Author: Megan Herrera

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Seventh Street House celebrates Black History Month and Unsung Heroes

By Oleysa Minina

Contributing Writer

In celebration of Black History Month, the residents of the Seventh Street House for the Study of the Black Diaspora presented their annual event for Black History Alive on Feb. 19.

African Diaspora was the movement of people of Black African origin and their descendants to places throughout the world. This year’s theme, “Unsung Heroes,” celebrated relatively unfamiliar African Americans from all over the world who contributed to black history.

This event is about “educating people about the different people or groups that have contributed to black history all over the world; it is a cultural experience with an academic component,” Nakea Tyson ’11 said.

While visitors snacked on fried chicken and banana bread, the residents who transformed themselves into the “unsung heroes” gave a tour through the house.

Each floor of the house represented a different geographical sector of black history. The first floor represented the African American movement, the second symbolized Africa and the third showcased the Caribbean.

On the first floor, residents transformed themselves into members the Black Panther Party, a radical African American progressive political movement that peaked in the 1960s.

The Party jump-started the civil rights movement with their radical ideals and notions of self defense against challengers.

The second floor featured the African musician and human rights activist Fela Kuti, who preached in the 1970s that the African people should not be silenced. Other prominent activists included Makeba Singsi, a South African who brought awareness to the hardships of South Africans through music and song, and Robert Mugabe, the current president of Zimbabwe who spoke out against white-minority rule. Residents of the house dressed up as these heroes and presented their contributions to black history.

The third floor celebrated the Caribbean sector by honoring François Capois, a war hero during the Haitian revolution; Walter Rodney, whose ideals of self-emancipation defined the Guyanan political movements; and Derek Walcott, a St. Lucian poet who brought attention to the issues in Trinidad.

The presentation “focused on people and groups we don’t usually hear about in black history,” Yulissa Hidalgo ’12 said.

Grant Hoover, assistant director of residential education for diverse communities, said he “loved seeing students playing the role of a historical figure, especially figures that use their God-given talents to bring about social change.”

The University is hosting speakers, screening movies and providing other events to honor Black History Month.

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News

Jose Carmena discusses human brain research

By Katherine Schotz

Contributing Writer

Technology is able to create a sensory swarm in the brain, and neurons can stimulate to act as if there was a reality in front of them through both correct isolation of the neurons and training of the subject, said a prominent neuorscientist who has been conducting research in Berkeley, California to improve health with prosthetic body parts.

Jose Carmena spoke Tuesday in the Gallery Theatre about his ultimate goal to have machines operate as a part of the body, for instance with a prosthetic limb. The lecture took place as part of the University’s Social Science Colloquium series entitled “Emerging Minds: Seeking Meaning in a Physical World.” This was the penultimate event in the series, which is focused around neurology.

“Once formed, the critical map is readily recalled, stable across time, and resistant to interference,” Carmena said. Simplified, the brain can “regularly recall motor memory.”

In his research, Carmena is looking at how the brain is able to reach for an object and grab it. Further, he would like to understand how the brain could be tricked into believing a machine is an extension of the body. His colleagues and he have suggested ideas that were unheard of 20 years ago.

Over the past several years, Carmena points out that there has been a change in how the brain is viewed. Instead of believing that the brain is hardwired to perform basic motor skills from birth, the new theory is that the brain can learn and change.

“The brain is highly adaptive, or plastic, in adults and remains so throughout life,” Carmena said.

The change helped to guide Carmena’s research. Starting at Duke University, he conducted a number of experiments. He and his team were able to get monkeys to control the number of neurons firing in the brain.

Carmena is the principal investigator with the Brain-Machine Interface in the systems laboratory at the University of California-Berkeley, where he also serves as an assistant professor of electrical engineering and cognitive science and neuroscience.

“Questions about the nature of our minds and identities have been posed for millennia,” said series coordinator Joseph Tranquillo, assistant professor of biomedical and electrical engineering at the University. “Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, technological and scientific advances have enabled the ancient questions about mind and self to be revisited in new ways.”

