Category: News

Sarah Antonacci

Contributing Writer

Over Spring Break, 20 University students and two faculty members traveled to North Carolina as part of Habitat for Humanity. Most of the students were sophomores and juniors, accompanied by University employees Ron and Lisa Marquette.

The group volunteered at two different sites in Rocky Mount, N.C. during the trip. At the first site, the group laid laminate flooring and constructed a shed. At the second site, the group laid the concrete foundation for a home. By the time they left, the students and faculty members had framed the entire house and put up about half of the roof trusses.

“We gained an excellent feeling of accomplishment from helping to build a home for a family in need,” Jared Kern ’14 said.

These projects took immense effort and the participants had to work efficiently in order to get this work done in such a short period of time. Unfortunately, the group was not able to meet the families receiving the homes, but the participants were able to speak with neighbors in the area who were thrilled to see new houses being built.

This whole excursion was part of Collegiate Challenge, which is run by Habitat for Humanity. Through this program, the group also had the opportunity to work closely with students from Stockton College in New Jersey. This program attracts many college students and faculty, and creates a way for people from different backgrounds to take part in community service together.

“I personally was interested in this trip because I wanted to spend my Spring Break doing something worthwhile,” Audrey Tolbert ’15, a leader of the trip, said. “As Bucknellians, we have been so fortunate in all that we have, so I wanted to give back. I think it opened all of our eyes to how fortunate we are and showed us how grateful people are for the things we take for granted.”

Habitat for Humanity will start advertising in the fall for the next trip, and the group encourages students interested in joining to take part in the application process at that time. Habitat for Humanity is also currently organizing the Rubber Duck Derby which will take place on April 27. 

“The Spring Break trip was a whole different world outside of Bucknell. I learned how to live with 20 people in tight quarters, make mistakes and fix them, hammer a ton of nails and have an absolutely fantastic time. The one week went by way too fast,” Megan Smith ’15 said.

“Next year we would like to find a way to advertise the trip to freshmen to get them involved,” Kern said.

Jeffrey Finegan ’14 and Carter Wells ’14 appeared at the Union County Courthouse in Lewisburg Thursday morning for a preliminary hearing, facing charges of criminal trespassing, receiving stolen property, and burglary.
The pair is accused of breaking into several student residencies in Bucknell West and removing textbooks, laptop computers, and other items in late February. They had already succeeded in selling some of the items online after they were turned in by fellow Delta Upsilon Brothers. Finegan was the president of the fraternity and the president of the junior class in the Bucknell Student Government, positions he has since resigned.
Finegan spoke directly to the judge with his attorney at his side; Wells stood quietly as his counsel spoke for him.  They both waived their right to a preliminary hearing, and will stand trial at a later date.

At the time of the break-ins, Finegan was on probation for underage drinking charges that had occurred previously. As a result of violating the probation period, he will be facing these charges again.

The stolen laptops, which Wells admitted to dumping next to a dumpster behind the Kohl’s department store in Selinsgrove, have not been found, Public Safety Chief Stephen Barilar said.
The pair have yet to conclude their formal procedures with the University, according to Dean of Students Susan Lantz.

Jackson McCarron

Contributing Writer

According to Buffalo Valley Regional Police Chief Paul Yost, four men were arrested after being involved in an indecent of aggravated assault.

“Jabri Brown, Antonio Carpenter, Aaron Johnson and Jeremy Drummond were all arrested around noon, 12 hours after the incident,” Yost said.

The assault occurred just after midnight on March 23 at 104 S. 8th Street, Lewisburg. The arrests were made in Milton, Pa.

According to the police affidavit, a felony stop was made on Lincoln Street and all four actors were found and taken into custody. According to Standard Journal, police officers from Buffalo Valley, Milton, Watsontown, Pennsylvania State Police and the Union County Sheriff’s Office all responded to the arrests.

A report in The Daily Item revealed that two victims were assaulted as a result of an argument involving Drummond’s girlfriend. Police told The Daily Item that the four men entered the house on S. 8th, where they saw Drummond’s girlfriend socializing with the victims. An argument ensued which then culminated into an attack, during which Stephen Reid and Mark Parrilla sustained injuries after being struck with a pistol.

