Author: Laura Crowley

By Morgan Slade

On Oct. 11, alumnus Bob Drake ’74 and his wife, Renee, attracted a large crowd to the Samek Art Gallery for a discussion about their experience as art collectors. As I glanced around the room, I was thrilled to see that not only were there the usual suspects of Art and Art History majors and professors engaged in the conversation, but also students from a variety of disciplines.

As an Art History major, you may think I would prefer to attend lectures in the company of other art enthusiasts. While this is sometimes the case, the lecture actually came alive for me as the Drakes opened up the floor to questions from the crowd.

Students and professors came up with questions on a variety of topics. In the center of the gallery, an eager student asked a series of questions on the art market and investments. A seated professor was curious about the Drakes’ opinions on collecting ephemeral works. These questions, among others, offered a different perspective of understanding the art world, one that I do not usually see while in the classroom.

This refreshing conversation would not have been possible without the important tone that the Drakes established from the start of the evening: that neither Bob nor Renee had received any traditional schooling in art and/or art history. For the economics, political science or maybe even engineering majors in the crowd, this surprising yet honest piece of information seemed to ignite a sense of interest and possibility in these students.

 As students of the Liberal Arts, we are required to complete a series of courses outside of our academic interests. So, why not apply this outside of the classroom?

By Ana Jones

On January 12, while sitting on my couch at home, avoiding thoughts about the looming spring semester, I logged onto Facebook. After scrolling through my news feed and seeing countless sparkly New Years pictures, something caught my eye. There was a notice that several of my friends had recently become friends with “Bucknell Compliments.” I’d heard of schools or towns making Twitter accounts to “spread the love,” but I wasn’t sure how they worked. I’d never seen a Facebook compliments page and I’d definitely never seen one for this University.

Curious as I was, I didn’t add Bucknell Compliments as my friend just yet. Several days later, I had almost 30 mutual friends with the page, so I caved in and added them. Once my request was accepted, I spent almost 30 minutes reading the compliments and was amazed at the love our community has for one another.

I was still a little confused on how the page worked, so I asked Shiri Levine ’16.

“You add them as a friend or they add you, then you inbox them compliments about people on campus. Then, they post the compliments and everyone sees them. It’s a really cool idea,” Levine said.

“All the students here are incredibly nice and this page is a perfect way to show that,” Meghan Garanich ’16 said.

Kate Albertini ’14 also has positive thoughts about the page. On January 12, she posted on the page’s wall: “This is a wonderfully fantastic idea and makes me grinningly proud to be a Bucknellian” and received 15 likes for her sentiments.

The compliments range from silly ones like, “Jennifer Brady [’16] is the best person ever and deserves like 60000000 cookies ;)” and “Michaella Bloom [’16] is a sexy mama,” to more serious ones like “Jackie Eppinger [’15] is a strong, confident, and beautiful person: inside and out” and “Lizzie Kirshenbaum [’14] is one of the best and most caring friends someone could ever have. Anyone would be lucky to be able to know her.”

The page targets mostly first-year students, but there are several compliments posted about other class years too. The page is completely anonymous, but since it mainly focuses on first-years, many students suspect that it’s run by one.

Although the page seems like a great idea now, the question is whether the page has staying power. Internet sites tend to be popular for a few months and then disappear. Will the same thing happen to Bucknell Compliments?

“It will probably fade eventually, but since it’s such a positive page, I think it will be around for a while,” Eileen Cook ’16 said.

The site may not be around forever, but for now, it’s the perfect way to make someone’s day. Everyone should log onto Facebook, add Bucknell Compliments and send in a few compliments. As the site says, “spread the Bucknell love!”

By Laura Crowley

Arts & Life Editor

If you attend this University, it is likely that Edward Louie ’13 has taken a photograph of you.   Louie, from Portland, Ore. makes an appearance at nearly every major event on campus, but also documents students’ everyday lives.  In an interview with Louie, The Bucknellian discovered more about the man behind the camera.

Q: How did you become interested in photography?

