Senior Day Sorrows
Drive-By Truckers Come back strong
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THE MASSACHUSETTS
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DAILY COLLEGIAN DailyCollegian.com
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‘Blarney Blowout’ leads to 55 arrests, 28 summonses
Past UM senior honored
Monday, March 10, 2014
‘Hammer’ out of SGA election OHAG funds were used to provide gifts
Serving the UMass community since 1890
Meghan Beebe’s life celebrated at ceremony
By Patrick Hoff Collegian Staff
By Mary reines
A Student Government Association ticket for president and vice president was taken off the ballot before polls opened on Sunday due to the confirmation of an active complaint. Seth Perkins and Isilda Gjata, also known as “The Hammer,” were removed from the ballot on Friday morning in a unanimous 4-0 vote done by the SGA Elections Commission. One graduate student commissioner abstained from voting and a sixth member was absent. Perkins currently serves as the Orchard Hill governor, with Gjata as his lieutenant governor. According to Rocco Giordano, SGA elections chancellor, there were two active complaints against the “Hammertime” ticket – one involving misuse of Orchard Hill Area Government Funds and the other regarding alleged sexist remarks Perkins made about another ticket while campaigning at the Stonewall Center. The Elections Commission allowed Perkins and Gjata to voice their side of the story on Tuesday but decided to suspend their campaigning privileges until the SGA Secretary of Finance had completed her audit of the OHAG. Lindsay Vitale, secretary of finance, got written statements from three SGA senators asking her to take a look at spending because they had witnessed Perkins and Gjata giving out items at an event. “(The senators) didn’t know exactly what those items were supposed to be used for or how they were purchased or anything like
A candlelit vigil was held to honor 21-year-old Meghan Beebe, who died shortly after she was run over and dragged by a car on Dec. 28. On Friday, friends and family gathered at the Campus Center to share memories of Beebe, who studied sociology at the University of Massachusetts. Beebe was vice president of the sociology club, a volunteer at the Center for Women’s sexual assault crisis hotline and an intern at the Hampshire Jail and House of Correction in Northampton. To read her full obituary, go to www.dailycollegian.com. Amy Luskin will never forget the moment that she met Beebe in their Psychology of Love class. Luskin was feeling down that day, and hadn’t planned on talking to anyone. She was sitting quietly at her desk when Beebe entered and sat down next to her. “My name’s Meg, what’s your name?” Beebe said to Luskin. Beebe’s unexpected greeting delighted Luskin. She recalled how lonely she was feeling, and how Beebe’s friendliness had meant so much to her. “I was actually going through a rough time with my friends,” she said. Although Beebe was a stranger, she made Luskin feel like someone cared about her, and that’s something that Luskin will always remember. “I think of her when I feel alone,” Luskin said.
see
ELECTION on page 2
Collegian Staff
ROBERT RIZZUTO, SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN/MASSLIVE.COM
Pre-St. Patrick’s Day celebration initiates chaos and arrests near the UMass campus and the surrounding area.
