The Spectrum
ORIENTATION ISSUE
Monday July 2, 2012 Volume 62 No. 1
Inside: News
New financial aid advisers ready to ease issues UB’s new financial aid office is hoping to ease student financial aid problems through the use of advisers during the upcoming school year, but some incoming freshmen are not aware of the new program.
Story on page A3
Life
The Social Network She signed on Facebook, accepted the group request in her inbox, and began scrolling through the list of members, knowing full well that it might be considered creepy in the eyes of others. Still, in the comfort of her own bedroom, she began clicking through pictures of other girls though she wasn’t looking for a girlfriend or a lover.
Story on page B1
Arts
The ins and outs of Buffalo’s arts Welcome to Buffalo. You’ll hear that phrase a handful of times within your first few weeks in the City of Good Neighbors, as well as every claim to fame this wonderful city has to offer. Chicken wings, Loganberry, Niagara Falls, the Bills, Bisons & Sabres. These elements merely scratch the surface of what this small, but diverse city contains.
Story on page C1
Sports
Since 1950
The women’s soccer team was one of the only programs at Buffalo to get national recognition last year. The Bulls (12-5-4, 4-3-4 Mid-American Conference) were the biggest surprise in the country, winning 11 more games in 2011 then they did in 2010.
Story on page D1
INSIDE
News ......... Section A Life ........... Section B Arts ........... Section C Sports ....... Section D Classifieds and Daily Delights ............... D8
The Independent Student Publication of the University at Buffalo
First college in Western New York to offer new housing option
UB offers gender-neutral housing SARA DINATALE Senior News Editor If Samantha Hochstein was going into her sophomore year this time last summer, she wouldn’t be allowed to live with her two best friends. But due to a change in UB housing, Hochstein, a business major, will be sharing her dorm with the people she grew closest to in her first year at UB – they just happen to be two guys. Starting in the Fall 2012 semester, UB Campus and Living will be launching a pilot program of genderneutral housing (GNH). Two floors in a residence hall in the Ellicott Complex and several apartments in the Hadley and Creekside villages are now set aside as gender neutral. Unlike traditional dorming, which separates students based on their sex, GNH will allow males and females to live together. UB is the first school in Western New York to allow this living option. Hochstein thought about living with another female roommate in Greiner Hall. But rooming with sophomores Philip Wright, a computer science major, and Russell Oliver, a communication major, was something she always wanted to do once the trio became inseparable during their freshman year. It’s something they thought about before the option was even announced. “It was kind of like a pipedream at first,” Oliver said. “Like, ‘wouldn’t it be cool if we could do this?’ And then it actually ended up happening.”
Reimon Bhuyan /// The Spectrum Starting this fall, males and females will be able to live together as UB implements gender-neutral housing in some of its dorms and apartments.
But Hochstein’s decision to try out the untraditional setup didn’t come without a lot of thought. When the group decided they wanted to apply for GNH, Hochstein said they envisioned their room being a split single-double, but they discovered
that wasn’t an option. The three will be tripled in one room. “I was a little iffy about it,” Hochstein admits. “But they were both really into it, and if they were comfortable with it I had nothing to worry about.”
Hochstein held worries typical for any college student facing a roommate decision, like that the boys typically stay up later than her and aren’t as diligent about their schoolwork. In addition, she had qualms those ascribing to traditional dorming don’t have to think about, like how she is going Continued on page A9
Legends of the Fall
Skeletal A historical account of SA’s Fall Fest remains and coffins found underground at UB BRIAN JOSEPHS Senior Managing Editor
At first glance, it doesn’t look like Student Association President Travis Nemmer has too much to worry about when planning this year’s Fall Fest.
LISA KHOURY Senior News Editor
Last year’s Executive Board began its scandalous run with a subpar Fall Fest. The postponed concert featured bands that would seem to be an afterthought on such a stage. The Fray, a band well past its 2007 prime; mashup duo White Panda; and 2AM Club played for an audience that was much smaller than it has been in previous years.
When construction workers were digging up land on South Campus for a new sewer line in March, they were surprised to find coffins and human skeletal remains within the soil. But Doug Perrelli wasn’t. In fact, it was not the first time Perrelli, director of Archeological Survey, excavated human remains from South Campus soil.