A: I started photography in fifth grade because I wanted to show others what I wanted to tell them about, in addition to telling them about it. At the time I felt as though my words were doing an insufficient job at describing what I wanted to tell, and taking pictures was an excellent solution to the problem.  An interesting fact: back when I was in fifth grade (2001-ish) digital cameras took 3.5″ floppy disks. ‘What’s a floppy disk,’ you say?

Q: Do you hope to pursue photography as a career after graduation?

There [have been] times when I have considered making photography my profession. The reason why I didn’t do it is because I am too scared I will end up being a starving artist. I am very uncomfortable with the idea of having to pay the utilities, the mortgage and let’s not forget the college debt, purely from doing photography. It is a fact that being a professional photographer is among the lowest paying professions. A number of professional photographers have said: ‘The worst reason to become a professional photographer is because you love to take pictures. The stresses you will encounter being a professional will beat your passion to the ground. However, if you’re still keen on taking pictures after that, then you can be a professional photographer.’  As a result, I have no lasting desire to pursue photography as a full time career, and instead, I am pursuing civil engineering as a profession. I can sleep at night knowing that the odds are well in my favor that a career in civil engineering will land me a stable job.

Q: What do you most like to photograph?

A: I don’t have an affinity to any one particular genre of photography. Because I don’t specialize I believe the phrase ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ applies to me.

Q: Do you ever collaborate with other photographers at the University?

A: I have yet to collaborate with other photographers on campus. When I run into other photographers on campus I occasionally talk shop with them, but often times I am focused on the event/action/subject. I am open to helping, advising and mentoring fellow photographers. One issue is the lack of active photographers on campus.

Q: Do you ever get paid to photograph events?

A: I occasionally get paid to photograph events on campus. I am increasingly more firm about charging students and student organizations for event photography. The hourly pay on campus is nowhere near enough to compensate the amount of time and effort it takes to produce high quality images. As a result I try to charge students, clubs and organizations as a freelance photographer. It has consistently been a fact that for every hour of photography I do, there is two hours of post-production to follow. One needs to charge enough for the hour of photography to cover for the hours of post-production. In some cases, time must be spent for pre-production, like getting on scene early enough to have the time to scout out good angles and to have a word with the event manager.

Outside of Bucknell, the pay is much better, and clients are much more understanding of the cost of professional quality images, [since] I guess they’ve shopped around and know what everyone else charges. Inside Bucknell, there is a general expectation that things should be done for free or very close to that. However, I don’t have the time during the academic semester to take on too many requests outside of Bucknell. Students are generally broke, and I don’t blame them.

Q: What camera do you use?

A: “What camera do you use?” is a much more complicated question when it comes to an SLR since you’re not talking about a camera but rather a camera system. I guess you’re asking “what is in your camera system?” or “what’s in your bag?”

I use a Canon 40D the reason why I chose this body is because it was the least expensive body at the time (3 years ago) that had a pentaprism. Cheaper entry level bodies use a pentamirror rather than a pentaprism, pentamirrors produce a dim and tiny image through the viewfinder. To me looking through those are like looking trough a toilet paper roll, yuck!

The lenses I use consist of a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS, 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 and a 50mm f/1.4. These 3 lenses allow me to handle pretty much every situation short of field sports like football, for that you need a giant super-telephoto lens. The 70-200mm lets me get close and isolate one or two subjects from the rest. The 10-22mm allows me to get everything in and then some and the 50mm allows me to photograph in ultra low light situations when I can’t or don’t want to use a flash.

For flash I use a 580EX II, it is an external flash that mounts into the hotshoe and allows me to bounce the flash off the ceiling and walls. The result is images that don’t look like flash was used at all. I have honestly never ever used the popup flash on my camera and I have taken over 75,000 images with that body. Popup flashes produce nasty looking images I don’t know what they even include them in cameras.

Q: What are your hobbies outside of photography?

A: My other hobbies besides photography include mountain biking, hiking, travel, target archery and the typical college student hobbies of eating, sleeping, being lazy, Facebooking, YouTubing and listening to music.

Q: Why did you choose the University?

