WHITMAN NEWS, DELIVERED

Walla Walla, WAwhitmanpioneer.com

February 17 2011 P!"# 1

Climbing cluboffers opportunity

for involvement Students revamp club

to incorporate com-petition, travel, access

to students.

Opinion explores weight loss

ISSUE 4

PAGE 6PAGE 7

A. Cuard talks about how conceptions o$ beauty police and shame the body.

VOLUME CXXVIII

Most college students don’t contemplate the role o$ a stove outside o$ its abil-

ity to bake or broil a decent meal.%But the members o$ Whitman Direct Action (WDA) will spend the next few months learning and appre-ciating its value as part o$ a pro-ject to bring eco-friendly stoves to a Guatemalan community.

“There’s a need in rural Guate-mala for better stoves,” said sopho-more Natalie Jamerson, one o$ the leaders o$ the project. “The stoves they have right now can emit a lot o$ smoke, causing health problems, and are often very energy inef$icient.”

Currently, $ive Whitman students are planning to spend the summer in Guatemala helping to build and in-stall eco-friendly stoves, as well as educate the community about their bene$its. Jamerson explains that the project is more than a service trip—students involved in WDA are work-ing throughout the course o$ the se-mester to educate themselves about stove technology and Guatemalan culture. This academic approach to the project is something Jamerson believes will make it more successful.

“Rather than just giving aid, we are supporting a community,” she said.

As part o$ the project, WDA has set up two independent study courses to support the students travelling to Guatemala this summer. The $irst course is led by Julie Charlip, director o$ Latin American studies at Whitman.

“Guatemala is a key example o$ what is going on in the rest o$ Latin America,” said Charlip. Her independent study course focuses on Guatemalan history and eco-nomic development, and allows

students to read a variety o$ books about these topics before they trav-el to Guatemala for the summer.

The other independent study course is led by Bob Carson, profes-sor o$ geology and environmental studies. Carson’s course focuses on designing and building a model eco-stove, as well as researching the en-vironmental and economic bene$its o$ more ef$icient stove technology.% Carson said he’s excited to work with WDA on creating a stove design.

“[Eco-stoves] reduce travel time for $irewood and decrease deforestation, which in turn de-creases erosion,” he said. “They also greatly improve indoor air quality.”

The eco-stove class is the largest independent study Carson has ever taught, with seven students enrolled. Over the course o$ the semester, the group will learn about stove construc-tion, as well as their ecological and heath impacts. For a $inal project, the class plans to make an informational booklet in English and Spanish on how to build and maintain eco-stoves.

“Most students haven’t built anything close to a stove,” said Car-son, “not even a tree house like I did when I was younger. But these kids have been very interested and have brought a lot to the table.”

WDA’s eco-stove project is part o$ a larger partnership with a Guatema-lan organization called Semilla Nueva, which focuses on sustainable develop-ment and agriculture. Semilla Nueva was founded by WDA alumni and has worked with WDA in the past. The continued partnership allows WDA to work on long-term plans for community development and re-ceive ASWC funding for the trip.

A change in college policy earlier

Students gather around a bonfire outside of Beta Theta Pi on Sunday, Feb. 13 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Richard O’Brien’s death. PHOTO BY KENDRA KLAG

Had you been driving along U.S. Highway 12 on the night o$ Sunday, Feb. 13, you might

have seen something unusual as you passed through Walla Walla. Outside o$ town, in the wheat $ields, a $licker-ing circle o$ candlelight could be seen from the highway. The light belonged to a group o$ almost 60 Whitman students, who gathered to mark the one-year anniversary o$ the death o$ their friend, Richard ‘Hish’ O’Brien.

O’Brien was killed on February 13, 2010, when he hit a tree while ski-ing at Bluewood Ski Area. In the fol-lowing weeks, his friends, family and members o$ the Whitman community gathered to celebrate his life and share stories. Since then, his friends have continued to keep O’Brien in their thoughts, with many writing wishes and memories on his Facebook wall.

The service was preceded by a re-

ception hosted at Beta Theta Pi, o$ which O’Brien was a member. Sophomore Beta member Jonas Myers said that the fraternity wanted to create a space for people to be together. He hoped the event functioned as both a celebration o$ Richard’s life and a memorial to him.

“We want the spirit o$ Richard to continue on in the house,” said Myers.

