Category: News

Christina Oddo

News Editor

The Gulden Runners Affinity Housing Program hosted the first Gulden 5K run/walk this past Sunday. The race was $5 for individual runners or $20 for teams of 5, and all of the proceeds went to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Gift bags with goodies were awarded to the top finishers of teams and of individual categories based on age and gender. The course was across campus, starting and ending at the field house, including the soccer fields.

“The goals of the race are to promote running to our campus community and to raise money for cancer research, all in the memory of the late Cross Country and Track and Field Coach Art Gulden who died in May of 2001 after battling Lymphoma for over 10 years,” Abby Gulden-Luthi, the Gulden Runners Affinity adviser said. “The race was attended by some alumni who ran for Coach Gulden including Ron Hess, Jessica Hess and Brian Harshman. Other Bucknell cross country and track and field alumni came to support the runners and some alumni children ran in the race. Race staffers included life-long friends of Coach Gulden.”

 

Eric Balaban ’14, the Gulden Affinity House Leader, helped initiate the planning and execute the race.

 

“Given the conditions, we were thrilled with the race’s attendance,” Balaban said. “We had about 80 people sign up which is outstanding for our first try in putting on a 5K. More importantly, we were about to raise over $700 for leukemia research in Art Gulden’s memory which is impressive considering the registration fee was only $5 per person.”

 

According to Balaban, the race itself ran really smoothly. An official timing system was set up for the race, and Public Safety officers were stationed at various intersections directing traffic.

 

“Many participants commented on how comfortable they were that they weren’t going to get lost because we did such a good job directing the race,” Balaban said. “Afterward, the participants enjoyed a free food table and recognition of the top finishers, including Chris Sacks ’14 who finished first for college men and Claire Buhr ’15 who finished first for college women.”

 

“Running to support a good cause with some of my best friends was a lot of fun,” Buhr said. “It was great to get out on a nice Sunday morning and race with members of the Lewisburg community and other Bucknellians.”

“I think the race went really well, I am glad that a lot of people came out to support the cause,” Sacks said. “The men’s XC team did a great job organizing the run. The win was a lot of fun and I look forward to racing in future events that the XC team put together.”

 

According to Balaban, the Gulden 5k Campus Run/Walk is already being planned for next year, although it may be moved to the fall.

 

“We got stellar participation this year, particularly from Bucknell staff and the women’s cross country team, but we really want to get more students involved next year,” Balaban said.

 

“Next year we are hoping to move this race to Homecoming Weekend to encourage more participation from alumni and their families,” Abby Gulden-Luthi said. “We hope to add kid races as well as tshirts and perhaps a catered brunch post-race.”

 

Balaban thanks the Gulden Affinity members, Abby Gulden-Luthi and Residential Education for granting the budget.

Sarah Antonacci

Contributing Writer

World-renowned sexpert Tristan Taormino spoke to University students about how to improve their sexual experiences. She discussed topics such as masturbation, orgasms, sex toys, anal sex and more in an event open to the public and hosted by FLAG&BT, with the help of the Women’s Resource Center and Dean of Students Susan Lantz.

Taormino focused on how to bring pleasure to sexual encounters, and her talk took account for different gender and sexual orientations. Taormino looked to bring sex into a positive and healthy light. 

“I think the subject material of the lecture is generally shocking to a lot of people, but I think Tristan handled it with grace and humor,” Lindsay Allardyce ’14, one of the leading organizers of the event, said.

The lecture was interactive, comprised of explanations of anatomy, as well as fun facts, myths and truths. She also had a trivia section and winning students won prizes.

“I really enjoyed the event because Tristan was so open about sex,” Maddie Pucciarello ’14 said.

“In part, the success is gauged by the attendance, but it’s also gauged by the audience reaction to Tristan,” Sam Lauer ’13 said. “She was captivating, funny, honest (sometimes brutally) and engaging. She kept us on our toes and provided us the sex education we should have been receiving since elementary school.”

Many students were open to volunteering, which helped the audience members learn more and have fun at the same time.

“The most interesting part was probably the anonymous Q&A section,” Allardyce said. “She passed out note cards and students wrote down questions they had about sex. It was also really cool how many people felt they could finally ask a question about sex that they had never asked before and get a real answer. Also, no one felt alone because everyone really wanted these questions answered.”

Allardyce, vice president, and Lauer, the diversity master, represented FLAG&BT and co-organized the event.

“I wanted to organize this event because I have seen some of the unhealthy sexual habits of students at Bucknell,” Allardyce said. “It was really important to me that myself and my peers get the opportunity to learn how to have more fulfilling sexual experiences in college that involve more communication and pleasure. I also wanted to get students talking openly about sex, and not be afraid of being stigmatized for it.”

