Category: Featured

By Meghan Finlayson

Writer

The first annual Day of Service for first-year students was held last Saturday, August 27. Students were invited to different sites around Lewisburg to learn about the community service opportunities in the area.

The Dreamcatcher Farm, Sunbury YMCA, Milton YMCA, Essex Place, Meadowview, Donald Heiter Community Center and Elijah’s Bowl all hosted students.

Jenna Weaver ’15 said, “It’s really neat to see all the different ways you can get involved in this Lewisburg community. There are so many people that want to reach out to those in need and it was really apparent that Bucknell students can help make a big difference.”

About 40 faculty and staff members volunteered.

“We thought this would help newcomers … see some of the opportunities to be involved in non-profit areas and local enterprises, and recognize the value of civic engagement while working with a group of peers to make a difference,” said Lynn Pierson, assistant director for community service.

Many first years agreed. “Participating in the first year day of service was a great way to meet members of my class and do some good for the local community around Lewisburg. I would definitely recommend it to incoming freshmen for next year,” said Daniel Ambrose ’15.

The idea for the Day of Service came from recommendations from the Faculty Advisory Committee on Teaching (FACT), which hopes to inspire first-years to be more active in the Lewisburg community.

“We want to emphasize opportunities to be engaged in meaningful activities throughout their educational experience in and out of the Bucknell classrooms,” Pierson said.

Jeffery Campbell, event technology specialist, was assigned to go to the Sunbury YMCA with a group of students to paint a day care room.

“Not only is the Day of Service good for town relations, it exposes the students to situations and environments that they may not have ever been exposed to. In that sense, I think it provides a valuable learning experience and maybe will show the value of community service,” Campbell said.

Lynn Breyfogle, associate professor of mathematics worked with students to clean, decorate and prepare the Donald Heiter Community Center for after-school care.

Susquehanna University students also attended the event. “With all the students there, there was a festive and wonderful feeling of everybody volunteering and helping out the center,” Breyfogle said.

The day also gave faculty and students a chance to meet and connect. “It was nice as a faculty member to meet students I might not have otherwise met,” Breyfogle said. “The students worked very hard, and they were interested and engaged in what they were doing.”

“In all, I think [the students] enjoyed their day and thought that the Day of Service was a valuable and important asset to the community,” Campbell said.

The Office of Civic Engagement hopes this will be a tradition that continues in the future.

By Christina Oddo

Writer

Arts. Everywhere, a three-day festival of the arts, featured free events open to campus and the public. The festival began last Friday, August 26, with the official opening of the Campus Theatre.

The events that followed were just as important. Visual artist Nancy Cleaver created a mandala chalk exhibit outside Smith Hall with the help of festival participants. The creation signified ideas of peace, joy and community.

The Weis Center for the Performing Arts housed a handful of spectacular events throughout the weekend. Saturday morning, jazz artist Phil Haynes partnered with associate professor of dance Kelly Knox to produce a twist on jazz dance, percussion and improvisation.

By night, the Weis Center was hopping with Hector Rosado y Su Orchestra, accompanied by salsa dance lessons taught by the University’s Latino Dance Corner (LDC). University students and faculty, and Lewisburg residents joined together to learn four simple but classic salsa steps.

“It’s really nice to be able to pass on a small piece of information and to watch people have so much fun,” said Luciana Salles ’14, president of LDC. For those interested in learning more about salsa rhythms and dance, look out for auditions for LDC coming soon.”

The Elaine Langone Center was honored to have Luke Chohany ’10 perform a preview of the classical guitar pieces he performed in Bucknell Hall later on Saturday.

Students were more than willing to aid the University and contribute their artistic ways to the festival.

“I am so happy to see the liberal arts so accessible and promoted by the University and its students, and I am honored that I got to perform in two of the many events,” said Matt Dranzik ’13,  “Arts.Everywhere was a huge success and the spirit of creativity will continue throughout the year and into the future.”

This weekend-long collaboration of arts, theatre, dance and music is an indication that the University’s stated commitment to the arts is coming to fruition.

By Megan Herrera

News Editor

Students are no longer turning to Barnes & Noble at Bucknell University and Amazon.com to purchase their required textbooks. University textbooks are renowned for being extremely expensive, so it’s no surprise that there are plenty of alternative ways for students to find the books they need at a more reasonable price.

Several students have used various Internet textbook sites to rent or buy textbooks as a way to save money. These sites include, but are not limited to, Chegg.com, bookrenter.com and rent-a-text.com.