As part o$ this effort, Beta started a Richard O’Brien Memo-rial Scholarship last year, which pro-vides a 500-dollar scholarship to-wards the live-in cost at the Beta house for a member o$ the fraternity.

For Myers, the one-year an-niversary is a reminder o$ how deeply O’Brien touched the lives o$ his friends at Whitman.

“It’s unbelievable that it’s al-ready been a year, especially when you realize that most o$ us only knew Richard for seven months,” he said. “It’s kind o$ irreconcilable.”

The memorial service, which was

organized by sophomores Jenna Fritz and Phi Phan, provided students with the opportunity to be together and continue the process o$ remembering their friend.

“I’m really happy that there was a service,” said sophomore Carolyn Carr in an e-mail. “Like all Whitman students, I am very busy, and as a result, I have pushed my feelings about Richard away. I haven’t let mysel$ think about Richard’s death or get emotional about him, so it’s nice that there is a time and a place where I will be sure to be surrounded by people who cared about him and care about me to think o$ Richard and honor his life.”

Fritz said that the memo-ries shared at the service demon-strated how deeply O’Brien af-fected so many lives at Whitman.

“I I feel like I’ve heard hundreds o$ stories about Richard, but tonight I heard things I had never heard be-fore,” she said in an e-mail. “There are a million moments spent with Richard that will never be forgotten.”

by RACHEL ALEXANDERNews Editor

One-­year anniversary of student

death honored with vigil

Businesses

raise funds

for aviary

To-­go attitude

fosters dining

hall food theft

Walk into a majority of the shops in down-town Walla Walla

and you’ll most likely see lit-tle cans placed near the cashier counter asking for donations to keep Pioneer Park’s aviary open.

A one million dollar shortfall for the City of Walla Walla’s budg-et for this year has forced city of-ficials to consider cutting funding for Pioneer Park’s aviary. Main-taining the aviary costs the city ap-proximately 55,000 dollars a year, and with a large budget gap, the aviary is one of the first things to be put on the chopping block. Lo-cal businesses around Walla Walla, however, have banded together in protest to keep the aviary open.

Local business owners and resi-dents worry that closing the aviary, home to about 200 birds of 50 spe-cies, in the midst of a budget crisis would make it nearly impossible to bring it back. Business own-ers and other aviary supporters organized the Friends of Pioneer Park Aviary committee to raise money to keep the aviary run-ning without government funds.

Although the committee has raised nearly 36,000 dollars in a matter of months, they still have only raised a portion of what it costs to keep the aviary open an-nually and have not come close to the amount of money it will take to sustain the aviary in coming years.

“We’ve applied to grants and we also have individuals that we can depend on to donate. We still have next year to worry about though so we’re looking at long term grants,” commit-tee member Tammie Neve said.

On Jan. 15, the committee spon-sored a silent auction which brought in nearly 13,000 dollars with items donated from local businesses.

According to Craig Keister, a local business owner and chair-man of the fundraising commit-tee, business owners have been

by SHELLY LEStaff Reporter In front o$ a sign that reads “Take

One Piece o$ Fruit and One Des-sert Only” in Jewett dining hall,

a student piles fruit into his back-pack, looks up to see no one is watching and grabs a few cookies before heading out the door. This isn’t breaking news--it’s just one o$ many instances o$ minor food theft that occur daily at Whitman.

The campus culture seems, com-paratively speaking, a morally con-scious one. Students take ethics class-es and have the reputation o$ keeping open minds. So what makes stealing from dining halls socially acceptable?

At Whitman, all underclass-men must buy semester-long meal plans from Bon Appétit. Because this is so expensive, no one wants to be burdened by spending ex-tra money at a grocery store. Tak-ing things like tea and milk from the dining halls is more convenient. With a tight budget in mind, most students want to get their money’s worth from each meal at the dining halls. Plus, the “all you can eat” plans make stealing seem more justi$ied.

First-year Emily Da-vis expresses the most wide-spread view among students.

“We do pay a considerable amount for food, so as long as we aren’t taking huge quantities then it seems alright. Like, a couple muf$ins or pieces o$ fruit are okay,” she said.

Stealing in moderation seems to be the social agree-ment between students.

“At the dining hall, you are paying for all o$ the food that’s made available to you. It’s all you can eat, whereas Reid is not,” said $irst-year Katie Hudson.

Yet the reason-ing goes further than this.