Both Allardyce and Lauer said the event was a huge success. Lauer said that the forum was packed and all of the seats were filled to the point where students and faculty had to sit on the steps and on the floor. Lauer also said that mostly students attended.

“She included a lot of emphasis on safe, communicative, consensual sex throughout the presentation,” Lauer said. “I think her talk was eye-opening, and most of all empowering. It felt so good to hear sex talked about openly and most importantly honestly. I am so grateful to Tristan for traveling to Pennsylvania to speak to Bucknell. We really needed it.”

Next year Allardyce hopes to run more sex positive events, whether that means doing another lecture or opening up a student-facilitated dialogue.

 

Jackson McCarron

Writer

At the Bucknell Student Government (BSG) congress meeting on April 21, Public Safety Chief Steve Barilar delivered a report detailing all crime and incidents during this year’s House Party Weekend.

According to the list, theft and underage consumption were the two most frequent violations of the weekend, with 15 and 10 registered counts, respectively.

The list also enumerated one noise complaint, five counts of criminal mischief, five counts of public drunkenness, three counts of harassment, one sexual assault-indecent, six alcohol overdose transports and four drug law violations. The noise complaint was registered by a resident of the Bucknell View Mobile Home Park in Milton.

Broken windows in Harris Hall resulted in one charge of criminal mischief to an individual not affiliated with the University. Two separate individuals were also charged with criminal mischief for allegedly causing damage to vehicles.

Charges of harassment and sexual assault are still being investigated.

Although many of these statistics seem grim, it is worth mentioning that the University is not the only University that can lay claim to a riotous weekend. Bloomsburg University boasts a similar annual tradition.

This past weekend, Bloomsburg University celebrated Block Party Weekend. During the festivities, local Bloomsburg police found it necessary to deploy an armored riot control vehicle to disperse a crowd of intoxicated party-goers on a Bloomsburg city street.

A video posted on BloomUtoday.com captured large crowds of students throwing bottles at the vehicle while the police used smoke canisters. Students can be heard in the video chanting “USA! USA!” as a police officer on top of the vehicle is apparently hit with a bottle.

In his meeting with BSG, Barilar said of House Party Weekend and the Bloomsburg riot, “If you think about what is happening 25 miles east of us, I guess we aren’t that bad.”

Susan Lantz, Dean of Students at the University, also weighed in on the recent statistics. In an email sent in response to questions about the administration’s reaction to the release of the violation from House Party Weekend Lantz said, “Although we are pleased with attendance at these events and pleased with examples of students caring for each other, we are disappointed in the statistics … We are currently evaluating what can be done to address the negative behaviors and consequences associated with House Party weekend.”

The administration is not yet discussing plans to change House Party Weekend.

“It’s just too early to discuss next steps because we are still evaluating this year’s events,” Lantz said.

Ethan Zubkoff Contributing Writer

William M. Fierman News Editor

Bucknell Student Government (BSG) will vote on a measure on April 28 that would help bring frozen yogurt, otherwise known as “froyo,” to the Bison dining area in the Elaine Langone Center as early as this summer.

The measure would allocate $15,000 for the purchase of new furniture and renovations to area of the Bison currently occupied by booths under the condition that the University provide the cash needed for bringing frozen yogurt to the Bison. University administration has shown willingness to fund the large refrigeration equipment required, and approached the BSG Executive Board two weeks ago requesting that they contribute funds for the project, BSG President Loren Jablon ’15 said.

The large equipment would occupy the elevated stage area in the Bison. Assuming approval by the BSG congress, installation of the equipment and renovations of other areas of the Bison could begin this summer.

“The froyo initiative is very likely to pass … provided there are no financial issues,” Class Representative Mike Schwartz ’16 said.

Talk of bringing frozen yogurt to campus has existed since at least 2010, when former Vice President of Operations Ali Jones ’11 initiated the discussion among the Student Affairs Committee. The initiative has been discussed by almost every student government since, though the large price tags of the required equipment as well as maintenance costs have continuously posed a problem.

Tech Desk tips

Brianna Marshall

Contributing Writer

Finals week is approaching and with it comes neverending computer usage for both studying and procrastinating. Unfortunately, University students may be susceptible to a lack of security for private information while online. Luckily, the support group at Library & Information Technology (L&IT) has some helpful tips for keeping finals week as secure and stress-free as possible.

