) Emily is the volunteer curatorial assistant for

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the Philip L. Wright Zoological Museum at the University of Montana. The aim of this channel is to highlight everything that goes into upkeeping a museum taxidermy. Fom preparing specimens to maintaining them, as well as giving the opportunity to learn about many different animals in a fun, engaging way.

And while “EVERYTHING IS DEAD,” the entertainment value of this channel is very much alive and kicking.

Who would find this channel most interesting: Homo sapiens particularly science majors and animals.

If you only watch one video from this channel it should be: Ask Emily #1.

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2. OMGCHOMP (Alyssa Onofreo) Alyssa’s channel is a mix of sketch comedy and vlogging. “Disney and Pixar are big storytelling inspirations to me. Story is the most important thing. If you have a good story, it won’t matter as much if it doesn’t look perfect,” said Onofreo. This influence can be seen in her short film Princess Blogger which she made last year.

Who would find this channel most interesting: Anyone with a sense of humor and fans of Chelsea Peretti or Louis C.K. If you only watch one video from this channel it should be: What Girls Do When They Like Someone.

3. myharto (Hannah Hart) Like a good bartender mixes booze, Hart perfectly blends cooking and comedy in this lessthan-educational cooking channel, she offers up endless puns to serve alongside the sometimes dubious dishes made in her drunken dazes, all topped off with somewhat solid life advice and observations in her show “My Drunk Kitchen.”

Who would find this channel most interesting: Those who love puns and food.

If you only watch one video from this channel it should be: My Drunk Kitchen: Fish Fingers & Custard.

16 Entertainment

the current

April 5, 2013

Cult writer brings style back in his new ebook single

Eckerd fashion 2013: Grateful Dread heads

By Dominick Cuppetilli Asst. Sports Editor What is the one accessory you have on you at all times? Your hair.

It can be short or it can be long. It can be a mohawk or it can be an afro. It can be curly or it can be straight. As for me, I have dreads.

I have always known that I wanted to get dreads one day. It started back in fifth grade, when I actually sat down and convinced my elementary school principal that it was all right for me to grow my hair out past what the limit was. I had a pretty strict uniform from then through high school, so guys’ hair had to be above the eyebrows, above the earlobes and above the collar. This didn’t work for me.

Of course, through both middle and high school I would push the limits of what my hair was allowed to be, but I would have to cut it once it started looking decent. Finally, the last month of my senior year, my teachers had enough and I was free to let my hair grow as long as I wanted.

So my hair grew for about a year and a half until just a couple weeks ago, when my hair was dreaded for the first time. With hair down past my shoulders and an itch to dread up my hair, I began the process that would take about five hours to complete. Five hours seems like a while for a new hairdo, but it was easy compared to the nine years I waited for this moment.

People are always asking me now how dreads are even done. I couldn’t exactly see what was going on, but from what I could feel I think a few cats just claw and pull at your hair until it comes out looking

photo by Kate Farley Dominick Cuppetilli shows off his dreads.

like a dread. But in all honesty the process is just about backcombing hair and going at it with a hair pick, followed by twisting and palm rolling. Add a month of no shampoo and you should have yourself some dreads.

I got back to campus late on a Saturday night, and I immediately had people flocking around me.

My closer friends knew it was happening that day, but many people I knew had no idea. So as I paraded my new hairdo around the nightlife of campus, I was flooded with people saying how good they looked.

Of course the first week or so and most definitely the first day, dreads look goofy on whoever it is, so I probably didn’t deserve as many compliments as I got.

I was planning on waiting to tell my parents until my hair had settled a little bit, but on the first day I was so excited I couldn’t help but tell my mom. She knew it was going to happen, but was somewhat apprehensive about it. “Bradley Cooper was so handsome and then he got those dreads for that movie and he looks like a bum,” she said. But after seeing the picture I sent, she was more comforted and realized her son wasn’t going to look like a total screw up.

My dad was another story. He went on a ski trip with his wife and

friends, so being the kind son that I am, I decided to wait till he was back, so the news wouldn’t ruin his trip. You see, practically every time I have seen my dad for almost a decade, he asks me when I am getting a haircut. He could hardly stand the hair past the shoulders (even though he had it at my age), so I suspected getting dreads was going to be a big step for him to take.

A couple days turned into a week, but I knew I was going to have to tell him at some point. I simply sent him a text saying, “I got a new hairdo.” His response was, “Send a pic ASAP.” So I sent him a picture and much to my surprise, he didn’t flip out. I half expected him to send back a picture of a razor and a plane ticket, like he was going to come and cut them off himself, but he took it much better than that.

He said he would obviously like it better if it was a clean cut, but he admitted that I wore the hair well. I guess parents can learn new things too. Plus his cherry on top was when I explained the only way to get them out was to cut them, so he was happy about that.

Between my mom having an ok response and my dad having a better response than I could have dreamed of, there was a pretty wide spectrum of feedback. When Ian Lindsay was dreading my hair, he

gave me three pieces of advice. He told me people are going to think I am automatically nicer, black people are going to like me more and that mass amounts of people would ask me for drugs.

Those pieces of info held pretty true in the first week I had my dreads. Most people had good things to say about them, with a few people that weren’t completely sold. They are looking much better after the first week or so, largely because of all the work you have to put in them. It’s all about twisting and rolling, twisting and rolling.

I know dreads aren’t going to be for everyone. I can stand a few dirty looks from “responsible, well groomed” adults if it means having something that I love. The only limit to your own happiness is within yourself. You can choose to either do what makes you happy, or hold it back because of what someone might think. This time, happiness came in the form of a dread.

It was a great feeling to get something that I have wanted for so long. Even though growing my hair out to the right length wasn’t technically working, I felt pretty accomplished at the end of the day.

The way I see it, this is kind of part two of my life. There was the time without dreads, and now it’s the time for them to shine.

from PHOENIX, page 13 ion he gave to his protagonists.

Palahniuk still stays strong shifting through perspectives. Along with the different point of view, the author still keeps his signature pacing, edgy humor and satire through the short story.

One way in which Palahniuk delivers his humor is in the instance in which Rachel tries to get rid of the cat by draining its food supply.