The next event in the series is a lecture by David Eagelman on March 10.

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News

Panel focuses on current Egyptian crisis

By Eliza Macdonald

Contributing Writer

The Griot Institute for Africana Studies held an open panel focusing on the current situation in Egypt on Feb. 17.

Panel members agreed that “Egypt will embark on a new road.”

In January of this year, Egyptian citizens inspired by Tunisian revolts, protested rising levels of poverty, unemployment and government corruption. Specifically, the protesters demanded the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for 30 years. The protesters congregated in Tahrir Square, a central part of Cairo, Egypt, to assert their desire for a more democratic government.

“We should be able to identify with what’s going on because there are genuine expressions for democratic values, and this in a way dispels the notion that just because it’s the Arab world it’s not compatible with democracy. If anything it shows the yearning for these values you would normally find in a democracy,” professor Tony Massoud said.

During the protests, many parts of daily life were disrupted. The protests became violent and injured and killed many on both sides. Banks, schools, the stock market were all shut down, and at one point during the protests, Egyptians lost Internet and phone access.

The protests continued for 18 days before Mubarak finally resigned his presidency and handed power over to the army. The military rule has promised to oversee a transition process to an elected civilian government.

“I knew that Mubarak needed to leave because quality of life has lowered since he came to power,” Michel Ajjan ’14 said.

The panel consisted of three professors: professor Hager El Hadidi from Bloomsburg University, a native of Cairo; Massoud, an associate professor of political science here at the University; and Hilbourne Watson, a professor of international relations at the University.

Hadidi, as a native, gave those in attendance a look into the revolts from the perspective of an Egyptian. Hadidi focused on the importance of Tahrir Square to the Egyptians and the collective protests. She emphasized that Muslims and Christians were fighting side-by-side and that women, especially, were asserting themselves at the protests.

“Women were leading, daring men to be as courageous as they were,” Hadidi said.

Massoud’s input revolved more around the political aspects of the revolts and how it will affect Egypt in the future. Massoud sees two critical actors in this revolt: the military and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic group that, according to Massoud, has moderated its behavior in the last few decades. The Muslim Brotherhood’s slogan is “Islam is the solution.”

According to Massoud, the fear surrounding the ideas that the Muslim Brotherhood will try to take over Egypt is overblown. He hopes that Egypt will use the current democratic model used in Turkey. Turkey has demonstrated that it’s possible for Islam to be a part of a democratic system. Massoud also thinks the military won’t let an Islamic state come to power.

Other fears surrounding the “new Egypt” are that it will turn into a military state, but once again Massoud considers this an unlikely situation.

“The regime was interested in staying in power and maintaining control, which is why I think at the end they pushed Mubarak out. I don’t think the regime is interested in direct rule,” Massoud said. He also made the point that although the military prefers to be behind the scenes, they will be a factor in the new government because they’re too entrenched in the economy and society.

Massoud also argues that within political science, the term “revolution” is used a bit too loosely. He defines a revolution as major changes across different aspects of life in a country. It also depends on what replaces the old regime.

Watson, along with the other panel members, was able to give a more global view to connect the national and political sides of the argument.

“Those who make half a revolution dig their own grave,” was a slogan that Watson used to reinforce the idea behind Egypt’s desire for a full revolution.

Watson feels that globalization has had a huge impact on the quality of life in many regions around the world and that we are in a moment of global discontent.

Watson also broached the topic of how these revolts have affected the Egyptian economy, noting that exports to the European Union have shrunk in the last months.

Carmen Gillespie, director of the Griot Institute of Africana Studies and professor of English, felt that the panel was extremely successful.

“It was an opportunity we couldn’t miss, helping students and even faculty to really understand this evolving situation as much as we can,” Gillespie said.

Gillespie was glad so many students decided to attend to hear from people who’ve studied all their lives on these subjects and learn what their perception of the situation was, instead of a soundbite from the media.