1. Back up and secure data. Google Drive is offered through all BMail accounts, and for personal laptops, a secondary back-up source is ideal.
2. Keep passwords safe. Change passwords frequently and do not use the same password for multiple accounts or sites. While it may be tempting to give passwords to friends, keeping passwords secret is one of the easiest ways to maintain account privacy.
3. Never leave your laptop unattended and/or unsecured. Laptops are not the way to save your study space in the library.
4. Always logout of applications such as MyBucknell. As University students know, all student information is located in this one place.
5. Keep software up to date. While annoying, software notifications can be very beneficial.

Of course, accidents always happen, so this list is not a foolproof guide. Remember that the Tech Desk is always a valuable resource. For more tips on staying safe online go to http://www.staysafeonline.org/stay-safe-online. Happy studying!

Brianna Marshall

Contributing Writer

Environmental sustainability is an area of concern today, with increasing pressure to find solutions to human impact on the environment. While initiatives on a global scale are the focus of widespread media attention, the University community is actively participating in the discussion of responsible care for the environment and its many resources. Leading the movement is Dina El-Mogazi, director of the Campus Greening Initiative.

The Campus Greening Initiative has been instituted to improve the environmental sustainability of the University campus by involving students, faculty and staff in educational and innovational pursuits. Projects such as obtaining Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for new buildings on campus and promoting recycling on residence halls are accomplishments made by 75 individuals involved in the Campus Greening council.

Sustainability extends beyond issues of pollution and recycling to factors that are more student-focused, such as food waste. The Campus Greening Initiative is responsible for sponsoring a food audit where wasted food from cafeteria plates is weighed and assessed. It is El-Mogazi who is most in touch with the environmental issues of the “Bucknell bubble.”

El-Mogazi describes her work with students as being extremely important to the success of the Campus Greening Initiative. The Environmental Connections requirement within the College Core Curriculum is evidence of the involved work that has been conducted to involve students with the issues of environment and sustainability. Additionally, student eco-reps have been instituted to promote involvement and campus knowledge about the campus commitment to environmentally friendly solutions.

“The projects I enjoy the most are what I call SEED projects (Sustainable Energy and Ecological Design),” El-Mogazi said. “These are educational demonstration scale projects that involve student and faculty research and also provide models of good environmental practices on campus. Some of the SEED projects I’ve worked on include the native plants garden at the Environmental Center, the green roof on Dana Engineering, the new wind turbine adjacent to the water tower and the new rain garden at the Environmental Center. Work on these projects is particularly rewarding because I get to help students leave a sustainable legacy on the campus.”

Siobhan Murray

Staff Writer

Doug Bogan ’13 and the Bucknell Community Conversation Committee sponsored the second Bucknell “Rage Crew” community conversation titled “Do the members of the Bucknell community really know one another: What do we want Bucknell to be?” on April 18. Over the two-hour session, over 200 participants, a group comprised of students, faculty and staff, addressed the divisions that exist between different constituent groups on campus and brainstormed ways to unite the campus and community.

This event differed from last semester’s conversation since it was open to all members of the University community, whereas last semester’s event was “for students, by students” and primarily focused on the student behavior and culture at the University. The goal of the event was to develop “action steps” that would help the community interact with one another.

The Community Conversation project started at the University in Spring 2012, when Bogan approached the school administration with the idea of a student-led, student-attended discussion to build upon aspects of the Campus Climate Report released in Fall 2011. The first of the conversations, held in November 2012 and titled “The Bucknell ‘Rage Crew’: Is This Who We Really Are?” was an open forum where students from all class years gathered to discuss campus culture issues important to our community. These issues ranged from alcohol to the Greek system to housing on campus. How to balance academics and social life was also brought up and discussions surrounding what it means to be a member of the University community were popular.

Over 150 students concluded the evening by presenting their views and proposing potential action steps to address these issues, to Provost Mick Smyer, Dean of Students Susan Lantz and a majority of the school’s administration. Throughout that discussion, students discussed the elitist, Greek and party-focused culture on campus and articulated “action steps” to unify the entire campus body, reconsider Uptown, reassess meaningful extracurricular student engagement and re-emphasize intellectual engagement.

“The experiences gave me different perspectives on how conversation, both formally and informally, can help express ideas and generate new ones,” Julie Uptegraff ’14, a moderator for the event last semester and a participant this semester, said.

This semester, leaders of the event invited all members of the University community, including students, faculty, staff, members of Public Safety and President John Bravman to look at the University in a much broader framework.

“Overall, we had about 17 professors and staff members across campus that took part in our moderator training sessions,” Alaina Eisenhooth ’13, one of the event’s leaders, said.

The University’s administration is already taking action to effect changes identified during the discussion, keeping students and the campus community apprised of developments along the way, Lantz said.