It seems the combination o$ the “all you can eat” mentality and the current to-go culture is what makes stealing from the dining hall so-cially acceptable. Hudson also con-siders the logic o$ convenience. The meal hours are limited, mak-ing it more dif$icult for students to $it meals into their schedules.

by MAREN SCHIFFERStaff Reporter

FOOD THEFT, PAGE 5AVIARY, PAGE 3

Fans, facilities impact athletic success

As over 1,200 fans screamed and chanted in the stands, the Whitman men’s basketball team pulled off an incredible victory over Whitworth University – the #1-ranked DIII team in the nation – last Tuesday, Feb. 15. Following nearly two hours of fast-paced competitive play, the Missionary men scored 17 points in the remaining five minutes for the win. The roaring crowd of students, faculty and staff, alumni and community members flooded the court in celebration. PHOTOS BY MARIN AXTELL

You always hear about “home $ield advantage” in reference to the boost in performance that teams

get from playing on their home turf, but how much o$ an effect does it really have?

I$ the performance o$ Whit-man varsity teams has anything to say on the matter, it makes a big impact. Over the past three years, Whitman teams who have competed head-to-head against another team (all varsity

teams except gol$ and cross country) have posted a 104-88-5 record at home against conference opponents and an 81-107-6 record on the road.

These records show that 54 percent o$ victories are at home and 43 percent are away. This means that a Whitman team is roughly 25 percent more likely to win while playing in Walla Walla than while travelling around the northwest.

This current season alone has shown a particularly tremendous in-crease between home and away re-

cords. Overall, the Missionaries are 28-14-1 (67 percent) on home tur$ and 16-26-3 (38 percent) while travelling.

The large increase in win percent-age from playing at home could pos-sibly be contributed to several factors. The athletes playing in front o$ their own fans, not having to travel, and playing on high quality facilities that the athletes are familiar with could all impact the outcome o$ the game.

by TYLER HURLBURT Staff Reporter

HOME COURT, PAGE 6

Eco-­stove project to benefit

Guatemalan village, Whitman

by ALYSSA GOARDStaff Reporter

WDA, PAGE 3

Upperclassmen struggle to find balance between quick, healthy meals PAGE 4

Just don’t tell our future employers: Feature investigates everyday campus infractionsPAGE 5

February 17 2011 P!"# 2

In honor o$ the Wednesday, Feb. 16 Founder’s Day Celebration, hosted by the Alumni Association

in the Reid College Center foyer, The Pioneer sat down with Whitman’s founder Cushing Eells to discuss the school’s history. Rogers Miles, senior adjunct assistant professor o$ religion and general studies has portrayed Eells for over 10 years at college and alumni events as well as at commu-nity events and at Fort Walla Walla.

Why did you found the col-lege here, in Walla Walla?

I founded the college here may-be by accident and maybe by divine providence. It was 1859 and I was happily living in Forest Grove where I was president o$ Tualidin Academy which morphed into Paci$ic Univer-sity … In that year, the Upper Co-lumbia was reopened to white settle-ment. I decided in July to go up there and inspect the mission grounds.

I went up there and the mis-sion grounds were in ruins but the great grave was still in place. I felt that God was telling me I needed to found some sort o$ monument in honor o$ the fallen martyrs. That was something that Marcus and Nar-cissa Whitman were interested in near the end o$ their lives in 1862.

I actually started teaching school on the mission grounds, but I wasn’t able to keep all my students. It was a little too far from where they lived, which was Walla Walla. In 1864, the Board o$ Trustees persuaded me that it was not the right place to put a seminary—that’s the nineteenth cen-tury term for a secondary school. Even though I did not want to locate it in

a town full o$ saloons, Dorsy Baker, he’s the banker in town—I believe his bank is still standing, Baker-Boyer—provided four acres o$ land for the establishment o$ Whitman seminary.

We managed to raise 3,000 dollars for building a nice New England, two-story, cupola-on-top school building.

How did the school transition from being a seminary to a college?

The school, as I look back on it, had one major problem. That is that it was tuition dependent. I$ you hire a principal as the president o$ the Board o$ Trustees you were dependent on the income coming in from students to pay that principal. We just didn’t have any other independent funds. What they would receive would go up and down and it was dif$icult for them and dif-$icult to keep good people in the post.