Along with the hope to spark student and faculty curiosity, Gillespie hopes to keep the bridge between what happens on campus and the occurrences that happen in the “real world.”

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Headline News

Rwandan hero urges student action against injustice

By Olivia Seecof

Writer

After witnessing the Rwandan genocide right in front of his eyes, Rwandan native, hotel manager and hero Paul Rusesabagina stated that the world closes their eyes to the problems of the world that surrounds them, and it is time that we chose to fight back but not with weapons, with dialogue.

On Tuesday evening, in the Weis Center of Performing Arts, Paul Rusesabagina shared his personal experience in the discussion titled “Hotel Rwanda: A Lesson Yet to be Learned.” Rusesabagina is credited with saving 1,268 refugees during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and his personal experience was adapted into the acclaimed movie “Hotel Rwanda.”

“History keeps repeating itself, and yet, we fail to learn any lessons,” he said. He spent much of the speech talking about his personal stories and memories from the genocide.

This film, said to be “an African ‘Schindler’s List,‘” is based on Rusesabagina’s real life events. It documents his acts to save the lives of not only his family members and loved ones, but also the lives of other refugees. Rusesabagina sheltered these refugees in the Mille Collines luxury hotel in Kingali, of which he was a general manager.

“While the movie made the hotel a popular place, Hotel Rwanda started at my home,” Rusesabagina said.

He described what it was like when the attacks first started, and how he opened his home to his family and neighbors as a safe house. As the amount of people showing up at his house grew, he decided that he had no choice but to take them to the hotel.

“People kill each other because they fight for power, but dialogue is the best weapon” he said.

This statement reflects the conflicts between the three groups in Rwanda. Rusesabagina, a Hutu, married a Tutsi woman and together, they turned the hotel into an impromptu refugee camp for 12,000 terrified Tutsis and Hutus.

Life as a refugee in the hotel was extremely hard. Refugees had little clean water, and people would take a few drops of water each day from the hotel swimming pool. They had at most two meals a day, consisting of smuggled beans.

Rusesabagina told the audience about the multiple times he would drive down the streets only seeing dead bodies. “No one was alive; everything was killed,” he said.

He also spoke of the time he woke up with a gun to his head, being threatened to clear out the hotel in 30 minutes. He refused to give in because he wanted to protect his people. During the lecture he proudly yet humbly reported that none of his refugees in the hotel were killed or beaten; all 1,268 survived.

For his courageous and selfless efforts, Rusesabagina received Amnesty International’s “Enduring Spirit” award as well as the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.

“Nothing is as heartbreaking as seeing your loved ones and thinking, ‘This is the last time I’ll see my children. This is the last time I’ll see my life,’” Rusesabagina said.

Rusesabagina closed his lecture with remarks about what the Western world could do to help.

“You are the only ones who can change this world. You are tomorrow’s leaders. You have the world’s future in your hands, so shape it how you want,” he said.

“I really hope the student body, and everyone in attendance left with a new outlook on things and learned how to treat others,” said Hillary Mann ’13, a member of the Student Lectureship Committee.

The fact that the speaker was the real man from “Hotel Rwanda” attracted many students to the lecture, but the influence of friends also accounted for the phenomenal attendance at the lecture.

“My friends convinced me to take a break from schoolwork and attend the lecture, and I am so glad that I did,” Harrison Winters ’14 said. “Mr. Rusesabagina’s words were extremely powerful and I will keep them in mind for the rest of my life.”

The audience gave a standing ovation for Rusesabagina and his powerful speech.

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Featured

Themed residence program expanded to include small houses downtown

By Allison Mongan

Writer

Next fall, four small houses on the downhill part of campus will become themed student residences.

Students applied this spring to live in Edwards House, Hulley House, Galloway House or 23 University Ave and make the house a themed residence depending on their specific interests. Applications were due at the start of this week and a panel will choose from the applicants and make the decision by next Monday so that the students who do not get it can be eligible for the lottery number housing process.