“I can say that the school administration was extremely pleased with how the event went and is very supportive of the action steps that were brainstormed last Thursday,” Bogan said.

Participants came up with numerous “action steps” that will be presented to Lantz by the end of this week. These ideas focus on uniting members of all affinities together to lessen the divide among members of the community. Among the ideas are coordinating more ways for students, faculty, staff and alumni to engage with one another through mentoring programs, social events, volunteer initiatives, intramurals and community-wide events, expanding the First Year Foundation Seminar and including faculty in First Year Orientation. Another idea involves “First Fives,” in which faculty would spend the first five minutes of class time talking with students about a topic of their interest.

Participants also proposed “action steps” focusing on ways for the community to interact over meals by expanding dining options for fraternity members to engage with other students and faculty beyond classroom and party settings, hosting “Dinner With 12 Strangers” and creating Affinity Tables in the cafeteria for students and faculty to come together.

Participants explored ways to change the University’s infrastructure by creating non-Greek social spaces, reworking the Message Center feature of MyBucknell, creating organization charts of academic department staff to make faculty and staff more transparent and accountable to students’ needs and expanding interest housing on campus.

“Action steps” also addressed the Greek and non-Greek divide on campus and proposed moving Greek recruitment to spring of first year, lengthening the Greek rush period and encouraging faculty involvement at Greek-sponsored community service and social events.

“[These items are] very encouraging and I think we can expect that many will be acted on, if they are not already in the planning stages,” Lisa Bogan ’78, Doug Bogan’s mother, said in an email after the event.

Doug Bogan, Lisa Bogan and Eisenhooth plan to oversee the program next year and will particularly focus on ways to increase attendance at the events and transition the leadership to underclassmen.

“I feel that both events were well-received by the Bucknell community, resulting in good attendance and a long list of feasible and creative action steps to improve on the University’s campus climate components,” Eisenhooth said. “Personally, I am a huge supporter of the community conversation model, and I hope that Bucknell faculty and students feel the same way and continue planning these types of events once I graduate.”

“I think Community Conversation is a well-developed, constructive and successful conversation model that we can use to accomplish change,” Jen Lassen ’15, a moderator at the event, said. “Right now, our campus needs to find better ways to connect students and faculty/staff, as well as some issues in terms of Greek Life and drinking culture … I have no doubt that our campus is headed in the right direction.”

 

Kerong Kelly

Writer 

The word “involved” does not even begin to describe the level of dedication Doug Bogan ’13 has shown to the University and to the community throughout the past four years. From Wilton, Conn., Bogan is a student of both music and electrical engineering with a wide range of extracurricular interests.

On Nov. 29, 2012, Bogan led the first student-only discussion about the Campus Climate Report. The event, titled “The Bucknell ‘Rage Crew:’ is this all we really are?” was created in response to a lack of student participation in the conversation, regarding issues on campus. Bogan and his mother, Lisa Bogan ’78, an active member of the Alumni Board, formulated the idea to host this event in such a community conversation model.

“It’s all action step oriented, working towards progress rather than just talking about the issue,” Bogan said. “I feel like any change should come from the bottom up.”

“Doug is a talented and involved student leader on campus,” Dean of Students Susan Lanz said. “His list of accomplishments is long and varied. What I respect most about Doug is his dedication to making a difference on Bucknell’s campus. The two successful Community Conversations that occurred this academic year (November 2012 and April 2013) were due to his hard work and dedication. He is empowering community members to make the changes necessary to improve our campus climate. Doug has worked across the normal Bucknell boundaries to bring together all community members for the single purpose of improving the Bucknell he loves.”

Bogan was vice president for the Class of 2013 Bucknell Student Government, but has participated in many other ways across campus. Throughout his time at the University, Bogan was also a Concert Committee member, a student member of the University’s Alumni Board, the special events coordinator for the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and is currently the pianist in a jazz band. This is only half of the extracurricular activities Bogan has been a part of during his time here.

In addition to his efforts geared towards improving the University community, Bogan has brought people together in various venues and settings through his music. Shortly after the Sandy Hook School tragedy, Bogan and friends from his hometown of Wilton decided to organize a non-profit benefit concert to unite members of Newtown and Fairfield, Conn. The concert, titled “Come Together For Newtown,” was sponsored in part by the Wilton YMCA. Some of the genres of local artists who played at the concert included folk, jazz and metal. Bogan also performs two for-profit concerts a year in New York City.

As a result of the unprecedented turnout at “Come Together For Newtown,” Bogan and his friends, Mike Drogalis, Mario Baggio and Melody Curran, were able to donate to the Newtown Scholarship Association, a fund that provides a scholarship that enables a graduating Newtown senior who attended Sandy Hook Elementary School to go to college. Bogan will attend the graduation and award ceremony in June. Last week, Bogan’s concert was nominated for a grant, winning third place and $1,000 to add to the Newtown Scholarship Fund.