The couple both agrees that when the cat has finished its last bag of food, they would give it up to another home. However, no matter how much cat food Rachel puts in the bowl, the bag mysteriously fills up. In this part, Palahniuk writes “Like the parable of the loaves and fishes or that lamp in the Temple of David, the big bag of kibble was always half full.”

Another humorous part of the story is when Rachel doesn’t hear back from April and then suddenly hears the couple next door. In this scene he writes “The sounds have droned on so long, they must be a pornographic film. No one was ever that much in love.” The edgy humor with a dash of cynicism is still retained in “Pheonix.”

For those of you familiar with Palahniuk, you will be pleased with “Phoenix.” The events may not be as extreme stories of a fight club, a sex addict who pretends to choke, or the survivor of a mass suicide but it still packs a punch. To those of you who have not read any of his pieces, this short story is a quick way to get into a great modern author. The quick pacing will pull you through the story smoothly while the bumps of edgy humor and mystery will keep you from putting down your tablet.

Viral video update: Calorie counts and nunchuck skills

“What 2000 Calories Looks Like” uploaded by BuzzFeed March 25

“Kung Fu Grandpa in the Food Lion parking lot!” uploaded by aamon17 March 29

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the current

April 5, 2013

The quickie

Crossword by: Rose Kraemer-Dahlin

The Quickie

17

There’s always enough time for a quickie.

Across 1 Mist 4 Central processing unit 7 i.e. 32 long 11 Volcano 15 Keeps record of extinct animals (abbr.)

16 Lady campus club 17 Greek god of war 18 Shave 19 Type of waffle 21 Carry 22 Forestall 23 Civil rights org.

24 Asian bird 25 Division (abbr.)

26 How April brings May flowers 28 Gamer’s haven 31 ___ Ripkin, Jr. 34 American show hits all time low 35 Not winning 38 Bullfight cheer 40 Victuals Org (abbr.)

41 Sleepy from jet ___ 42 El ___, Texas 43 Hit hard 44 ___ of White 46 WEC’s march in Tampa 47 Empire State 49 Dictator (abbr.)

53 Ely ___feld, Views Editor 55 Entreaty 56 Room lottery 57 Possessive pronoun 60 Highs 61 Dickens’s Tiny ___

62 Prof. born in Matanzas 63 Things fall apart for 65 Expansive 68 Yield 69 ___2000 (soap) 70 Ingrown ___ 73 Lair 74 Southwest by south 75 Like a fox 78 Black 80 Fencing sword 81 Regards 83 Cry 84 Binds 85 Carver ___, Design Editor 86 Agr. Credit Co. (abbr.)

87 ___, breezy, beautiful 88 Wager 89 Acid 90 This is Spinal ___!

Down 1 Lover’s month (abbr.)

2 Neon sign 3 Apple type 4 Fancy 5 Blanket for peas 6 Place for ashes 7 Man-goat 8 Shackles 9 EC Community Zoo 10 Compass point 11 Moral philosophy 12 (Negligible) pursuit 13 Zilch 14 EC Improv 20 Step on the ___ 24 They call her ____ Yellow 25 Saliva on pillow

27 Scratchy sweaters 28 Palin’s paradise 29 Gene code 30 Fabergé 31 Dead Poet Soc. Name 32 Middle East dweller 33 Cross off on this bucket ___ 37 After ding 39 Home of pyramids 40 Drives big red truck 43 Shoots from afar 45 Swirl 48 Great in a martini 50 Iraq’s neighbor 51 Walking stick 52 A fool 54 Hot sandwich 57 Malcolm in the Middle’s dad 58 ___ Hotel in Quebec City 59 Tim Burton’s Dark ______ with Depp 64 Fairly 66 Back talks 67 Sloped 70 Twitter’s verb 71 Large 72 NaOH 74 Form a web 76 Liberal direction 77 St. Petersburg rock and roll museum 78 Ogle 79 Constrictor, or made of feathers 80 When will you be here?

81 Elbow, in a building 82 Makes syrup

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Club Spotlight: Women’s Empowerment Society

By Rose Kraemer-Dahlin Quickie Editor If there is one thing you should be aware of this April it’s Women’s Empowerment Society (WES). From the much-anticipated event “Survivors Speak Out” to an international rally protesting sexual violence, WES is bringing you nine events this month that you won’t want to miss.

WES member Hailey Escobar is especially excited for their event “Take Back the Night” and she encourages students to attend. “Take Back the Night is probably the biggest event of the year for WES since it’s an internationally held march that brings attention to and directly protests against the sexual abuse pandemic we seem to be facing.”

The event will be held on Sunday, April 21 at 7 p.m. in Tampa’s Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. If you can’t make it to this event, no worries – you’ll be notified in your e-mail of many more WES events coming up. If you’d like to know even more about WES, there is one other thing you could do: you could attend a meeting.

Students gather on the occasional Wednesday at 7 p.m., to discuss women’s issues that are

centuries past to more current issues at hand.

For example, one discussion might be regarding the advancement of women as professionals in a male-dominated workplace. Another topic frequented is strengthening the voice of our women, emphasizing the importance of asserting their own sexual wants and needs.

Each discussion falls under what Co-Chairs Taylor Greene and Becca Cassidy state in their mission for the Women’s Empowerment Society: “to work for awareness of women’s issues and gender equality here in the Eckerd community and beyond.”

WES aims to provide resources that will educate our students by promoting social and political awareness with specific respect towards gender, sexuality and, of course, empowerment.

Meetings are held in the Women’s Resource Center behind Fox Hall, but don’t let the location fool you – Women’s Empowerment Society is for everybody, no matter the gender you identify as. To be notified of their next meeting date, e-mail Taylor Greene at tmgreene@ eckerd.edu and she’ll add you to WES’s mailing list.

photos courtesy of Becca Cassidy Above: Senior Ethan Cooper, Former Student Taylor Evans and Junior Alexandra Roberts enjoy a sip from last year’s Mocktails event hosted by WES. Right: Members of the Women’s Empowerment Society strike a pose during a meeting in the Women’s Resource Center.

