Whitman Pioneer - Spring 2011 Issue 10

From Breasts to Chests The FAH raises money for breast cancer treatment in its annual chest-casting event.

PAGE

When Whitties Drink...

WHITMAN NEWS, DELIVERED

VOLUME CXXVIII

Feature spills on Whitman party scene.

PAGE

5

4

Walla Walla, WA whitmanpioneer.com

APR

14 2011

1

ISSUE 10

c

Accessibility prioritized on Whitman campus

d

seniors required to buy caps and gowns

T

raditionally, Whitman students have worn college-owned black caps and gowns at graduation. This year, for the first time, student will instead march in dark blue gowns which they are being required to purchase.

As of this year, graduating seniors must purchase their own cap and gown through the school. The requirement is an effort by administrators to unify the types of gowns worn during commencement and maintain the appearance and commencement tradition at Whitman. However, this move has been criticized by many seniors, who feel they have enough other expenses pay for and things to worry about.

In years past, Whitman has loaned out various black gowns to graduating seniors from Whitman’s inventory of gowns, and new caps were provided at no extra cost to students. The administration has moved to change this because the previous gowns are of different styles and a certain number of gowns were mended each year to accommodate shorter students.

“We had gowns that were purchased in the 70s, the 80s and the 90s and they all look and feel a little different,” said Development Officer Jed Schwendiman “It’s becoming harder to maintain the bulk of the inventory so that we can keep the students, faculty and alumni who are here for their 50th reunion in gowns.”

According to Schwendiman, although the administration was behind the major push for the change in caps and gowns, the Senior Class Committee was consulted and helped select the vendor from which

by SHELLY LE Staff Reporter

students will be purchasing their gowns.

Many seniors, however, feel they have not been adequately informed of the reasons for the switch. With the amount of work many seniors have to accomplish before graduating, some feel that they have been left in the dark about the change and have not had the time to argue against the policy.

“I’d just really like to just sit down with someone and ask why this switch has happened, in the sense we’re preparing for our thesis and orals and we just get an email telling us that we have to buy our caps and gowns,” said senior Gauri Mirashi.

Seniors graduating from Whitman this year are required to purchase their cap, gown, and tassel through the school for a total of 29.99 dollars plus tax. Students are given the option to keep their gown, or recycle it for students graduating the following year, who will also be required to purchase caps and gowns.

Seniors who choose to not keep their gown will be asked to place their gowns in bins located outside of Cordiner Hall and Reid Campus Center after commencement.

This program has been developed by senior ASWC Senator Robin Lewis and Schwendiman. Schwendiman has high hopes that the program will be in place in future years for students who financially cannot afford to pay the extra fee for a cap and gown.

“We’ll collect donated gowns, pick them up, and hang them up for current juniors on a firstcome, first-served basis,” Schwendiman said.

GRADUATION,

PAGE

2

A

by DIANA DULEK Staff Reporter

s prospective students flock to Whitman this spring for events like Admitted Students’ Day and Spring Visitors’ Day, many will be taking into account sports, class offerings, the residence halls or Whitman’s location. Students in wheelchairs face not only these concerns, but also concerns about wheelchair accessibility. By and large, they are finding Whitman to be accessible.

Junior Tom Everett, who has needed a wheelchair since a ski accident in 2007, said he was impressed by the campus’s accessibility from the start.

Tom Everett ‘12 poses on the wheelchair ramp that was built last year outside of Tamraac House. Photo Credit: Kendra Klag “Since the day I first toured here, I have been really impressed [with Whitman’s efforts to make the campus as accessible as possible]. That was a big reason I chose to come here,” he said.

First-year MiKayla Briere praised the Outdoor Program as being a particularly strong pull factor in her decision to attend Whitman. Despite suffering from a degenerative skeletal condition that has left her in a wheelchair for the past four years, Briere has not given up on her love for the outdoors.

“Whitman was willing to make the Outdoor Program accessible, when a lot of other places weren’t,” she said.

Briere has worked with the OP to go on a Scramble and take such SSRA classes as whitewater kayaking and yoga. Noting the extent of the OP’s willingness to accommodate, Briere explains, “They have been really good about figuring out how to ACCESSIBILITY,

Despite uncertainty, German department remains at Whitman but with changes

by ALYSSA GOARD Staff Reporter

S

tudents wanting to major in German can breathe a sigh of relief: Whitman’s German Studies major is sticking around after being up in the air earlier this semester.

PAGE

swim bike run

to success

Students wanting to major in German can breathe a sign of relief: Whitman’s German studies major is sticking around for the time being after its up-in-theair status earlier this semester.

Susan Babilon, senior adjunct assistant professor of German, said that the foreign languages and literatures department has not replaced a tenure-line German professor who left in 2008, and the department was told earlier this semester that the German studies major would soon be phased out.

Faculty support ultimately led to the major staying.

“About a week after the announcement of the phasing out of the major, the major was actually not cut due to an administrative technicality,” Babilon said. “At a faculty meeting the college faculty also expressed its overwhelming support of maintaining the major. Since that time the affiliated German studies faculty, who are faculty who teach classes in English on a German topic -- and I have been working hard to strengthen and maintain the major, despite cuts in staffing next year.”

GERMAN,

Triathletes

by PAMELA LONDON

T

“Das Deutsche Haus”, the German house.

PHOTO BY BOWMAN.

Sports Writer

here is one sport that epitomizes pushing oneself to the limit: the triathlon.

Arguably one of the most demanding sports around, triathlon combines swimming, biking and running to test an athlete’s skill and perseverance. The Whitman Triathlon Club allows Whitties to do just that. The athletes recently put their talents on display at the annual Beaver Freezer Sprint Triathlon in Corvallis, Ore., with four competitors posting top-10 finishes in their respective categories.

The Triathlon Club was founded a few years ago by Carolyn Atwood ‘09. Current senior Lauren Flynn signed as the cofounder, and the Triathlon Club officially became a part of the Whitman club sports program.

Now, the club is led by Flynn and fellow senior Brian Wakefield, both of whom are also varsity swimmers. Wakefield, who began competing in triath-

2

lons after coming to Whitman, serves as the club’s president.

“Carolyn started the club because she was a passionate and active triathlete,” said Flynn. “We knew that triathlon was an up-and-coming sport, quickly gaining popularity. We were confident that people would be eager to join.”

And eager to join they were.

The Triathlon Club began attracting a great deal of interest, and 2011 has brought in more triathletes than ever before. On April 2 at the Beaver Freezer Sprint Triathlon, Whitman College was represented by 13 triathletes, including eight first-years and sophomores. Out of 186 women in in the road bike category, Flynn took third place and junior Chris Bendix took sixth out of a field of 228 men. First-year Alyssa Goard placed first and senior Kristen Ballinger placed third in the 38-person women’s mountain bike category.

Several of the triathletes come from varsity sports, especially swimmers and runners. When most triathlons are held, varsity cross country and swimming are in their off-season, making it easier logistically for those varsity athletes to participate.

“The triathlon club is unique in our interdisciplinary and diverse contingency,” said Flynn.

“Some of the more experienced folks bring their skill sets to the table to share with firsttimers. Because our focus is more in getting people to races and not so much on competition or training, we are a really laid back, self-start, casual

3

Explore Walla Walla’s finest restuarants, shops and wineries

PAGE

to Walla Walla pages 8 & 9

TRIATHLON,

PAGE

6

APR

2

14 2011

Students satisfied with access, still room for improvement from ACCESSIBILITY,

PAGE

1

do this. It’s not a question of ‘Can we do this?’ It’s ‘How are we going to do this?’”

With registration for the 20112012 academic year coming up, Briere and Everett have no concerns about choosing classes based on the location or accessibility of the room.

“There’s only been one time in my three years that [classroom accessibility] has even been an issue, and it was fixed in one day,” Everett recalled.

Briere said she occasionally had issues getting around and first, mainly from not knowing where elevators were.

“For the most part, everything is pretty easy to get into. At first, I had a really hard time getting into Hunter, just because I didn’t know where the elevator was, but the ARC (Academic Resource Center) just put out accessible maps with all the location of accessible entrances on them.”

Juli Dunn, director of academic resources, said that Whitman's newest campus map marks all wheelchair accessible entrances and also distinguishes between entrances with and without power-operated doors. She said that rather than it being a special version of the campus map, it was the only version.

“A lot of schools have a campus map, and then an accessible campus map. Making it the map that everyone gets I think sends a really strong message that this is something that is important to us," she said.

In spite of the leaps Whitman has made, as Dunn admits there is always room for improvement. Lyman House does not have an elevator, making all but the first floor inaccessible, while parts of Jewett Hall such as 2-West also do not have elevator access.

Briere and Everett both noted

Tom Everett ‘12 poses on the wheelchair ramp that was built last year outside of Tamarac House. PHOTO BY KLAG

‘Unpretentious’ label garners criticism

by JOSH GOODMAN News Editor

Q

uick -- what word would you use to describe Whitman’s culture? A new theme appearing on Whitman’s web site since January suggests “unpretentious,” or more specifically, “unpretentious Northwest culture.”

The use of the word “unpretentious” stems from a broader effort to differentiate Whitman from the hundreds of other liberal arts schools in the United States. Last summer, the college, with a grant from an alumnus, hired Zoom Marketing of Palo Alto, Calif. to survey students, parents, alumni, faculty and staff and work with the college to create a theme to describe and differentiate Whitman. The result: “The premier liberal arts college that combines academic excellence with an unpretentious Northwest culture and an engaging community.”

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Tony Cabasco said the goal was to emphasize a combination of attributes that was unique about Whitman, rather than something that could be easily found elsewhere.

“There’s a lot of things we could say about Whitman where you could substitute Colorado College, Pomona, Occidental, Reed,” Cabasco said. “What’s unique about Whitman is the combination. It’s one of the few places where you can have the intense challenging academics but still have the unpretentious, laid back, friendly culture.”

Ruth Wardwell, director of communications, said that the idea behind the college’s theme was to instantly conjure an image of Whitman.

“I think the broader challenge for Whitman and every other liberal arts college is how do you describe yourself in an instant or create an instant perception,” she said. “I love when I talk to students, and I ask students ‘Why did you come to Whitman?’ We hear many of the words from the focus group over and over and over.”

The word “unpretentious” seems to have hit a sour note for many students, however.

“I kind of feel like it’s a little pretentious in itself, like ‘Oh, no, we’re above that,’” said first-year Jamie Edison. “I don’t want to say that it’s a red flag, but it kind of sticks out.

It sounds like they’re trying a little too hard to sound unpretentious.”

Sophomore Gabriella Friedman said she didn’t have a problem with the wording.

