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News

LGBT activist speaker

By Carleen Boyer

Contributing Writer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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News

Sex & Soul on Love and the Hookup

By Oleysa Minina

Contributing Writer

Casual sex and a “hook-up culture” are prevalent on most college campuses, but many students find themselves feeling confused or lonely amidst this culture, said a visiting professor and author on Sunday.

Donna Freitas, a professor of religion at Boston College who wrote the book “Sex and the Soul,” discussed how students “really” feel about casual sex and how it connects to the spirituality and religion, which some students turn to for guidance in uncomfortable situations.

After one of her students who had a reputation for being promiscuous admitted to feeling anxiety about the hook-up culture at college and stated that she “didn’t know why she hooked up,” Freitas was instantly intrigued “that someone was critiquing this sexual freedom on campus,” she said.

Students in her class could “talk a good game about sex” but many were questioning if they really enjoyed it and why they did it if they did not enjoy it, she said. The students in Freitas’ class decided to produce a newspaper issue titled “Dateline” dedicated entirely to having an “honest conversation about love, intimacy, hooking up, dating and other relationships found on campus.” The students also invited faculty, staff and administration to weigh in on this “taboo” topic.

The response from the students on campus was overwhelming. Many found a lot of students actually do not enjoy this “hook-up culture” and feel that religion does not provide them with guidance relevant to the sexual freedom and casual sex experiences they face on a college campus.

“Students are hungry for discussions on sex and hooking up from religious organizations,” Charles Thompson ’14 said.

Freitas decided to take a research perspective on this issue and designed an online survey for college students all over the country at four university types: evangelical, private, Catholic and public. It posed various questions on sex, spirituality, religion and “hooking up.” There was immense interest in the topic: 2,600 students ended up participating in the survey, and 112 were personally interviewed.

The findings showed that many students try to find identity in spirituality and religion but feel the pressure of peers, the “hook-up culture” and drinking influencing many of their decisions. The majority find themselves playing into this “hook-up culture” which is void of any dating, intimacy or romance. Amidst the resulting sense of loneliness, isolation and confusion, many are beginning to ask, “Where is the human dignity in this hook-up culture?” and “Why do I really hook up?”

The findings also showed that while students are not anti-sex, many have negative emotions and anxiety about the prevalence of casual sex on campus. Many participants also showed great interest in spirituality and its connection to the path of bettering their sexual experiences in college.

“I agree with the speaker and feel that students need to find a way to embrace spirituality and talk about how empty and isolated random hook-ups can make a person feel. I believe that students on campus search for love and meaning and cannot find it in this ‘hook-up culture,'” Madison Stevens ’14 said.

Freitas stated that both males and females feel silenced on this issue and need to reach out to friends, family and even faculty. Approaching the subject of hook-up culture, which Freitas states is a “culture of pretend,” with maturity and depth, and finding a way to incorporate spiritual and religious beliefs and ideals into the conversation is something everyone should do.

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News Sports

Football scholarships postponed by council

By Erin Kircher

Contributing Writer

This past December, the Patriot League Council of Presidents deferred their decision regarding football financial aid to two years from now. While the schools included in the Patriot League are allowed to offer athletic merit aid to the League’s 22 other sports, football remains need-limited.

The Council of Presidents expressed their concern for the best interest of the Patriot League in a joint statement: “We had discussions about various financial aid models and recognized and evaluated the benefits as well as the potential costs associated with athletic merit aid for football. League presidents expressed their commitment to the stability and long-term positioning of the League.”

University Director of Athletics and Recreation John Hardt said that the University has taken many steps to discuss the impact of the Patriot League switching to merit scholarships in the future, despite the two-year setback.

“During this past semester alone, the University hosted a number of open fora for the campus community and engaged members of the faculty, students and staff as well as alumni in an open and transparent discussion of the issues surrounding the potential of awarding football scholarships,” Hardt said. “As a result of these robust discussions, I felt that John Bravman was well prepared to contribute in the a decision that would best support the future of a strong Patriot League and, more importantly, support Bucknell’s best interests.”

Full Patriot League members who sponsor football include our own University, Colgate University, College of the Holy Cross, Lafayette College and Lehigh University. Fordham University and Georgetown University are only associate members, but they still compete in Patriot League football.