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18 The Quickie

April 5, 2013

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courtesy of Dailyinfographic.com

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the current

April 5, 2013

Health & Fitness 19

Health & fitness

Full body workout

By Jon McChesney (‘12) Contributing Writer

Carbon Leaf

1.

Box Jump: Start standing 2. Pull-Up: Grasp the over- 3. Squat: Start standing with 4. Deadlift: Start with feet with your legs fully extended and head bar with an overhand/under- your feet shoulder-width apart shoulder-width apart. Bend at the hand/alternative-hand grip shoulder-width apart. Pull your body up until your chin clears the bar, and finish by lowering the body until arms and shoulders are fully extended.

and hands at your sides. Keep your weight on your heels. Lower your body while maintaining good posture until your thighs are parallel with the ground. Resume to the starting position and repeat.

waist and at the knees. Grasp the bar securely about waist width (may be wider for comfort). Looking straight ahead, your spine flat (not stooped over or rounded), breathe in deeply and pull the bar to a full military position standing upright. Keep the bar close to the body and exhale as full force is exerted. Pause for a second and slowly bend your knees and lower back as you return to the starting position and repeat.

Photos by Carver Lee Workouts demonstrated by Alex Giles



Curl: Start standing with feet shoulder-width apart and your knees relaxed. Grasp a barbell with your hands also shoulder-width apart. Your grip should be underhand (palms facing upwards). Stand upright and let the bar hang in front of your thighs. Bend at your elbows to curl the bar to shoulder level.

Pause momentarily at this top position. Slowly lower the bar back to the starting position.

Miike Snow (Fake Blood Remix)

Not Your Fault AWOLNATION



5. your

Animal

Big Strong Man

Complete the circuit 3 times. Perform each exercise for 30 seconds. 15 second rest intervals between exercises. 2 minute rest intervals between circuits.

your feet shoulder-width apart.

Perform a half squat and jump onto the platform. Land softly on the balls of your feet. Hold your position for 2 seconds and then slowly step or jump down off the platform softly on the balls of your feet. Resume to starting position and repeat.

Rachel’s Workout

4.

Close Grip Push-up: Lie prone on floor with hands under shoulders or slightly narrower.

Position body up off floor with extended arms and body straight.

Keeping body straight, lower body to floor by bending arms.

Push body up until arms are extended. Repeat.

5.

Mountain Climber: Place hands on floor, slightly wider than shoulder-width. On the balls of your toes, position one leg forward bent under body and extend other leg back. While holding upper body in place, alternate leg positions by pushing hips up and immediately extending forward leg back and pulling rear leg forward under body, landing on both forefeet simultaneously.

6.

Crunch: Start laying on your back. Cross your arms or put them behind your head. Keeping your feet flat on the ground slowly lift your head first, followed by your shoulder blades. Pull up from the floor until you’re at a ninety-degree angle. Hold the position for a second, keeping your back flat. Slowly bring the torso back to the floor but try to keep it slightly elevated off the ground.

Repeat.

Aint No Rest for the Wicked Cage the Elephant

Gold on the Ceiling The Black Keys

Welcome to the Black Parade My Chemical Romance

You Cried Last Night Fratellis

Something Good

Two Door Cinema Club (the 12s remix)

Waiting for the End Linkin Park

All These Things That I’ve Done The Killers

MENU

From the iPod of Rachel Beck

Celebrate STD awareness month

By Megan Coy Coordinator of Health Promotion

Explore non-dairy alternatives to milk

By Caroline Campbell Health & Fitness Editor

Compare top alternatives for yourself. Nutrition facts from fitday.com:

As an avid milk drinker and lover of all things dairy, I became sorely disappointed and disgusted when I learned about pus cells in milk produced in the United States.

According to Charlotte Gerson of the Gerson Institute in her article on foodmatters. tv the typical dairy cows are medicated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) to stimulate a higher milk production.

This hormone causes stress resulting in mastitis which is an infection of the cow’s udders.

The infection is then treated with antibiotics breeding more antibiotic resistant organisms. Pus cells grow from the infection and the antibiotics.

Pasteurized milk does not clear these cells but only heats and kills them.

Though these pus cells haven’t been proven to be unsafe or unhealthy the idea of drinking dead pus cells is enough to make my stomach sour.

So I’m hoping to try other alternatives to milk and research all dairy alternatives, though I don’t think I could ever give up cheese I like to entertain the idea.

Please do your more research on your own if you are planning on trying a dairy free or milk free diet.

Cow’s Milk: has the most natural calcium and protein over other alternatives but many brands of the alternatives fortify their products with both, making them competitive to cow’s milk; whole milk, which is about 3 percent milk fat, contains 150 calories per 8-ounce glass; Skim milk has about 90 calories per serving, 11 grams of carbs.

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Almond milk: fortified with calcium and vitamin D, low in fat, 1 cup is 1 gram of protein doesn't contain casein, a milk protein that's chemically similar to gluten, almond milk is appropriate for those who suffer from gluten allergies.

No saturated fat or cholesterol; Unsweetened has 40 calories per cup. Many brands are fortified with twice the amount of calcium as cow’s milk.

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Soy milk: A cup usually contains about 8 grams of protein and significant amounts of vitamins A, D, B1, B2 and calcium. A cup is very low in saturated fat and only has 90 calories.

The beverage also has omega-3 fatty acids and no cholesterol.

Rice Milk: 120 calories per cup, 33 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein, 2 grams of fat per cup of rice milk, B vitamins, iron, magnesium and a variety of other minerals.

Coconut milk: 552 calories per cup, 57.2 grams of fat, 13.3 carbs, 5.5 grams of protein.

Milk aisle in Rollin’ Oats Supermarket.

photo by Caroline Campbell

April is Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Awareness Month. It’s important to learn about getting tested and how to have conversations about STD testing and prevention with your partner and healthcare provider if you are sexually active.

Condoms are the only contraception that provides protection against STDs and pregnancy.

There are many different brands and styles of condoms available, and it can sometimes be difficult to figure out which is best for you. We have several different types of latex condoms available oncampus for free from the Office of Health Promotion in the Fitness Center, or from the basket inside the door to Counseling & Health Services. Latex-free and female condoms are available by request.