Walla Walla County at that point was about the size o$ Massachu-setts—stretched way up to Spokane. So I would get on my horse and visit schoolmarms and see how things were going. But I saw that there was a kind o$ synergy between the seminary and the public schools. We hoped that the seminary would eventually pro-duce teachers with good Christian principles that would introduce the virtues o$ sel$ restraint in young stu-dents so vital to this young republic … there were many times when we had to shutter the school building because we didn’t have a principal.

We thought that we would get the support that we needed and maybe get an endowment i$ we became a col-lege. The town was just eager to have a college, and they assured us that they would support us i$ we took this route.

Are you disappointed today that

Whitman has transitioned from be-ing an overtly religious institution to a more secular one, or do you think that the school still upholds the val-ues that you originally had in mind?

Well I’m shocked. I’m shocked because I don’t see how you can have morality without Christian-ity. But, I sense as I walk the halls and I see students, that there is still a moral $ire here, that students are still oriented towards things other than their own, for their other man and woman. I think that there is a good moral spirit at Whitman Col-lege and I $ind mysel$ surprised looking at the present that moral $ire can keep without Christianity.

Why did you choose to spend so much of your life in the !ield of education?

I think that my $irst cause was as a missionary. Even though I did a lot o$ teaching in my life, and indeed as a missionary you were very much a teacher, I saw mysel$ as a mission-ary right until the end o$ my life … I would get on my horse La Blond and I would go to little towns like Spangle and Lone Pine and Medical Lake and I would preach. In fact, I’m told you can go down to the Whitman Col-lege archive and see my sermons. I$ you turn them on the back you can see all the places. Every time I gave a ser-mon I noted the town so o$ course I didn’t give a sermon twice in the same town … I’m responsible for many o$ the bells that are still ringing in mis-sions in eastern Washington state.

Do you have anything else to say?

I think that young people have to be ready for changes and to be $lexible. I, in a sense, fell into teach-ing. Teaching was a way o$ earning money to stay in school when I was a young man … I guess the other things I would say is that perseverance in life is terribly important. I wanted to be a missionary and I did become a mis-sionary and I spent nine years among the Spokane Indians, but I never felt sure enough to say that I actually made a convert, that I actually saw a true conversion experience among them . . . there were times when my fam-ily was just eating bread and molasses and condensed meat . . . it really wasn’t until the end o$ my life . . . in 1888, when I $inally went to the Whit-man graduation, that I thought well it looks like I have done something, that this institution will survive, and I’m happy about that. You just can’t lose faith in the future or in yourself.

NUMBERS IN THE NEWS

1943Year when joint male-female instruction began at Harvard University

1977Year when Radcliffe College signed an agreement with Harvard, allowing women to be jointly enrolled in both schools

1999 Year when Harvard fully integrated Radcliffe College, allowing women to be com-pletely enrolled at Harvard

50Percentage o$ female students at Harvard%&'()#* )&++#"# ,&!(-

50.4Percentage o$ science and engineering bachelor’s degrees earned by women in 2004%&'()#* ./# 0!.1&0!+ !)!-#23 4(#%%

43.6Percentage o$ science and engineering master’s degrees earned by women in 2004

10Percentage o$ full-time senior faculty positions held by women in physical science in 2003

6.4Percentage o$ full-time senior faculty positions held by wom-en in engineering in 2003

EDITORIAL POLICYThe Whitman College Pioneer is a weekly student-run newspaper published under the auspices o$ the Associated Students o$ Whitman College. The purpose o$ The Pioneer is to provide pertinent, timely news and commentary for Whitman students, alumni, faculty, staf$ and parents, as well as the Walla Walla community. The Pioneer is dedicated to expanding open discussion on campus about the issues with which students are most concerned. We provide coverage o$ Whitman-related news as well as featured local and regional events, and strive to maintain a standard o$ utmost fairness, quality, and journalistic integrity while promoting freedom o$ the press. In addition, the Pioneer strives to be a learning tool for students who are interested in journal-ism. The Pioneer welcomes all feedback and publishes weekly Letters to the Editor in print and online.

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Letters to Editor may be submitted to The Pioneer via e-mail at editors@whitmanpioneer.com or sent to The Pioneer, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA, 99362. All submissions must be received by 4 p.m. on Sat-urday prior to the week that they are intended to appear. All submissions must be attributed and may be edited for concision and fluency.

The code o$ ethics serves as The Pioneer’s established guidelines for the practice o$ responsible journalism on campus, within reasonable interpretation o$ the editorial board. These guidelines are subject to constant review and amendment; responsibility for amending the code o$ ethics is assigned to the Editor-in-Chie$ and Publisher in conjunction with the editorial board. The code o$ ethics is reviewed at least once per semester. To access the complete code o$ ethics for The Pioneer, visit whitmanpioneer.com/about.

