The local food movement sweeping the nation has energized consumers and producers. The University community is no exception, with many students and faculty taking an active role in bringing local products to students’ plates.
According to DailyFinance, the shift towards locally produced food helps small farms stay afloat during a hurting economy. Consumers are becoming increasingly interested in where their food comes from and how it is produced. Local producers are often eager to discuss their products with interested consumers.
The University’s involvement in the local food movement spans both student life and education.
The University’s food service, managed by Parkhurst Dining Services, offers a variety of products from local businesses. As part of Parkhurst’s FarmSource program, at least 25 percent of their produce is purchased from local growers. Parkhurst also holds a bi-annual dinner showcasing local producers and their products.
“Our embrace of buying local allows us to meet our guests needs with generally less processed products. We think it just makes good sense,” a Parkhurst representative said.
To increase student awareness, labels with the name and location of the producer are displayed near each local item. Examples of this include bagels from Georgie’s Bagels in Berwick, Pa., apples from Dries Orchards in Sunbury, Pa., pork products from Hatfield Quality Meats in Hatfield, Pa. and dairy products from Schneider Valley Farms Dairy in Williamsport, Pa.
“It is really interesting to see that the food that is going onto our plates is coming from the farms and fields around Bucknell,” Alex Thompson ’13 said.
Not all students have taken notice of the efforts of Parkhurst to buy local produce.
“I never really noticed the signs before—I guess I do not care too much about where my food comes from,” Tyler Chadwick ’13 said.
Faculty and students raise awareness of local producers both inside and outside of the classroom. Nancy White and Janet Knoedler, both professors of economics, teach a class devoted to the mindful consumption of consumer goods, including food.
White and Knoedler both belong to a local organization dedicated to community supported agriculture (CSA). A CSA delivers a box of local, farm-fresh food to a consumer’s doorstep each week during the growing season, making it extremely simple for consumers to purchase local products.
Students in White and Knoedler’s classes spend time talking to local growers and studying the effects of food production. The final project requires students to compile a list of local producers. Students are also asked to raise awareness of local producers in the University community.
“While not everyone may care about eating local food, it is at least nice to know that is available,” Kevin Shute ’13 said.
The notion that black identity stems from the Middle Passage is an idea that too narrowly defines the black experience and identity, said an author and professor Tuesday night.
Michelle Wright, associate professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University and author of “Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora” gave the 24th annual Black Experiences Lecture that focused on black identity in America.
Referencing many acclaimed books and authors, like W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Gilroy and Henry Louis Gates, Wright said that many black writers have only discussed Africa as something of the past and have created the “notion that black is an object of history.”
According to Wright, the Middle Passage narrative, a reference to the passage of slaves from Africa to the Americas, is the widely accepted and one-dimensional characterization of blackness most Americans have today. Wright said that this concept too narrowly defines the black experience and identity.
There is a “notion that African Americans originate in the Middle Passage, and that is where [black] identity begins to form,” Wright said. “[There is a] general understanding and agreement that it is slavery that produces the ‘Black America.’”
The identity of “Black America” is extremely relevant today with the election of the Barack Obama and the constant discourse over his “blackness.”
Wright identified World War II as a better period to use to understand the formation of black identity. Wright affirmed that we should not understand World War II as the origin of blackness but understand it as a “mediating moment” in the creation of a black identity.
“We do not need to lose the Middle Passage,” Wright said. We can also start asking other questions like “what happened to black women during this time?”
“Slavery need not be the immediate touchstone” when contemplating black history and identity, Wright said. Since 1970, more Africans have arrived in the U.S. than ever arrived during the Middle Passage.
Wright spoke about the current media discourse over how Americans “read Barack Obama and his blackness.”
Obama is “exceptionally adept at picking up the fact that there are different types of blackness,” Wright said. He “separates himself from Black Americans” through the Middle Passage. His disconnect from the typical “black identity” of slavery, oppression and the Civil Rights Movement partly explains why he has achieved success as the first African American president in a white America.
“This concept of the ‘Middle Passage’ has been as empowering and as limiting as the Jewish emphasis on the Holocaust,” said Michael Drexler, associate professor of English.