A: I started my college search looking for an accredited, undergraduate-focused engineering program with small student-to-teacher ratios. I was surprised at how few there were. Of the ones I applied to, only University of Portland and Bucknell offered financial aid packages that would make it financially reasonable to attend. [By] looking further into Bucknell, I discovered that it was ranked as one of the top universities for undergraduate engineering. Coupling that with an interest to explore the east coast made Bucknell a pretty clear choice.

By Katie Monigan

Staff Writer

Timothy Strein is a professor of chemistry, chair of the chemistry department and has been at the University for so many years that his email address is just “Strein.” Although he primarily only teaches two classes, analytical chemistry and a forensic chemistry foundation seminar, he is always up to something.

“There are two types of chemists: those who make things and those who measure things. I measure things,” Strein said.

Specifically, measuring concentrations of certain chemicals in blood and urine using something called capillary electrophoresis. Apparently he’s pretty good at it too, since he just had a paper accepted this week, another a few weeks ago and yet another late last semester which was a collaboration with another chemist at the University of Pittsburgh. To date, he’s published “about 30” papers, he said. He has a lab next door to his office and an entire team of students working with him, both undergraduate and graduate.

When he’s not teaching and working on his research projects, he has additional administrative duties as chair of the chemistry department. His current project is to individually approve every chemistry course that students wish to take over the summer for credit. He also makes sure the department stays within budget and occasionally answers calls from angry parents or makes sure leaky lab sinks get fixed.

All in all, Strein is happy with his position.

“As long as I get the money, which we’ve been pretty lucky with so far, I can research pretty much whatever I want,” he said. Plus he’s friendly and likes to work with people. As both a professor and administrator, that’s exactly what he gets to do every day.

By Laura Crowley

Arts & Life Editor

The Bucknell Dance Company (BDC) will present its annual spring dance concert today and tomorrow at 8 p.m. in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts.

The concert will consist of seven pieces performed by students of the BDC. Three of the seven performances were choreographed by students, including Sarah Thalhamer ’11, Katelyn Tsukada ’12 and Melissa Leonard ’12. Each piece runs for five to 10 minutes, and pieces span from “classical ballet through contemporary modern dance,” visiting professor of theater and dance Kristy Kuhn ’00 said.

Thalhamer said her piece is contemporary with basis in ballet technique, but “definitely not classical.” The experience of choreographing her own show was initially challenging since the group is so large, but it “ended up working out really well because I was lucky enough to get a cast of really talented dancers,” she said.

Kuhn said many pieces are choreographed to popular music. Thalhamer’s piece will likely be a crowd-pleaser with its soundtrack of Ben Folds’ “Cologne,” OneRepublic’s “Marchin‘ On,” and part of OneRepublic’s “Waking Up.”

Not all pieces are set to today’s popular soundtracks, however. One piece is set to the music of two classical pianos played by professor of music Lois Svard and Amanda Child ’11.

“[The piece is an] exciting collaboration between the dance program and the music department,” Kuhn said. Seven students will “embody the expressive melodies and intricacies of the classical music,” she said, through steps choreographed by Er-Dong Hu, associate professor of dance and director of dance.

Most dancers in the show are dance minors, Kuhn said. The showcase will represent the culmination of work from rehearsals that began in January, but the inspiration for each of the choreographers’ pieces began well before then.

Tsukada’s piece was inspired by her time spent abroad in Denmark. Others, like Kuhn, have more abstract inspirations.

“[My piece is] derived from the concept of ‘walls’ or the invisible boundaries we build around and within us that ultimately prevent connection,” she said.

Today is also International Dance Day.

“This is a great moment where the dance company gets to be a part of something much bigger,”  Hu said. “The dancers around campus have organized events to celebrate this and promote dance and the arts in the Bucknell community.”

In one such event, students will dance on the uphill Elaine Langone Center lawn at 11:50 a.m. The dance will finish with a group Zumba session in which spectators are encouraged to participate. Students will continue to celebrate International Dance Day on Monday at 1 p.m. when Dance Composition students will present seven site-specific dances around campus and at the bookstore.

Tickets to the BDC showcase will be sold today and tomorrow, and are $8 for the general public and $6 for students and senior citizens. They are available in advance through the box office or in person an hour before each performance.