The Bucknellian

By Carleen Boyer

Contributing Writer

All members of Haitian society in the rebuilding of the country rather than only the higher status individuals, said a performance artist and anthropologist on Monday.

Gina Ulysse, who was born in Haiti but has since become a United States citizen and professor, gave a performance titled “Because When God is Too Busy: Haiti, Me, and the World” in Bucknell Hall on Monday night. Ulysse’s performance combined spoken word and song into a narrative about the problems facing Haiti.

“The biggest problem Haiti has is that people are not asking the people on the ground what they want, but the people who want to participate don’t have access to participation,” Ulysse said.

Ulysse became a citizen of the United States in 2005. She graduated with a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Michigan and is currently a professor at Wesleyan University. She has written multiple books on Haiti and continues to spread awareness of the societal issues there. Her performance on Monday incorporated personal stories and experiences.

Through her descriptive words, Ulysse made a strong connection with the audience. She included facts in the performance, stating at one point that over 300,000 people perished in the earthquake.

“If you’re going to be honest about change, you have to realize nothing goes on forever,” she said.

In Haiti, 44 percent of people drink untreated water daily, while 75 percent live in hunger. Twenty-eight percent of Haitian families are without shelter.

“Who’s suffering? The same people that have always suffered,” Ulysse said.

“Ulysse’s goal is to bring to light some of the complexities of life in Haiti, including the dynamics of class and gender,” said Coralynn Davis, associate professor of women’s and gender studies and anthropology.

In one part of her performance, she told the story of how only pure white sugar was presented on the tables of restaurants rather than the brown, unrefined sugar.

“Raw sugar had no place on tables–it was colored,” she said. She used this as an example of racial discrimination that she faced.

Nicole Meyers ’11 commented on the unique nature of the performance.

“The audience felt her calls, her chanting and her stories. The performance was not intended to be watched, it was meant to be experienced alongside Ulysee,” she said.

Ulysse integrated current events as dispatches from people living in Haiti throughout her performance. In one dispatch, dated August 5, 2010, “Horror has become an everyday commodity.”

Following the performance, a question-and-answer session allowed audience members to contribute their reactions and thoughts on the issues that UIysse presented.

“The U.S. has had a hand in helping to create many of the problems that Haiti has, but we only see ourselves in the role of savior and rescuer when things go wrong,” Davis said.

Through her work, Ulysse strives to raise awareness of truths of Haiti and to dispel misconceptions.

“She emphasized the impact the media has on perceptions of Haiti, which usually oversimplify social, racial and economic issues that stem back to colonialism,” Haley Thomas ’14 said.

By Olesya Minina

Contributing Writer

The University’s poet-in-residence for the spring semester presented readings from her past as well as new collections of works, which drew from issues such as identity, race mixing, African American hardships, sorrow and heritage on Tuesday at the Stadler Center for Poetry in Bucknell Hall.

Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi to a white father and black mother. Her poems reveal the African American struggle for freedom that illuminate the “fraught aspects of America’s past” which are also a “present talisman against forgetting.”

Tretheway opened her emotionally-charged reading with two poems from her 2007 Pultizer Prize winning poetry collection “Native Guard” (2006). In these first two readings, Trethewey spoke on issues of heritage and identity change and said there is an “impossibility of returning home” because we change forever and “home is not the same.”

She also captivated listeners with graphic poems that expressed grief and sorrow pertaining to the poet’s personal experiences, such as her mother’s death and close relationship with her father.

“Trethewey’s gorgeous Pulitzer book ‘Native Guard,’ which I love, contains beautiful formal virtuosity combined with heartbreaking cultural and personal gravitas in relation to her mother,” said Saundra Morris, Professor of English.

The rest of the readings came from the poet’s working collection “Thrall.” Many of the poems were inspired by the Spanish Colonial art that emphasized race mixing and the hardships and identity questions that stem from being an individual being “mixed.”

The colonial paintings, which displayed people of mixed race and their families, combined “image and language together” which inspired Trethewey to write about different skin “tints” and the identity struggle that people of mixed races feel due to the burdens of “taxonomy.”