Be sure to store condoms properly in a cool, dry place and not in your car, wallet or pocket for long periods of time. Before using a condom, make sure you inspect the condom package for any holes or tears, and then carefully open the package, not using teeth or scissors.

Make sure you use a water based lubricant like K-Y jelly or Astroglide with latex condoms. Oil based lubricants (like vegetable oil or petroleum jelly) can damage latex.

For more information about sexual health, condom usage and getting tested for STDs, you can come by the Office of Health Promotion in the Fitness Center or check out websites such as GYTnow. org or PlannedParenthood.org.

Free rapid HIV testing will be offered on campus by Metro Wellness & Community Centers at the mobile unit in Cobb Loop on April 10 and May 8 from 2 to 4 p.m. If you have any questions contact the Office of Health Promotion: coymc@eckerd.edu or 727-864-8031.

20 Health & Fitness

the current

April 5, 2013

Cait’s Cookin’: Non-bagel bagels

By Cait Duffy Director of Communications Growing up, I always lived close to this one bagel shop. It was constantly packed with people searching for a carbo-licious plate and fresh made cream cheese and lox, making it the most popular place in town. No weekend was complete without a trip to Noah’s with my Dad. The warm dough paired with strawberry milk championing my favorite childhood dishes.

My weekend bagels were a tradition I was lucky enough to continue at Eckerd, with another local-owned bagel shop providing fresh baked goods that rivaled Noah’s. But, of course, with the transition to the gluten-free, grain-free and starch-free Specific Carbohydrate diet, my tradition saw some alterations. Instead of going out for bagels, I make my own protein rich concoctions.

Though they don’t taste quite the same, and the consistency likens itself more to a biscuit than New York style chewy fluff, these non-bagel bagels are a great start to a Sunday morning.

Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups of almond flour 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 eggs, lightly beaten 3 tablespoons cold butter 1 teaspoons salt, plus more for boiling/sprinkling

Sex on the Beach

By Gina Hollens Contributing Writer If ever there were a time to learn from someone else’s mistakes, this would be it. A sure fire way to abruptly end a budding romance would be to injure your lover in the midst of steamy love. Far from kinky foreplay or bondage, I hurt a very special place on my then lover. I assure you it was not intentional.

A local Coast Guardsman, tattooed and tanned as if he were from the Pacific Islands, had been the lead character of

Directions: 1. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl 2. Using a fork, slice and mix the butter into the dry mix, until the consistency looks like small peas 3. Add the eggs to the mix and stir, incorporating completely.

4. Shape the dough into 6 balls and form into bagels, placing on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper.

5. To make handling the sticky photo by Cait Duffy dough easier, try sprinkling almond flour, no more than an additional 1/4 cup, to the completed mix and lightly wetting your hands.

6. Place in the freezer for 15 minutes to set.

7. While the bagels are in the freezer, preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Bring a medium pot of water with 1 tablespoon salt to a boil.

8. After removing the bagels from the freezer, drop them individually into the pot for 30-45 seconds.

9. Remove with a slotted spoon and replace on the parchment paper. Sprinkle with salt, if desired.

10. Place in heated oven and bake for 14 minutes.

11. Enjoy. Try adding your own flavors to the mix, such as cinnamon and raisins, or garlic and onion.

so many of my recent dreams. We began talking a few weeks earlier after a chance encounter on the beach. After our first date of mutual teasing and kissing, we had tried to plan several other dates, but we were both so busy. Time moved on, but I did not.

I was not well-versed in my sexual prowesses at that time and was ready to dive into some sexual adventures with this exotic-looking man.

Finally, we made a date and I found myself lying next to him on his couch. We watched several hours of “Wilfred,” and then moved into the bedroom. As many of you could guess, “Wilfred” isn’t exactly an aphrodisiac, and so we passed out.

I woke up as the sun squeezed through the blinds and wiped the spit from my cheek and chin. Snuggling me, he snored away. This is far from what my fantasies entailed.

He eventually woke up and kissed me. It began slow, romantic and lazy, as morning sex tends to be. I decided to take the lead and climbed on top. Horrible mistake.

As I said before, I did not have extensive sexual experience at the time, but I did not want to show it.

I began to bounce up and down, getting a bit more spring than I should have.

We both howled when I landed incorrectly. I thought I

had broken his penis. We tried to continue, but it hurt him way too much. Luckily, it healed after about a week, and a hospital trip was unnecessary. We continued talking after the incident, but I think it was a bit too traumatic for the both of us, so we never dated again.

Heed my warning, take precaution when you are on top during sex. Gravity is a powerful force that should not be tested when pleasure parts are involved.

Communication is important, too. Talking to your partner about how it feels and what they want is important. Being uninhibited verbally is key to healthy sexual relations.

Penile Fracture is a real and, unfortunately, common incident. Aggressive intercourse and masturbation can cause this injury.

Remember, safe sex is about more than just using a condom.

Making sure both, or all, partners involved are having fun and comfortable during sexual relations is incredibly important.

In retrospect, I should have been more honest about my experience thus far and maybe asked for some guidance.

There are ways to make sexual novelty sexy. A simple, “do you like this?” or “ tell me what you want,” can help with figuring out how to maximize safe pleasure for all parties.

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the current

April 5, 2013

Sports 21

Sports Wilson transitions from MVP to key coach for Eckerd basketball

By Sabrina Lolo Asst. Web Editor

O

ver the years, assistant coach Kendrick Wilson has become an integral part of the men’s basketball program. The Eckerd alum recently completed his eighth season coaching with a 20-8 overall record and the Tritons’ eleventh appearance in the NCAA Division II National Tournament.

A native of Orlando, Wilson discovered Eckerd through a summer exposure camp.

“I went to an exposure camp called Hoop Mountain and one of the coaches there told Coach Ryan about me,” said Wilson.

“That’s how I found out about Eckerd.”

Wilson walked on to the Tritons basketball program in 1999 as a freshman, but wasn’t an immediate starter. “I was more of a utility type player who did a little bit of everything and got random minutes during games,” said Wilson. “I wasn’t a starter until my sophomore year at the point guard position.” As point guard, Wilson was the general of the team. He would decide who to pass the ball to and where people needed to be in order to secure a win.