The poor response to last year’s Fall Fest even became a running joke amongst the current E-Board members. But Nemmer is making sure that the debacle doesn’t happen again. “Last year's Fall Fest set the bar so high we could trip over it, or at least that was the joke early on,” Nemmer said. “In all reality, the Executive Board and the Entertainment Department have been taking every due diligence to make sure that the failures of last year don't happen again.”
On the rise
Always Online: www.ubspectrum.com
But this year’s Fall Fest has more to live up to than just the previous one. The concert has remained SA’s biggest event for decades along with Spring Fest and has had numerous musical icons – ranging from Nas to Chuck Berry – grace the stage. The concert also has the responsibility of welcoming new freshmen and returning students in addition to upholding such history. So for Nemmer and company, the pressure is on. “Quite simply, if Fest isn't a concern for you and you're a member of the Executive Board, you're doing something very, very wrong,” Nemmer said. ’70s
Early Beginnings in the Late
Students typically expect some of the biggest mainstream talent to perform at the annual event. William Hooley, executive director of Sub-Board I, Inc., recalled that the anticipation was much less grandiose when he went to his first event in 1979.
ALEXA STRUDLER /// The Spectrum When Nas performed at UB's Fall Fest in 2003 and 2008, most students were happy. In 2011, when The Fray came to town, students were disappointed in the lineup, and they voiced their complaints online.
“It was kind of a nice diversion at the beginning of the year to welcome students back, and to give students a nice little diversion for exams in the spring,” Hooley said. “The talent was cheaper and probably the goals of the Fests weren’t as epic as they are now.” Fall Fest pictures of earlier years show a more festive, picniclike atmosphere than today’s bigtime concerts. The event featured smaller, but well-known acts when it began in 1978. The first Fall Fest, a collaboration between SA and the University Union Activities Board – the Sub-Board former entertainment division – was a success. It was a two-day celebration that featured hours of partying and lines of beer, a tradition that would die out a few years after the drinking age increased to 21 in 1984. Traces of Fall Fest’s current state date back to 1982. That year the concert moved from the South Campus to Baird Point in order to accommodate the growing audience. Southside Johnny, a well-recognized rock band who also played at the 1979 event, headlined the highly anticipated show.
According to Hooley, the event was the largest-attended Fall Fest at the time and had remained on North Campus ever since. The fests only continued to grow. After singer Cyndi Lauper drew in 15,000 attendees in 1984’s Fall Fest, UB brought reggae band Black Uhuru in 1984, Chuck Berry and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts in 1987, and singer Pat Benatar in 1988. The talent cost rose from $40,000 the previous year to $50,000 in order to bring in the popular ’80s singer. “Each year more money was being put towards fests, because it kind of became a signature event,” Hooley said. “I think both organizations, Sub-Board and SA, wanted to make sure that we put out best towards students coming in as freshmen who are starting off the fall semester.” The decade ended with a postponed Fall Fest. After having problems with band availability, SA held the event until November – the latest for a Fall Fest – and hosted the B-52s. The indoor Alumni Arena performance was marred with riots by students who were locked out of Continued on page A11
“Over the years, every time they move earth around in that area of South Campus they find bone fragments,” Perrelli said. “There’s been a long history of going back to South Campus and picking up occasional stray loose remains, but this is the first time that we discovered something more numerous.” The construction project under Clement Road exposed skeletal remains of about 300 human bodies and their coffins from a cemetery that used to exist on current-day South Campus soil. It was an on-site cemetery of the Erie County Poor House, an institution that cared for poor and sick people from about 1850-1909. Historians think that some of the residents of the Erie County Poor House may not have had families or the authorities had no way of getting ahold of them. So when the individuals died, operators of the facility buried them on the site, according to Joseph Brennan, the associate vice president for university communications. The Erie County Poor House either did not keep a record of who was buried on the site or the record was lost. When the land was granted to UB in the early 20th century for its first campus, UB officials did not know exactly where the cemetery was or its size because they could not find a record. They only knew that there was probably one there somewhere, according to Perrelli. When UB was being built in the 1920s and 1930s, UB officials obtained an aerial photograph of the campus, but there was no markings or sign of a cemetery there, Brennan said. “For many years, historians have been trying to find [a record of those buried], and UB has sent people, the archeology team has sent people to search through the county records, and we’ve never been able to turn them up,” Brennan said. Continued on page A8