Massachusetts Daily Collegian: Oct. 30, 2013

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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

UMass to celebrate World Series Festivities in Southwest aim to curb rowdy crowds By Patrick Hoff Collegian Staff

In an attempt to prevent a repeat of disorderly gatherings in Southwest Residential Area that have occurred in past years, the University of Massachusetts is hosting a World Series celebration in the Southwest concourse over the next two nights, which will include food, inflatables and other activities. “We’re sending a message to the community that this is how we want to celebrate,” said UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski. The event is scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. on both Wednesday and Thursday. According to Student Government Association Speaker Sïonan Barrett, there will be five inflatable objects: a

mechanical bull, an obstacle course, a structure for “bouncy boxing,” a structure for gladiator jousting and a “Miley Cyrus wrecking ball.” Food from Late Night at Berk will be served and students will be able to tie-dye shirts. Twenty-one SGA senators have volunteered to assist with the celebration. The memories of past gatherings at the University are ingrained in the minds of students, from “Big Robe”, an uncooperative UMass female who was wearing a bathrobe during the Super Bowl disturbance in 2012, to the student standing atop Berkshire Dining Commons during the same uproar. “One of the things that has continued to happen is that a small group of students has been attracted to the Southwest concourse … and acted out and brought attention to themselves,” Blaguszewski said. Curiosity from other students then attracts larger crowds to Southwest and the gather-

ing grows. Blaguszewski said that over the past few years, the number of people involved in these gatherings has decreased, but they still happen. “Over many years we have employed a variety of strategies and learned lessons on how to contain specific events,” Blaguszewski said. One of the biggest lessons, he said, is to be consistent with the content and tone of the message that the University sends to students and the greater community. “What if we tried something a little different by saying ‘this space is the community’s’?” He added, “This is a space that is welcoming to the community and not bad behavior.” “The UMPD wanted to work with the administration to put on an event that would fill the space … in a fun way that wasn’t demeaning or belittling see

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Female assaulted over the weekend An 18-year-old female was indecently assaulted at the intersection of Berkshire Terrace and North Pleasant Street between 11:30 p.m. and midnight on Saturday. According to a press release from the Amherst Police Department, the female was from New York. She is a student at the University of Massachusetts Yesterday, UMass students received an email from the UMass Police Department describing the unidentified suspect, asking students to report even “the smallest detail” to help in solving the case. The UMPD described the suspect as a tall, darkhaired, “college-aged” white

By JonatHan s. Landay McClatchy Washington Bureau

A new exhibit recently opened in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library to celebrate the University of Massachusetts’ sesquicentennial anniversary. This exhibit focuses on post-World War II expansion at UMass.

Republican Club gives thoughts on shutdown GOP sees hit in popularity in polls By kristin Lafratta Collegian Correspondent

Though the government shutdown has ended and federal workers have returned to their jobs, recent reports show that Republicans are still suffering in its aftermath. David Kaufman, president of the University of Massachusetts Republican Club, believes that Republicans were right in their goals, but used poor political tactics. The 16-day shutdown occurred when the GOPcontrolled House of Representatives refused to negotiate on a spending bill that derailed funding to the Affordable Care Act, bet-

ter known as “Obamacare.” Recent polling results reveal drastic declines in public support of the Republican Party, which comes as no surprise to Kaufman. “Because we used Obamacare as an ultimatum kind of thing, the American public just kind of saw us as the obstructionists and didn’t see what we were trying to accomplish,” Kaufman said. “And I don’t blame them.” Kaufman, a junior finance major at UMass, has worked on campaigns for Republicans such as Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and former Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts. In addition to leading the UMass Republican Club, Kaufman serves as the treasurer of the statewide Massachusetts Alliance of College

Republicans, which unites all of the college Republican Club chapters in the state. According to a CNN poll conducted post-shutdown during Oct. 18-20, 56 percent of citizens opposed Obamacare, yet 54 percent of those polled still said the Republican-controlled House is bad for the United States. Nearly a year prior in December 2012, 51 percent of citizens believed the opposite, that a House controlled by Republicans was good for the country. Kaufman said that he does not believe Republicans will win back the Senate in 2014 because they focused too heavily on the issue of funding Obamacare, when they should have promoted budsee

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male wearing a gray sweatshirt, jeans and a stud-style earring in his left ear. He was reportedly picked up at the scene by the unidentified driver of a silver or gray four-door sedan. Police told the Massachusetts Daily Collegian that they are not disclosing any more information on the case at this time. The Amherst Police Department and UMPD are turning to the public for any details regarding the assault. Anyone with information may contact Amherst police at 259-3015 or UMass police at 545-2121. Collegian News Staff

Speculation rises on foreign spying Bugging strains overseas relations

Julia Cardillo/Collegian

Serving the UMass community since 1890

WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday staunchly defended the National Security Agency, all but confirming that the White House knew about the tapping of foreign leaders’ telephones, denying that millions of European citizens’ telephone data were swept up and asserting that the European allies assist the NSA even as they spy on U.S. officials. “We only do what the policymakers writ large have asked us to do,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said at a House Intelligence Committee hearing. The hearing came amid a growing outcry at home and in Europe over disclosures of some of the NSA’s most secret communications collection

programs in documents leaked to news media by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. They included the tapping of telephones of 35 world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The revelations have strained trans-Atlantic relations, prompted lawmakers to introduce legislation in Congress to tighten restrictions on NSA operations and ignited a Senate Intelligence Committee review of all U.S. intelligence-gathering operations. The leaks have created new headaches for President Barack Obama, who was expected to order a ban on the monitoring of allied leaders’ communications as part of an administration review aimed at balancing U.S. intelligencegathering programs with privacy and civil liberties protections. The administration also has acknowledged that additional restraints may be see

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AFD still struggling with small staff despite grant Weekends require more ambulances By saraH roBertson Collegian Correspondent

For more than three years, Chief Tim Nelson has been struggling to solve the issue of understaffing in the Amherst Fire Department. This issue is due largely to a lack of funding and a large student population. “We’re not as big as we should be,” Nelson said. “We don’t have as large a margin of safety as we would like to have.” The University of Massachusetts established a deal with the Amherst Fire Department last spring to provide the department with a grant that would

help compensate for the understaffing issues during peak times. The grant pays for an additional four firefighters to be on duty Friday and Saturday nights during what the department refers to as “party time.” Between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., many students in the area require ambulances. The extra help allows the fire department to run their five ambulances all night. “Our fire department is really a fire/EMS service,” said John Musante, Amherst town manager. He estimates that 75 to 80 percent of calls are related to EMS, not fire. On busy nights, it is a frequent occurrence that every ambulance is in use and that every on-duty fire-

fighter is out of the station. The station has even converted one of the fire trucks to function as a paramedic vehicle when all of the other ambulances are out on calls.Still, Nelson said that having good equipment is not the problem—the problem is having the staff to run it. The Amherst Fire Department currently has 44 permanent staff members. In comparison, the Holyoke Fire Department, where Nelson previously worked for 28 years, has a permanent staff of 120 members, and a much smaller constituency.The Amherst Fire Department serves the 30,000 residents of Amherst and the 27,000 students in the town, as well see

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