In the future, Bogan hopes to work in engineering consulting and renewable energy. In January 2014, Bogan will be spending three months in France working for a renewable energy company.

“I have a lot of interests,” Bogan said. “I know I want to be working with people and I know I don’t want to do the design side of engineering so I will probably be in engineering consulting in some capacity.”

Christina Oddo

Aaron Mitchel, assistant professor of psychology, and Swanson Fellow in the Sciences and Engineering, is currently researching how we depend on more than sound to figure out what someone else is saying. On Mitchel’s Faculty Story page on the University Website, Mitchel describes that the way we react when we cannot understand what someone is saying, whether due to background noise or to the presence of a different language, begins to explain that more exists beyond auditory signals.

“We don’t live in just an auditory environment,” Mitchel said on his page. “We typically have multiple senses interacting, with very important and very rich cues coming from visual input.”

Mitchel believes we can use facial information to help figure out where a word begins and ends—this task becomes difficult because speech is a “constant flow.” Visual cues can also be used to help distinguish words that people often say differently based on sound.

Mitchel’s research is explaining how we perceive speech depending on whom we think is speaking. Mitchel came to this by having subjects distinguish ambiguous sounds coming from different speakers.

Such research can potentially and positively affect those with hearing impairments, for example. The understanding of visual cues may help these people look to overcome such challenges.

“First we have to do the basic research to know what the important visual cues are,” Mitchel said on the website.

After this, parents could potentially be trained, for example, to accentuate important visual cues to help children.

Mitchel is currently working with students Laina Lusk ’13, Adrienne Wendling ’13, Chris Paine ’14 and Alex Maclay ’15 in the lab.

Mitchel is focusing his research on using an eye-tracker to identify which facial cues are being used by listeners to learn word boundaries.

“For example, we know we use facial cues more when we’re in a noisy environment (you can think of trying to understand someone in a crowded restaurant–to understand someone you need to look at their face, and specifically look at their mouth), and so in the future I hope to introduce noise to the audio stream to see how that changes the recruitment of facial cues,” Mitchel said. “This may, much further down the road, have implications for individuals with cochlear implants, who have great difficulty segmenting speech on the basis of auditory cues.”

Mitchel became interested in this research topic based on his previous research on language acquisition. Mitchel noticed that this field was exclusively focused on the auditory input to learners, and recognized that there is more to language than this.

In order to fully comprehend the environment in which we learn, Mitchel believes it is more than necessary to consider all of the input available for language learners. This concept stood out the most for Mitchel when he attended a talk at the major conference on language development.

“The presenters were showing a video of a parent-infant interaction, and they only described the nature of the auditory input (it was a study on infant-directed speech), even though right there in the video the infant was fixated on the mother’s face, intently watching every lip movement and head bob,” Mitchel said. “Clearly, infant directed speech wasn’t just about shaping the auditory input, there was something very important going on in the face! Indeed, a study (by different authors–I wish I had thought of this) in 2010 found that speech-relevant facial cues are exaggerated in infant directed speech, suggesting an important learning benefit for visual speech.”

This is just one line of Mitchel’s research, and he looks to expand these ideas in future studies.

Christina Oddo

The annual Bison Bruiser, an urban obstacle race, took place on April 14 at 10 a.m. It was hosted by the Outdoor Education and Leadership and sponsored by BuckWild, the Bucknell Outing Club and CLIMBucknell. The event took place across campus as well as downtown.

The Bison Bruiser is a relay adventure race where participants jump, bike, paddle and run throughout campus and town to find clues that eventually lead the groups to a celebration. Food and beverages were served in the Smith parking lot throughout race day.

“I was on the committee that helped organize the event along with at least 10 other Outing Club members,” Rebekah Hupp ’13 said. “It was a lot of work to prepare for, but the event was definitely a success. We had a good turnout for the event, especially on a busy Bucknell weekend. Every group that came to my station seemed enthusiastic and happy to be participating.”

Registration began March 25, and people were able to sign up in groups of four or five. The event was also free and t-shirts were available for purchase.

“It was great to see Bucknell students getting outside and running around campus,” Hupp said. “I had multiple people text me saying that they saw people running around and that it looked like fun. Thanks to everyone that participated! A special thanks should go to Liz Semeraro ’16, Monica Herzog ’13 and Tony Stafford (Director of Outdoor Education) for the hours that they put into organizing the event. Also, for all of our volunteers on race day. They made the day work!”