“It’s hard to find one word that describes the entire student body,” she said. “I do think it’s true that Whitman has an engaging community, but I think unpretentious is a vague word, which is probably why they use it.”

Senior John Loranger, who participated in one of Zoom Marketing’s phone surveys, said he preferred the other phrases that he rated.

“I really liked ‘relaxed,’ ‘laid back,’ and ‘easygoing,’” he said. “I think the problem people have with unpretentious is that it’s saying, ‘We are brilliant and we know it but don’t worry, we’re not going to rub it in your face.’”

Loranger, who is also ASWC vice president, said that other members of ASWC have talked about the use of the word “unpretentious,” mostly in a negative light, but don’t plan to take any action regarding it.

Whitman’s administration is well aware of criticism that calling the college unpretentious is, well, pretentious.

“We have had that conversation,” said Vice President of Development and College Relations John Bogley. “The word unpretentious means something specific and to use it is certainly not its opposite.”

Bogley also emphasized that the official wording was “unpretentious Northwest culture,” a broader description. He mentioned his own experience as an undergraduate student, when he transferred from Colgate University, a liberal arts college in New York, to Whitman. He instantly noticed a change from Colgate’s competitive culture, where people tried to outdo each other, to

Whitman’s more collaborative feel.

Despite the emphasis on using “unpretentious” primarily as a descriptor of Northwest culture, several examples on the web site go beyond that. This includes references to graduates as “ethical, unpretentious leaders” and to the campus as “an unpretentious, residential campus.”

The way “unpretentious” is perceived has to do with context, too. President George Bridges said that while he’s heard the complaint that calling the college unpretentious is pretentious, the word works particularly well when he can provide examples.

“In many cases, I find myself giving those examples in public speeches,” he said in an e-mail. “It’s tough to include examples on the limited amount of space on the web site.”

Wardwell also said that the word worked better when spoken.

“I’ve come to understand that when you say the word, it’s a different response than when you read the word,” she said. “If I’m listening to someone describe it as unpretentious, it’s okay, but when you see it written that way, it’s like, ‘Is this pretentious?’”

Still, the college plans to move forward with its theme. The Office of Admission will release a new viewbook and other admissions materials this summer, which place emphasis on Whitman’s “academic excellence”, “engaging community” and “unpretentious Northwest culture”.

The Whitman web site, through a separate grant, will get an update this fall that further incorporates each of the three key phrases. Bogley thinks that the clearer description of what a Whitman education and experience entail will help prospective students better understand Whitman, and ultimately help students in the job market.

“People who are hiring you and your classmates in the years to come will have a better understanding of the value of a Whitman education,” he said. “Hopefully, out in the working world, people will say, ‘You went to Whitman? That’s a great school.’”

the IHC as being one of the more inaccessible spots on campus. When asked about this, Nancy Tavelli, associate dean of students – campus life, accounts the lack of accessibility to a lack of demand. She said that Tamarac House only got a ramp when a student in a wheelchair wanted to live there.

“If someone [in a wheelchair] did want to live [in the IHC], I guess we’d have to look at what we could possibly do, see what we could do physically to the house," Tavelli said. "There are 11 houses; if the demand were there, we’d figure it out on a case-by-case basis.”

Dunn remains optimistic: “Currently it’s a reactive model. Hopefully, as we do it more often, it will become a proactive model for the next batch of students that come through Whitman.”

"Working on a reactive model is more difficult because it means a stage where there are challenges or different circumstances to work around," said Briere. "It almost seems as Whitman is being proactive, though, because a lot of places aren't problems and the campus is just modernizing accessibility to make things even easier."

Everett has no complaints about the current model.

"With a small school like this it seems logical to not address problems until they actually arise, and that way you can have the student with the issue be a part of the solution, instead of trying to guess the best solution."

For members of the Whitman community that may feel apathetic towards this issue, Dunn raises the question: "If students, faculty and staff want a glimpse of accessibility on our campus, they should challenge themselves to navigate a day on our campus using only accessible entrances, ramps and curb cuts. It provides a whole new perspective."

PRODUCTION

WRITING

BUSINESS

Editors-in-Chief Molly Smith & Derek Thurber

Production Manager Maggie Appleton

NEWS

Business Manager Dhavan Vengadasalam

Managing Editor Alyssa Fairbanks

Production Associates Ted Hendershot, Miriam Kolker, Abigail Sloan, Meg Vermilion

News Editors Rachel Alexander & Josh Goodman

Chief Copy Editor Jenna Mukuno

Feature Editors Cara Lowry & Patricia Vanderbilt

Copy Editor Maggie Ayau

Sports Editors Libby Arnosti & Nick Wood

PHOTOGRAPHY

Opinion Editor Gary Wang Backpage Editor Diana Dulek Photography Editor Jack Lazar Illustration Editor Olivia Johnson Web Editor Ellie Gold

Marin Axtell, Faith Bernstein, Julia Bowman, Brandon Fennell, Ben Lerchin, Kendra Klag, Ethan Parrish, Marie Von Hafften

ILLUSTRATION Sam Alden, Jea Alford, Molly Johanson, Binta Loos-Diallo, Carrie Sloane, Jung Song, Markel Uriu

Alyssa Goard, Will Gregg, Karah Kemmerley, Shelly Le, Joe Volpert

A&E Taneeka Hansen, McCaulay Singer-Milnes, Kate Robinette, Will Witwer

FEATURE Hanna Kahl, Kelsey Kennedy, Maren Schiffer

from

Circulation Associates Leland Matthaeus, Kira Peterson, Junpei Tsuji

168,359

Number of times you could drive from Seattle to Walla Walla round trip in a Chevrolet Suburban using this oil

$20 billion Value of compensation fund set up by BP for Gulf Coast residents

$16,000

Average compensation payment per claiment

$18.5 million

Value of the compensation package given to BP CEO Tony Hayward, who left the company in October 2010

250,000

Number of people who have been paid from the compensation fund

86,000

Number of these people who have signed waivers agreeing not to sue BP

1

Number of lawsuits filed against the administrator of the compensation fund, alleging that claimants were made to sign waivers under false pretenses sources:: NPR, Reuters, InterPress Service, New York Times, California Department of Energy

pear to be unfair to many students, the change may be better for the college in the long run.

“The college has definite reasons for switching to new gowns.

Senior Senator Robin Lewis and I have been working hard to make sure that switch happens at the lowest environmental and student cost without creating unnecessary work for valued Whitman staff,” she said.

ILLUSTRATION BY LOOS-DIALLO

EDITORIAL POLICY Founded before the turn of 20th century, The Pioneer is Whitman College’s weekly, student-run newspaper. With a circulation of over 1,200, The Pioneer serves both the Whitman College student body and its network of faculty, staff, parents and alumni as well as the local Walla Walla community. The Pioneer publishes a weekly issue of the latest news, arts and sports coverage and student editorials. The Pioneer is entirely student-run and serves as an open forum for the student body as well as an outlet for gaining journalistic experience at a school that has no journalism program. The staff receives guidance from a Board of Advisors, a group of campus and community leaders, including Whitman College faculty and staff with journalism expertise as well as members of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin. The Pioneer strives to maintain the highest standers of fairness, quality and journalistic integrity and is governed by a Code of Ethics.

SUBMISSION POLICY

Advertising Manager Anna Taylor

CODE OF ETHICS

Advertising Designer Brianna Jaro

Adam Brayton, Cari Cortez

Barrels of oil spilled by BP in the Gulf of Mexico from April 20 to July 15, 2010

ADVERTISING

Andrew Hawkins, Tyler Hurlburt, Pamela London,

BACKPAGE

4.9 milllion

Letters to Editor may be submitted to The Pioneer via e-mail to editors@ whitmanpioneer.com or sent to The Pioneer, Whitman College, 280 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, WA, 99362. All submissions must be received by 4 p.m. on Sunday prior to the week that they are intended to appear. All submissions must be attributed and may be edited for AP-style and fluency.

Webmaster Rebecca Fish

SPORTS

Alex Brott, Lissa Erickson, Bryant Fong, Blair Frank, Tristan Grau, Staten Hudson, Ami Tian

News Editor

GRADUATION, page 1

Because the college requires graduating seniors to attend commencement in order to receive their diploma, paying for a cap and gown is a requirement for students to graduate. For many seniors this year, who no longer have the option of renting a gown from the college or re-using a gown from a previous senior, the added expense is another worry.

“Whitman is diverse in terms of financial status, and I think it is unfair that students are required to buy a cap and gown,” said Mirashi. “Spending 30 dollars for a one-time use is just not worth it.”

According to Schwendiman, financial assistance, however, is provided for students who are recorded to meet the financial aid requirements.

“For students [who cannot afford a gown] we ask them to come into the Dean of Students Office and we'll help them subsidize the cost,” Schwendiman said.

Other seniors across campus are also critical of the policy change because they feel as though Whitman is emphasizing the image of the college and the tradition of commencement over the environmental goals of many students across campus.

"I think it's representative of an instance where the college's environmental goals are in conflict with the college's desire for a certain image," said senior and Sustainability Coordinator Ari Frink.

Senior ASWC Senator Elise Otto, who has been critical of the policy change, said in an e-mail, that although the policy may ap-

Advertising Associates Phuong Pham, Brian Vieth, Hailun Zhou

OPINION

by RACHEL ALEXANDER

New gowns may be recycled

WHITMAN NEWS, DELIVERED

EDITORIAL

NUMBERS IN THE NEWS

The Code of Ethics serves as The Pioneer’s established guidelines for the practice of responsible journalism on campus, within reasonable interpretation of the Editorial Board. These guidelines are subject to constant review and amendment by the current Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board. The Code of Ethics is reviewed at least once per semester.

To access the complete Code of Ethics for The Pioneer, visit whitmanpioneer.com/about.

For information about advertising in The Pioneer or to purchase a subscription please contact BUSINESS@WHITMANPIONEER.COM

APR

3

14 2011

Administration moves to simplify waitlists for fall 2011 registration

by KARAH KEMMERLY Staff Reporter

A

new waitlist system will make pre-registration a little smoother this year if all goes according to plan. The Registrar's Office and Whitman College Technology Services have been working together for nine months to make improvements so that students can more easily get the classes they want.

Before fall 2010 pre-registration, the Registrar moved from managing waitlists with a firstcome, first-served electronic system to requiring faculty to manage their own waitlists. This change enabled faculty members to have more say in choosing who gets in to their classes. They could prioritize students who needed the class for their major, for example. However, this system also relied on a complicated chain of communication between the faculty, students and the Registrar that sometimes made registration stressful.