The same report found that police discovered .22-caliber bullets in the home where the assault occurred. Police later recovered a .22-caliber handgun from the same residence. They believe that weapon was the one used in the assault, wrote Ashely Wislock of The Daily Item.

The University community received an email from Public Safety Chief Steve Barilar on the afternoon of March 23 which stated that four men with no affiliation to the University were arrested as a result of an aggravated assault incident. The email included the race of the actors and warned that they were considered to be armed and dangerous. The email did not include that the incident occurred within walking distance of many University student residences.

The Standard Journal reported Monday that Brown, who was identified as having the alias Breezy in the criminal complaint filed against him at the Union County Magistrate, was placed in Union County on a $100,000 cash bail. Both Johnson, 19, and Carpenter, 17, were placed in Union County Jail on a detainer, and Drummond, 18, was handed over to the Williamsport police.

According to Yost, Drummond was turned over to the Williamsport police because of a pending warrant. The Standard Journal reported that Drummond was wanted on homicide-related charges after allegedly shooting his father on March 12 in Williamsport.

Siobhan Murray & Christina Oddo

Staff Writer, News Editor

This year’s House Party Weekend has resulted in numerous alcohol related incidents, including 15 hospital transports and eight campus thefts, according to the Interfraternity Council (IFC).

“There were 15 total hospital ambulance transports, but that’s not counting the people who may have taken their friends to the hospital,” Alex Sandoval ’15, GAME Chair of IFC, said. These numbers were provided to IFC by Associate Dean of Students Amy Badal.

There are currently two University student suspects who allegedly committed minor thefts this past weekend. According to the University Department of Public Safety, out of the eight total thefts that occurred over the weekend, at least two laptops were stolen. This occurred in Roberts Hall, McDonnell Hall and the Gateways. There have been no signs of forced entry, Public Safety said.

Public Safety also reported five accounts of criminal mischief. Windows in Harris Hall were broken and there were two reports of damaged vehicles. Chief of Public Safety Steve Barilar said that this number of mischief reports is greater than last year, but that in 2011 there were six criminal mischief reports.

Barilar explained that with House Party, the University receives a large group of visitors on campus. These students may go unnoticed and may not be considered by others as potential suspects. This is Barilar’s first year as chief, but third year witnessing House Party Weekend. He reminds students to lock their doors and windows when they are not home.

According to Barilar, there were also 10 incidents of underage possession of alcohol, a similar number to last year’s, and there were also five cases of public drunkenness on campus. Public Safety conducted six transports to the hospital, compared to three transports last year.

The Union County Sheriffs Department had between two and four officers on campus from Friday morning to Sunday morning.

“Whenever there’s a major event going on in county boundaries, we try to participate in maintaining security and doing anything that will help keep people safe,” Chief Deputy Sheriff Scott Hahn said.

According to Hahn, the Union County Sheriffs Department had two transports to Evangelical Hospital, one in a police car and the other in an ambulance. There were also six participants, apart from those transports, who had alcohol violations; three were for underage drinking, one for public drunkenness and two of the six were guests.

“Everyone has their own levels of tolerance, and if we see someone unable to take care of themselves and are concerned for their safety, we will transfer them to the hospital,” Hahn said.

According to the Buffalo Valley Regional Police (BVRPD), who cover everything around the University and who are also authorized to handle anything that has been seen on campus property, there were three alcohol violations this past weekend (examples including underage drinking and container violations). There was also one disturbance reported, three noise complaints and two ordinance violations, which could involve disorderly gatherings and fire violations, according to the BVRPD.

The BVRPD transported two participants who overdosed on alcohol to the hospital.

In regards to past House Party Weekends, BVRPD Chief Paul Yost said that he “didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.” According to Yost, this weekend was similar to last year’s, but there were a lot of residents in the area who were upset about the littering and trash, especially as they left their homes Sunday morning to attend church.