Fordham was recently moved to an associate member position because the university decided to award scholarships to its entering football class in the fall of 2010. This resulted in ineligibility for the Patriot League title. The Patriot League Council of Presidents’ postponement of a decision for two years means that Fordham will not get the chance to compete for the Patriot League title for at least another two years, if ever.

Paul Brazinski ’11, a University football player, supports expanding merit scholarships to the football program. “This move to scholarships would interest a lot of teams to join the prestigious automatic-bid Patriot League,” Brazinski said.

Branzinksi also pointed out that the University’s basketball program has strengthened since providing its players with athletic scholarships, and football scholarships could lead to a similar outcome. “Football is a flagship sport. People want to see big-time football, and I say let Bucknell have theirs,” he said.

“The non-decision is a cop out. They are trying to buy more time. It is a hard decision to make with a lot of money on the line,” football player Alex Iwaskiw ’11 said. Despite his support for adding merit scholarship to football, “the Patriot League will not move to scholarships,” he said.

When asked about his opinion on the Patriot League deferment, Tyler Anderson’11, another player for the team, stressed the importance of scholarships for bringing in more competitive players. “Without scholarships it is really difficult to bring in the type of players you need to win a national championship. Going deep into the playoffs and playing big time schools brings attention to the school and helps put our school on the map,” Anderson said.

“It’s clear that this issue is hugely important to the League’s future viability and will remain ‘on the front burner’ for the League until it is resolved,” Hardt said.

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Opinion

Printing Process in Library

By Allison Shook, Madison Lane, and Megan Herrera

Layout Editors and News Editor

Being a college student requires a lot of printing.  Having class syllabi, notes, PowerPoint slides, essays and more printed out is essential for success in a class. In an institution where printing is free and accessible throughout campus, it is no surprise that majority of students wouldn’t care about wasting excessive amounts of paper, ink and money.

As of this semester, the Administration has implemented a new printing system in the Bertrand Library in an attempt to conserve resources. This process requires students to choose a number as a personal code to receive their document. When printing, students must walk to their printer, click on their document that can be seen by their username, enter the code and then click “OK.” The purpose of this is to decrease the amount of paper that was being thrown away every day and avoid problems such as lost pages or mix-ups.

Some students have found this process to be extremely time consuming because walking to a printer and punching a couple numbers into a screen, and waiting two minutes for their document seems to be a waste of time. Instead of realizing the advantages of this system, they focus on and criticize the small problem of a little extra effort required. Walking to a printer and not having your document ready for you seems to be the main concern for lazy students that can’t find the time to ensure their document is printed properly.

However, this new system has multiple benefits. It provides efficiency, while also being eco-friendly. As the world around is trying to go green, it seems honorable for the University to switch to this advantageous policy. As a campus that advertises and promotes events such as RecycleMania and housing students in an Environmental Residential College, we are taking baby steps to a more eco-friendly future.

Ultimately, the advantages of this new printing method outweigh the small hassles  that some students are complaining about. Hopefully these students will see the benefits of the new system and their negativity will fade away over time.

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Editorial Opinion

Editorial

On Monday night, Dr. Jackson Katz gave a lecture about the need for men to take an active role in preventing gender violence. The speech was sponsored by the Interfraternity Council and the Women’s Resource Center and is the latest in a series of efforts to improve campus climate at the University. The majority of the Greek community, both fraternities and sororities, were present at the event. In the wake of Katz’s speech, much of campus is involved in discussing ways to reduce sexual assault and other abuse and violence.

Bringing speakers such as Katz to campus is an important first step. Many faculty members are also striving to continue the conversation begun by Katz’s lecture. Groups of professors have organized reading groups to discuss books dealing with gender violence issues (including Katz’s book), some of which are specifically targeted at female students and some of which are targeted at males. Other professors and department secretaries have brought up these issues in class (even in classes about completely irrelevant subject matter) and forwarded information about these reading groups to get the word out to students. On their own, students who attended the lecture have discussed their reactions to it, and even if reactions have not always been positive, some conversation and awareness about gender violence is better than none.

The faculty, administration and a selection of students clearly care very deeply about these issues. They are acknowledging the need to emphasize these issues and doing everything they can conceivably do to address them, and they should be commended for their efforts to create a safer environment on campus. But how effective their efforts will be remains to be seen.