Fortunately, WCTS have developed a system for fall 2011 pre-registration to combat these problems. In this new system, when a faculty member gives a student consent for a course via QUACK, the system automatically sends a student and the Registrar an e-mail. In this e-mail is a link to the Registrar. If the student wants to add the course, they must simply follow that link to make a request with the Registrar. They will receive a confirmation e-mail when the Registrar has added the course.

Registrar Ron Urban feels that this system is an important step in improving registration.

“The process should eliminate many of the communication difficulties associated with our previous procedures and make the process of enrolling in closed classes less of a tortured experience for students,” he said.

Michael Quiner, director of administrative technology, agrees.

“It will make communication between faculty members, students and the Registrar much easier,” Quiner said.

He is especially supportive of this system because it allows the faculty to be selective.

"They have a good sense of the type of student and the number of students they want to add to their classes," he said.

Quiner said this is the first of many changes, and mentioned several changes that technology services would like to implement in the future. Some examples include a link that would automatically send a course request e-mail to faculty members and a place on the web site where faculty members can explain to students why they granted consent or not.

Course compression, the phenomenon of too many classes occurring at the same time, has also been a major registration complaint recently. Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, provost and dean of faculty, has written a document addressing course compression that can be found on The Pioneer's web site.

In part of this document, he discussed how the Registrar and elected leaders of the faculty met to look at course distribution for the next school year.

In the communication he writes: "In conducting this review, we attended not simply to the distribution of courses, but also to the number of available enrollment seats across semesters and among different time slots during each semester."

He continues: "Following this analysis, in instances where we found cause for concern, we returned to departments in order to indicate that courses needed to be shifted from one semester to another; that courses needed to be better balanced at different levels; that courses needed to be better distributed among time slots in order to reduce the phenomenon of 'course compression.'"

Kaufman-Osborn also urged students not to be discouraged if they don't get all the courses they want at pre-registration.

"The list of course offerings made available at the time of preregistration is, of necessity, a partial list. If students do not get access to all of the courses they wish to take during pre-registration, it is crucial that next fall they return to the list of courses to see what additional oppor-

Faculty voted to allow student representation on curriculum committee

by JOSH GOODMAN News Editor

In a close vote, the Whitman College faculty voted Wednesday, April 13 to allow student representation on its new Curriculum Committee next year.

The decision means that the ASWC President and Vice President will be allowed non-voting seats on the committee.

“This is a tremendous victory for ASWC and Whitman students in general,” said ASWC President Carson Burns.

“I hope that the student voice helps the committee next year and that students are continued to be thought of as valuable contributors to policy-making in the Whitman community.”

ASWC had worked to build student support and lobby faculty for representation after finding out about the new committee last winter. The initial vote was scheduled for March 30 but was postponed due to a full agenda at the faculty meeting. ASWC Vice President John Loranger said at the time that the extra time would allow ASWC to meet with more faculty members before the vote.

Dobson said that the faculty will aim to make the student representation effective while addressing faculty concerns about that representation.

“A majority was supportive of hearing student input, but there were people concerned about confidentiality and historical memory,” she said, referring to the fact that faculty have experience with the development of the college over a longer period of time. “As we develop this committee ... I will certainly work to make the student participation work.”

Dobson added that ASWC’s perspective served as a reminder of how students are affected by the curriculum.

“Carson Burns reminded faculty today that students experience directly the curriculum decisions that the faculty make and have a different perspective than the faculty have on those decisions,” she said.

The first two ASWC representatives on the Curriculum Committee will be President and Vice President elects Matt Dittrich and Maggie Appleton.

ADVERTISEMENT

tunities have opened up," he said.

Kaufman-Osborn also reminded students to remember that movement during the first week of classes could also open up class spots.

Overall, the stress level among students seems to have decreased since previous pre-registration periods.

Junior Charles Weems, a politics major, attributes this lack of concern to his senior standing.

“Since I’ll be a senior next year, I’m not really worried about getting the courses I want or getting off waitlists. I missed the worst of the course compression while I was abroad,” he said.

First-year Ben Ishibashi had a previous stressful experience with waitlisting. An introductory environmental studies class important to his major was closed, so he e-mailed the professor and made it on the waitlist. After attending the first day of class, he got a spot -- then a few hours later, he lost the spot to a student who had been sick and unable to attend class. Fortunately, the professor e-mailed him when another student dropped, and he was able to get the class.

He stressed the importance of communication and is glad to hear that the new system will improve it.

"The environmental studies professors have been good about communication. I think it's because they know how competitive their courses are," Ishibashi said. "Communication was the key in my situation. If the professor hadn't emailed me, I wouldn't have gotten that class."

He also feels that allowing professors to manage their own waitlists is a smart idea.

"Professors understand student appeals and can make sure the people who get in are the ones that should."

First-year Jenny Dardis agrees.

"The professor can tell who is really enthusiastic about his or her class, and who would benefit most from it. In my experience, professors are pretty fair, so I think this is a good way to help everyone get the most that they can out of the classes they take," she said.

Read Provost Timothy Kaufman-Osborn’s letter to the student body online at whitmanpioneer.com

Fewer German literature courses will be offered next semester from GERMAN,

PAGE

1

Provost and Dean of Faculty Timothy Kaufman-Osborn said that while Whitman will continue to offer German language classes, the college is exploring ways to restructure the major.

“Because of student enrollment pressures in other academic programs, we have found it necessary to consider shifting some instructional resources to areas of greater student demand," he said in an e-mail.

"In the meantime, as I understand it, a group of faculty are exploring creative ways to reconfigure the German studies program, perhaps along the lines of the current Asian studies program. I look forward to seeing the results of those efforts."

There was one German studies major in 2010, a decline from four in 2007.

Though the 2011-12 Course Catalog shows both Babilon and the department's visiting assistant professor Amy Blau returning next year, fewer classes -- especially German-language literature classes -- will be offered.

"While the affiliated faculty will be making accommodations for German studies students in their cross-listed German studies courses next year by allowing interested advanced German students to complete some of their reading and writing assignments in German, there will actually be fewer courses taught in the German language next year," Babilon said.

Sophomore Bo Erickson was disappointed by the lack of German-language offerings.

“There were all these cool classes in film and literature [listed in the catalog] which are not being offered," she said. "I was really excited about a philosophy course under the German department that was canceled.”

Sophomore Kelley Hall, RA of the Das Deutsche Haus, the German Interest House, noted that some courses such as the 100, 200 and 300 level German-language courses will definitely be offered next year, but that many electives listed in the catalog will not.

"It will be interesting to see what happens in years to come with the department. Right now there are many courses, in art history for example, which can count towards a German major."

Hall started taking German at Whitman this year and works with Babilon in discussing the role of Das Haus on campus.

"The professors obviously brought up the changes going on with the German department ADVERTISEMENT

Kelley Hall, RA of the German House and a German major, is one of the students who will be affected by recent changes in the department. PHOTO BY BOWMAN

in class, but students haven't really been involved in the overall decision process," Hall said. "I find it concerning that majors like education are being dropped, and of course I am opposed to losing the German major."

Hall will be studying in Berlin this summer and will continue taking German in the fall but is disappointed that "half the upper level German classes aren't offered next year."

Erickson, who is currently in German 206, said that the uncertainty about the department’s future was evident in class.

“When they thought the department was shutting down, people were prevented from declaring [a German major] for a week, but then [the administration] said that it was no longer a concern and that students could be free to declare again," she said. "During that week some students we’re pretty torn up about the whole situation.”

Part of the problem may be the lack of literature offerings before attaining an advanced level of language. Erickson said that students starting in lower level German courses must take 2 1/2 years of strictly language courses before delving into literature courses.

“I just wish there were more intermediate opportunities to study German culture in depth,” she said.

The literature aspect is important for Hall, who said that German-language works are influential in many disciplines.

"I don't think a lot of people realize how many of the original texts in math, science and literature are written in German," she said.

"It is a really powerful language."

APR

4

14 2011

PIO PICKS Each Thursday, The Pioneer highlights several events happening on campus or in Walla Walla during the weekend. Here are this week’s picks: Equality is Sexy 2 A reprise from last year’s popular event, FACE, Coalition Against Homophobia and WEB present “Equality is Sexy”, a dialogue of social justice using slam or spoken poetry, music and more. Students can sign up to participate by e-mailing milicimt@ whitman.edu. Guest slam poet/ singer/songwriter Shira Erlichman will headline the event.

Friday, April 15, 8-10 p.m. Reid Coffeehouse.

Visiting Writers Reading Series: Kazim Ali Poet, novelist, essayist and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College Kazim Ali will read tonight at the Reading Series. Ali’s book of poetry, “The Far Mosque”, won the Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award in 2005. Thursday, April 14, 7 p.m.

Kimball.

Whitman Jazz Collective The Fridays at Four concert series presents student ensemble Whitman Jazz Collective for their final official concert of the year. Jazz members include seniors Brian Barton and Ross Eustis. Friday, April 15, 4 p.m.

Chism Hall.

Aside from tossing Frisbees on Ankeny, some students spend sunny spring days barbecuing at the Glover Alston Center and digging in the Organic Garden. PHOTO BY PARRISH

WHITTIES TAKE

to the SUN

The Pioneer investigates favorite places for spring recharge

by KATE ROBINETTE Staff Reporter

F

or many Whitman College students, the onset of warm sunny days brings some impatience with familiar haunts and with confining, formerly cozy work spaces. Productivity decreases, irritability increases and students feel that unless they get out and enjoy the sun, their semesters will not end admirably.

Taking to campus to find new spring renewal, The Pioneer has compiled the top six spring hangout spots on campus to fit students’ top five needs — places for recreation and relaxation, places to study, places to be social and places to be alone.

“Here we are studying about these philosophers and writers who are all about finding unity with nature and talking about the cyclicality of life and spring as a rebirth and all that, and here I am holed up in my room writing my thesis,” said senior Navdeep Aujla. “So I like to go do class reading on Ankeny, even if it can be a little distracting when a Frisbee comes flying past my head.”

Ankeny is really more like twoor three-in-one for hangout spots.

Students enjoy the expanse for sports and more informal catch and Frisbee in smaller groups as well.

PHOTO BY KLAG

The volleyball net between Ankeny and the science building is packed on afternoons and weekends, as reported by students studying in Penrose Library’s “fishbowl”.

The perimeters of Anke-

From breasts to chests Staff Reporter

O

n Saturday, April 16, Whitman College students will use plaster to immortalize their chests in a mold to raise money for charity.

This annual event hosted by the Fine Arts House is now open to both men and women.

“Chest casting is open to everyone. The name was changed from ‘breast casting’ to ‘chest casting’ to be all-inclusive,” said junior Julia Schneider, Resident Advisor for the FAH. However, this change in name does not always result in a stronger male contingent at the event.

“I know there has always been a male chest casting section, but when I organized it only two guys showed up, compared to around 50 women,” said former Resident Advisor of the Fine Arts House junior Olivia Molden.

The FAH has hosted this program for several years, making it an official Whitman tradition.

“Chest casting is a traditional FAH program, and I think because it’s such a good cause, each house has been interested in keeping it up,” said Schneider.

The fundraiser is a two-part event. The first step involves the actual casting process, while the second involves decoration.

“Our house will have two casting areas for people to apply the plaster strips, and since it takes a while for the casts to dry, we’re having [students] pick them up later,” said Schneider.

On Saturday, April 23, students will have another opportunity to personalize their mold, making their own artistic mark on the project.

“The following Saturday we’ll be hosting a painting colony for anyone to come

in the library to make working a little more enjoyable.”

For students who have been there, done that with Ankeny and other central campus areas, there is appeal to the further reaches and lesser-known hangouts of Whitman’s campus.

The Glover Alston Center’s hominess is a refreshing change from the academic-feeling areas of campus. Its backyard, with a lawn area, creek and large barbecue grill and cement pad, draws groups for get-togethers who don’t have kitchens or outdoor space in dorms or their off-campus apartments.

The spring hangout spot that is not widely known yet still highly rated is the Organic Garden.

Students who want to actually do physical labor to balance their mental exertion, grow food or just get their fingernails in the dirt in their recharge time are drawn by the open garden and potluck events there. Some students just like to take walks and sit under the gazebo.

The last place students seem drawn to because of its energizing effect is the roof. While The Pioneer does not condone breaking into any campus rooftops, many students find that the roofs of their off-campus houses are warm, fresh places to soak up some spring rays and fresh breezes.

SPOTLIGHT ON ART

Absurdism of ‘Kangaroo’ not lost in translation

FAH INVITES MEN TO CASTING EVENT

by MCCAULAY SINGER-MILNES

ny on benches and under trees is where students sit, lie, chat or sleep, do homework, take advantage of the Wi-fi, make phone calls and have Skype dates.

“From the middle of Anke-

ny you can slightly hear both [the top-40 tennis courts’ music and Jewett Hall corner’s indie music] this year, but they don’t really clash; they more just add to the ‘college-campus-in-spring feel,’” said senior Elle de la Cruz.

Next comes the water areas around Lakum Dukum, Narnia and the Amphitheater which draw students looking for a quiet, beautiful place to appreciate nature’s response to the coming of summer. Students sit and write or paint, often alone, in these areas.

“The more colors the better. Whitman’s campus is gorgeous — they do such an awesome job with grounds-keeping — and especially in the spring I really love to spend time out there.

When visitors come, too, I always take them for walks along the creek bed that runs by Prentiss,” said senior Laura Quennoz.

And for spring’s rainy days or when free hangout time is not an option, even the library seems to be a favorite for students. Full of big windows and quiet corners looking out onto campus or at the tops of blossoming trees, Penrose draws students bored with other study spots.

“If there aren’t too many negative associations,” said Aujla. “It can be refreshing to find a window seat somewhere new

and paint, but specifically [to those who want to] paint their chest casts,” said Schneider.

In order to make this program a fund raising activity, the Fine Arts House charges three dollars for each casting, which will benefit Walla Walla’s Providence St. Mary Community Breast Center.

“The center helps with woman’s health and breast cancer,” said Schneider.

The money goes toward helping make treatment more affordable.

“They always really appreciate having Whitman students be involved in fund raising for their center. They say it goes to help pay for helpers and for free treatments for women who usually cannot afford the process,” said Molden.

FAH residents hope students will donate their time and money to the project, which serves multiple purposes.

“I think it’s very empowering for some people and a good experience to get comfortable with your body and learn to love it,” said Schneider. “In addition, I hope some students do it because it’s a great cause.”

The process usually results in a relic that the participant can show off with pride.

“The whole event — casting and painting — is a lot of fun. Some people are really hesitant at first to come in and join, but when they see everyone else with their tops off laughing it makes for quite a welcoming entrance,” said Molden. “I know quite a few people who are really proud of their chest castings and hang them up in their rooms. I gave one to my grandma who loves it and has it hanging in her kitchen.”

ILLUSTRATION BY ALFORD

by TANEEKA HANSEN

H

Staff Reporter

ow often in your academic career do you get to write about gangsters and a man everyone thinks is a kangaroo? With her honors theatre thesis, senior Raisa Stebbins gets to do just that.

Stebbins, a theatre major with a minor in Japanese, translated the Japanese full-length play “Kangaroo”, which has never before been translated into English.

A section of her translation was performed at this year’s Whitman Undergraduate Conference.

“I decided to pick a contemporary play, and after that it was a process of finding a wellknown playwright who had a lot of plays, some of which were translated into English so I could get a sense of the playwright’s style,” said Stebbins.

This led her to playwright Betsuyaku Minoru. Stebbins chose “Kangaroo” because it was an untranslated play written at the time of Betsuyaku’s two masterpieces and also because it is a comedy.

“Kangaroo is a charming absurdist dark comedy. It is very Kafkaesque, and it is about a man who wakes up one day to find out that everyone thinks he’s a kangaroo,” said Stebbins.

“It was essential that we actively worked on naturalism within the absurdity so that the comedy could come from the eccentricities of the characters rather than the numerous puns in the original Japanese text,” said senior Erin Terrall, the scene’s director.

Besides the strangeness that renders it an absurdist farce, Stebbins and her cast have had to deal with some cultural hang-ups as well. This includes the concept of “cutting a mie”, a traditional kabuki Japanese theatre stance that

Kyle Bloomster ‘14 attempts to convince Keith Hock ‘11, Theo Pratt ‘12 and Melanie Medina ‘14 that he is not a kangaroo during Stebbins’s play. PHOTO BY BERNSTEIN

a character takes to symbolize doing a heroic action. Sometimes the jokes are affected as well. “[Raisa] told us specifical-

I could definitely do work with translating Japanese plays. There is a niche to be filled.

RAISA STEBBINS,

'11

ly that this one line [is] a pun in Japanese, because it’s the same word for backyard as it is for [something like] sneaking onto a ship,” said first-year Melanie Medina, who plays the hat maker’s wife. “So the line ‘try to slip over the fence, but there might be a dog there’ [is] punny, which obviously we didn’t get until she explained it to us.”

The show is also packed with verbal and physical humor. Despite the difficulties, or perhaps even be-

cause of them, Stebbins has enjoyed the work of translation.

“All of this play [is] written in the colloquial spoken languages of Japan,” said Stebbins.

“So that was difficult but also really fun because I got to learn a lot more about casual spoken Japanese in the sort of controlled environment of being able to look at it and see how it’s written and then talk about it.”

Stebbins has high hopes for her work that include getting her translation and her critical paper on the play published.

She also says she can imagine doing similar work in the future.

“I think I could definitely do work with translating Japanese plays,” said Stebbins. “There is a niche to be filled. There are certainly four or five anthologies, but that is it from a country that has had hundreds of years of theatrical tradition.”

Read what The Pioneer staff thinks about the latest movie, album or play at whitmanpioneer.com

APR

5

14 2011

by KELSEY KENNEDY, HANNA KAHL & PATRICIA VANDERBILT Staff Reporters & Feature Editor

In honor of Admitted Students’ Weekend, Feature answers the untongued question on the minds of prospective students and their parents: On the weekend at Whitman, does fun come in a cup?

I

t’s your average Friday night at Whitman College. Classes are done and the last-minute paper you chose to start at 3 a.m. is turned in. In the words of the brilliant lyricist Rebecca Black, many Whitman students are “partyin’, partyin’, yeah” whether or not they legitimately have the time to do so in their filled-to-themax, Google-cal’d-out schedules.

Alcohol is, for some, an important aspect of the exploratory college years.

“I think drinking is an integral part of American culture,” Maherin Ahmed, a senior international student from Bangladesh.

The administration treats drinking in a realistic manner, acknowledging that it does happen and encouraging responsible choices.

“I take more preventative and combative angles against the negative affects of drinking. If students choose to drink we encourage them to do it in a moderate way to minimize unsafe situations for you and

your friends,” said Barbara Maxwell, associate dean of students.

Drinking habits at Whitman range from those who don’t touch a drop of alcohol to those who “get crunk” three or four nights a week. Frat row booms with thumping bass and the floors of student houses bounce under the weight of dancing bodies.

“I rarely go to frat parties, but most people I kick it with like to get crunk. I’m not a huge drinker,” said senior Robert Crenshaw.

On Friday you walk across Ankeny Field and look back at the library where some poor soul is working on thesis research. You make the rounds with your friends and choose a location depending on what you’re in the mood for: a dance party (read: you’re looking for more than just a dance partner for the evening), drinking games or perhaps an “herbal refreshment.”

“Around 11 p.m. there’s a battle about lights: between the dancers who want the lights off and the Beiruters who want the lights on.

By 1 a.m. you’re paired off or going home, “ said junior Rhya Milici.

The vessels of choice are red cups or Mason jars, which send the message that while you might not drink responsibly, you certainly recycle responsibly. Dress code is casual -- Chacos, flannel, the il-

lustrious blue shirt if you’re lucky -- are out in full force. Don’t bother busting out your heels or chic black dress; you’ll get weird looks.

Though the fraternity houses are a reliable source of parties to students both Greek and indie, they are by no means the only -- or even preferred -- locale for students looking to get tipsy. In a Pioneer survey of 304 students, 82 percent reported that they most commonly consume alcohol at an off-campus house.

“The biggest difference between frat parties and house parties is the size of the group. House parties can feel more cramped. Also, the music is less mainstream because it’s someone’s personal iTunes. House parties also have to deal with more noise complaints,” said Milici.

At your party of choice, you overhear an incredibly intense drunken conversation about which “Harry Potter” spell is the coolest and remember that you’re at Whitman, where being a huge nerd is the standard regardless of the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream.

“Just last night I was discussing the ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ while walking back from The Green with a friend,” said junior Caitlin Feeney.

The Whitman party scene is anything but exclusive. A student can walk down Isaacs, head for the house with the loud music and clumps of people scattered in the yard, walk in, and either join the mass on the dance floor or head straight for the keg. The small size of the student body tends to foster a “the more the merrier” atti-

tude amongst party-goers. But not all students choose to drink.

“Drinking isn’t as much part of the culture here as in other colleges. I think it would be a lot worse in other places,” said alumnus Jesus Vasquez ‘09.

“I think there’s a larger presence of people who drink than

those who don’t, but it’s cool to not drink,” Crenshaw said.

The Pioneer survey found that 82 percent of students polled were drinkers. The remaining 18 percent can easily find other things to do.

“If I don’t feel like going to parties with alcohol, I sometimes watch movies or play games. As an alternative to drinking alcohol, I drink tea.” said senior Thu Tran.

Thirteen percent said that they drink because “there is nothing else to do” and only three students reported drinking due to peer pressure. Personal choices regarding alcohol consumption are usually respected, but not always. Crenshaw admitted that in one instance he once felt pressured to drink more than he intended. Moreover, the pervasiveness of drinking at parties can alienate those who do not drink.

“You run the risk of being socially ostracized if you put your values on the table that you don’t drink,” said Ahmed.

Forty percent of students polled said that they drink “because my friends are drinking,” suggesting that alcohol consumption is a norm in Whitman social life. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that students feel that they must drink in order to be socially accepted — 10 percent of students polled said they drink “to fit in.”

Weekend nights are about meeting people and bonding with friends, giving hormones a free rein, and dancing the stress away.

For many, alcohol is a key ingredient.

why whitties drink Every two years, the Office of Institutional Research administers its Lifestyle Choices Survey. When it was last conducted in 2009, the survey was sent to 1277 eligible respondents, 769 of whom completed it. One question asks: “Indicate

To

To

ov

whether each of the following is a reason why you consume alcohol (Mark all that apply)” and is then followed by a list of reasons. This week, The Pioneer asked students the same question in a survey that received 304 responses. Here are the results.

Re

lie er M f e f T c l r To from ei ew To To ome y fr o in uen sn fee ac ar loo ac fe ien cr ce ot d f se co el ds ea se l a h i x s P or n m ng ar e u To e in To at e dem Fo a g e c i p e h n o l d r g r g as ic Fo the To To ard hib any epr drin nfid beh et a pre else et d e so pre r f ta fit re wo itio fo ess ki en av bu ssu to ru cia ssu un ste in lax rk n od ed ng ce ior zz re do nk lly re s As

ar

Th

in

KEY

PIONEER SURVEY OFFICIAL SURVEY

100%

where whitties drink We asked students to tell us the most interesting place they’ve consumed alcohol during their time at Whitman. Here are some responses.

“Flag football game” “in the elevator at north.”

“During Orgo recitation.”

“Curb in front of Bridges’ house” “in a shopping cart riding home from safeway” “While playing croquet behind Lyman” “Health center” “Sorry, not telling that much”

“At Mr. Whitman in Cordiner” “onstage at a concert” “by the cat lady’s house” “Roofs of course” “On a lawn?”

“At the gym” “On top of the dome at WWCC.” “VODKA SHOTS IN THE QUIET ROOM. During finals week. It was great.”

“Lakum Duckum” “Is this article going to glorify the consumption of alcohol? I am not okay with that.”

poster queries

by MAREN SCHIFFER Staff Reporter

I

n every first-year dorm and every campus building are the “When Whitties drink” posters. These posters, created by the Associate Dean of Students/Student Programs Office, use data from the Lifestyle Choices Survey conducted by the Office of Institutional Research. They may be there to promote healthier behavior, but more often than not, the conversations they provoke concern how accurate the statistics actually are.

Neal Christopherson, director of Institutional Research, suggests that student mistrust of the statistics is based on person-

al perception of drinking at Whitman and not the straight facts.

“The survey and posters are guided by social norms theory ... People remember the guy from their section who drank too much and threw up in the stairwell, but might forget that he only did it once or twice the entire year, and forget that while he was getting drunk there were five others from the section out somewhere not drinking, or studying or on a trip with their sports team,” said Christopherson. “When asked to estimate the amount of drinking for their section (as a whole), their memory will go to the puking guy and overestimate. We remember the extreme behavior, and it shapes our perceptions of the whole.”

PHOTOILLUSTRATION AND INFOGRAPHIC BY HENDERSHOT

APR

6

14 2011

Teams host, appeal to visiting prospective athletes

by TYLER HURLBURT Staff Reporter

I

t’s April. That means hundreds of high school seniors are contemplating whether or not Whitman is the right place to spend their next four years. Because most decisions are due May 1, a very high number of prospective students visit during April to decide if they want to come to Whitman.

A portion of these “prospies” will also be looking into participating in athletics at Whitman. In order to convince recruits and prospies to bring their talent to Whitman, coaches and current athletes work hard to make visits special.

Women’s tennis head coach John Hein likes to use his team’s small size to make each visit unique.

“Our team is small enough that we try as much as possible to personalize each visit,” Hein said.

Most coaches make it a priority to individually meet with all prospective students who say that they are interested in playing that particular sport. Besides meeting with the coach, many athletic prospies are turned over to the hands of a current team

member, usually a first-year.

“I meet with each prospie and set up a meal with the team; beyond that some are given over to the team and some I spend more time scheduling their time,” Hein said.

According to men’s basketball assistant coach Matt Airy, many of the prospective athletes do have very full schedules when they visit.

“Typically, recruited prospective students who visit campus have very full schedules,” Airy said. “They will usually sit-in on one or two classes, tour campus, and have admissions interviews in the morning, then will eat at one of the dining halls for lunch. Usually, this is their first contact with their student host, as well as other team members.”

Once in the hands of another athlete, prospies will often spend time getting to know the team, seeing the campus, visiting

classes, and seeing Walla Walla.

Sophomore swimmer Adam Brayton often hosts prospies and always tries to keep them entertained.

“I try to have activities to do. I actively look out for things to do like Outhouse Unplugged. I even took one prospie bowling with my former core class,” Brayton said. “I also always make sure there is a group of swimmers available for lunch with the prospie so that he can meet the team.”

Brayton attributes his passion for hosting prospies to his own experience as a prospective swimmer.

“It was so fun; it was the reason I came. Chilling out with the swim team made me want to be a part of the team,” Brayton said. “The reason I am so enthusiastic about host-

ing prospies is because I want to share that experience with them.”

Airy also believes that it is crucial to give prospective students a true feel of the Whitman campus.

“We want to make sure our visitors have a chance to get a feel for the what it is like to be both a student and an athlete at Whitman,” Airy said. “Whitman is a unique and amazing place, but it is not the best fit for every prospective student, so in scheduling visits, we strive to provide prospective students with the best possible feel for what we are -- and what we are not -- so that they have enough information to decide whether or not Whitman is the right fit.”

On days with a particularly high number of prospective students on campus -- such as Spring Visitors’ Day on April 8 and Admitted Students’ Day on April 16 -- the athletic department hosts a panel of current student-athletes to answer common questions prospies have concerning athletics at Whitman.

Varsity teams and the athletic department work very hard in order to show prospective students why Whitman is the right place to spend fouryears studying and playing sports.

SCOREBOARD Baseball vs. Pacific University 4/9 vs. Pacific University 4/10

loss; 4-­3 loss; 5-­4 loss; 7-­6

Tennis MEN'S vs. University of Puget Sound 4/9 vs. Pacific Lutheran University 4/10 WOMEN'S vs. Pacific Lutheran University 4/8 vs. University of Puget Sound 4/9

win; 9-­0 win; 9-­0

win; 7-­2 win; 5-­4

Golf MEN'S Whitman Men’s Golf second place Invitational 4/9 WOMEN'S Whitman Women’s second place Golf Invitational 4/9

UPCOMING EVENTS

ILLUSTRATION BY URIU

Baseball

BASEBALL FALLS SHORT / TENNIS NO.1 SEED

vs. Willamette University

away:; 4/16 away; 4/17

Tennis MEN'S

NWC Playoff Semifinals: Whitman vs. home; apr.

Pacific 16, 10 A.M. Whitman vs. home; apr.

Whitworth 16, 11 A.M. NWC Playoff Finals Semifinals home; apr. winners 17, 11 A.M. WOMEN'S

S

NWC Playoff Semifinals: Whitman vs. away; apr.

Willamette 16 Whitman vs. away; apr.

Linfield 17 NWC Playoff Finals Semifinals away apr. winners 17

PHOTO BY BOWMAN

enior Erik Korsmo, above, at bat during the men’s game against Pacific University Saturday, April 9. After Korsmo boosted the team to an early 4-0 lead, the men ultimately lost both games in Saturday’s double header. They fought to a close 7-6 loss, also to Pacific, on Sunday April 10.

Golf

Andrew La Cava ‘14, right, en route to a No. 2 singles victory against University of Puget Sound’s Chas Stewart last Saturday, April 9. La Cava paired up with Conor Holton-Burke ‘14 to win the No. 1 doubles spot.

By winning the day’s match 9-0, the Whitman men secured the No. 1 seed going into the NWC Championship Playoffs for the fifth year in a row. They completed their fifth undefeated regular season with a final win against Pacific Lutheran University on Sunday, April 10. The men play Pacific University on Saturday during the Playoff Semifinals.

Challenge, competition draw students to triathlon from TRIATHLON,

PAGE

1

organization. For varsity athletes, triathlon offers a fun mental break from the rigors of in-season training.”

Triathlons give the opportunity to demonstrate skill and expertise in three different disciplines, allowing athletes of all intensity levels to compete and have a good time. Being exceptional at a single leg of the race doesn’t guarantee success overall, so many competitors set goals before and during the race and accomplishing those goals equals personal success.

“Within the race itself there are so many staggered starts and heats you don’t know how fast people are or if they are actually ahead of you,” said first-year Fernando Medina, who was a triathlete in high school and wanted to continue competing at Whitman. “So I set goals to just catch the person in front of me or try and do another lap of the 500-meter swim without stopping to catch my breath.”

For other athletes, triathlons are not so much about competing as they are about doing something they love along side others who share the same passion.

“Triathlons serve as motivation to stay in shape,” said senior Johanna Robertson, whose first triathlon experience was as a Whitman first-year competing

in the varsity swim team’s annual fundraiser triathlon. “Some people are there to finish and some people are there to place … Going with a club makes it feel like more of a team sport — and then ASWC helps with the cost. [One of my] favorite parts of triathlons is people-watching on the biking section. All kinds of people do triathlons and it’s great to see everyone out there doing their thing!”

“Dozens [of Whitties] have not only completed their first triathlons with us, but have also been competitive, bringing home prizes in their divisions,” said Flynn. “This is one of the most exciting aspects of participation for me — seeing folks exceed their expectations.”

Since its inception, the Triathlon Club’s primary goal has been “facilitating and enabling first-time triathletes,” according to Flynn. If the number of participants and the level of success that they have achieved are any indicator, then the club has certainly accomplished its goal.

Anyone who is interested in the Triathlon Club and wants to get involved can contact either Wakefield or Flynn.

The club’s next competition will be the Whitman College Triathlon held on April 30 at Whitman College.