“Themes will change from year to year depending on what group will be living in the house,” said Grant Hoover, assistant director of residential education for diverse communities.

Each of the four small houses will be open to any students that are able to fill them. The house sizes range from 12 to 28 persons able to live there, and the applicants had to be able to fill the entire house in order to apply.

Each applicant group had to determine their specific theme and explain why they wanted to have a house dedicated to their specific topic.

“Living on hall with people of similar interests has been very cool and it is nice to have that strong common thread. This program is great because it gives this unique opportunity to more students on campus,” Isabelle Catalano ’12 said.

Next year all small houses will be required to have one campus-wide program and one community service program, in addition to at least two other programs over the course of the school year. Every house will also have a faculty or staff member who will serve as an adviser and who will attend programs and interact with the residents. The adviser component is to help strengthen ties between students and the faculty and to help them build more personal relationships with each other.

“For the houses without resident assistants there will be house leaders. These leaders are in charge of meetings and programs and any administrative things,” Hoover said.

The Small House Program also includes the “Making a House a Home Program.” Student groups that continually occupy one specific house can apply for updates that can be made to the house. The Galloway House has been occupied by C.A.L.V.I.N. and H.O.B.B.E.S. for 13 years and has been able to apply for certain updates.

“Making a House a Home” includes being able to paint the interior and exterior after occupying the house for a set amount of years. C.A.L.V.I.N. and H.O.B.B.E.S. is a substance-free house and is one possible theme, among others, for a house next year.

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News

Library adds film editing laboratory

By Nicole Briggs

Contributing Writer

A new digital video editing lab has opened in the Ellen Clark Bertrand Library.

Before this lab was added, students looking to edit their films only had a few computers on the main level of the library available. These computers were usually in use by students who were not aware of their main purpose for video editing. Students also needed to save their work to an external drive.

Video production specialist Erin Murphy explained the features of the new lab, which is located on lower level one of the library.

“The lab is equipped with 11 dual-monitor Mac workstations and an instructor’s station. Above each workstation are monitors displaying the instructor’s screens. Each computer is connected to an Xsan server,” he said. “This set-up enables multiple users to share storage over a high-speed Fibre Channel network. Every user can read and write directly to the centralized file system. In other words, all files are stored centrally, eliminating the need for an external hard-drive. Users will have access to the server, Final Cut Studio 3 and the Adobe software suite.”

This project was the direct result of findings from a video utilization study completed during the 2010 spring semester. It should aid both students and faculty in video production and provide a space for teachers to hold classes and demonstrations to better meet student needs.

Michelle Steinberg ’13, who has classes in the video lab, said that the monitors above the screens make it much easier for the teacher to share information through the classroom.

“It’s great to have the dual monitors, the isolated space, and you never have to fight for a computer,” she said.

For students who do not know how to use the video editing software, there are students available from 3 p.m. until closing to provide assistance, as well as on weekends. Staff members like Murphy are also easily accessible and ready to help. In addition, editing workshops will be held in the future, and tutorials can also be accessed online at https://digitalmedia.blogs.bucknell.edu.

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News

Class of 2014 welcomed as alumni

By Eliza Macdonald

Contributing Writer

The class of 2014 celebrated First Night last Friday night in Rooke Chapel.

“It was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. I wasn’t expecting the class to go along with it. The fact that the class cared made the work we put into it worth it,” said Tory Cutting, Vice President of the class of 2014.

The colors for the class of 2014 were announced to be royal blue and silver. With these colors, the crest is embroidered with the Christy Mathewson gates on top of the shield. The gates symbolize the class’s time beginning here at Bucknell and that the next time they pass through the gates they will be beginning the next phase of their lives. The shield represents the strength of the class and that as a class they will come together to form an indivisible group. The that includes a tree, a candle and the Ellen Clarke Bertrand Library.