We suspect that the people who most need to think more about these gender violence issues will be among the people least likely to attend a reading group discussion or take a lecture such as Katz’s seriously. Indeed, many students seemed to blow off Katz’s lecture. Some were seen doing homework during the speech, while others apparently got nothing out of it except irritation that it had run long. Katz was correct in his observation that many people distance themselves from these issues, thinking that they only apply to “monsters” rather than themselves, but this distancing also makes people less responsive to his message.

This is why it is so important that those who did listen and do care take action. These people must refuse to let themselves be “bystanders” and must step up to stop abuse as it happens. They must also realize that “gender violence” is not merely rape; unwanted touching and groping and verbal harassment are also harmful. Perhaps most difficult, they must be willing to stand up for what’s right, even if it means going against their friends.

The administration and faculty have done everything they can do; whether or not their efforts succeed is up to the student body.

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Opinion

Ignorance of national anthem embarrassment for entire nation

By Olivia Seecof

Writer

Well, I never thought that I would have anything in common with pop star and five-time Grammy award-winner Christina Aguliera except for our love for the city of Pittsburgh. But, after Super Bowl XLV, we now share the story of a “most embarrassing moment.”

Our nation has sung the difficult melody of “The Star Spangled Banner” at sporting events and July 4 parades for years. Different musicians have put their own individual spin on the well-known tune, but these harmonies and rearrangements never before included the omission of the lyrics.

Now, I said that Christina Aguliera and I share an embarrassing moment, but they are definitely not equivalent.

My social trauma occurred in high school at a middle school hockey game. I was running the scoreboard and was required to play the national anthem.  However, due to technical difficulties, it would not play. My friend who was working with me told me to “just say it” (meaning say that there was technical difficulties), but I interpreted this to mean, “Go right ahead and sing the national anthem.”

Well, I cannot sing, and when I got to the climactic part about the rockets, I failed to remember what color the rockets’ glare was. Once I remembered, I slowed down and my voice shook even more, but I continued and finished out our country’s anthem strong.

OK, not that bad right? I mean, who goes to middle school hockey games anyway? Christina Aguliera, on the other hand, blew it in front of a national audience.

With her extravagant riffs and ability to belt out any note, she started out strong; then the letdown set in. I felt bad for the troops serving overseas who had to stand there while some pop star celebrity botched the theme song of the American soldier. Christina Aguliera replaced “O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming ” with “What so proudly we watch’d at the twilight’s last streaming.”

Good one, Xtina. That doesn’t even make sense. Still, according to www.songfacts.com, one poll showed that 61% of Americans don’t know all of the words and only 39% of those who claimed to know the words correctly said what came after “Whose broad stripes and bright stars.”

Come on, America, that’s pathetic. This song represents our country and demonstrates our unity, yet we don’t even know the words. While both Christina Aguliera and I have had embarrassing moments surrounding this song, I think the above statistics are our entire country’s most embarrassing moment. If you are reading this article and do not know the words to our nation’s anthem, please take a break from studying and look them up.

Our only hope is the fact that both Christina Aguliera and myself recovered and finished strong, proving that even through embarrassing times, America really is the “home of the brave.”

Now if only the Steelers could have recovered and finished strong …

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Opinion

Jersey Shore can only be a secret pleasure

By Leah Rogers

Contributing Writer

Everyone has a dirty little secret, whether it is sneaking an extra piece of cake late at night or Facebook-stalking your latest crush. For many of us, that little secret happens every Thursday night at 10 p.m.–watching Jersey Shore.

MTV’s popular show is on its third season now and it’s still going strong, attracting 8.4 million viewers for the season premiere. For those of you who don’t know, Jersey Shore follows the lives of eight New Jersey Italians, who refer to themselves as “guidos,” although we now know that not all of them are truly from Jersey, or even Italian.

Their lives consist mainly of “GTL,” more commonly known as gym, tanning and laundry, and they love to party all the time. They occasionally work in a T-shirt shop on the Seaside Heights boardwalk, but their attitudes at work are always pretty poor.

Although the concept of the show–getting paid to party and be on TV–is ridiculous, millions of people still enjoy watching it every week. The group goes out to clubs and drinks large amounts of alcohol most nights of the week.