The former walk-on led the Tritons to the NCAA Division II National Tournament his sophomore year and the program’s first NCAA Elite Eight appearance after being named MVP of the South Region Tournament his senior year.

“It was amazing and a really special year. Being an athlete, it’s tough competing day in and day out, even playing against your own conference. So playing that far into the tournament has brought a lot of good memories with it,” said Wilson.

Wilson is also ranked third all-time in free throw percentage, shooting .831 (152of-183) for his career, placing him fifth alltime in the Sunshine State Conference’s archives. He is sixth in the Eckerd record books with 325 career assists as well.

But perhaps his most well known accomplishment was winning Student Athlete of the Year his senior year. This award is given to a male and female athlete for outstanding academic and athletic achievements.

He shared this award with Monica Carrasco, his girlfriend who also became his wife.

“We were actually in the same Autumn Term class and Western Heritage class,” recalls Wilson. “We started dating toward the end of sophomore year, beginning of junior year and she was a standout soccer player here.”

Carrasco was also named to the All Sunshine State Conference team three years, Sunshine State Conference Player of the Week four times her senior year, was a three-time captain and MVP. Wilson graduated Eckerd in 2003 with a degree in Management, but coaching wasn’t on his agenda right out of college.

“I got a really good job coming out of college,” says Wilson. “I was a manager of Hertz Renta-Car. I had two stores, one in St. Petersburg Beach and the other in Clearwater. I managed that for a couple years after I graduated. Then, the guy who was the assistant coach for my entire time for my playing career at Eckerd got a head-coaching job somewhere else. I always loved basketball and I still wanted to be a part of it. It just happened and kind of fell into place.”

“Coach Wilson was a tremendous player for us, a true leader on the floor. He made my job much easier as a coach. Now as an assistant coach he has continued to grow as a leader and has helped build our basketball program into one of the best in the Sunshine State Conference,” said head coach Tom Ryan.

Senior Woody Taylor agreed, saying, “He has truly been an inspiration to me and a mentor on and off the court. Coach K is a pivotal piece to the Eckerd puzzle and I am glad to say I had the opportunity to learn from and play for such a great individual.”

Wilson describes how different it is coaching alongside Head Coach Ryan from playing under him. “As a player I was always in control. Being a point guard, I was leaned upon to make all the important decisions and basically run the team on the court. But as an assistant coach, I am more of a support and I don’t end up making the final decisions.”

Wilson received his Master of Arts in PhysiPhoto found in the Triton newspaper archives cal Education from the University of South of Wilson during his senior year in 2003. OrigiFlorida in the spring of 2012. He lives with his nally taken from the Eckerd athletic department. wife Monica in St. Petersburg with their three children Kendrick Jr., Caleb and Gabriella.

EC softball scored four years of a Schurr thing

By Will Creager Asst. Sports Editor

Senior third baseman Kristen Schurr has been a leader of the Eckerd College softball team since she was a freshman back in the spring of 2010.

Schurr, a native of Jacksonville, Fla, started playing softball at age seven, when she walked by a softball field by her home and asked the team practicing if she could join in. She originally played catcher and outfield, but one day her coach had her play third base in place of an injured teammate. “I made a diving play and the position just stuck,” said Schurr.

Although softball has always been her favorite sport, Schurr has played multiple other sports as well, ranging from soccer and basketball to barrel racing. In addition to softball, she was also on her high school’s weightlifting and golf teams.

Schurr first found out about Eckerd through the book “Colleges that Change Lives.” After emailing head coach Josh Beauregard and getting him to watch her play in a few games, Eckerd joined a list of schools including Jacksonville University and Flagler College that were recruiting her for softball.

“Overall I chose Eckerd because I knew it would be a challenge to my character, and a school that would help me develop personally while obtaining a college degree,” she said.

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“Kristen has been a starter for the Softball program since her first game freshman year,” said Beauregard. “She was recruited not only for her talents as a softball player but her leadership qualities as well.

She has been an incredibly hard working and focused individual.

While she appears intimidating on the field she has played a crucial role in helping recruit and develop our incoming players as well.”

It didn’t take long for Schurr to establish herself as one of the best players on the team. In her freshman season, she led the team with eight doubles, six homers and 29 RBI while starting 48 of the team’s 51 games. She then led the team with 11 steals in 11 attempts during her sophomore year. Last year, she led the team with two homers and 20 RBI while stealing eight bases.

So far this season, Schurr has started all 41 games for the Tritons. She has 29 hits in 115 at-bats, with six doubles, a homer and 17 RBI. She is also leading the team with seven steals.

Schurr has had many memorable moments, both academically and athletically, throughout her time here at Eckerd. Academically, her Autumn Term course with Professor Irby and her semester abroad in London stand out as experiences she will never forget. Just being able to play softball at Eckerd has been one of her greatest experiences,

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but two games that stand out in particular were when she went 3-3 with two homers and 5 RBI against Saint Leo during her freshman year and when the team got their first conference win of the season against Florida Southern last year.

In addition to playing softball, Schurr is also a Resident Advisor.

She first heard about the position through a former teammate, and decided to apply in order to connect with more students on campus and to gain leadership experience. She was placed in Alpha during her first year as an RA, and is currently assigned to Nu. There are many reasons why she loves being an RA, but the biggest one is all the friends she has made,

from both her residents and her fellow RA’s. The most difficult part of the job for her is managing her time, as she has to deal with problems that come out of nowhere.

If Schurr, who is majoring in business administration, had to give some advice to other studentathletes on balancing their workloads, it would be to stay focused and organized. “I believe as a student-athlete it is essential to not only be organized but you must also stay focused on your goals. To be a little better in the classroom and on the field, you must be willing to put in that additional effort.

Managing your time as a student athlete requires the same discipline that is essential to performing in the sport that you play.”

courtesy of eckerdtritons.com/Andy Meng Senior Kristen Schurr continues to be a force on the field for the Tritons.