This aspect also refers to the mixed African Americans and their struggle for identity, which Threthewey also vividly presented to the audience in some of her readings.

“Tretheway’s combination of imagery, history and personal experiences were truly inspiring and moving,” Elizabeth Ziebarth ’14 said.

Trethewey concluded her emotional and diverse readings with detailed poems of sorrow and reminiscence of her close relationship with her father and a unexpected poem of the unique relationship between a reader and a slightly annotated book found in a library.

President John Bravman was in attendance at the reading.

“Natasha Trethewey provided a stunning reminder of the power of language. Her evocations moved me deeply, and some of her words will never be forgotten. It’s a privilege to have someone of Trethewey’s stature visiting Bucknell. I was thrilled to see such a strong turnout by our students, and I can only hope that they, too, feel enriched by their hour away from normal routines. These are the moments that help make for an extraordinary education,” Bravman said.

Trethewey is the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Emory University. Her first poetry collection, Domestic Work (2000), won the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet, the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. Her second poetry collection Bellocq’s Ophelia (2002) was named a Notable Book for 2003 by the American Library Association.

She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard.

Her works have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, New England Review, Gettysburg Review, The Best American Poetry 2000 and 2003 and other publications.

By Eliza Macdonald

Contributing Writer

“Diversity according to Family Guy and South Park” is a surprising title to most college students, but those in attendance found that the innovative speaker was able to uncover, in common television shows, most of the valuable lessons parents need to teach their children. He urged students to engage in conversation about what goes on around them and not give tacit consent to the things that occur in their world.

Matt Glowacki gave his presentation on diversity to a group of students in the Elaine Langone Center forum this past Monday evening. Glowacki was born without legs; he said doctors could never find an explanation why. That has not stopped this speaker in the least.

“Diversity is not just noticing difference in people, it’s taking the time to learn from other peoples’ differences,” Glowacki said.

After introducing himself and explaining his background, Glowacki assured the audience that everything else is there and works just fine, with a wink.

Glowacki used Family Guy and South Park to show that relevant TV shows can teach important lessons, if viewers allow them to. Through three clips from these shows, he touched on lookism (discrimination against or prejudice towards others based on their appearance), ableism (discrimination against people with physical disabilities), and racism (discrimination against race).

“I liked that you learned throughout the entire thing. His message went throughout his entire presentation,” Sarah Dubow ’13 said.

Bringing these ideas to this generation seems a challenging feat, but through the use of popular media Glowacki proved that although most American families spend only seven minutes a day having meaningful conversations and an average of 55 minutes watching TV daily, important values could still be taught.

He argued that through satire and parody, the television shows Family Guy and South Park teach subtle lessons.

“When you laugh, you’re processing the information, you’ve thought it through,” Glowacki said.

At the end of the presentation, Glowacki asked that the people in attendance stand up against tacit consent. Tacit consent is seeing injustice being done and doing nothing to stop it.

“Look directly at your friend and say, ‘When you say things like that, it makes it really hard for me to be your friend,’” Glowacki said. Standing up to people you know and explaining to them the issue behind their insult is fighting terrorism, Glowacki said. Terrorism happens everyday in this country by what people say to one another.

Besides the “-isms” that Glowacki focused on, he also touched on the issue of language. He argued that a word is just a word until someone says it’s a bad word. Once someone adds intent and context to a word, it can be interpreted in a new way. Language is the agreement on the meaning of words.

He also gave a good amount of factual evidence about why the number of persons with disabilities is on the rise: veterans.

Provost Mick Smyer, who attended not only out of interest but also because the Office of the Provost was a contributor to the speaker, commented that he was struck at the amount of factual evidence he provided with great detail.

“Whether it was the history of the BMI or the rate of casualties among returning vets, which is really high, and I was glad that he introduced that into the discussion. I was glad that Bucknell students already knew that this [increase in persons with disabilities] were veterans because that’s a big ongoing responsibility that our society is going to have for years to come,” he said.

“Tolerance is crap,” Glowacki said; people must admit that, as people, they judge each other constantly and keep our thoughts to ourselves, for the most part.