WHITMAN NEWS, DELIVERED

SUBMISSION POLICY

CODE OF ETHICS

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Once a year, 150 grade school and middle school students stampede into Reid Campus

Center for a carnival organized by Whitman’s Mentor Program which places Whitman students in local public schools to mentor at-risk kids.

Mentees to Campus Day origi-nally started as a scavenger hunt but has grown into an event large enough to hire a rental company to help set up and provide equip-ment such as a bouncy castle. This year’s event, on Friday, Feb. 11, included games, prizes and performances by the Testoster-tones and Whitman’s dance team.

Mentor-volunteers are paired with a mentee at the be-ginning of the year. Once a week, mentors meet their men-tee during lunch and recess.

Mentees to Campus Day pro-vides an opportunity to strength-en the mentor-mentee relation-ship outside of school. Justin, a mentee taking a break from the carnival festivities, says he likes to play wall ball and read with his mentor, senior Viral Oza.

“He plays with me when I don’t have anyone else to play with at school,” said Justin.

The program started as a sen-ior thesis project in 1992 with around 10 mentors. Now the pro-gram has 150 mentors who visit every Walla Walla grade school and middle school, totaling eight

schools in all. The program is en-tirely student-run and is currently headed by three interns. They budget, assign mentors and organ-ize the carnival setup and cleanup.

“I think the program is at a point right now where it can’t ex-pand anymore,” said mentor pro-gram intern Rachel Sicheneder. The program will likely stay at the record size it reached this year, according to Sicheneder.

Though the program has reached its desired size, recruiting efforts are still made. Intern An-drew Matschiner said that one of the biggest recruiting challenges “. . . is getting more men to participate.”

Barbara Thatcher, an inter-vention specialist at Green Park Elementary who helps assign men-tors to mentees, has been with the program for eight years. Accord-ing to Thatcher, mentor program interns have done more over the years to better the program like monitoring mentor attendance.

“It’s gotten a lot more organized,” she said.

In the last few years, mentor program interns have done more training with mentors and have held meetings with school counselors and intervention specialists. This year some mentors received training for working with children with spe-cial needs, according to Thatcher.

Thatcher says that Whitman students’ personalities make a dif-ference in creating good matches.

“It seems like the Whitman stu-dents are really energetic,” she said.

The great match can go two ways; First-year Morgan Walk-er, a mentor, explained that she enjoys playing recess games.

“It’s a really great way to get time away from campus,” Walk-er said. “You get to take an hour a week to play with kids at recess. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?”

Mentors may help kids

by talking with them at lunch and playing recess games, but the effect goes beyond that.

“They’re not asking any-thing from you except to be your friend,” said Sicheneder.

Several years of mentoring can, of course, create great friendships. Or, as simply put by Noah Lerner’s mentee Jeremy, “We just hang out.”

Mentees to Campus Day shows how Whitman mentor program has evolved

Interview with Whitman founder

Ryan Piela ‘11 plays an intense round of basketball with his mentee. About 150 mentees from local schools came for the annual event. PHOTO BY FAITH BERNSTEIN

When a student was reported as missing on Saturday, Feb. 5, his case was the $irst un-

der Whitman’s new Missing Student Noti$ication Policy. The policy, which went into effect at the start o$ this aca-demic year, includes who to contact when a student goes missing, the steps the Dean o$ Students Of$ice will take and an opportunity for students living in a residence hall to designate a contact person in the event they go missing.

Though the opportunity to desig-nate a contact person is new, Dean o$ Students Chuck Cleveland said that much o$ the rest o$ the policy simply spells out what the administration would have done in the past. Cleve-land said that there are typically one or two missing students per year, along with several cases where a parent can-not reach their child at Whitman, but the student is not actually missing.

“Truthfully, it helps legitimize our efforts to $ind students who others are concerned about having not seen for awhile,” he said. “In situations where the person has been absent but not truly missing, sometimes they can be upset that we went through this ef-fort, but now we have a policy that lets them know we’re going to do this.”

To comply with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure o$ Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, Whitman and most other residential colleges were required, beginning in the fall 2010 semester, to ask students living in a residence hall to register a contact person in case they could not be reached. Oftentimes, close friends will have seen the student or may know i$ the student went on a trip.