INSIDE SPORTS Good Vibes: surf photography

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Rugby defeats FSU

Back Cover

DII Allstar Game

Back Cover

Diamond update

By Will Creager Asst. Sports Editor

Baseball After getting swept in a threegame series against Rollins College, the Eckerd College baseball team has fallen back below .500, with 1316 record overall (1-11 in conference).

The Tritons picked up their lone conference win March 15, with a 2-1 victory over Nova Southeastern. Eckerd scored both their runs in the second inning, when outfielder Lincoln Dunham doubled home third baseman Lee Spinelle and then scored on the throw to first after a dropped third strike.

Huchro was not nearly as sharp March 28, when he allowed five runs as the Tritons lost the series opener against Rollins. Eckerd took an early 1-0 lead in the second inning, when Dunham drove home first baseman Chris Hanson with a bunt single, but Rollins came back to win 7-1.

In the first game of the doubleheader March 29, Rollins again won by a 7-1 score. Eckerd was able to avoid getting shut out in the ninth inning, with Spinelle picking up an RBI single.

The Tars completed the sweep with an 8-2 victory in the second game of the double-header.

The Tritons again started out slowly, but were able to pick up a small moral victory late by avoiding the shutout, as Hanson and catcher James Petika each picked up an RBI in the sixth inning.

Eckerd will look to get back on track and end their five-game SSC losing streak with a three-game series at Lynn University April 4-5.

Softball The Eckerd softball team (1724 overall, 4-11 conference) won two of three games against Lynn University March 28-29, doubling their conference win total.

The Tritons were down 10-4 entering the bottom of the fifth inning in the series opener, but scored seven runs in the inning to take an 1110 lead. After the Fighting Knights managed to tie the game in the top of the seventh, Eckerd came right back in their half of the seventh and won 12-11 on a walk-off single by third baseman Kristen Schurr.

The Eckerd offense went cold in the first game of the double header March 29, as they got shut out by Lynn pitcher Missy Montgomery and lost 1-0. The Tritons wasted a dominating outing by their own pitcher, Whitney Bernier, who allowed just one unearned run on four hits and one walk.

In the final game of the series, Eckerd once again took advantage of a seven-run fifth inning and picked up an 8-5 victory. Both outfielder Kaycie Duncan and first baseman Stephanie Wolfrom picked up two RBI in the contest, while outfielder Chelsea Jeffares scored two runs. Bernier allowed two runs in 5.1 innings of relief and picked up the win, improving her record to 9-13 on the season.

Eckerd next plays a threegame series against the University of Tampa April 5-6.

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the current

April 5, 2013

Eckerd Scoreboard Men’s Basketball

Women’s Basketball

3/7 v. University of Tampa L 52-46 (EC) Charles 20 points, 4 blocks (EC) Vente 12 points, 7 rebounds

3/9 v. Florida Southern College L 85-80 (OT) (EC) Mack 28 points, 11 rebounds (EC) Bodney 22 points, 2 rebounds

Baseball

3/16 v. Benedict College L 68-65 (OT) (EC) Mack 25 points, 14 rebounds (EC) Wade 17 points, 4 rebounds

3/19 v. Mansfield University W 6-5 (EC) O’Rourke 3-4, run, SB (EC) Cruz-Sanchez 4.2 IP, 1 ER, W

Softball

3/28 @ Rollins College L 7-1 (EC) Hanson 1-4, 2B, run (EC) Dunham 1-3, RBI

3/28 v. Lynn University W 12-11 (EC) Oberer 1-3, HR, 3 RBI, 2 runs (EC) Schurr 2-4, 2 RBI, 2 runs, BB

3/29 @ Rollins College (DH) L 7-1, L 8-2 (EC G1) Spinelle 2-4, RBI (EC G1) Bishop 1-3, run (EC G2) Andrews 2-3, 2B, run (EC G2) Hanson 1-1, RBI

Sunshine State Conference opponents in bold Sunshine State Conference Tournament games in Italics NCAA Division II Championship South Regional games in Bold Italics

3/29 v. Lynn University (DH) L 1-0, W 8-5 (EC G1) Bernier 7 IP, 4 hits, 0 ER, L (EC G1) Duncan 1-2, BB (EC G2) Duncan 1-1, 3 BBs, 2 RBI (EC G2) Schurr 1-2, 2 BBs, RBI, run

Sports Calendar 5

Friday

Baseball @ Lynn University 3 p.m.

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Saturday

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Sunday

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Monday

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Baseball @ Lynn University (DH) 12 p.m.

Tuesday

Women’s tennis v. Rollins College 3 p.m.

Women’s tennis @ Uni- Softball v. University of versity of Tamps 3 p.m. Tampa (DH) 1 p.m.

Baseball @ Clearwater Christian College 7 p.m.

Softball v. University of Tampa 6 p.m.

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13

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15

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Men’s/women’s tennis @ Saint Leo University 2 p.m.

Baseball v. Saint Leo University (DH) 1 p.m.

Men’s/women’s golf @ Sunshine State Conference Tournament all day

Men’s/women’s golf @ Sunshine State Conference Tournament all day

Softball @ Southeastern University (DH) 3 p.m.

Baseball v. Saint Leo University 7 p.m.

Softball @ Saint Leo University (DH) 1 p.m.

Softball @ Saint Leo University 7 p.m.

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Wednesday

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Thursday

Baseball v. Webber International University 7 p.m.

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Men’s/women’s golf @ Sunshine State Conference Tournament all day

Sports Briefly

Eckerd

National

The Eckerd volleyball team will host a sand volleyball tournament as a fundraiser April 21 at the Postcard Inn on St. Pete Beach. The games will be 4-on-4 games and co-ed teams are encouraged. Live music will be played for the duration of the event and food and beverages will be available through the Postcard Inn. The price is $25 per player with no maximum of players per team. All teams interested are encouraged to contact coach Michelle Piantadosi (piantama@eckerd.edu) to sign up.

through the month of March with their team captain Sidney Crosby gaining a stranglehold on both the MVP and the scoring title race.

