International students decide where to spend holidays UB students to attend SUNY Model European UN
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBLICATION OF THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO, SINCE 1950
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Women’s b-ball drops second straight game
Friday, November 22, 2013
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Volume 63 No. 38
Courtesy of Ken Ilgunas
Ken Ilgunas stands next to his parked 1994 Ford Econoline, which he lived in for two and a half years while attending graduate school at Duke University, in front of the Duke Chapel.
SATISFYING HIS SOUL
UB alum Ilgunas makes national waves with unorthodox adventures
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BY BRIAN KESCHINGER Creative Director t had been months since Ken Ilgunas had a real conversation. He was daydreaming in the library at Duke University, watching the hairs on his arm rise and fall gently, when he began to get hot flashes. He rushed to his van in the parking lot and hastily reached for his garbage can. He made it just in time, as vomit exploded out of his mouth. His head was throbbing when he noticed the water dripping onto his leg. There was a hole in the roof of his van and rain was falling through it. He would have gone home, but the van was his home. This was the moment he most doubted his life decision.
Ilgunas, a UB alum, spent two and a half years living in his van so he could attend graduate school without accruing debt. Ilgunas’ van-dwelling story led him to: writing an article for The New York Times, talking on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and publishing a novel-length memoir entitled Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom, which has sold over 18,000 copies since its May release. But the van experiment wasn’t his first or his last freedom-seeking trip to push himself. SEE ILGUNAS, PAGE 6
Courtesy of Ken Ilgunas
Using a self-timer camera, Ken Ilgunas poses on a pipe in Saskatchewan during his 1,700-mile hike from Alberta to Texas along the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. His hike took just over five months to complete.
Fifty years later, Kennedy’s death is still felt Mapping trajectory while studying rapping’s directory Faculty reflects and expands on president’s assassination Course teaches UB students the history and social factors of hip-hop genre
SAM FERNANDO
Senior News Editor
On Nov. 22, 1963, the news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas echoed throughout the United States. It was the fourth time in U.S. history that a president was killed. Now, 50 years later, Kennedy’s death still has a profound impact on media coverage, American history and the people who remember it. Mark O’Brian, a professor of biochemistry, recalls his family members being quiet and somber, and anywhere he went had the same solemn atmosphere. “I felt the whole weight of it, even at 5 years old,” O’Brian said. “For the first time, nothing seemed certain.” O’Brian said the impact was especially deep because it was the first time a tragedy had been so visual. Modern television was still in its infancy and the coverage allowed the event to enter Americans’ homes. At the time, Kennedy was “wildly popular,” O’Brian said. He had a high approval rating and a glamorous wife, and he symbolized a changing United States.
Courtesy of U.S. Embassy of New Delhi
Courtesy of Justin De Senso
Even 50 years later, President John F. Kennedy’s death has a profound impact on media coverage, American history and the people who remember it.
UB’s AAS 117, “Hip-Hop and Social Issues,” class made a trip Friday to Cornell University’s Hip-Hop Collection. (Back, left to right): Brie Bourdage, Courtney St. George, Ezekiel Porter, Joseph Mercedes, instructor Justin De Senso, Sonny Tedesco, Peter Barth, Shaq Jones, Nelson Clark. (Front, left to right): Leah Brown, Delmar Jones, Brodie Tedesco, Ben Ortiz.
Kennedy, who was America’s 35th president, was a World War II hero and the youngest elected president. The Democrat and former Massachusetts senator influenced America’s youth to get involved in public service. He was also a Civil Rights activist. O’Brian said Kennedy represented a sense of hope in the country. SEE JFK, PAGE 2
Correction A Nov. 20 article, “Can you hack it?” incorrectly stated the student in the picture was Nate Burgers. The caption should have stated the student was Zach Wieand, whose name was misspelled “Wienand” in the article. The Spectrum regrets these errors.
GISELLE LAM
Staff Writer
Beats, rhymes, pimps and hoes. According to Justin De Senso, professor of AAS 117, “HipHop and Social Issues,” this is what people think of when they think of hip-hop. His course is focused on teaching students to take hip-
hop seriously. The class isn’t just a place for students to listen to rap songs and analyze lyrics. “[The course is focused on] trying to map the trajectory of African-American trauma through hip-hop,” De Senso said. Students discuss conflicts in African-American history, gender, race and class, and how SEE HIP-HOP, PAGE 2