STEFAN HERLITZ: ‘FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES DRIVING STUDENT DEBT CRISIS’
UM BASKETBALL PAGE 8
ON THE REBOUND
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THE MASSACHUSETTS
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DAILY COLLEGIAN DailyCollegian.com
Monday, November 24, 2014
Dancing the night away
Today: Rainy, High: 64°F Low: 39°F
CMASS organizes event to promote UM sustainability Students discuss how economy affects health By Sorelle Mbakop Collegian Correspondent
ANDREW CASTILLO/COLLEGIAN
The UMass Dance Company performed on Thursday night at the UMass Project X: Student Showcase event.
International students prepare for Thanksgiving holiday on campus UMass organizes feast at Blue Wall on Thurs. By Patrick MacCormack Collegian Correspondent
For many students at the University of Massachusetts, Thanksgiving is a time for a break from classes and heading home for a long weekend. But international students on campus have to seek out other alternatives. “I know a bunch of kids from Puerto Rico that go home for the break, but I think most international students stay back,” said Karan Choksi, an international student studying at UMass. Choksi is a junior economics major who hails from Mumbai,
India. He is one of the 345 international students at the University, according to Undergraduate Admissions. Choksi, who is friends with other international students, says that many of them do not get to see their families during the holiday break. Choksi considers himself lucky to have family in the New England area. Every year he ends up in a different place, whether it be with friends in Boston or family in Connecticut. Of the 14,000 students that live on campus at the University, most will go home this week for Thanksgiving break. According to UMass’ website, schoolsanctioned housing will close Wednesday at 6 p.m., just like it
does every November. “It’s easier now that I live off campus,” Choksi said. He added that not being restricted by the 6 p.m. departure time is beneficial because he can avoid the $150 dollar fine students who don’t check out of their room on time incur. According to Undergraduate Admissions, 50 countries are represented by the international student population at UMass. For those who do not return to their home countries or have friends nearby, the University does offer a Thanksgiving Day feast. The International Programs Office at the University encouraged families in Amherst to host a see
HOLIDAY on page 2
Serving the UMass community since 1890
In an effort to educate the University of Massachusetts community on healthy, sustainable eating habits, the Center for Multicultural Advancement and Student Success hosted a community-building event titled “Half Empty or Half Full: What is Sustainability?” Friday in Wilder Hall. The theme of sustainable eating was chosen because, according to Joyce Vincent, associate director of CMASS, “UMass has gained recognition for our Sustainable UMass (program), premature gardens, supporting local farmers and promoting good eating habits.” Vincent said the event was chosen because November is considered Native American/ Indigenous Heritage Month and there is a large Native community on campus focusing on health and diets this year. “We thought we would focus on sustainable foods and American consumer culture as a means of supporting the focus
of the Native community, and also creating an annual bridge program between the Center for Multicultural Advancement, Sustainable UMass, permaculture gardens, Stockbridge agriculture disciplines, public health, anthropology, sociology, economics, pre-med, nursing and legal studies,” Vincent said. “In other words, a future interdisciplinary collaboration with cross cultural connections for our campus.” Those who attended the interactive event, which was designed by the undergraduate staff of the Cultural Enrichment Office at CMAS, were separated into three groups – families, observers and reporters. Those who played the role of families were given a paper with their budgets, size of their families and dietary restrictions. The families, which were from different socio-economic statuses, were then asked to plan out purchases of a week’s worth of groceries from Walmart, Stop & Shop or Whole Foods with their given constraints. The observers had to watch the families’ behavior when deciding what to buy at different stores and also watch their interaction see
CMASS on page 2
LAURA JARVIS/COLLEGIAN
CMASS invited students to learn more about sustainability on Friday.
Senator says GOP Yazidi refugees spark debate airstrikes set report is ‘garbage’ upU.S.cover for escape B y C hristi Parsons Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — A top Republican took aim at his GOP colleagues on Sunday for issuing a report that largely absolved the Obama administration for its handling of the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, dismissing the accounting by the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee as “full of crap.” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that in compiling its report the committee accepted a “complete bunch of garbage” and allowed more finger-pointing within the administration about responsibility for the fatalities at the consulate. “I’m saying the House Intelligence Committee is doing a lousy job policing their own,” Graham said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “This report puts all
the blame on the State Department and absolves the intelligence community,” he said. “When the Department of Defense committees looked at it, the Department of Defense was held blameless. At the end of the day, everybody is pointing fingers to everybody else.” Other Republican members of Congress suggested that the Benghazi debate end. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. said he thinks it’s time to “move beyond that.” The back-and-forth followed the Friday release of the latest report about the attacks that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other embassy officials. The House review found that the administration did not intentionally mislead people about how the attacks unfolded, despite the fact that its early statements turned out to be see
GOP on page 2
By Roy Gutman McClatchy Foreign Staff DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — In a picnic grove nestled in wheat and cotton fields just south of Diyarbakir, municipal officials have set up a refugee camp for more than 4,000 Yazidis who fled the threat of genocide when Islamic State extremists captured their cities in
early August. U.S. airstrikes provided the cover for Yazidis to escape the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, but it was the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by its Kurdish initials as the PKK, that set up a security corridor and guided them to safety through Iraqi Kurdistan and later to Turkey. Now the local branch of Turkey’s ruling party is accusing the PKK and
ROY GUTMAN/MCT
Khalef Suleman, center, has one wish: “Not to return to Sinjar.”
Diyarbakir city officials of using the Yazidis to promote the PKK’s cause. The party has a big following in Diyarbakir, though many families resent its recruiting methods, impressing young men to join them in the mountains. Local observers say the camp couldn’t have been set up the without support from the PKK, which is banned in Turkey but still wields influence in this and other Kurdish towns, mainly through local political proxies. The camp, Turkish officials say, appears to be a PKK demonstration project, with plans for a Kurdish-language school. And they are not happy. Municipal authorities see the camp “as their duty,” said Huseyn Aksoy, the Ankara-appointed provincial governor. “Well, they don’t have such a duty.” The Justice and Development Party (AKP), the religious party that rules Turkey, says the Yazidis are being used.
“These poor, abandoned, friendless Yazidis are being manipulated and exploited,” said Serif Aydin, the AKP’s deputy chairman in Diyarbakir province. He blames the local PKKaligned party, the Kurdish Democratic Regions Party, which controls most of the locally elected offices. Yazidis are ethnic Kurds whose heterodox religion borrows from Zoroastrianism, early Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Their reverence for Malak Tawas, the peacock angel, has earned them the accusation of devil worship by Islamist extremists such as the Islamic State. For the PKK, with its Marxist-Leninist roots and a deep-rooted hostility to organized religion, that would make the Yazidis all the more welcome as guests. Local officials said there was nothing nefarious about the camp. Authorities “felt a real need to stand by them ... see
TURKEY on page 3