“I think that one of the great lessons of the talk is the idea of the post-WWII transformation of the black identity,” he said. “White Americans have a very static view of blackness.”
Wright’s lecture, though mainly focused on black identity, also discussed the formation of identity in general, and how much of it is defined by history.
“We are so insistent in wanting the other person to see our history, to understand our identity but we will never change history to see others’ identity,” Wright said.
Students who attended expressed interest in Wright’s ideas about the history of black identity but wished that she would have devoted more discussion to the present and future.
“I found Wright’s talk thought-provoking, but it seemed that her discourse ended where I thought it would begin. She spent the majority of the time explaining the centrality of the Middle Passage narrative to the African-American identity and the importance in acknowledging alternative constructions of ‘blackness,'” Meg Erkoboni ’11 said. “This was an interesting and necessary launch point, but I thought she would explore more into present/future.”
Other students enjoyed Wright’s explanation of the origins of black identity. “I really enjoyed her discussion of how as a society even today, we are unable to comprehend how our historical identity as Americans can be rooted in the original democratic ideals of the Founding Father’s and at the same time have such negative connotations with the enslavement of Africans through the Middle Passage.”
Wright ended with a strong and contemplative question about the complexity of black identity: “So, what does it mean to be an African-America or a Black America today?”
University students and faculty, community members and guests joined together in the Kenneth Langone Athletics and Recreation Center Saturday morning to participate in the fifth annual Bucknell AIDS Walk benefiting the AIDS Resource Alliance, a local non-profit organization.
The AIDS Resource Alliance provides community support and education to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and provides assistance to those who are currently living with the disease.
The event, sponsored by the BucknellAIDS Committee, welcomed teams and individuals to participate in the walk. Various athletic and Greek organizations registered in teams, and many individuals participated with friends and hallmates.
Before the walk began, participants heard from a client of AIDS Resource in Williamsport who is HIV-positive. The client emphasized how critical it is for citizens of a community to work together to pull those who are suffering from AIDS out of misery.
“It can happen to anybody,” the client said. “Think about what you do before you act.”
The walk was a wake-up call, especially for college students and other young people. Speakers like Rick reminded University students, faculty and community members who participated in the event that people who are HIV-positive are mostly young. Carriers can be symptomless for up to 10 years before they are diagnosed with AIDS.
Signs printed with reminders lined the course and emphasized the importance of such events with respect to those suffering. Rick mentioned how uplifting this event was for him and how the great energy prevalent during Saturday morning’s event can really increase the hope for a better future.
“It did what it was supposed to do: portray the Bucknell community as supportive and empathetic towards AIDS,” Angel Hernandez ’13 said.
Howard Gardner spoke about his book, "Five Minds for the Future," in the Weis Center Sept. 15.
Student behavior at a lecture last Thursday evening has sparked ongoing discussion between faculty and students about proper decorum during presentations and classes.
According to accounts from professors and first-year students, many in the audience of Howard Gardner’s talk on “Five Minds for the Future” were disrespectful toward the speaker. First-year students were required to read Gardner’s book and attend the lecture as part of their Transition to College course.
“Some [students] were sleeping. Some were texting. Some were doing their homework,” Tamerat Feyisa ’14 said.
Mitch Chernin, professor of biology, was “appalled” at the behavior.
“I could hear a constant din within the Weis Center,” he said. “I realize that this was a required event for first-year students and many of them would have preferred doing something else at that time; however, it is not unreasonable to expect respectful behavior during a lecture.”
Mike Toole, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, noticed similar behavior from where he sat in the front row.
“I heard this coughing nonstop throughout the lecture,” he said. After seeing many people “sleeping, chattering and not paying attention,” he speculated the coughing was part of a coordinated effort through which the class expressed displeasure and boredom.
“It was just very frustrating to me,” Toole said.
The morning after the lecture, Toole spoke to other faculty members before posting a message expressing his concern about the students’ behavior on a virtual faculty forum (vforum). Besides describing the rude behavior he perceived, Toole also wrote “students cheered the first two questions simply because the questioners pointedly criticized the book and speaker without stopping to listen and reflect on whether the criticism had merit” during the question-and-answer section of the talk.
According to Toole, the message received approximately 25 replies by Monday afternoon. In addition to addressing concerns about behavior at the lecture, the posting also raised questions about the state of student behavior in general on campus.