This sets a poor example of behavior for many teens today who are struggling with increasing alcohol consumption at younger ages. However, this does not stop anyone from watching it.

The show also has consistently had a degrading view towards women. The main goal of the guys on the show when they go out is to find a woman to bring home with them. Younger teens who watch this will think that non-committal, mostly sexual relationships are the norm.

The “guidos” also refer to ugly girls as “grenades” and refuse to stay with them. This shows younger teens that they have to be good-looking for guys to like them and increases body image issues in a world where many young girls are already struggling with them. However, once again, this does not stop anyone from watching the show.

People love watching Jersey Shore. They know in the back of their minds that the show sets poor examples and paints New Jersey in a poor light, but they don’t care to say anything about it. Some people think the Jersey Shore lifestyle is ideal and strive to be like the characters on the show, but most people have a little more common sense.

Many people still watch the show for their own entertainment, but since it sends out many poor messages, people feel the need to refer to it as their dirty little secret.

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Opinion

Don’t limit the best times of your life to four years of college

By Erin Kircher

Contributing Writer

College is amazing. That’s the message I got at age 14 the day I visited my brother at his unbelievably messy, deafeningly loud fraternity house. I found myself mesmerized by the excitement and freedom of this lifestyle.

If I had been able to, I would have packed up my bags and started college myself the next day. Unfortunately, I had several years of SAT preparation, AP classes and college counseling before I was ready for that step.

Growing up, so much of our time is spent preparing and looking forward to college. As antsy adolescents caught in constant screaming matches with our parents, we held on to the hope of one day being free from curfews and other tedious rules.

While movies like “Old School” and “Van Wilder” are extremely entertaining, they only escalate our optimistic expectations for college. In these films, college is unrealistically portrayed as all raging parties and endless good times. This puts an enormous amount of pressure on your college experience.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the phrase, “College will be the best four years of your life.” While I certainly can’t argue with the sentiment that college is an incredibly life-changing time, I have to express my frustrations with the idea that in the 80-plus years you may live, you have only four golden years–and you peak by about age 22.

I’ve enjoyed college enormously thus far, and I intend to continue doing so. But it is only a brief phase of life and there are so many other exciting phases to experience.

For all those students out there who are daunted by the idea of stepping outside of this “Bucknell Bubble” and venturing out into the “real world,” let me highlight some potentially bright parts of your post-college life.

First of all, no homework (sorry future graduate school students, it may take you a while to reach this benefit). Time off work no longer means hours spent in the library. Even better, some salaried positions offer paid vacations. Getting paid to enjoy yourself? Sounds good to me.

If you’re worried that you’ll miss out on the fun of intramural sports, think again. There are organizations like ZogSports in NYC, where you can form your own co-ed league. There are also an endless number of charities to involve yourself in; you just won’t have the luxury of finding out about all of them at a community service fair.

Some of us may never want to leave college like Ryan Reynolds in “Van Wilder,” because we’ve been convinced that nothing can ever be as wild and stimulating as college life.

If you want the next (hopefully) 60-plus years of your life to be just as amazing, then that is up to you to make them so. It is not so much our circumstances that decide our happiness, but how we react to our circumstances.

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News

Speaker raises sexual assault awareness

By Mike McPhee

Managing Editor

Gender violence incidents like sexual assault, domestic violence and rape are frequently labeled as “women’s issues,” but men must take an active role in preventing them as well, said a prominent sexual assault awareness speaker on Monday.

Dr. Jackson Katz, who is internationally recognized for his work in gender violence prevention through education of men and boys, gave a lecture titled “More Than a Few Good Men: Lecture on American Manhood and Violence Against Women” in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts on Monday night.

Katz said that men of all ages cannot continue to deny that other men are the perpetrators of almost all gender violence. He called upon men to have the courage to speak out against cultural norms and perceptions of masculinity that support violence against women.

“If we monsterize the men who do  the bad behavior, then we can distance ourselves from it … The true wisdom for men is not how distant these people are, but how much we have in common with them,” Katz said.

Gender violence is more widespread than many people realize, Katz said, because the emotional and personal nature of the issue often prevents dialogue from starting about it.