The candle on the right side of the shield symbolizes light, life, and compassion. The Oak tree adjacent to the candle represents eternal growth, and the Bertrand Library anchors the shield as “a symbol of our school and a reminder that education, enlightenment, and self-betterment, is the root of why we are here,” said Clinton Kittrell ’14, Class Representative.

On both sides of the shield are bison to represent the strength and determination of the University, and below all of this is the class motto in Latin: “Praeteritum, Praesens, Posteritas,” which means, translated, “Keep the past in heart, the present in mind and the future in sight.”

Class president, Lindsay Smith’14, said“ First night is a wonderful university tradition that brings together the first year class. It allows everyone to reflect upon our first semester and look at future and see how we’ll always be a part of the bucknell community. I think it is a very meaningful ceremony.It’s especially meaningful for the student body to interact with alumni representatives. I hope that we all make the most of our time at Bucknell, appreciate every minute, take advantage of all of the resources and every opportunity that is afforded to us by being members of the university.”

The motto and crest symbolize “the fact that our time here is timeless and we want to make the most of it. Bucknell will always be a part of us,” said Cutting and secretary/treasurer Sara Girmay ’14.

First Night is a celebration that initiates first-years as official members of the alumni community and marks the successful completion of their first semester at the University.

“First Night, as we know it today, began in 2001 with the class of 2004. It was then that the origination of developing a class motto, crest and colors began, in addition to serenading the President and his wife with the alma mater at the President’s house,” Dean of Students Amy Badal said.

After hearing the speeches of the class representatives, the first-years followed them down to the President’s house by the light of glow-sticks, where they sang the alma mater as a class.

“It was a great night that symbolized the beginning of the rest of our lives as Bucknellians,” Chet Otis ’14 said.

Most students felt that their representatives did a great job preparing for what most thought might be an unexciting ceremony. The ceremony also included a contest to see what hall could scream loudest, a slideshow, and a segment called “True Life: I’m a First-Year at Bucknell” that gave profiles of all the first-year representatives.

“It was really refreshing to look around and see most of our first-year class together and really attentive and being a part of our alma mater,” Girmay said.

Along with the speeches given by each representative, students heard from the Alumni Board representatives. Erika Stanat ’90, President of the Alumni Board Association, spoke about how alumni remain a part of the University community. As alumni, first-years have resources available to them in most parts of the world and need only to look back to their alma mater for help.

“The energy from the first-year students was fantastic. The alumni representatives consistently commented on how engaged and receptive the class was to learning what it means to be a Bucknellian,” Badal said.

While First Night brings into perspective for the first-years that their time here is already one-eighth of the way complete, their time as University students will never really end.

“Our hope is that the first-years maintain this pride in their alma mater and continue to love and serve the institution long after they graduate,” Badal said.

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News

Hero of ‘Hotel Rwanda’ to visit campus Tuesday

By Rob Duffy

Editor-in-Chief

Paul Rusesabagina, Rwandan humanitarian and inspiration for the Academy Award-nominated film “Hotel Rwanda,” will speak about the lasting implications of the 1994 Rwandan genocide when he visits the University next Tuesday.

Rusesabagina will give a lecture entitled “Hotel Rwanda: A Lesson Yet to Be Learned,” at 7 p.m. in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts on Feb. 22.

“Paul Rusesabagina is a remarkable example of the potential of human kindness,” said Mike Kurban ’12, co-chair of the Student Lectureship Committee, the group bringing Rusesabagina to campus.

When violence broke out in Rwanda in April 1994, as the Hutu-led paramilitary began to slaughter the Tutsi population, Rusesabagina led his Tutsi wife and mixed-heritage children to the Hôtel des Mille Collines for safety. He acquired a managerial position in the hotel as other managers fled and began sheltering refugees who came for help, protecting them from attacks by the Hutu militia. He ended up saving over 1,250 refugees from the genocide, in which over 800,000 people were killed.

“[Rusesabagina] proved that human kindness always has the ability to defeat human hatred, a lesson that shouldn’t be forgotten,” Kurban said.

Rusesabagina received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.

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News

University hosts JETS competition for first time

By Katherine Schotz

Contributing Writer

The University hosted the Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) competition on Feb. 15. There were six regional area high schools that participated in the two-part event.

The students competed first in an 80-question multiple choice team test followed by an essay-writing event. The overall theme, which was decided nationally, was energy and the global need for diversification, efficiency and ecological sustainability.

The theme came from the general rising interest in environmental issues, said Keith Buffinton, interim Dean of the College of Engineering. He continued to say the interest rose “partly as a result of the gulf oil spill.”

University officials scored the first part of the competition, and the essays were scored by national officials. The results will not be announced until later, according to Muyambi Muyambi ’11, an engineering student who helped coordinate the event.

“The National Engineering Design Challenge (NEDC) is an annual design competition in which students in grades 9-12 put their creativity and problem-solving skills to use and create a workplace assistive technology device for a person with a disability,” according to the organization’s website.

About 10,000 students participate in the event nationally. Only the top five teams from across the country will get to compete in a national competition, to be held Feb. 17-18 in Washington, D.C.

The top three teams from Tuesday’s competition were Pottsgrove High School, Weatherly High School and Loyalsock Township High School. Each student who participated in the competition received a certificate of participation.

“The essay question section was really difficult,” said Dan Douglas, a senior from Weatherly High School. Douglas is on the math team at his high school and as a result was chosen to be a part of the team.

This was the first time that the University hosted the annual event, and the College of Engineering sponsored the event. In addition to competing, the students also went on a tour of the University. The tour was focused on the College of Engineering.

“It’s great that the event promotes engineering for high school students,” Muyambi said.

In the closing ceremony of the competition, Buffinton said he hoped that wherever the students pursue their college degrees they should look into the fields of math, science, technology and engineering.

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News

LGBT activist speaker

By Carleen Boyer

Contributing Writer

“Professional bisexual” Robyn Ochs visited the University on Tuesday to discuss the topic of bisexuality in our culture today.

Ochs, who has been bisexual for 35 years, focused on many different aspects of sexuality, discussing the research of Alfred Kinsey, Fritz Klein and Michael Storms.

“Someone who may only date women but may find men attractive may label themselves as bisexual. The problem is that certain stigmas are associated with the labels, and in a society where it’s hard to get past stereotypes, it’s important to recognize that these labels don’t have set-in-stone definitions,” Eric Nuber ’13 said.

Kinsey has developed a scale known as the Kinsey scale, which rates homosexual and heterosexual tendencies on a scale ranging from 0 to 6. On the scale, a 0 is considered “exclusively heterosexual”, while a 6 is “exclusively homosexual”.

Ochs referenced this scale throughout her speech and built her own exercise that involved the audience. On the back of a paper, Ochs asked each audience member to rate himself or herself using the scale. The paper contained various questions, such as “Where would you put yourself on this scale, taking into account your romantic/emotional attractions?”

After the audience completed this survey, the surveys were collected and shuffled, then passed back out to each of the members of the audience. Ochs then randomly selected members to come to the front of the room to represent the anonymous paper they had received. Once the members arranged in order on the scale according to the overall sexual orientation number that was on the paper, Ochs asked the people to state which label, such as “gay” or “straight,” was on the paper.

“I think presentations like this, especially in today’s society where sexual issues have come to the forefront of public attention, are extremely important. People need to realize that sexuality is not a cut-and-dry issue, but a more fluid construct. I truly believe that talking about these issues will help people understand different sexual identities,” Nuber said.

After completing this exercise, it was found that the labels varied across the scale, and were not always dependent on location.

At the end of her speech, Ochs asked students to state what they learned from the session. Many students cited the need to be more open-minded, and some even stated that they better understood the meaning of sexuality, including bisexuality.