Some faculty members believe student behavior in the classroom is not an issue as long as expectations about decorum are established at the start of class.
“In one class recently I allowed [students] to bring in their laptops, and I realized that was a mistake because that facilitated communication between them that wasn’t directed toward the class,” said David Kristjanson-Gural, associate professor of economics.
Other faculty members do not believe student behavior is an issue.
“My view from giving lectures in physics classes over the years [is] that I haven’t seen a significant change in student behavior,” said Ben Vollmayr-Lee, associate professor of physics,on the vforum.
The conversation on decorum has spread to the classroom.
Kristjanson-Gural devoted a 20-minute discussion about the lecture in the foundation seminar course he teaches. He said many students “expressed embarrassment … and disapproval of the attitude of the students who were disrespectful.”
In many Transition to College classes this week, instructors discussed the issue of decorum with first-year students.Ashley Rooney ’14 saidduring class, students were asked to fill out a survey including questions about what constitutes proper behavior and a respectful audience.
“Most kids said that the first few pages and then rest of the book had an arrogant tone,” Rooney said. ”Some kids described [the book] as pompous and said [the tone] carried throughout the lecture.”
Rooney, one of the students who questioned Gardner about the ethics of capitalism and socialism as economic systems, said she did not notice any misbehavior during the lecture, but that she believes criticism should be expected when an author writes a book based on opinion.
“I think it’s fine to ask questions and to be critical,” Rooney said. “Thomas Jefferson tells us to question boldly.”
Feyisa, a 32-year-old first-year from Ethiopia, also spoke during the question-and-answer portion and criticized the book as too “career-oriented.”
“My argument was that it was not a book that promotes intellectual virtues,” Feyisa said.
He said the book did not promote “the life of the mind … the life of the intellect” and that it did not encourage critical thinking.
Feyisa attributes the students’ behavior to a lack of engagement with the book. Before even coming to the University, Feyisa said that a discussion about the book unfolded on the “Bucknell University Class of 2014” Facebook page.
“We sort of had this cyber community,” he said. “Everybody was talking about how they hated the book.”
The book’s failure to create discourse and start controversy, he said, was the real problem behind the students’ lack of engagement and subsequent behavior during the lecture.
Several students in the audience thought their fellow students’ behavior was uncalled for.
“I thought that we owed him a lot more than we gave him. Even if we didn’t like the book, he’s still another human being, and there’s a level of respect that shouldn’t be breached,” Liane Chesek ’14 said.
Maddy Liss ’14 expressed a similar opinion about the question-and-answer part of the talk.
“I was really embarrassed,” she said. “I wanted to stand up and say something.”
No official disciplinary action has been taken. Toole believes discussions about unacceptable behavior will prevent the texting, sleeping and chatting during lectures from occurring in the future.
“We know that this was not the entire class of 2014,” Toole said. “It was just some students who felt that they didn’t need to be there.”
A whirlwind of color will soon decorate the white wall hiding the construction of the student hearth space in the Elaine Langone Center (ELC) as part of the “Paint Your Space” campaign initiated by Bucknell Student Government (BSG) and Activities and Campus Events (ACE). The wall will be divided into four parts, and each class will have the opportunity to showcase its creative talents and display Bison pride.
Each section will represent an individual class, but the four sections will come together to form a unified symbol of the University as a whole.
“As president of the class of 2014, I am personally very excited for the ‘Paint Your Space’ project,” Lindsay Smith ’14 said. “I think it is an ideal opportunity for the freshman class to collaborate on a project that is truly going to benefit the entire Bucknell community.”
While this wall gives first-year students a chance to express their early impressions of the University, it also grants other classes the opportunity to display their memories and growth as University students.
“I’m excited to see what the seniors paint on their section of the wall because they have the opportunity to show how they have grown and developed as a class here at Bucknell,” Nicole Diamantides ’14 said.
Creating the mural showcases student feelings and opinions about what it means to be a University student.
“It’ll be cool to see how different people reinterpret the mural,” Samantha Lara ’13 said. “Each class has different talents that will be exemplified from the new mural.”
Planning meetings took place the week of Sept. 20 and official mural proposals are due today. The actual painting of the mural will take place Sept. 27 to Sept. 30 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Elaine Langone Center mall.
The official presentation of the completed mural will take place Oct. 1.
Each tree in the arboretum is numbered and labeled with biological information.
A group of students and professors has worked to install the new arboretum on campus in an effort to help the University community learn about and appreciate the many different types of trees on campus.
All of the trees marked with orange numbered plaques are part of the University’s new campus arboretum. An offshoot of the Campus Greening Initiative, the project was designed to maintain and promote sustainability for the campus landscape.
The arboretum was envisioned as a place where students and faculty could learn about botany, ecology and environmental sustainability. President Bravman will preside at the arboretum’s official unveiling at 11 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 1 in the Grove.
Over the last three summers Bobby Mullin ’11 and Nick Gonsalves ’11 worked with Mark Spiro, associate professor of biology,and Duane Griffin, associate professor of geography, to identify, catalog and measure the diameters, breasts and heights of more than 1,700 trees on campus. This comprehensive inventory can be viewed in an interactive map.
The project’s centerpiece is the half-mile walking tour that highlights 73 trees on campus. The walking tour extends throughout the entire campus, including the Grove, a remaining portion of a large forest that dates to the 1770s.
“I’ve already used some of the data from the project to explain the historical origins of the Grove,” Gonsalves said. “I hope this data keeps the University accountable for what it plants—and removes—with an emphasis on favoring native species better adapted to the local environment.”
The group has done other work on the new arboretum, including collecting herbarium samples, which involves cutting off parts of the tree and drying them, and creating individual web pages for the 95 tree species in the arboretum.
The question pending for the arboretum is what will happen after the seniors who have spearheaded the project graduate. While Griffin and Spiro will remain involved, they will need more student volunteers to keep the project alive.
“We will need people, hopefully some kind of full-time position, to keep the arboretum going because there are day-to-day challenges I do deal with,” Gonsalves said.
“For instance, just the other day, a tree tour post was taken from the ground, and now we have to go through the effort of reinstalling it. Another issue is the tree plaques themselves. The plastic has started to bend due to the stress of the hot weather we’ve had in the past weeks. Obviously this can be remedied, but only if people keep working on the project,” Gonslaves said.
With a growing interest in the green movement on campus, the founders of the arboretum may not have a problem finding caretakers. Patrick O’Keefe ’13, vice president of the Bucknell Environmental Club, believes the arboretum will have ardent supporters on campus.
“I think this project will be very beneficial for the University community. Not only will students be able to learn more about the environment, but they’ll also learn how to appreciate our environment,” O’Keefe said.
Gonsalves hopes students will attend the official unveiling on Oct. 1.
“We encourage any ecologist, tree fanatic or just somebody with just a slight interest in gardening to come,” he said. “I hope there will be plenty of educational opportunities coming from the arboretum besides the obvious ‘Oh, I’ve always liked that tree and now I know it’s a white oak.’”
Many students spent last summer in Lewisburg working alongside their professors to further their learning experience. Subject matter, experiments and research varied across the board as students took on projects and studies. Not only did the students break new ground in their chosen fields, they also came one step closer to answering that ever-present question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Various departments were represented on campus this summer as University students explored different areas of research pertaining to their respective interests.
Computer science engineer Aurimas Liutikas ’12 worked on an Apple application for the University during his time on campus.
“I was working on the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad application for University students and visitors. It [will be launched] sometime this fall. It has such features as campus map, Bucknell Directory and dining menus,” Liutikas said.
“It was really exciting to get hands on experience with a project that involves the entire Bucknell community. I got a great feel of [what] a real-world job is going to be like as I had to deal with Bucknell administration, testers and team members (my professor),” Liutikas said.
When Liutikas applied to the University, one of the possible application questions was how to bridge the University community with the world. Liutikas hopes that students will be able to better bridge the gap between the University community and the surrounding world.
An important part of summer research on campus is the opportunity students have to explore their interests and learn to apply them in a real setting. Ally Hopper ’11 also hopes to bring the knowledge she has gained from her summer research project to the world within and beyond the bubble.
“I was doing research with Professor Flack in the psychology department, helping him with his research on sexual assault as well as getting a head start on my thesis proposal for this year,” Hopper said.