“Statistically speaking, many women in the room have been sexually assaulted. That’s a fact,” he said.

Although women are much more frequently the victims of sexual assault and rape than men, Katz emphasized that gender violence incidents still affect men indirectly. Examples given by Katz include fathers whose daughters were raped, men who have relationship issues when dating women who were emotionally hurt by sexual abuses in the past, and children who grew up in homes with men who abused their mothers.

These “bystanders” who are embedded in the effects of gender violence are the focus of the Mentors in Violence Program (MVP) that Katz co-founded. The program educates people on ways to speak up and prevent the violent acts before they occur.

“The peer culture polices itself,” Katz said.

The event was cosponsored by the Women’s Resource Center and the Interfraternity Council. A large portion of the Greeks on campus attended the event.

“The onus is on us as men to take a strong stance and deal with the issue of sexual assault in a better way.  As Greek leaders, we need to lead this movement,” said Michael Higgins ’12, Interfraternity Council President.

Katz also brought clips from some of his educational films that he has made, but the projector system failed and most of the clips could not be shown to the audience. More information about his films is available on his website.

Students who are interested in further discussing gender violence prevention should check the Message Center for more information from the Women’s Resource Center about upcoming readings of Katz’s book, “The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help.”

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Letters to the Editor Opinion

Letter to the Editor

Tuscon Tragedy MUST Affect Gun Policy

To the editor:

Amanda Ayers’ opinion piece (“Tucson tragedy shouldn’t affect gun control policy”) demonstrates how much work is still to be done in educating the public regarding sane firearm policy. Her editorial is little more than a jumble of gun lobby myths and falsehoods that fails to seriously engage the public health problem of firearm proliferation in American society.

She makes the obligatory reference to the Founders, who, we are told, liked guns a lot, and therefore we should too. But the Founders also believed that women should not have the vote and that the institution of slavery could be safely accommodated in a democracy, and no one today thinks those are serious positions just because they were proposed by political leaders of the late 18th century. The Founders were not gods, and they did their thinking in a world without AK-47s or Glock pistols with 30+ round magazines. We do not live in their world, and we have to go beyond the historical limits of their reasoning.

Ayers cites Justice Scalia speaking critically of complete bans on handgun ownership, but Scalia clearly acknowledged in his majority opinion in the Heller case that some limitations on the Second Amendment certainly pass constitutional muster. The legislation recently proposed by Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy to outlaw high capacity magazines would clearly make it harder for sociopaths to efficiently kill dozens of people with little fear of being interrupted in their vile work. Ayers repeats the gun lobby cliché: “it was not the weapon … [but] this … man’s actions” that did the harm. But the kind of weapon the sociopath wields obviously matter. Laughner fired more than 30 rounds in a matter of seconds, killing six and wounding 19. He stopped firing only when he emptied his magazine, and he was attempting to reload when onlookers took advantage of the pause to down him. How much more contained would the damage have been if he’d had to reload after only a few shots?

Ayers calls on another canard, the claim that the negatives that follow from the fact that Americans are essentially swimming in firearms (e.g., that more Americans died between 1965 and 2000 from firearm accidents than were killed in the entire duration of the Vietnam war) are outweighed by the purportedly vast number of gun owners who legally defend themselves from criminal attack. This claim has been thoroughly debunked in the research literature, and the gun lobby’s continued reliance on sources and studies that have been utterly discredited is reprehensible. The truth is that legitimate self-defense use of guns by private citizens is an exceedingly rare phenomenon. Ayers and others who share her beliefs might do well to consult this research, which is ably summarized in David Hemenway’s excellent book “Private Guns, Public Health.” The data actually show that a gun in a typical family home is more likely to produce an accidental self-inflicted wound or death, a suicide, or an act of serious domestic violence than an act of legitimate self-defense.

I do not mean to unduly chastise Ayers, who perhaps is just beginning to explore this issue and certainly has much study ahead of her. But The Bucknellian needs to do better on this deadly serious issue. It is depressing to see how frequently, in this country where education levels are so high, and even in a university like this one where students must excel academically just to gain admission, the falsehoods of the extremist gun lobby are uncritically reiterated in this manner. It is time we started thinking rationally about guns and definitively turned away from mythology.

Alexander Riley

Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology