Month: February 2012

Categories
News

Chrysalis band announced

Campus Activities and Programs (CAP) has just announced that The Village People will be the featured artist at the 14th Annual Chrysalis Ball to be held on April 17, 2012. Hits include “Y.M.C.A.” and “In the Navy.” The opening act will be Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hell Raisers, and a DJ will end the night. The event will be held in Gerhard Fieldhouse from 9 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. with doors opening at 8:30 p.m. Students can begin to purchase tickets on March 19th at a discounted price of $15. Formal or semi-formal wear is required and hors d’oeurves will be served, as well as beer and wine for those who are over 21 years of age. In order to encourage first-years who have never attended Chrysalis to come, there will be a promotion for these students as well as their Residential Advisers. Groups of 10 or more first-year students and their RA can get discounted tickets when bought from March 19th to April 6th in the CAP Center.

 

Categories
News

BSG celebrates Class of 2012 with Senior Nights

By Siobhan Murray

Writer

Last Thursday night, Bucknell Student Government (BSG) 2012 organized the first senior night of the year at Parkview Catering behind The Bull Run Inn. The Mardi Gras-themed event was stocked with free food and was meant to celebrate the last 97 days the class of 2012 has left until graduation.
The event lasted from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. and featured a live DJ, drinks and prizes for the first 120 people that came through the door.
“The beer will be flowing, the beads will be flying, and all inhibitions will be discarded!” BSG’s promotion for the event said. “It’s not like we need to give you any added incentive to party, but the BSG class of 2012 thought we’d do it anyway.”
Events such as these are meant to mark the last days of the senior class’ final year, as well as provide an opportunity for the class to reunite before graduation in May. Senior events have been a long-standing tradition at the University, and last year’s cancellation of the 100 Nights event came as a shock to many students. After the abrupt announcement of the cancellation, members of the Office of Alumni Relations and members of the BSG senior class worked to develop new events to provide an alternative to 100 Nights. 
“I was glad to see such a big turnout from our class at Senior Night,” John Luce ’12 said. “It was a great opportunity to catch up with friends over good food and drinks.  Since commencement is right around the corner, I think it’s important to have events like this to bring the senior class together.”
“Although this event, and others like it, may not nessecarily be meant to completely replace 100 Nights, they are still meant to bring our class together with the funds we have for these purposes,” Larry Leggett ’12 said. “I’m definitely glad to have the opportunity to reconnect with my classmates.”
More events like this one will occur in the upcoming months as the class of 2012 counts down to graduation.
Categories
News

ACE responds to Campus Climate

By Nicki Briggs

Writer


Activities and Campus Events (ACE) is a student-run organization that specializes in bringing entertainment to the student body by planning all different kinds of events. At the start of this past semester, the club decided to make changes to its programming in response to the Campus Climate Report’s results which demonstrated that many students were unaware of the social options available to them on weekends besides partying.
“The Campus Climate report really highlighted for us the fact that students don’t know about the options they have on the weekends for events that don’t involve alcohol. This made us want to step up not only our publicity, but the size of the events. Instead of spreading ourselves thin with five events every weekend, we’re putting all our energy into one huge event each weekend,” ACE President Lauren Rambo ’12 said.

“One of the reasons we decided to enact this change was we felt that our old structure and organization just wasn’t meeting the needs or wants of the campus. When you have tons of people showing up to events like BU After Dark, but only a few to the smaller events like Late Night performances, that says something about what the student body enjoys,” Elena Latzen ’14 said.

Some of the new events that have been well received by the student body so far were Bingo Blingo in Bostwick Marketplace and Just Desserts in the Terrace Room, with over 600 students attending both. Coming up is the always-popular BU After Dark which features a spectacular turnout every semester.

“I always try to stop by BU After Dark regardless of what else I have going on those nights,” Neil Dold ’12 said.
Later this semester are the Spa Spectacular event on the second floor of the Elaine Langone Center and an Arcade Night in the student hearth space. ACE is also working hard to try to bring a block party to campus for the spring as well as planning Chrysalis. All of these events are run in collaboration with different groups on campus.

The response has been phenomenal to the new method of having students perform at Seventh Street Café each Friday night instead of hiring professional artists. This has produced an increase in popularity, as students show up to support their friends and fellow classmates each week. Anyone interested in performing should stop by the CAP Center to set up a time.

ACE’s new planning initiative has proven successful so far, and will likely continue to please students for the remainder of the semester.

Categories
News

Public Safety raids Kappa Sigma and 23 University Ave.

By Jenni Whalen

Senior Writer

Officers with the Department of Public Safety searched the residences of 23 University Avenue and Kappa Sigma Fraternity last Thursday, Feb. 16. The searches took approximately three hours apiece.

During the investigations, individual room searches were only conducted when one of the highly-trained K-9 units indicated that illegal drugs or related contraband might be located in that room.

“The University was compelled to act based on the frequency of prior incidents by students affiliated with the two residences and the assortment of illicit drugs discovered within a short period prior to the searches,” said Andy Hirsch, Director of Media Communications.

At approximately 9 a.m. on Thursday, fire alarms were set off at 23 University Avenue and the 14 residents were instructed to evacuate the house.

Public Safety officers and members of the Lewisburg Police force arrived on the scene with K-9 units and students were informed that they needed to leave the residence for approximately three hours on the premise that officers would be conducting University searches.

At around 1 p.m. on the same day, a fire alarm was also set off in Kappa Sigma Fraternity, at which point Public Safety officers instructed fraternity members that they would not be allowed back into the building for an extended period of time.

Hirsch noted that these searches were consistent with the policies of the Student Handbook.

“Officers from other law enforcement agencies assisted Bucknell Public Safety officers to allow an expeditious search, but this was not a criminal investigation,” Hirsch said. “Students were not notified beforehand. For the searches of 23 and 64 University Avenue, the University did not obtain a search warrant, nor was it obligated to, since these were administrative, not criminal searches.”

The Student Handbook details certain conditions under which a full search of residences owned by the University is authorized. These conditions include situations where there is evidence of contraband or ongoing illegal activity and the residences can be searched only with the approval of the Dean of Students, Susan Lantz.

Following Thursday’s searches, the residents of 23 University Avenue received a notice stating they would no longer be able to live in the house due to Thursday’s search and more than a dozen related incidents that occurred on the premises since last September. Students were instructed to report to Housing Services for new housing options and were required to move to their new homes by Tuesday. The residents will not be allowed to return to 23 University Avenue for the remainder of the semester.

Because a student from 23 University Avenue was arrested two weeks ago due to his involvement with illicit drug use, many of the displaced residents assume this arrest brought about the searches at both Kappa Sigma Fraternity and 23 University Avenue. 

“I am one of numerous students that was punished by being forcibly relocated when we did nothing wrong,” said Kegun Ream ’14, a former resident of 23 University Avenue. “Forcing innocent students to relocate and distracting them from their work does not solve the problems in 23 University Avenue.”

At this point in time, all residents of Kappa Sigma Fraternity and 23 University Avenue remain on campus. As of Tuesday, Kappa Sigma Fraternity’s temporary suspension has been lifted. Drug paraphernalia was confiscated during the search and the University will be handling the issue internally by punishing students according to the University’s drug policy rather than state laws.

Categories
News

Brigade raises money for Nicaragua community

By Christina Oddo

Writer

 

The Bucknell Brigade hosted a raffle and silent auction on Feb. 17 in Larison Dining Hall for University students and faculty to benefit the Nueva Vida community in Managua, Nicaragua. Attendees enjoyed live entertainment by Dave Miller as well as hors d’oeuvres. Tickets were $5 for students and $10 for general admission.
“In the months leading up to the date, members of the Bucknell Brigade worked to collect donations from local vendors and friends of the Brigade in order to have a mix of items to raffle off or put up for bid as silent auction items,” Carolyn Breden ’12 said.

Some of the items auctioned include a five-night stay at the Palm Ocean View in St. Thomas and four months of home cupcake delivery. There were also many raffle prizes, including gift certificates and video rentals.

The Bucknell Brigade is a group of students, faculty and staff dedicated to aiding the people of Nueva Vida.

“Each year, we send two to three delegations to the community of Nueva Vida in Managua, Nicaragua to do service work and we spend the rest of the year raising awareness and supporting the community,” Breden said.
Each year, the Bucknell Brigade is committed to raising $40,000, in order to support the health clinic in the community.

“There was a steady crowd of about 50 people with people constantly coming and going, so in the end, I’d say we had 85 to 100 people in total show up to the auction. We made just under $2,500 with our auction prizes,” Katie McAvoy ’13 said.

The proceeds raised by the raffle and auction will go directly to the Nueva Vida community.

Categories
Opinion

School concerts lack diversity

By Connor Small

Writer

Get ready. It’s time to relive all of those awkward middle school dances: Nelly is coming to the University. Last week it was announced that our Spring Concert this year features Nelly, with Timeflies opening. While I can understand the hype around his coming to the University, I (along with many of my peers) question the decision to bring him to campus.

Now, before I say anything else, let me say this: I do enjoy Nelly, and I recognize the talent he has. He has had many chart-topping singles, including the songs “Ride Wit Me,” “Hot in Herre” and most recently, “Just a Dream.” His album “Country Grammar” has been certified nine times platinum, and for good reason. He is truly talented—that is indisputable—but I am disappointed the Concert Committee couldn’t find an artist from a genre other than hip-hop.

The three big concerts this year, Chiddy Bang/The Cool Kids, Wiz Khalifa and now Nelly will all have featured hip-hop, and I feel the Concert Committee is not doing justice to the many appealing artists in other genres. Bands such as Arcade Fire and Bon Iver (who won Grammys for the 2011 Album of the Year and 2012 Best New Artist, respectively) are both popular, versatile and mind-blowingly good live.  Besides coming from a genre other than hip-hop, I can guarantee that people would buy tickets to see both of these bands, as well as many others.

I understand when people our age attend a concert, they want to dance and party, and finding an artist that people like to dance to may have been one of the driving forces behind the decision to bring Nelly to the school. But the University used to have a great tradition of bringing in artists on the rise, just before they became big, and with a diverse range of genres (past acts include Kanye, Jay Sean, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, The Goo Goo Dolls and Rusted Root).

Another aspect to consider is campus climate: how does Nelly reflect the principles and morals of the University? Is the man who sings about taking off all of our clothes, and who sponsors the energy drink “Pimp Juice,” really, in the eyes of the University, the best choice to echo the goals the school has been working towards? With a higher focus on Campus Climate, this selection has, understandably, made some faculty members upset. While this might not be important to many students, it should definitely be considered.

I don’t mean to rip on Concert Committee, nor do I want to seem as if I am telling it how to do its job, I am simply stating there should be more diversity in terms of concerts in the future. I know part of the committee’s job is to find artists that will appeal to the largest number of students possible, but they have ignored the fact that the University has a diverse range of musical interests, and that not everybody likes rap. I have great respect for all members of Concert Committee and their efforts in trying to provide fun concerts for us, and I know that they have the capability to bring in artists that everyone will enjoy.

Categories
Letters to the Editor Opinion

Letter to the Editor: Nelly sets bad example

To the Editor:

As a woman on this campus, I am deeply discouraged by the announcement of Nelly headlining the upcoming Spring Concert here at Bucknell. I am deeply concerned by the message that bringing such an artist sends to the Bucknell community, given Nelly’s notorious affinity for degrading and objectifying young females in the name of entertainment. Furthermore, I am disappointed that the University would endorse such a message given the overwhelmingly negative nature of the Campus Climate Report in regards to sexual assault.

The Campus Climate Report revealed that women routinely experience unwanted physical and verbal sexual advances at parties, and that as a university, Bucknell ranks in the top five among peer schools of reports of forced sexual interactions. The report also acknowledged that the social scene at Bucknell is controlled by men and driven by alcohol. As a woman who has been the brunt of these negative, alcohol-fueled interactions on this campus, and having both personally experienced the pain of sexual assault, as well as helped friends struggle through their own experiences, I am disgusted that a place I have considered my home for the past three years would sponsor an artist that shows no respect for more than half of Bucknell’s student population.

My first encounter with Nelly’s degrading portrayal of young women in his videos and lyrics was at Common Ground, a University-sponsored retreat. A documentary was shown that focused on the negative and hypersexual portrayal of women in the media. Nelly’s “Tip Drill,” along with its video, was a centerpiece in the documentary. Lyrics from the song include: “It must be your ass ’cause it ain’t your face,” and “It ain’t no fun unless we all get some/I need a tip drill/We need a tip drill.” The definition of “tip drill” also bears looking up; it brings to light much of the disgusting nature of the song. The video that accompanies the song contains images of barely clothed women having money thrown at them and champagne poured on their backsides, which culminates with Nelly taking a credit card and swiping it through a woman’s butt crack.

The use of women as sexualized props in music videos is not by any means confined to Nelly’s “Tip Drill,” but nobody can deny the pervasive nature that these videos have in the larger culture, and it sets a startlingly low standard of behavior for students. As an institution that is admittedly struggling with creating a respectful male-female dynamic on campus, it is troubling to me that as a student body, we would support hosting an artist who has historically stood in stark contrast to the ideals that we are trying to promote. It makes no sense to me that Bucknell would invite such an inspiring artist, John Legend, to come to campus, and then within the same semester, invite Nelly. In light of recent events, specifically the empirical evidence presented in the Campus Climate Report, how can we deny that these messages will unfortunately continue to inform our peer relationships here on campus? If there ever has been a pivotal moment to definitively change the campus climate and prove that we are actively working to become more informed and respectful students, is it not now? If we truly believe that the statistics in the Report were not indicative of the Bucknell student body, then why not prove it to ourselves?

Christine Perry

Class of 2013

Categories
Letters to the Editor Opinion

Letter to the Editor: Past editorial flawed

To the Editor:

The editorial, “Administration too power-hungry to realize realities,” (Feb. 17) presents an argument that is logically invalid. Moreover, even if we revise the argument to make it valid, its premises ignore the complexity of the issue. The editorial’s argument is as follows:

1) The University should be designed to prepare students to succeed in our capitalist society.

2) In a recent study, it was found that there is a correlation between social drinking and post-graduation income levels.

3) Greek Life promotes social drinking.

4) Restrictions on Greek Life will lower the post-graduation income levels of students.

5) Restrictions on Greek Life are against what the University is designed to do.

The reason this argument is invalid is because it confuses correlation with causation. The same students who socialize happen to be the same students who become high earners. This doesn’t at all imply that socializing will result in one becoming a higher earner. It could mean that there exists some third factor–such as being an affluent person–which causes you to socialize at a higher rate and to become a high earner. The editor might revise Clause II with a more plausible and logically valid claim, such as: networking causes a student to be a higher earner. However, once such a correction is made, it becomes clear that Greek Life, while it might promote networking, is certainly not the only way to do it–study groups also promote networking.

Clause I ignores the complexity of the University’s mission. A liberal arts university is not specifically designed to provide vocational training and its success should not be based solely on the wealth of its alumni–its mission is much more complex. It should at least offer students knowledge in a broad range of subjects and promote research. This is not to say that frat parties don’t offer some sort of knowledge and that they could not be a fruitful area in which to conduct research, although frat parties probably won’t teach you how to distinguish between valid and invalid arguments.

All that said, I do in some ways agree with the editor. The University should not restrict Greek Life, but it shouldn’t support it either. It might be better if Greek houses were not on University property, if there were no deans of Greek Life–instead I might suggest a scholarship for a student interested in studying the Greek language and culture–and public safety wasn’t monitoring Greek houses. The University might be better off if it treated students like citizens and left such monitoring to our societal infrastructures that are designed for it: the law and police.

 

Aaron Meyers

Graduate Assistant in Sculpture

Categories
Letters to the Editor Opinion

Letter to the Editor: Response to research

To the Editor,

I am prompted to write to you by the article that appeared in the Feb. 17 edition of “The Bucknellian,” entitled “Study shows drinking is not all bad” and the editorial that uses the research described in that article to criticize the University for failing to “realize realities.”  Can you tell me if Hoopes and Beeson’s study considered the race and gender of participants? I ask because if it is the case that Bucknell’s white male students more heavily populate the binge drinker category than do women and/or students of color, then it is no surprise that the binge drinkers tend to earn higher salaries.
Curious about the details,
Professor Lintott
Categories
Opinion

TV shows push the limit

By Jasmine King

Contributing Writer

In recent years, TV shows and movies have become an outlet for many producers and/or directors to illustrate their frustration with current events. Between reality TV shows and the dramas that air every night on FOX and ABC, it is no wonder that our nation’s “right to free speech” now has a negative context. The producers and directors frame their shows to expose the truths about today’s society, but in some cases they go too far, over-dramatizing and even poking fun at serious situations to make them seem less important.

In almost every show on television, there is at least one controversial subject, like rape, abortion, the death penalty, illegal drug use and the list goes on and on. We tell more about a person from his or her actions than from his or her words. In viewing these television shows, it is no wonder the world believes that if it is shown on TV, then it must be okay to do in real life. For example, in “Glee,” Quinn was determined to destroy the reputation of the woman who adopted her child in order to regain custody of the child. I was outraged by this episode, not only because she framed Rachel’s mother, but also because there were no true consequences shown of her actions. Without showing the consequences, TV is teaching citizens that it is okay to do acts like this, because there are no repercussions in the next episode.

Controversial issues have been seen in shows like “Glee” and the infamous “Family Guy.” Both of these shows touch upon controversial subjects in every episode and yet, they continue to be aired each week. Don’t get me wrong, I watch both shows. However, there is a point where the producers should draw the line in terms of what to show in each episode and how far to take it. For example, the University claims to be working on the issue of gender stereotypes, but how can we (as a University and a nation) say we are not condoning the seriousness of women’s rights when even our TV shows make jokes about it? To give “Family Guy” credit, the newer episodes have been more conscientious in terms of portraying more serious subjects, but after all, it is comedy. In the latest season, there is an episode in which Glenn Quagmire’s sister is being physically abused and although this is a very serious matter, the producers utilize comedy in subtle ways that do not take away from the real issue at hand. This is one of the most serious “Family Guy” episodes, as it illustrates the life of an abused woman, and I give credit to the makers of “Family Guy” for having the guts to take on such a hushed issue.

Our country does not want to see an abused woman or a child being neglected when we come home at night; we want to be humored, even at the expense of our morals. Humor has become a way of dealing with the things we cannot resolve. Thus, if we are making fun of the subject, at least we are acknowledging it is there.