ADVERTISEMENT

MEN'S

NWC Men’s Golf Championships WOMEN'S

NWC Men’s Golf Championships

home; apr.

22-­23

home; apr.

22-­23

PHOTO BY AXTELL

After strong fall season, Reapers suffer loss of members to other spring sports

by ANDREW HAWKINS Staff Reporter

T

he men’s club rugby team, known as the Reapers, has struggled more this season than in the fall, already having lost three games. In contrast, the men ended their fall season with a 5-1-1 record.

Rugby struggles traditionally at small schools. With fewer students interested in athletics and less funding than large public schools, rugby often falls to the side.

“Reed [College] closed their lacrosse team after 25 years this year. Without [Coach] Eric McAvely we would fold. It’s hard to keep rugby at a small school,” said junior rugby player Joseph Cohen.

Whitman consistently has a strong fall program, but a weaker spring season. This prompts the question: Why does such a successful fall program struggle in the spring?

The club rugby team has difficulty during spring season because it often loses players to other club sports and struggles to retain first-years. Seven rugby players have left to play lacrosse and study abroad, and most of their first-years have left the team.

“Every year we lose players to lacrosse and study abroad, but no one is upset about it. We understand that they played lacrosse in high school [and want to take the chance to study in a different country] and that rugby isn’t their primary sport,” said Cohen.

“That whole group of young, athletic guys, dropped,” said Cohen. “Next season we need to do more team building activities to get freshman involved and sticking with it.”

Lack of team cohesion and lower numbers have been the central issues in the fall. However, to keep first-years and to maintain interest in the team yearround, the team needs its leaders. This year, however, all three

Ruggers run through a play during practice. The Reapers experienced a noticeable drop in numbers this spring, leaving them with a weaker team. PHOTO BY VON HAFFTEN

of the rugby players who studied abroad were year-round players.

“Losing those strong veteran level players is really hard for the team’s mentality,” said Cohen.

On top of study abroad and dropping first-years, lacrosse takes players from the team because lacrosse is perceived as more of a priority.

“I played lacrosse first,” said first-year Alejandro Fuentes-Mena simply.

The Reapers’ year-long season allows lacrosse players to participate in both sports. In spring, four players leave rugby for lacrosse; this gives lacrosse the most seasonal rugby players of any club team, and per-

haps the greatest individual loss for the rugby team as a whole.

“Lacrosse is their main sport,” said senior and ex-lacrosse player Will Ethier-Colón referring to the players that leave for lacrosse. “They look at lacrosse as their primary sport and rugby as off-season training.”

This illuminates one reason that rugby losses so many players.

The men’s rugby team will need to hold on to their players in order to maintain a record like they had in the fall. With all these struggles, the team has its work cut out for them. Better results might not be likely this season, but a stronger focus on integrating first-years will help the team in the long run.

ADVERTISEMENT

APR

7

14 2011

Internet makes privacy impossible BLAIR FRANK Columnist

I

’ll come out and say it: anything posted to a publicly-accessible forum on the Internet isn’t private, no matter how much you think it is. Social media like Facebook and Twitter are great for keeping in touch with people and sharing your thoughts. Unfortunately, you may be sharing your thoughts with more people than you expect.

This may not seem all that important, but the things you post to social networking sites are admissible as evidence in court, and have been used as grounds for firing people. What you post to the Internet now may end up coming back to bite you later in the realm of employment.

Facebook is by far the most important out of all the new social media ventures out there today. It’s huge, with millions of people all around the world using it to keep up with their friends and share tidbits about their lives. For the purposes of this column, I’ll be focusing on Facebook, but the same applies to any so-

cial networking site you can think of.

The “Friends of Friends” setting is what gets me every time. On the surface, it makes perfect sense: I know people who are friends of my friends who I’m not friends with on Facebook. By selecting “Friends of Friends” it would seem that I’d be allowing them to see the content they’d otherwise miss. The only problem is that I can’t specify which friends see that content.

And that means that anyone who’s connected to one of my friends, even that long-lost acquaintance of someone I knew in middle school but don’t altogether care for that much, can see content that I’ve labeled as “Friends of Friends.”

Now, I’m a fairly boring guy.

I don’t drink, save for certain religious occasions, I don’t smoke, and I rarely go to parties. However, I know people who are very different from me, and I’m okay with that. What gets to me is when those people get tagged in Facebook photos very obviously drinking or doing otherwise embarrassing things.

Because I know that those pictures are the sort of thing that can follow them for the rest of their lives.

That’s not a problem with Facebook alone: the Internet as a whole is very good at distributing and hanging on to data, but very bad at getting rid of it. Data published on the Internet is, by its nature, sharable: it’s possible for someone reading this column online to save the text

in one of a various number of file formats, and hold on to it for perpetuity.* Thanks to various caching systems, it will also be possible for people to look this up even if the Pio’s web site ceases to exist.

That’s the bottom line: once you publish something to the World Wide Web, it’s possible for anyone to save it to their hard drive and never let it go. While political campaigns these days are waged over arcane reports in college newspapers and rumored accounts from former classmates and associates, I can see a future when a status update someone posted at 22 follows them to their campaign for president at 50.

Maybe Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google is right – someday, everyone will change their names after they get out of college to make the ill-advised things that they did back then less obvious to an outside observer. But until then, it’s important to note: what you do on the Internet is not private, and it will come back to haunt you. *Yes, I realize that is an oversimplification that assumes no data degradation or file format depreciation over time. Then again, if you know that already, you probably don’t need to be reading this column.

Blair Hanley Frank is an English major, and the technology columnist for the Pioneere. He also writes for PCWorld’s GeekTech blog, and can be found on Twitter as @belril.

ILLUSTRATION BY JOHANSON

BOARD EDITORIAL Students should be consulted before key decisions

O

n March 10, graduating seniors all received an email featuring ASWC President Carson Burn styling the new (blue) graduation gown all seniors were expected to purchase for 32.35 with tax by April 15.

For most seniors, this was the first time we had ever heard of this change in policy.

The student body was not asked for input. ASWC was not consulted. The administration had only consulted the Senior Class Committee. This body of 10 students was expected to be able to speak for the entire senior class of over 400 students.

Not surprisingly, this expectation was wrong. The decision stirred controversity and incited frustration among the senior class. This became the latest example of the administration announcing a decision that impacted the entire senior class without consulting any large group of students beforehand. According to Whitman’s graduation requirements, a student must walk at commencement, and therefore must buy a graduation gown in order to graduate.

Two years ago, during the budget crisis, the administration made a series of decisions affecting large portions of campus.

They cut the varsity ski team and the student activities fund which supported CAB and Coffeehouse.

The decision itself was painful but not unsurprising for students. Whitman’s endowment lost over 70 million dollars that year alone. Cuts had to be made.

What was surprising was how the administration implemented that decision. They chose to announce it to the ski team and to the students as if it were an ultimatum. Varsity skiing was going away. CAB would be no more. We could say goodbye to Coffeehouse.

After irate students reacted to this decision, the administration collaborated with ASWC and the student body to come up with palatable solutions. The ski team became a club sport and started raising its own funds while ASWC created WEB. Then last fall, the administration announced that the faculty would be switching to a 3-2 course load. By now, most students have heard the justifications for this switch over and over again.

We understand the importance of the 3-2 shift. However, student

frustration didn’t come from the switch itself but from how the administration managed the transition. Since the announcement, the faculty has cooperated with the student body to create new systems to alleviate the registration pressures caused by the change.

Of course, these recent fixes don’t make it any better for all the students who dealt with limited class options, high enrollment and overwhelmed waitlists this year — all of which could have easily been avoided had students been consulted before the decision was implemented.

Now, with the requirement to purchase caps and gowns, the administration has shown that they have learned nothing from the last two years. They persist in making critical decisions without proper consultation with the student body before implementing a decision.

Despite previous controversies, they haven’t realized that the students can make intelligent suggestions to a policy change. A month after the first e-mail about purchasing caps and gowns, there was a noticeable shift in the language used to market gowns. Clearly, after considerable outrage raised by a wide variety of seniors, the administration has started to offer financial assistance to some students who literally cannot afford another 32.35 dollars after already spending over 160,000 dollars to attend Whitman. They have also started offering a reuse and recycling program for the gowns based on concerns raised largely by senior ASWC senators Elise Otto and Robin Lewis.

Just as with the budget cuts of two years ago and the 3-2 shift from last year, all of these important changes which were made after the initial announcement would have been suggested had the administration consulted the wider student body.

Students are fully capable of understanding the complex, difficult decisions that the administration faces. We are not interested in stonewalling the administration’s ability to make key decisions, nor are we interested in merely being reactionary.

All we want is to be a part of the decision-making process. As the controversies over the last two years have shown, we can make valuable contributions.

We just need the opportunity.

Whitman has potential to become community for students GARY WANG Opinion Editor

B

eing in Walla Walla often gives me a sense of isolation from the political world that I read about in the New York Times.

There are democratic revolutions occurring right now in the Middle East. Republicans and Democrats are bitterly contesting the government budget and threatening to shut down the government. Not to beat a dead horse but climate change, well, is still happening. Well, if you want to make a difference what can you do?

I mean, by comparison, whatever is

at stake in Walla Walla and Whitman seems insignificant. But maybe that is precisely the problem, the implicit comparison we make when we’re faced with the seeming slowness of passing our days on Ankeny and the steady drumbeat of catastrophe and democracy. Rather, what if we can pay attention to current events but not be distracted by them from focusing on the challenge of making Whitman a better and more democratic place?

Remember how Ralph Nader called for a civic-engagement course at Whitman, as if you could learn how to be a “change-agent” from reading a textbook or taught by a professor. One response is to throw ourselves into changing Walla Walla.

Aside from how it can be pretentious (so contrary to the way Whitman is marketed) for transient college kids to devote a few hours a week to changing a community most of them do not intend to reside in, I won-

der if there isn’t work left undone in the Whitman community itself.

I mean there is ASWC, which controls hundreds of thousands of dollars and is meant to broadly encompass many aspects of student life. It funds WEB. It funds student clubs. And ASWC is comprised of some talented students but surely, not all the talented students at Whitman. Yet, how competitive are ASWC elections? How “representative” is ASWC? Even if these elections are competitive, are there actual issues discussed in these elections? Or do most people vote based off of a listserv email and word-of-mouth? In other words, is the semblance of “voting” enough to call ASWC democratic?

The challenge I am advancing here is that campus democracy is an ideal worth striving for and to that end, it’s important to go beyond just being apathetic and then voting once every April. I hear com-

plaints about ASWC all the time from students about how it is a special interests bank account (full disclosure, I am a senator and have requested money through ASWC before). Students complain that ASWC isn’t “transparent” enough which leads to everyone running for ASWC running on a platform based off of “transparency” (trust us, don’t investigate us, especially on issues of gender or Greek affiliation).