Music and religion were also prominent subjects being studied this past summer on campus.
“My research this summer was focused on John Coltrane’s musical development post-1965 and how his spiritual studies effected this development. Almost all of his music in this two-year period—he died in 1967—was spiritually oriented and is linked into the various religious and spiritual traditions he studied, including but not limited to Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and some forms of Cosmology,” Nick Horner ’11 said.
Summer research projects at the University give students a chance to pursue knowledge in a chosen field that may one day help them decide their plans for the future, as well as connect them more so to their surrounding communities today.
“[Summer research] has given me the chance to develop a keen understanding of this music and to solidify a path of scholarship that I may be taking into my graduate studies. Likewise, knowing this biographical information and musical repertoire has allowed me to communicate more effectively with artists and scholars within the jazz realm,” Horner said.
Hopper agreed and is grateful for her experience and is excited for what the future may hold.
“By doing research over the summer and continuing with it during the school year, I’ve begun to figure out what I want to do with my life. I’m not sure that I necessarily want to continue on with research in psychology as a career path, but I am hoping to get a job where I can apply my knowledge of sexual assault on college campuses and in the real world,” Hopper said.
A panel of professors discussed the relationships and conflicts between science and faith Friday, Sept. 10 in Walls Lounge, coming to the conclusion that science does not necessarily have to do with morality, and that it is not cold-hearted. The solution to this controversy, they said, is to consider respect and compassion while teaching subjects relating to faith and science.
Professor of psychology and neuroscience David Evans began the lecture stating that some scientific and theological ideas are mutually exclusive; in other words, either a god created the universe or a god did not create the universe. Evans explained people may adapt or adopt particular aspects of an established religion (i.e. “Cafeteria Catholics”), and not all religions conform to the general and commonly acknowledged definitions of religion.
Evans believes the religion a person follows has a great impact on policies like global warming, stem cell research and vaccinations. He said religious and supernatural beliefs hold similar aspects in common. They “elude scientific evidence and do not welcome empirical scrutiny,” he said.
“Science is not just another form of faith, but the process by which we test our assumptions to determine whether our beliefs about the world are more or less accurate,” Evans said.
Evans believes anxiety and uncertainty lead people to “false positives.” “It only makes sense that humans cling to such beliefs that help them during uncertain periods of time,” he said.
Richard Crago, professor of civil and environmental engineering, spoke as a devoted Christian. He said faith and science are compatible and enrich each other.
“Knowing God is real knowledge, and God is a friend that will never let us down,” Crago said. He explained that science has to do with the material world. “However, God did, indeed, create that world,” Crago said.
Crago said people may disagree on interpretations of scientific evidence, but differences (and acceptance of those differences) in beliefs and religion come into play.
According to Crago, the statement “God is separate from the physical world” is a false dichotomy. Crago claimed God created us with a purpose: love. He also said people must learn about nature, a separate purpose, through science.
David Fletcher, a member of the biology department, clearly separated science and faith. He defined natural law as the knowledge we can all agree upon (i.e. chemistry), and said there are no equivalent laws of faith.
Fletcher raised many controversial questions, such as “Who created God?” He also questioned God as both a Creator and as a sustainer.
Fletcher finished his speech with the idea of tolerance. “Everyone and anyone can chose what to believe, what to take part of, yet with religion comes responsibility,” he said.
Associate professor of English Alf Siewers, the last of the panel, said that the secret of life is experience, and that Creation is a beautiful concept, not corrupt, and renewed everyday.
Siewers framed scientific metaphysics as the opposite of experiential and empirical. Siewers believes through the arts, sciences, and most importantly through love, we must embrace the mystery of the world that is both symbolic and real.
Jason Leddington, assistant professor of philosophy, spoke on the necessity to critically reflect on our own beliefs.
“As part of a liberal arts education, it is pedagogically irresponsible for us to not take up this topic of religion and science, and to discuss and teach. Dogmatism and relativism are dangerous, especially when chosen over critical thought, for relativistic viewpoints stunt learning. We need balance, humility and mutual respect. Most importantly, it is more than necessary to continuously have our ‘critical faculties engaged,’” Leddington said.