Christina Oddo

News Editor

Shane Claiborne shared stories about compassion, reconciliation and faith with the University community. This Catholic Campus Ministry-hosted peace and justice lecture on March 26 and centered around the image of walls; we are fenced into communities of loneliness, affluence or poverty. For Claiborne, these walls can be torn down with the help and mercy of God. In other words, another world lies beyond the confines of isolation.

“Shane said that in order to make poverty history, it must first become personal,” David Gorman ’13 said. “We must love, befriend and struggle with the poor.”

Claiborne is a graduate from Eastern University and did graduate work at Princeton Seminary. Claiborne is considered a peacemaker and has traveled to places like Calcutta, Rwanda and the West Bank. He has also been on peace delegations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“One of my favorite parts was a story he told about going to Iraq while the United States was bombing it,” Nick Pistone ’13 said. “He got into a bad car accident and Iraqis took him in and took care of him and his friends, even though their hospital had just been bombed by the US … he said that he was surprised there were so many Christians in Iraq. The response he got from an Iraqi minister was, ‘Christianity was started here.  Americans didn’t invent Christianity, they just domesticated it.’ I think that gets at a lot of the issues of American Christianity today. We want to have control and safety in everything we do, but that’s not what Jesus did. He hung out with ‘the wrong sorts of people’ and broke laws of his time. He came to tear down walls, but Americans are so concerned with putting up walls to keep ourselves safe and comfortable.”

Claiborne is the visionary leader of a community in Philadelphia called The Simple Way. This group is devoted to helping create and connect faith-based communities around the world.

Claiborne has also written books including “Jesus for President,” “Red Letter Revolution,” “Jesus, Bombs and Ice Cream” and “Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers.” His books have been translated into more than 12 languages.

“I was really excited to go hear Shane Claiborne’s talk because I’ve read one of his books (“The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical”) and I loved it,” Pistone said. “He’s a really inspiring guy, but also very humble.”

Claiborne has also been featured in films such as “Another World Is Possible” and “Ordinary Radicals.” Claiborne gives speeches across the globe at institutions like Harvard and Notre Dame and his work has been seen in Esquire and The Wall Street Journal. He has even appeared on Fox News and NPR.

Claiborne’s lecture at the University was titled “Tearing Down the Walls.” Claiborne explained that as we try and lock ourselves out, we are actually locking ourselves in. In turn, we end up isolating and harming ourselves instead of protecting ourselves.

“Along these lines, another quote he shared that really connected with me was, ‘Be careful when you’re climbing up the ladder of success. You might pass Jesus on his way down,’” Pistone said. “His message is that Jesus did not simply come so that people could go to Heaven when they die, but he also came to bring Heaven down to earth, to give people life before death, not only life after death.”

Claiborne emphasized that as students especially we need to take “our gifts” and what we learn at the University to fix the pain that people experience in the world.

“Let us not conform to the pattern of the world,” Claiborne said. “Let us take our deepest passions and connect to the world’s deepest pains.”

Claiborne also paralleled seeking a career to seeking vocation. In other words, it is not about whether or not you will become a doctor, but what kind doctor you want to become. It is through this dedication to life that we can obtain the eyes to see the lonely, invisible people, or the people behind the wall.

“Shane Claiborne was an engaging and entertaining speaker, who told lots of memorable stories about his experiences promoting social justice around the world and locally in Philadelphia,” Jack McLinden ’14, director of administration of CCM, said. “One of my favorite parts of the talk was his encouragement to use creativity to solve the world’s problems, especially regarding peace and justice, instead of resorting to violence. He demonstrated a true concern for people to love and be loved according to the example and teachings of Jesus Christ.”

This lecture was free and open to the public. A question and answer session followed the talk, as well as a book signing and reception.

“After hearing Shane’s talk, I can’t wait to graduate and have the freedom to orient my life around loving God and others in radical ways,” Gorman said.

Siobhan Murray

Staff Writer

A fire that occurred in an upstairs bathroom of 43 South Sixth Street at 1 a.m. on March 23 has displaced several students and still has no known cause.