One such website, FindersCheapers.com, has saved college students hundreds of dollars every year with its price comparison feature.

James Krewson, creator and CEO of FindersCheapers.com, compiled data into a graph on his website showing the extent of possible savings on textbooks at universities across the country.

“For years I knew my price comparison website was popular with college students. Recently, I decided to compare textbook prices at campus bookstores to FindersCheapers.com. The results greatly exceeded my expectations,” Krewson said on the website.

The graph is based on a list of textbooks for five courses of moderate difficulty that would be the average courseload for a first-year student. While these savings are high, ranging from $130 at Pennsylvania State University to a whopping $417 at Miami Dade College, Krewson believes that it is possible to save even more. Students agree.

“Amazon had all of my books for $440, so I ordered everything on there once I got my schedule. I needed books for the first week, though, so I went to the bookstore and it came out to almost $620. Have to love saving almost 200 bucks,” Andrew Coe ’15 said.

In an effort to help students alleviate textbook costs, Barnes & Noble at Bucknell University has started a new program that allows students to rent their textbooks for the semester at an approximate 50 percent discount.

“Since I pay for my own books, it’s great knowing that I can get textbooks at a cheaper price online, and now that the bookstore allows me to rent some, I was able to save over $100,” Joey McCafferty ’14 said.

Many other students believe that the University’s bookstore has made a smart move because it encourages students to maintain their relationships with their campus bookstore.

“I used to rent my textbooks from Chegg.com, but now that the bookstore allows me to rent them so it’s a lot more convenient. Now I don’t have to worry about returning my books to the website or selling them back to the bookstore,” Brenna O’Neill ’12 said.

With so many avenues to save money on textbooks, it is to no surprise that students are researching all of their options. From the Internet to the bookstore, students have many more choices to save those extra bucks.

Update: On May 13, Susan Lantz, Dean of Students, sent an email to campus announcing that Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) had been suspended from campus for four years (as opposed to the initially-reported five) for “hazing and other violations.”

According to Lantz, the investigation against SAE had been on-going since “late last fall,” when a father submitted an anonymous letter to the University.

“The consequent investigation . . . revealed a pattern of continuing and hazardous conditions inimical to the principles of the University, violations of the Code of Conduct that all student organizations agree to follow as members of the campus community, and behavior unbefitting the standards of our Greek-letter community,” Lantz said in the email.

SAE will not be allowed to hold any fraternity functions during the four-year suspension period. Pending good behavior, it will become eligible for re-colonization in Fall 2015.

The original article printed in the April 29 edition of The Bucknellian appears below:

SAE facing hazing allegations

By Rob Duffy

Editor-in-Chief

The University’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity (SAE) is facing either suspension from the University or criminal charges for alleged hazing and illegal alcohol and drug use.

Tom Evelyn, the University’s senior director of news and media relations, confirmed to The Bucknellian that the University “has reason to believe that [SAE] and its members have violated University policy and local and state laws.”

On April 12, the University notified SAE, its local alumni organization and its national fraternity office that the fraternity has two options moving forward. If all three organizations agree, the University will suspend SAE from campus for five years effective July 1. Following this course of action, the chapter would be allowed to re-colonize in 2016 at either its current location or in a newly constructed location on South Campus.

If the three organizations do not agree to the suspension, the University has informed SAE that it will initiate criminal and student conduct charges against the fraternity and its members, which could possibly, according to Evelyn, result in “permanent expulsion of the fraternity.”

SAE has been given a deadline of May 1 to make this decision.

The University has already notified the District Attorney of its investigation and its evidence against SAE.

Evelyn was the only person who would speak to The Bucknellian about the investigation. Kevin Foster, Assistant Director of Residential Education for Fraternity Affairs, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. SAE president William D’Agostino ’12 and several other members of the fraternity declined comment. Interfraternity Council president Michael Higgins ’12 also declined comment. Kristi Conklin ’12, representative on the Council on Greek Life deferred comment to Evelyn and Pete Mackey, University Vice President for Communications, who was not able to be reached for comment.

No additional details were available about the nature of SAE’s alleged violations or the University’s evidence regarding the infractions.

According to the Univeristy’s Plan for Prominence, the University has a “zero tolerance” policy regarding hazing.

Hazing is a criminal offense in Pennsylvania. A third-degree misdemeanor, it is punishable by up to a year of imprisonment. Additional charges and penalties may be applied for additional laws broken during the act of hazing—for example, alcohol or drug laws.