And I don’t mean to belittle the good work that ASWC does. I mean a whole ASWC campaign was aimed at getting student representation on the curriculum committee. Yesterday, the proposal passed thanks to students lobbying faculty members.

So, in answer to Nader’s call for civic engagement, I would respond that there exists a venue for students to be civically engaged in our own community. It all depends on if we treat our four years at Whitman as a stop in a train station or

OPINIONS from the STUDENT BODY Courtney Sanford Junior

Olivia ClingmanWhite

something along the lines of an actual community. This doesn’t mean we should all run for senate or president. It does mean that we can make our clubs function better. Students can hold ASWC accountable by going to meetings. The Pioneer can increasingly call out ASWC when it feels like ASWC is making a mistake.

The most important thing that needs to happen is a conversation between students and their elected officials and between their elected officials and other organizations like the press. As a political junkie, this would be a great thing in and of itself because in the conversations we have about Whitman and about this community, we’re making it our community. I mean, the emphasis on deliberative democracy is on the word “deliberative” not on democracy.

Gary Wang is a senior political philosophy major with interests in Asia and business.

Do you think ASWC is representative of the Whitman student body? Why or why not?

Chloe Kinsey

Molly Presson

Clark Van Horne

Sophomore

First-year

Senior

First-year

I DON’T HAVE A VERY STRONG OPINION OF IT. THEY COULD DO A LITTLE BIT MORE TO REACH OUT TO THE STUDENT BODY AND LET EVERYONE KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. I’D SAY OVERALL THEY’RE DOING A PRETTY GOOD JOB.

I ESPECIALLY FEEL LIKE THEY’RE ON TOP OF THE WHOLE SCHEDULE STUFF WITH THE PROFESSORS NOT BEING HERE A LOT AND THE WHOLE 3-2 SYSTEM SO I APPRECIATE THAT THEY’RE REALLY TRYING TO WORK ON THAT WHICH IS MY BIGGEST THING …

I FEEL LIKE I KNOW A LOT OF THE ASWC SENATORS AND WHO LIKE THE SENIOR LEADERSHIP IN ASWC. ONE THING I WOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT IS THE GENDER DISTRIBUTION, THE FACT THAT THERE HASN’T BEEN A FEMALE PRESIDENT IN SUCH A LONG TIME.

I DO THINK IT’S REPRESENTATIVE. THERE’S A LOT OF TALKING IN THE DINING HALL AND I FEEL LIKE YOU GET A LOT OF DIRECT CONTACT WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES. AND PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO THINK ABOUT IT, IT’S JUST NOT THEIR FRIENDS.

I CAN’T THINK OF ANY GLARING DISCREPANCIES ABOUT THE LEVEL OF REPRESENTATION. I THINK ASWC IS ENOUGH OF A SERIOUS STUDENT GOVERNMENT THAT IT DOESN’T USUALLY TURN INTO A POPULARITY CONTEST OR ANY SORT OF SILLY STUFF THAT LIKE.

APR

8

CAMPUS MAP

14 2011

LEGEND COMMERCIAL RESIDENTIAL WHITMAN CAMPUS DESIGN BY APPLETON AND HENDERSHOT

RO

SE

M AI

N

ISAACS

ANKENY FIELD

B ER

BOY

E M AI N

E US

R

DE

C I

ALDER

AL

LE

D

4T

2N

IL LV

CO

D

3R

J

S

F

E

RO

U

AN OK

SE

T

D SP

V M O H K A

N

Q LO PA

L

P

R

REID CAMPUS CENTER

T

1S

H

A

EATERIES ALOHA

WINERIES D

A

SUSHI Walla Walla

Aloha Sushi Address: 7 S. 1st Ave. Hours: Tue-F 11am - 2pm & 5pm - 8pm; F-Sat 5 pm - 9pm Contact: 509-527-8744

G

Ming Court

Graze Address: 5 S. Colville St. Hours: M-Sat 10am - 7:30pm; Sun 10am - 3:30pm Contact: 509-522-9991 Paninis, salad, pastrami, soups--a Whitman student favorite.

E

Address: 1533 E. Isaacs Ave. Hours: M-W 11am - 10pm; ThuSat 11am - 1:30am; Sun 11am 9:30pm Contact: 509-522-2828 An authentic Chinese restaurant; lunch buffet Monday through Friday.

Large selection of vegetarian and gluten-free options. Thursday, Friday, Saturday: karaoke bar 9pm-1am.

H

Offering world-class sushi at an affordable price.

B

F

The valley’s favorite; voted #1 for breakfast.

Address: 54 E. Main St. Hours: M-Th 10am - 8pm; F 10am - 9pm; Sat 8am-9pm; Sun 8am - 8pm Contact: 509-526-0200 Olive Marketplace & Café is open for lunch and dinner seven days a week with breakfast on Saturday & Sunday.

Now offering a 10% student discount with valid student ID.

At Someone’s In The Kitchen, our motto is: “fresh, healthy, delicious”. Executive Chef Gene Soto creates dishes that highlight the local agricultural bounty the Walla Walla Valley and Pacific Northwest have to offer.

Sweet Basil Pizzeria

Owned by two of Walla Walla’s premiere female winemakers, DaMa’s wines are approachable, true to the varietal, and affordable.

N

Colville St. Patisserie

Laht Neppur Address: 53 S. Spokane St. Hours: Sun-Th 3pm - close; Fri & Sat 11am - close Contact: 509-529-2337 Open to all ages. Serving food, pizzas, hummus plates, etc. Eight handcrafted ales on tap. Homemade rootbeer too. Local wines. Bring in ad for $2 off large pizza!

Address: 15 S. 1st Ave. Hours: M-Sun 10am - 6pm Contact: 509-522-0322 We are a brand-new frozen yogurt shop downtown that offers tart, allnatural frozen yogurt and a variety of delicious toppings, including homemade fruit sauces.

Address: 6 W. Rose St. Hours: M-Th, Sun 11am - 5pm, F-Sat 10am - 6pm Contact: 541-203-0020

Address: 5 S. 1st Ave. Hours: M-Sat 11am - 9pm Contact: 509-529-1950 Serving quality pizza by the slice, 18” pies, calzones, salads & much more.

Student special: 2 Slices for $4 and slice & salad for $5.

I

Peach and Pear

Serving classic French pastries, gelato, cakes, espresso, beer and wine.

Address: 132 W. Rose St. Hours: M & W-F 11am - 2:30pm; Sat & Sun 8 am - 2:30pm Contact: 509-240-6388

Address: 45 E. Main St. Hours: M-Th 11am - 5pm; F-Sat 11am - 6pm; Sun 11am - 2pm Contact: 509-525-2299

Flying Trout Wines

Olive

C

Address: 40 S. Colville St. Hours: M-Th 9am - 8pm; F-Sat 9am - 10pm; Sun 9am - 5pm Contact: 509-301-7289

Someone’s in the Kitchen

K

We offer traditional teriyaki dishes along with classic Chinese and Korean entrees. We are open 7 days a week.

Closed every 1st and 3rd Sunday.

Address: 15 S. Touchet St. Hours: Daily 6am - 8pm Contact: 509-529-3430

DaMa Wines

I Love Teriyaki Address: 201 E. Main St. Hours: M-Fri 11am - 9pm; Sat 12pm - 9pm; first & last Sun of the month 4pm - 8pm Contact: 509-529-2222

Clarette’s

M

J

L

T. Maccarone’s Address: 4 N. Colville St. Hours: Open nightly starting at 4pm Contact: 509-522-4776 T. Maccarone’s, the perfect place for every occasion. Celebrated for its contemporary approach to authentic Italian cuisine, paired with the wines of Washington Wine Country.

Flying Trout Wines is a result of winemaker Ashley Trout’s bi-hemishperical travels between Walla Walla and Argentina’s wine harvests. Focusing on malbecs and malbec blends, Flying Trout aims to bring you the best of both worlds.

APR

9

CAMPUS MAP

14 2011

G

CS

ISAA

ADVERTISEMENT

SHOPPING R

O

U

Salumiere Cesario

Sapolil Cellars Address: 15 E. Main St. Hours: M-Thu & Sat-Sun 1 pm - 4 pm; Fri 1 pm - 11 pm Contact: 509-520-5258 Open daily for wine tasting and presenting Live Music every weekend.

This weekend enjoy the Blues, Live @ Sapolil: Friday, 8 - 11 pm: Gary Winston & The Real Deal.

Saturday, 8 - 11pm: The Fat Tones.

Address: 20 N. 2nd Ave. Hours: M & W-F 11am - 2:30pm; Sat & Sun 8 am - 2:30pm Contact: 509-529-5620

Allegro Cyclery Address: 200 E. Main St. Hours: M-F 9am - 6pm; Sat 8am 5pm; closed on Sun Contact: 509-525-4949

S

Seven Hills Winery Address: 212 N. 3rd Ave. Hours: M & Th-Sat 10am - 5pm; Sun 10am - 2pm Contact: 509-529-7198 Tasting current and limited release wines in our historic downtown winery. Case discounts apply. $5 tasting fee refundable with wine purchase.

Q

Walla Walla’s gourmet grocery featuring an excellent selection of beer, cheese, fresh fare, meats, pasta, and wine.

V

Allegro Cyclery is a full-service bicycle shop located offering bikes, accessories, services, and rentals.

P

Blazing Guitars Address: 30 South Colville St. Hours: M-F 10am - 5:30pm; Sat 12pm - 4pm Contact: 509-526-0633 Musicians throughout the universe come to us for all the coolest guitars and gear!

Studio Opal Address: 61 E. Main St. Hours: M-Th 10am - 5:30pm; FSat 10am - 6pm; Sun 12pm - 4pm Contact: 509-526-5490 Studio Opal Boutique was started by 2 friends with their own art businesses that wanted to flow a storefront together. Combinations of paintings, jewelry, apparel, gifts, shoes, etc. A special energy present, felt by customers, makes a visit here a unique experience!

,%* know?

Jacobi’s has the best selection of savory Italian dishes in the valley?

T

Hidden Treasures Walla Faces Address: 216 E. Main St. Hours: Call for hours Contact: 509-301-1181 Offering the best wine and art Walla Walla has to offer in our local wine tasting room.

Address: 15 S. 1st Ave. Hours: M-Sun 10am - 6pm Contact: 509-522-0322 We are a brand-new frozen yogurt shop downtown that offers tart, allnatural frozen yogurt and a variety of delicious toppings, including homemade fruit sauces.

Registration is now open.

Everyone’s treated like family at Jacobi’s.

Affordable prices and family atmosphere in Walla Walla’s historic train depot.

Satisfy Your Appetite! “Buon Appetito�

DINE ITALIAN TONIGHT!

At The Depot

%$ - "" "" -

+++ ! % ( %# Reservations Encouraged!

spec 030311

Session I May 16-June 24

Session II June 27-August 5

Summer Sessions at Lewis & Clark go.lclark.edu/college/summer

APR

10

es!

14 2011

Giggl

with Keenan Hilton & Marcial Diaz

T

his week, The Backpage decided to expand its horizons and get political! We managed to score an exclusive interview with writein candidate for ASWC President, Keenan Hilton, and his campaign manager Marcial Diaz. We’ve provided a transcription of the interview below.

Backpage: Where were you when you heard that lost?

Keenan Hilton: Well, we got out of rehearsal, and of course I have an experienced ASWC senator here, so he knew. He knew exactly where to go. So we ran up to the ASWC Office here in Reid and checked the numbers on the window.

Marcial Diaz: We considered it a victory. We were aiming for between 30 to 40 votes, and we got 83 and two ballots that had misspelled Keenan, so we actually had 85. What was it, 8.9 percent of all the votes?

BP: Whose idea was it to have Keenan run for ASWC President?

KH: The way it started was that I had talked with a couple friends about how I thought, if I just got a couple of my friends from Lyman to just write in my name, then I could probably get second place. Then, I was talking to Marcial about it, and that was Saturday morning.

MD: Then we had a lunch break and during the lunch break, I worked on his campaign.

KH: He came back with posters and fliers.

MD: I saw the opportunity of having a different type of president. You know how in the Pio last week, you had an article about how most of the people involved in ASWC, or at least the presidents, are Greek, male and white? Keenan is just different.

Keenan Hilton ‘14 explains that ASWC needs to up its indie cred. He swears the new Panda Bear album is the best thing you’ve never heard. PHOTO BY PARRISH

He’s an indie!

BP: Why did Keenan run?

Was it just to have somebody different in the race?

KH: When [Marcial] printed out the fliers, the whole thing was obviously very self-aware, and I knew that I was up against someone who has been in ASWC for a very long time and seems very well-qualified, and is the only person actually on the ballot. We were definitely very aware of all of those things, and actually very aware that I don’t have ASWC experience; but I mean, really, for me, because I had to justify it in some way, because in the one-ina-million chance that I did win, like what would I do? You know?

I couldn’t just be like, “Wait, no, the whole thing was a joke! Sorry guys!” The way I justified it was just that I think it’s stupid that in a democracy, what we call a dem-

ocratic election, there’s one person running for the most powerful position. You know? Yeah, I mean how can you make the assumption that he’s the only one that they want? I know it was just the decision of other people who may have run to just not, but I just thought that there should be another person, and I thought, you know what? I’ll be that other person! I’ll be the alternative choice! [ See NOTE] BP: So, what would you have done if you did win by some offchance? Did you have a platform?

KH: My platform basically was that I’m another choice. You know? What would I have done?

Well, I would’ve shaken Marcial’s hand, and then I probably would have called up Matt Dittrich and asked him if he could teach me how to be ASWC President.

BP: Do you expect that phone

call would have gone well?

KH: I expect that it would have been tense.

BP: Had you talked to him before this?

KH: Very little. I’ve never actually met him formally. I remember him from the Green Dot thing at the beginning of the year.

I remember that he was super funny, but no, I didn’t meet him.

He wrote on the campaign’s Facebook page that he wanted a debate and I actually really would’ve liked that. I felt bad coming in at the last minute, and not that he would’ve needed it, but not giving him a chance to be like, “Hey people, I have these qualifications.” I came in super fast at the end, with our powerhouse campaign. But, you know, he asked for a debate, and then I friend requested him, and said, uh hey I think that my schedule is going to

WUC presentation abstracts Inspired by the recent undergraduate conference, several Whitties have already started working on projects for next year. The Backpage has managed to get copies of a few of the abstracts from these projects. It’s looking like 2012 is going to be a good year to PARTICIPATE in the undergraduate conference!

'Yesterday Was Thursday, Today is Friday': Rebecca Black and the Postmodernist Melancholia of Fading Narratives

In lyrics such as, "Seein’ everything, the time is goin’ / Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’ / Gotta get down to the bus stop," singer-songwriter-artist-icon Rebecca Black ruminates on the meaninglessness of everyday life and the mindless hedonism of ritualistic weekend partying. In my presentation, I will also ruminate on the meaninglessness of everyday life and the mindless hedonism of ritualistic weekend partying. Using Albert Camus' “The Myth of Sisyphus”, I analyze "Friday" not as a teenage party anthem, but rather as a Sisyphean struggle against the interminable onslaught of days.

(Re)-Envisioning the Gays

As humans, we are seeing subjects. There is no escaping the gays -unless of course one is blind. The gays condition one's sense of identity, one's autonomy, and one's relationships with other subject-beings. Our society functions by several intersecting gays: panoptic, dialectic, scopophilic, phallic, hegemonic, narcissistic, Lacanic, my-

Screw you, Writing House Thief pt. 2

opic, and discoursic. I will argue for a re-envisioning of these gays through a re-reading of such films as "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" and David Yates's masterpiece "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". The gays will never go away.

Through them, however, we will better understand our own human natures.

Let's Get It On: Sociological Survey of How Many Whitties Were Conceived to Al Green, Marvin Gaye, or Barry White ("The Big Three") What is the influence of music upon sexuality? What is the influence of a deep and dark booming bass sound accompanying lovemaking and its counterpart conception? Sociology seeks to explain some of the most complex rituals of society, leading us to question the very nature of why we need sweet melodies to make sweet nasty. Our survey uses a functionalist-structuralist perspective to unlock the nuances of why these artists are institutionally-recognized as agents of reproduction. Taking our cue from Barry White, we'll go "deeper and deeper."

W.E.B. Du Bois 'N Da Hood": Double Consciousness in the Works of the Wayans Brothers, "Family Matters," and "The Bernie Mac Show"

I told Keith Raether, I want every excuse to re-watch the glory days of African American "domesticana" television. He, rightly, agreed.

CROSSWORD 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

29

23

24

25

26

27

30

31

33

34

36

37

44

38

41

42

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

43

Hey followers, The folks in charge here have deemed that I suck at making jumbles, which means I’M BACK ON CROSSWORD DUTY!!! Yesss! My fantasies of returning to these puzzles have finally come to fruition, bursting forth like things that burst forth. Well, it’s good to be back, enjoy this week’s puzzle!

Love, Adam “Proud once again to be Puzzle Slut” Brayton

21

22

35

10

19

20

28

9

45

39

be open at these times, but then actually, my schedule wasn’t open at all, because Monday is actually my busiest day in terms of classes, and then I also had rehearsal from 6 to 9:30 p.m. or whatever.

MD: We considered having it from 5 to 6, but he also needed to have dinner.

KH: I also needed to shower, and have dinner.

MD: It would have been a very short debate.

BP: It seems like Keenan is a busy man. Do you have any plans for the future, in terms of school politics?

KH: Well, I myself, who knows? I really like ASWC and I really think that is an excellent institution to have as far as giving students a say in what goes on in the school. We pay for it, obviously. Um, you know? At this point, I say who knows? Who knows? Maybe.

MD: But there is talk about him maybe running against Kayvon in 2013.

BP: Do you have any sort of message for the people who voted for you who may be disappointed?

KH: Yeah, I know, crestfallen, as I’m sure they all are. I guess my message is, again, the purpose of my running, my goal wasn’t to win. My goal was just to be another option. So, I guess what I say is just like you know, thanks for considering another option.

You know, I think that’s healthy in a democracy to have multiple, multiple choices. HUZZAH. [NOTE] BP: Is there anything else you would like to add?

MD: Well, you should mention that he’s a Sig pledge.

BP to KH: Are you?

KH: Well, I mean I was last semester. I didn’t de-pledge … I consider myself an indie …

40

ACROSS 1. Queen of “Romeo and Juliet”?

4. AC/DC hit “_____ in Black” 8. Fatal virus for cats, abbr.

11. “You _____ my sunshine…”

12. Barbary sheep 13. Natalie’s role in “Black Swan” 14. What one can do with 47-across 15. Combustion-ignition engine, to a Brit 16. Mined iron and copper 17. Act with inspiration from a Marx Brothers movie 20. Eyelash infection 21. Central American raccoon cousin 22. “To the field,” to Alejandro

To the Writing House Thief: I see you have struck again. In response, I ask: Have you no dignity? You seem to think that you can just come pillage the Writing House and take whatever you want. While this has proven true, I would like to warn you that someday we, here at the WriHo, will run out of valuables. Then where will you be? Riding my bike to a coffee shop, where you will then take Will’s laptop out of Eric’s backpack and study your latest thievery handbook? Yeah? Well, I HOPE YOUR CAFE AU LAIT IS COLD AND WEAK. Burn in hell (apparently this is now a thing), Diana

27. “Black Orpheus” setting, for short 28. At that should merit a Guinness World Record, with “on Earth” 33. Dodge truck line 34. Space cloud 35. Homer’s first epic poem 37. 80s hip-hop trio “Saltn-_____” 41. Act drawing from dirty moviemakers, with “The New” 46. Alternate spelling of the ancient Celtic alphabet 47. Material for 14-across 48. Actor Torn 49. “Metalocalypse” band “_____klok” 50. Treats a sore with cold 51. Commander of the California Republic William 52. Playstation Corp., to an investor 53. Cesar Milan’s command to dogs?

54. Suffix for Coll and Kathl

7.Puebloan ceremonial room 8. Shotgun or rifle 9. Newton’s first law 10. 2004 film “The _____ of the Christ” 13. Neighborhood east of NYU 18. “Take a _____” 19. d/dL(TsinL) 23. Willingness to tackle a job 24. Sierra Nevada Pale _____ 25. Derek Jeter’s org.

26. Few, to Pierre 28. Camera stabilizers?

29. Chlorine or Astatine 30. Abu Dhabi or Dubai 31. Suffix derived from the ancient Greek word for “tomb” 36. Screw it, I’m just gonna give you this one: ANMH 38. Spooky 39. Group of lions 40. Ski town in Colorado

DOWN 1. Geometry, algebra, and calculus, to a Brit 2. What Lisztomania is like?

3. With characteristics of Fat Tire or perhaps Guinness 4. Made an offer on eBay 5. Repetitively named 60s Iranian pop star Arefkia 6. Antidote

DIADEM NORMAL FLOORS PATENT MAGGOT Q: What happens when you throw a piano down a mine shaft?

A: A FLAT MINOR

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S JUMBLE