A group of senior students reside in the house and were at home with guests at the time of the incident. According to one of the residents, when the fire started in a second floor bathroom, two guests turned on the shower and extinguished a lot of the fire. The members of Lewisburg’s William Cameron Engine Company provided additional extinguishment when they arrived at the scene.

“After some dialog with the residents of the home, we still could not determine a cause of the fire,” Chief Stephen Bolinsky of the William Cameron Engine Company said.

“We believe it started in the ceiling or the wall,” one resident said. “No candles, straighteners or cigarettes were involved.”

According to a resident, the upstairs bathroom is “nearly destroyed” and the upstairs area is covered in soot and smells strongly of smoke. The residents are living elsewhere until the house is clean and suitable for living again.

“Anytime there’s a fire, we work closely with students to accommodate their living situations after the incidents,” Dean of Students Susan Lantz said. According to Lantz, there is an on-call system to aid students after incidents like fires.

Claire Vaye Watkins Wins Story Prize for Short Fiction

Kerong Kelly

Contributing Writer

Claire Vaye Watkins, assistant professor of English, won The Story Prize of 2012 for her short fiction piece titled “Battleborn.” This piece is comprised of 10 stories, covering a variety of backgrounds and characters and combining historical context with the contemporary West.

From the California Gold Rush of 1849 to the set that was once home to the Manson Family (a quasi-commune established in California in the late 1960s), Watkins covers a broad scope of events in her writing. In addition to being the first woman to win this award since Mary Gordon, author of “The Stories of Mary Gordon” in 2007, Watkins is also the third debuting author to win.

The Story Prize, established in 2004, annually honors a short fiction collection. The $20,000 award is the largest first-prize amount of all annual U.S. book awards for fiction. At the award ceremony, held at The New School in New York City, the 2012 finalists read from and discussed their collections with Larry Dark, director of The Story Prize.

During her teenage years, Watkins spent a significant amount of time in Las Vegas and in other more remote areas of Nevada. Her father, Paul Watkins, a former member of the Manson Family and author of “My Life with Charles Manson” (1979), testified against Charles Manson, a criminal and leader. Later on, Watkins earned her MFA from Ohio State University. She then received fellowships from the Writers’ Conferences at Sewanee and Bread Loaf.

Watkins currently teaches courses on fiction and creative writing at the University.

“Professor Watkins has taught me that even though there are guidelines in writing, creating art is a personal matter and you should definitely follow your passion as an individual to ensure the uniqueness of your work,” Sara Chuirazzi ’16 said. “She’s taught me important elements of craft, such as how to establish setting, create round characters and utilize scene, but most importantly she’s taught me how to recognize my strengths as a writer while also viewing my own work with a critical eye.”

Watkins provided advice to aspiring writers.

“First, read like a fiend. Read everything you can without regard for genre or canon. Pay attention to what moves you and how it does it. Keep a notebook and use it to train your ear, to get a feel for words you like, phrases that stick with you, stories that haunt you. Most importantly, cultivate your inner curiosity and vulnerability. Keep your eyes and ears open to the world around you,” she said.

“Her workshop style is much different from what I’ve experienced with other professors. She helps me not be a reader or critic, but an asset to the ambition of the story that I am editing. If there is anything that I appreciate, it is her willingness to develop an author’s story on the story’s terms, not her own,” Leo Tonaki ’13 said.

By W. Morris Fierman

Residents of Kress Hall returning from various areas around campus were greeted by a swarm of firefighters and police surrounding their dormitory on the evening of March 19 after a small fire in the basement kitchen caused an evacuation of the building.

Lewisburg Fire Co. Chief Stephen Bolinsky said in an interview after the building was reopened to residents that a small grease fire in the basement kitchen caused little damage. One person was being treated for minor burns.

Eric Ulmanis ’16, who was studying with a group of friends in the common area adjacent to the basement kitchen, had begun to pack up his things after smelling something burning, expecting the fire alarm to be set off. He walked to the kitchen to see two female students, one of which was carrying a flaming pot of oil over to the sink.

“Before I could tell them not to, they turned on the water, which set off a huge explosion,” Ulmanis said.

Pouring water on a grease fire, which is caused by heating oil past the point where it will combust, causes a large and instant fireball, as the Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters” once spectacularly proved.

Chris Sorrentino ’15 was also studying in the common area when she began to smell something burning.

“There was a loud whooshing sound,” Sorrentino said. “I ran into the kitchen and there were flames rising out of the sink, up the wall and into the vent. There were also flames crawling across the ceiling. I realized that this was serious–it wasn’t a drill–and we ran out of the building.”

“The fire alarm went off 10 to 15 seconds after the explosion,” Ulmanis said. “And Public Safety was pulling up almost immediately after we were out of the building.”

Fire trucks were on the scene within minutes, though the fire had already extinguished itself, Bolinsky said.

“Thankfully we are well coordinated with the Bucknell Public Safety Department and so we were able to respond very quickly,” Bolinsky said.

The student cooking at the time of the fire declined to comment.

Sarah Antonacci

Contributing Writer

Campus spirit and anticipation have escalated since the men’s basketball team made it to the NCAA March Madness Bracket after defeating Lafayette 64-56 in the Patriot League Tournament final. The University is the No. 11 seed in the East Region and is scheduled to play Butler, the No. 6 seed, on March 21 at 12:40 p.m. If the Bison win, they will play either Marquette or Davidson on March 23.

There has been talk of a possible parade in Lewisburg if the Bison win their upcoming games.

“If they win one or two games, I’ll have a fire-truck parade through downtown,” Judy Wagner, mayor of Lewisburg, said. “I’m sure we’ll have a very great welcome home for them.”

“The prospect of the mayor throwing a parade for the men’s team shows extreme support from the town of Lewisburg for Bucknell,” Anna Jones ’16 said.

Siobhan Murray

Staff Writer

Author of “Loud Dreaming in a Quiet Room” Betsy Wheeler finished her book tour with a poetry reading at Bucknell Hall on March 19. The event was organized by the Stadler Center for Poetry and the Writing Center as part of the Annual Drew Darrow Memorial Poetry Reading.

Wheeler is also the author of “Start Here,” a poetry chapbook. Her poems have appeared in “Bat City Review,” “The Journal” and more. She was a Stadler Fellow from 2006 to 2008, and received her MFA in poetry from The Ohio State University in 2006. She is now an editor for a poetry chapbook publisher, Pilot Books, and is also the managing director of the Juniper Summer Writing Institutes.

Wheeler began her reading by first describing “Loud Dreaming in a Quiet Room” as “a private intimate collection … that teeters on the line of surrealism and that embodies the intersection of what we know and do not know.”

The book was published in April of 2012 by the National Poetry Review Press.

Wheeler said that the most important aim of her poetry is to form meaningful connections with her readers.

“I want to present [the readers] with some idea, or image, that will resonate with them and mean something to them at a later time,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler’s reading included the poems “Non–Sonnet for a Ruffled Bird,” “Non-Sonnet for the Phrase ‘But I Believe,’” “Day Sail,” “Non-Sonnet for a Night Sail,” “Robert Lowry House” and “Start Here.”

“She had a really interesting personality, and I liked being able to hear the ‘inside stories’ that she provided about the inspiration for each poem—I don’t think I could have had the same understanding of her poetry without that knowledge,” Tori Jamieson ’15 said.

“She was such a great reader of her poetry, which was a major reason we came to the event,” said Adjunct Professor of English Katie Hays, who worked on poetry with Wheeler while she was at the University.

Wheeler said that most of the writing of “Loud Dreaming in a Quiet Room” took place during her time on campus.

“It’s really fitting that this is the last reading on the tour,” Wheeler said.

In a later interview, Wheeler added that her favorite places to write while living in Lewisburg were Cherry Alley Café, Zelda’s Café and Bucknell Hall.

“I think about this place often,” Wheeler said of Bucknell Hall. “It definitely resides in my memory.”