“Our Greek-letter organizations are an important component of the University experience, and we are committed to ensuring that all students who participate in our fraternities or sororities enjoy and benefit from the experience,” Evelyn said.

By Nicole Briggs

Writer

Behind the water tower is the makings of a new quad and living area that will expand the University’s grounds.

Heavy equipment was moved in this week to prepare for development of the 50 acres of farmland the University purchased in 2003 behind Fraternity Road. The construction will add four apartment-style buildings, similar to the Gateways, in the field behind the water tower. Also, the new Kappa Delta Rho (KDR) and Lambda Chi Alpha houses will be built so that a new academic quad can be built where they now stand. The new quad will feature a building called Academic West, which will house both classrooms and faculty offices for the social sciences.

“At the moment, contracts have been formally awarded and the contractors are beginning to proves the paperwork that is necessary before actual on-site construction begins,” said Jim Hostetler, Director of Construction and Design.

Construction for the new KDR and Lambda Chi Alpha houses is scheduled to begin on June 1.

“Academic West is the number-one priority building,” Provost Mick Smyer said. “Over the last eight years we have added 60 new faculty but added no new academic space.”

This has led to cramped classrooms and makeshift faculty offices. Academic West has come to be called an “enabling building,” which will spark a series of changes within campus organization.

“The construction of Academic West will have a cascading effect where it opens up lots of other spaces for either their original purpose or something new,” said Tom Evelyn, Senior Director of News and Media Relations.

With this construction, the main quad can be designated for humanities, the new quad for social sciences, and the engineering quad for natural sciences and mathematics.

This summer, construction will be done on South Campus Drive, a road that will loop around behind where the new dorms will be built, connecting to both parking and the current roads. The ultimate goal is to close the interior campus roads to cars altogether by making some changes to parking.

“We want to make the campus more pedestrian-friendly and accessible,” said Dennis Hawley, Associate Vice-President for Facilities.

The new dorms will feature 350 beds in apartment-style housing, targeted towards the seniors. There will also be a common room building featuring study rooms, a café and much more. The goal is to have about 200 to 250 people move back from downtown houses and to redistribute about 100.

The construction will cause as little disruption as possible, with most of the construction going on both over the summer and in the field behind campus where no students currently live.

A word of caution to all of the students, though: “Construction can be dangerous,” Hawley said. “People need to respect that.”

A date will be set for the construction of Academic West once fundraising for the building is complete.

[Editor’s Note: The print version of this article incorrectly identified Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity as “Lamda Chi Delta.” The Bucknellian apologizes for this error.]

By Christina Oddo

Writer

The Office of Civic Engagement, the department of East Asian Studies, the Japan Society and the Susquehanna Valley Japanese Community co-sponsored a panel discussion on Japan on April 19. Dr. Elizabeth Armstrong, associate professor of East Asian Studies, moderated the event.

Jim Orr, associate professor of East Asian studies, opened the panel with a discussion on the history of earthquakes in Japan, specifically the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that occurred off the coast of Japan, and the tsunami that followed, on March 11.

He spoke of the 1933 earthquake and tsunami, as well as the 1995 earthquake that resulted in 6,500 deaths. Orr described the role nuclear energy played after World War II and how this energy was seen as either a great good or a great evil.

As of April 14, 33,206 people have been reported dead, missing or injured as a result of the March 11 devastation, Orr said. In addition, 599,950 homes have been lost. He also stated that the Fukushima Plant released a Level Seven alert as a result of the natural disaster.

James Shields, associate professor of comparative humanities, discussed the religious and cultural responses to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which were positive, he said. He spoke of the history of spirituality in Japan in terms of nature, spirit and power.

Kami, meaning nature, has deeps roots in Japanese history. It can either be benevolent or malign, and is something that can be feared but greatly respected. Shields described the Buddhist outlook as “things change, deal with it.” Buddhists recognize that you cannot change change. Shields described Confucianism as well, saying that individuals only exist as part of relationships, and strength and determination are important to regard in the face of adversity.

Shields reminded listeners that, although this time the response to such devastation was positive (no single case of looting has occurred as far as Shields knows) there have been negative responses in the past. He used the Great Kanto Earthquake that occurred on September 1,1923 as an example.

Mizuki Takahashi, post-doctoral fellow in biology, covered most recent statistics; 14,867 people have been reported missing, and 13,439 have been reported dead, creating a horrible total of 28,306. Takahashi compared these statistics to those from 9/11 and from Hurricane Katrina in 2005; a total of 2,752 were reported dead after 9/11 while 1,836 were reported dead as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Takahashi also stated that the estimated cost of direct property damage was $160-250 billion.

Takahashi explored the precautionary measures taken in Japanese schools in the form of drills through real footage. The negative and positive results of the earthquake were discussed; the earthquake negatively impacted the already present economic downturn (which had already resulted in a number of suicides), while the economic downturn negatively impacted recovery. The earthquake also negatively impacted the concept of nuclear explosion (although the company is currently at fault), and this negatively impacted agricultural/fisher exports, which then added to the negative impacts on the economic downturn. Takahashi presented this cause-and-effect system through a visual web. Most importantly, Takahashi stated that so far, Japan has shown an overall sense of orderliness and mutual help which overrides much of the present negativity.

Kyoko Breczinski, a member of the Susquehanna Valley Japanese Community, spoke of how it feels to have her family living among the ruin in Japan. She discussed how difficult communication is and how she can only communicate with her family through the Internet, as the phone lines are useless. “It’s the radiation,” she said, “that upsets me the most.”

Anna Uehara ’12, president of the University’s Japan Society, described the account of Kota Suenaga, a University student currently on leave in Japan. They experienced the earthquake that occurred at 2:46 in the afternoon and lasted more then five minutes. The first tidal wave occurred 30 minutes later. Uehara showed striking images of the destruction, images of cars that had been carried onto the tops of buildings by massive waves.

The subsequent question-and-answer session involved a talk on discrimination in regards to those exposed to radiation. There was also discussion on how the electric company had made mistakes, regarding the positioning of the water tank and reactor, for example.

By Olivia Seecof

Writer

String theory could potentially bridge the gap between features of the micro-world and the macro-world and lead to further development of a unified theory, said a world-renowned theoretical physicist at a talk on Tuesday.

On April 19, Trout Auditorium was filled to capacity as Brian Greene delivered his lecture “Breakthrough Thinking: Challenging What We Know.” The overflow was directed to the Rooke Chemistry auditorium to watch a live streaming of Greene’s lecture. The talk, which was free and open to the public, was the sixth lecture of the ongoing Bucknell Forum series, “Creativity Beyond the Box.”

“Science is a dramatic story of adventure,” Greene said. He integrated the ideas of science and creativity throughout his lecture, saying that “everyone doesn’t need to be excited about science, but everyone can be,” and that “it is a great opportunity for the arts to be inspired by science.”  These statements received a long round of applause from the crowd of students.

Through narrated video clips and explanations in simple terms, Green gave background on why the study of the formation of the universe is so captivating.

“Math is not just symbols on a paper; it actually shows you something on how the world works,” Greene said.

An analogy that Greene included was to show how a 10th dimension is possible. He instructed the audience to imagine different dimensions curling up and being able to trace that curl–like an ant walking around a telephone wire. Another analogy was that of the universe being a big rubber sheet, and the sun is a bowling ball stretching the sheet. The Earth travels around the sun on the path determined by the curvature of the bending of the sheet like a marble travels around the sheet stretched by the bowling ball.

“I thought he made it really easy to follow with the analogies he used and the visuals. He was also really enthusiastic and engaging,” Kelly Burkhart ’14 said.

String theory is very complex, so it is quite possible that many non-physics specialists got lost in some of the terminology and concepts. Greene spent much of his lecture explaining how the strings that make up the quarks of protons, neutrons and electrons vibrate in different patterns. These different patterns create different kinds of particles. String theory sets up the framework to provide a unifying theory. Greene said that the string theory “suggests that maybe we are one of a multitude of universes.”

“[The lecture] was baffling and enlightening at the same time,” Nicole Diamantides ’14 said.

According to Greene, a scientific genius is able to look at what everyone else is seeing and see something else. Greene definitely satisfies his own qualifications and delivered an enjoyable and informative lecture to the greater University community.

Greene is a leading physicist in his field, and the Washington Post calls him the “single best explainer of abstruse concepts in the world today.” Green has published many books including national best-seller “The Elegant Universe.” In this book Greene explored how quantum mechanics and general theories of relativity transformed the understanding of the universe and introduced the world to the string theory. Green is the co-director of Columbia University’s Institute for Strings, Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

“It was really cool to have such a highly respected individual in his field give a lecture on his specialty,” Jeremy Shui ’14 said. “As a current student of physics it was interesting to follow along and test my own understanding.”