APD breaks up gatherings around Amherst, reports four injured officers By Patrick Hoff
vice and streets near the stretch between Puffton Village and the Fifty-five people were arrest- Townehouses in North Amherst. It ed Saturday during “Blarney took nearly an entire day to quell Blowout,” an annual St. Patrick’s the rowdy crowds – which grew Day-themed series of drinking par- with thousands in attendance. APD officers arrested 55 people ties that left a number of people with at least 18 of those people held with minor injuries, including four on charges of failing to disperse police officers, police and univerand inciting a riot; at least three sity officials said. Officers from the Amherst others were held on assault and Police Department issued disper- battery with a dangerous weapon sal orders, increased police man- charges; and an individual was also power to the area, released pep- charged with breaking and enterper spray and shut down bus ser- ing. Other charges included disorCollegian Staff
derly conduct, alcohol violations and assault and battery on a police officer. Police also issued an additional 28 summons. All of the arrests occurred between 9 a.m. Saturday and 4 a.m. Sunday. Any University of Massachusetts students arrested in connection with the event will face a sanctions review from the University, whose officials, including Dean of Students Enku Gelaye, see
BLARNEY on page 3
see
VIGIL on page 3
Gender inclusive housing FBI to investigate missing looks to expand its options airplane from Malaysia UM offering more alternative dorms By MitcHell scuzzarella Collegian Correspondent
The University of Massachusetts Residential Life is looking for students interested in on campus gender inclusive housing for fall 2014. The gender inclusive housing option has existed on campus since 2009. Originally, this option was started to provide transgender students or those students who identify outside of the gender binary (male or female) with a welcoming environment to live on campus. While the focus of gender inclusive housing remains on providing this environment, it has opened up to any students who desire it. There are currently two locations on campus where this housing is available. Cashin Hall in the Sylvan
The Spectrum Floor in Baker Hall is an LGBT specific floor on campus that also caters to students looking for gender inclusive housing. However, ... according to Genny Beemyn, director of the UMass Amherst Stonewall Center, not all transidentified students necessarily want to be a part of the Spectrum Floor. residential area offers suite style living to students, while North Apartments right nearby offer co-ed living in an on campus apartment. The Spectrum Floor in Baker Hall is an LGBT specific floor on campus that also caters to students looking for gender inclusive housing. However, there is a demand for gender inclusive housing outside of this community. According to Genny Beemyn, director of the UMass Amherst Stonewall Center, not all trans-identified students necessar-
ily want to be a part of the Spectrum Floor. “(Gender inclusive housing) is not a community, but an accommodation,” said Beemyn. “It’s for anyone who wants to live with a different gender.” Gender inclusive housing already exists on many colleges across the country, including state schools such as the University of Oregon and private universities such as Cornell. The housing so far has been hugely popular according see
HOUSING on page 3
By ricHard a. serrano Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — The FBI is deploying agents and technical experts to assist in investigating the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet, based on the American citizenship of three of the passengers aboard the lost flight, a top federal law enforcement official in Washington said Saturday. He said that a fourth passenger, whom he described as an infant flying with the three Americans, also may be a U.S citizen. “This gives us entrée” to the case, the official said, speaking confidentially because the FBI investigation is just beginning. “But so far what happened is a mystery.” U.S. officials said they are looking at whether this could be terrorism, as they would with any plane crash until proved otherwise. Although two passengers apparently used stolen passports, “there is no indication this is a terrorist attack; stolen passports are certainly not indicative of
a terrorist attack,” a senior counterterrorism official said. The official said there was “no evidence” of terrorism thus far. Law enforcement officials were not authorized to speak publicly. The federal law enforcement official said FBI personnel will assist in reviewing video of the airport in Kuala Lumpur for images of passengers at the ticket counter, the security sections and the boarding area. He said images they find can be used with the bureau’s vast counterterrorism technology to look for matches with known members of al-Qaida or other terrorist organizations. But he emphasized that no known terrorist link has surfaced, and no organization has claimed responsibility for downing the plane, which was en route to Beijing with 239 people aboard when it disappeared from air traffic control monitoring. Vietnamese military aircraft participating in a searchand-rescue operation for the plane spotted two oil slicks off
the coast of southern Vietnam that were consistent with a plane crash, the Associated Press reported, but there has been no verification that they were associated with the missing jet. The U.S. law enforcement official said that the federal National Transportation Safety Board also will probably be brought into the investigation “because the jet was built by Boeing in this country.” An official at the Department of Homeland Security said it would be a first if the plane was brought down by two terrorists who boarded the jet carrying stolen passports. “We’ve never seen that,” he said. He noted that in the United States, passports and other travel documents are immediately run through a computer database that would have detected whether they had been stolen or lost. In Malaysia, however, the security arrangement is not as tight, see
AIRPLANE on page 2