However, after being hit in the face by a puck, Crosby underwent oral surgery, at press time he is day to day. The steel city pulled off a coup by trading for Calgary Flames captain Jarome Iginla. Iginla, a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and a former scoring champion, has over 500 career goals and looks to add more in his pursuit of the Stanley Cup.

Kaycie Duncan named Player of the Week

Donovan rejoins Galaxy camp

Volleyball team to host beach tourna- Penguins gear up for playoffs The Pittsburgh Penguins went undefeated ment

Outfielder Kaycie Duncan had quite a week.

Between helping the team to a 3-2 record during the week of March 25 she was named the Sunshine State Conference Player of the Week.

During her memorable week she drove in nine runs while maintaining a hit streak through the five games. She also committed no errors with a perfect fielding percentage during the week. She is now leading the team with a .366 batting average (45 hits in 123 at-bats) to go along with seven doubles and 26 RBI through the team’s first 41 games. She also has drawn 17 walks and has a .444 on base percentage.

Mack named All-American honorable mention As if notching the game winning dunk at the Division II All Star Game was not enough for senior Darrien Mack, he was recently named as an honorable mention Division II All American. Mack has had an astounding final season with Eckerd gaining other accolades such as All South Region team and All District First Team. Mack finished the season as the team leader in points per game and rebounds per game, averaging 18.4 and 8.3 respectively. He performed particularly well in Sunshine State Conference games, averaging 19.6 points and 18.6 rebounds per contest. He also played strong defense, leading the team in steals.

Landon Donovan has returned to the LA Galaxy after a four month hiatus from the game.

After winning the MLS Cup in December, Donovan said he needed a break from the game. Donovan returns to a Galaxy team who, at press time, are undefeated in MLS play and have a CONCACAF Champions League match with defending continent champ Monterrey next week. Landon has stated his goal is to return to the U.S. National Team for the next round of World Cup qualifiers in June.

photo by Tom Houpt Sophomores Garrett Butler (left) provides support as Rob Mabry steals the ball after a tackle during the men’s rugby team’s blowout of FSU at home March 30.

Winning Shots Send your fan photos to currentsports@eckerd.edu for a chance to be featured in upcoming issues of The Current.

Men’s Final Four set The upstart number nine seeded Wichita State Shockers came out of nowhere to upset the number one seed Gonzaga Bulldogs in the round of 32 and held on against the Ohio State Buckeyes despite blowing a 19-point lead in the second half. The number one overall seed Louisville Cardinals lived up to the billing defeating Duke despite a gruesome injury to guard Kevin Ware. After beating Indiana, the Syracuse Orangemen used their 2-3 zone to crush Marquette booking yet another trip to the Final Four. In contrast to the defensive efforts of Syracuse, the Michigan Wolverines have booked their ticket to the championship rounds through an incredible shooting photo by Dominick Cuppetilli performance. The Final Four round starts Fri- Students at the men’s soccer team open tryout take direction from Head Coach Steve Magee. day with the Championship Game Monday.

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the current

April 5, 2013

Sports 23

Good vibes: your action sports source

By Dominick Cuppetilli Asst. Sports Editor

To me, surfing, skateboarding, wakeboarding and many other sports like these, are not just sports. Each is a lifestyle, and I think it is very important to capture each of these lifestyles. In fact, I plan on spending my life doing just that through my photography. It’s not just the huge wave someone caught; it’s the two hours waiting to find

the perfect set. It’s not just the trick that’s pulled on a skateboard; it’s the sneaking into a drained backyard pool.

I recently had the opportunity to take a week of shooting surf photography in Rincon, Puerto Rico. It was definitely one of the best weeks of my life. There is no feeling that compares to treading water for a couple hours shooting to get that perfect shot, or realizing you are in the exact right spot at the exact right time. Here are just a select few shots from thousands that were taken.

Taking a swing at intramural softball

By Mike Geibel Sports Editor A few names come to mind when thinking of the “greats” in Eckerd College Intramural history. The most recent of whom has got to be Leslie Claridge II (‘12). Last year, while captaining the men’s rugby team to the USA Rugby South championship, Claridge found time to win intramural championships in flag football, 3-on3 basketball and dodgeball.

This year, I decided to put in my own bid for the intramural hall of fame and joined up with an intramural softball team. I grew up around baseball and played company league softball for one season so I figured softball would be as good a sport as any to get my feet wet in the world of intramurals.

As soon as I stepped onto the turf for my team’s first game, I realized why intramurals is so much different than playing a varsity or club sport.

There were representatives from just about every sport at Eckerd College on different intramural teams. Volleyball, baseball and softball all made appearances on the first night. Even my own game was a team entirely made up of rugby players versus members of the men’s basketball team.

The rules of intramural softball are a little different than normal softball. Each batter is allowed one swing, but it doesn’t have to be on the first pitch. This fact eluded me in my first at-bat, and I thought I was forced to swing at a pitch so far over my head that I couldn’t reach it. One swing, one out.

In the field the rules remain the same as they were growing up. In my little league days, I played second base, third base and occasionally catcher.

I was put at third base and in the first inning fielded a ground ball and fired a laser over to first for a routine out.

We managed to get out of the first inning tied 0-0, a tie which would not last long.

The basketball team scored first, putting in a few runs behind an inside the park homerun by Junior Alex Bodney.

In my next at-bat, I didn’t make much of an impact. With runners in scoring position, I fouled the ball straight back for another one-swing out. Luckily, my team had already put

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in one run during the inning, so the shutout bid was ended.

The basketball team lengthened their lead over the next two innings behind timely hitting and unfortunate fielding.

In one controversial play, Senior Nigel Hammond of the rugby team got himself caught in the soccer goal while chasing a fly ball in the outfield, allowing several members of the basketball team to score.

My last at-bat was my time to shine. I came up to bat, down by three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning (the last inning in intramural play).

I saw visions of the greats as I stepped into the box and gripped the bat. My teammate Anthony Franchi let the neon yellow ball roll off the end of his fingertips toward me. I raise my foot, planted it firmly in the turf and let loose a swing that would make Babe Ruth proud.

Solid contact. Finally.

The ball jumped off the bat and took off skyward. I bolted for first base, already planning my celebration as I crossed home plate on the home run ball.

As I rounded first, I looked out to center field where the ball had been hit.

To my dismay, I saw Freshman Ray Darnell standing, eyes skyward, glove extended, waiting to make the catch. My home run ball fell a few (quite a few) feet short of the fence.

Darnell squeezed his mitt closed and the game was over.

As I turned back, expecting to see the disappointed faces of my teammates, I was surprised instead to see smiles. The rest of my team came out to congratulate the basketball players on their victory and shake hands despite our hard fought contest that fateful evening.

It was in that moment that I realized the importance of intramurals.

Through the pressure of maintaining grades while competing at a collegiate level, sometimes it is necessary to get out of your comfort zone and have a little fun. Free from the usual stresses of competing for Eckerd, the basketball team and rugby team were able to enjoy a game of softball in a fun environment. It wasn’t about the final score, it was about having a good time. Though I still want one of those championship shirts.

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photos by Dominick Cuppetilli

24

the current

April 5, 2013

Sports

Darrien Mack ends EC career with All-Star game winner

By Mike Geibel Sports Editor

photo by Tom Houpt Senior forward Jack Morrissey takes on FSU tacklers in a push for the try line. Eckerd shut out Florida State for the first time in several years March 30 on Kappa Field.

Men’s rugby crushes Florida State 26-0

By Colin Casey Asst. Sports Editor It is not often that a school of less than 2,000 can compete on an athletic field with a school with more than 40,000. It is even less often that a small school could completely outplay the larger school in all aspects of the game.

Florida State University faced the Men’s rugby team in a late season friendly match up that was not as cordial as the game’s title might imply The Tritons crushed the Seminoles 26-0 dominating not just on the scoreboard but in possession and scrums as well. The forwards played hard and got to tackles very quickly. Stephen Frano, Gabe Moe-Lobeda, Nigel Hammond and Sean Fitzpatrick each scored tries on the day. Rounding out the score sheet was

senior Matt Duffy who made two out of three conversions, and Sophomore Rob Mabry who kicked the conversion on the final try after replacing Duffy in the game’s final minutes. Duffy’s lone miss was from a bad angle on the sideline.

The game was a perfect example of overcoming adversity. After several games during which the Tritons fell short in the scrum, the forwards stepped up and won a majority of the days possession battles. Florida State maintained a notable size advantage on Eckerd at nearly every position, yet the pack eight played together as a unit. Passing between back line players was crisp and effective with offloads seeming to come at will, often leading to long runs down the field for the Tritons.

The fans came out in droves to support their team in what is the last schedule home game

of the season. However, it will not be the last time the team takes the field. The Eckerd Rugby team will host the Beachside Sevens Invitational on April 13. Eckerd will look to defend the title won in last year’s inaugural sevens tournament.

The Tritons will also stage an intrasquad “Blatz Bowl” game on April 27 as a part of fan appreciation day. The Blatz Bowl will feature the Triton men dressed up in costume for a fun game of rugby. The event will feature music, food and fan giveaways. After the Blatz Bowl, the rugby team is proud to resurrect the Eckerd tradition of Bulls*** Ballet.

The men’s rugby team will build on this year’s team with early recruiting efforts as well as maintaining the team’s current nucleus who will continue to grow in experience and maturity into next season.

Eckerd soccer takes on Rowdies in exhibition match

By Dominick Cuppetilli Asst. Sports Editor The Eckerd College men’s soccer team fell to the Tampa Bay Rowdies 0-5 as they hosted the team as part of their off-season spring training. The Rowdies are a professional club soccer team based out of Tampa playing in the North American Soccer League.

Eckerd started the night with energy and anticipations of being a contender against the Rowdies, but the professional team would prove too much to handle. According to the Rowdies’ website, the team had already played six games together, which put them at the advantage with Eckerd having not played as a team since fall season.

In just the first five minutes of play the Rowdies had already scored their first goal. The Tritons appeared to match the Rowdies for most of the rest of the first half, until the opposing team scored two more goals in the last 10 minutes of play, ending the first half 0-3.

Sophomore midfielder Connor Montgomery said, “They just took all their chances like a professional team should do. We created chances but did not capitalize on them.”

Amani Walker of the Rowdies scored his second goal of the night 15 minutes into the second half, pushing the score to 0-4. The final score of the night came with 19 minutes to go in the game by Rowdies’ Shane Hill.

Coming from a five-point deficit, the Tritons began pushing forward with everything they had, but would not be able to come back from so far behind, leaving the game 0-5.

“We didn’t play that bad despite the rephoto by Dominick Cuppetilli sult,” said Montgomery. “They were a good team.”

Freshman Joe Swindell dribbles the ball into open space against the Rowdies.

When Senior Darrien Mack arrived in Louisville, Ky. he admittedly would rather have been playing in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament. After the Tritons loss to Benedict ended their tournament run, Mack was instead invited to play in the Division II All-Star game. He took the invitation in stride saying, “It felt good to be chosen as one of the top 20 seniors in the nation representing the class of 2013. I knew going into the game that everyone there were standout players and that it’d be even harder to standout amongst them.”

Yet Mack did just that. In a game made of the best of the best, Mack tallied 18 points, five rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal. Solid numbers for anyone. Stellar numbers for a game against the top Division II players in the country.

Mack’s two most important points came on a dunk with just two seconds left in the game. With the East down by one, Mack was fed the ball driving to the basket and put down the dunk which ultimately proved to be the game winner.

In a game full of players Mack described as the type who would normally be taking the final shot for their respective teams, Mack felt great that he was able to close out the game for his team.

During his time in Louisville, Mack had the opportunity to tour the Muhammad Ali museum and conduct a youth clinic before the All-Star game. His family along with Eckerd head coach Tom Ryan were in attendance for the game. In his blog post on eckerdtritons.com, Mack joked that even with scouts in the audience, the only person he worried about watching him was Coach Ryan.

Upon his return to Eckerd, Mack said, “I enjoyed every minute of being in Louisville, Kentucky. The experience is something that I will remember for the rest of my life.”

courtesy of eckerdtritons.com/Andy Meng Darrien Mack (24) led the Tritons in scoring this season

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