Glowacki hopes to live in a world of engagement. He encouraged the audience to engage with the people around them by explaining that learning from other people is what makes the world such a great place to live. Glowacki informed the audience that diversity is about loving someone for who they are, not their outward appearance.

By Meghan Finlayson

Staff Writer

Three out of the four houses in the Small Houses Program at the University were assigned programs for the 2011-2012 academic year last week. Edwards House will feature a Politics and Policies program, Galloway House will feature gender-neutral housing, and Hulley House will feature a theater program. The Small Houses Program gives groups of students who share a common interest the opportunity to live together.

“Learning communities offer a whole new dimension to the residential experience. Why stop talking about important issues when you leave the classroom or limit your rehearsals to spaces in Tustin or the music building?” said Grant Hoover, Assistant Director of Residential Education for Diverse Communities.

According to Hoover, a committee consisting of students and University staff reviewed applications from eight interested groups.

“The committee made decisions based on the quality and strength of each application, the commitment and organization of the House members, and the needs of the University community that are served by the proposed program. We wanted a variety of groups and passions represented,” Hoover said.

The Politics and Policies program will center on political debate and aim to increase political conversation at the University. It will be led by Haley Thomas ’14 and Alex Meijer ’14 and advised by John Doces, Assistant Professor in Political Science.

“Politics will be discussed nearly every day due to the makeup of the house. We have two house leaders of different political parties. Whereas most political groups rally around what the members all have in common, our house brings different perspectives to the table,” Thomas said.

Galloway House will seek to build LGBT community on campus and provide students with a comfortable and accepting place to live.

“The Small Houses Program has given the community a house where all students can feel safe and free to be who they are and whichever gender they associate with, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Being that the house is LGBT-friendly, it will be the ultimate ‘safe space’ on campus,” said House leader Sarah Thibault ’12 said.

The house will also be referred to as “Fran’s House,” in honor of the late Fran McDaniel, former director of the University’s Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Awareness. Chipper Dean, assistant professor of psychology, and Melissa Rycroft, manager of Technology Training Programs in Library and IT, will advise the House.

Hulley House’s theater program will seek to further incorporate the arts and theater into the University and Lewisburg. It will also be referred to as the “Cap and Dagger” House. The House leader is Christina Cody ’12 and the adviser is Anjalee Deshpande Hutchinson, assistant professor of theatre and dance.

“I am very pleased with the programs we have in place and excited to see the Small Houses transform into an exciting part of our campus life,” Hoover said.

Applications for the fourth house at 23 University Avenue are still being reviewed.

By Meghan Finlayson

Staff Writer

A group of students is launching a public alpha of a new social media network called “Spling.com.”

“Spling is a hybrid between social networking and media microblogging. Think Twitter, except instead of sharing statuses, users share media and entertainment in a more interactive interface,” said Billy McFarland ’14, computer science and engineering major and CEO of the company.

Users will be able to post any kind of media to their pages and share it with friends. The site will combine networking and media sharing.

“Spling is the first social networking site of its kind that has the sole purpose of entertainment through media sharing,” said CIO Bob Manning ’13.

The idea was conceived about six months ago.

“I have known [of Billy’s] success with creating a couple other online businesses. Since his last success I had always told him that I was excited to be involved with a venture in the future, so the decision for myself to invest was a no-brainer in my mind,” Greg Gianis ’13 said.

Those involved are anticipating a good response to spling.com by University students and students across the country.

“Spling.com has original features that other social networks don’t have. We are working on designing a point system that rewards users for posting unique and popular media onto their page, and other users can rate the media. I think that this creates an addicting feature to Spling.com, because it makes the users want to post unique and exciting media,” Mark Parsons ’13 said.

The management of the company is mostly student-run. In addition, campus representatives at universities across the country are helping with the launch.

“Some of the colleges [involved] include Duke, Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Cornell, Ohio State, Stanford, Army, Princeton, Miami (Florida), NYU, USC and Villanova,” Manning said.

These “campus reps” will endorse Spling.com through promotional campaigns and by word of mouth.

“I am really excited for the launch of the website because I think it will spread around Bucknell very fast, and I am anxious to see how well it expands outside of the campus,” Parsons said.