Cleveland said he did not think January Start students had had the opportunity to designate a contact yet. Whitman is not required to seek contacts for students living off-cam-pus, including in fraternities, though

Cleveland said that he plans to dis-cuss that possibility in the future.

With the new Missing Student No-ti$ication Policy, staf$ members must notify the Dean o$ Students Of$ice or Security upon hearing about a missing student. Whichever of$ice is involved will then contact residence life, the person’s contact and faculty and staff, i$ necessary. Beyond that, the college may begin an investigation, which may include contacting the student’s friends and looking at their Facebook wall.

When those options don’t pan out, the Dean o$ Students Of-$ice may decide to send out a cam-puswide e-mail, as they did on Feb. 5, or to contact the media.

But Cleveland said that every case is different, including the one on Feb. 5. In that case, in which sophomore Nick Cross was reported as missing, students played an unusually large role in the search—when Cross’s sister Sha-ron Cross created a Facebook page urg-ing students to search for her brother the next morning, over 80 signed up.

Ultimately, Cross returned around 2 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 6; the Dean o$ Students’ Of$ice was noti-$ied shortly thereafter, putting an end to the college’s investigation.

Though Cross did not want to comment, he explained his rea-soning in a public Facebook post.

“I am truly sorry. I am so grate-ful for everyone’s effort,” he wrote. “Taking of$ just felt like something I needed to do, and it didn’t oc-cur to me at that spontaneous mo-ment that I had to tell anyone that I would, o$ course, come back soon.”

Cleveland, meanwhile, is glad that this case was only a lapse in communication and that the missing students policy worked.

“I thought that the policy worked,” he said. “I thought there was a net-work for faculty [and] students that developed [and] kept in com-munication on this situation, and I think that we had a positive ending.”

by JOSH GOODMANNews Editor

New missing student policy spells out actions, put to use

by RACHEL ALEXANDERNews Editor

by WILL GREGGStaff Reporter

by SEAN MCNULTYStaff Reporter

CORRECTIONS TO ISSUE 3

The illustration accompa-nying “Locals juggle, dance at Inland Octopus” on page

4 should becredited to Molly Johanson.

The photo accompanying “Annual Once-Act show hits campus” on page 4 should be credited to

Brandon Fennell.

February 17 2011 P!"# 3

Life skills workshops aim to teach self-­sufficiencyOlivia Jones ‘11 leads a life skills workshop, on Satuday, Feb. 12, that allowed students to patch up their worn and torn clothing. Future workshops will include baking, basic car maintenance and personal finance. PHOTO BY FAITH BERNSTEIN

While shuffling through file cabinets, Program Advi-sor at the Student Activi-

ties Office Colleen McKinney stum-bled across a past idea deserving to be resurrected: life skills workshops.

She and Leann Adams, assis-tant director of the Student Ac-tivities Office, hope to give stu-dents the opportunity to learn real-life skills they might not oth-erwise learn until after college.

“I got excited about the idea pretty quickly, and I hoped that if we picked the right top-ics, students would be equal-ly excited,” McKinney said.

The Student Activities Office has four workshops planned dur-ing the semester: mending and al-terations, baking, basic car main-tenance and an introduction to personal finances. Though all the details aren’t settled, they are hop-ing to bring in outside teachers, like the baker from the Patisserie.

“Depending on their back-grounds, [students] might not have been exposed to these things,” she said.

McKinney agreed with her.“Some [students] are compe-

tent in these skills; some are not. But I don’t think they’re a part of the K-12 curriculum,” she said.

“Hopefully these workshops will help students to go out and be independent,” Adams said.

In addition to preparing students for real life, both Adams and McKin-ney hope that learning life skills will be fun and practical at the same time.

“So far we’ve had good reception from the students,” McKinney said.

“They should be fun. Stu-dents will get to think about something different than school-work. They’ll use a different part of their brain than they do in the classroom,” Adams added.

The first of these workshops, a lesson on patching and mending, took place last Saturday, Feb. 12. Senior Olivia Jones led the work-shop, teaching a group of 15 students

her knowledge of repairing jeans.McKinney contacted Jones after

reading one of her “Thrifty Whit-ties” columns in The Pioneer last fall about simple clothing alterations.

Jones learned how to sew growing up. She took classes as a child and again in high school. She also taught herself a few things.

“I’ve always been inter-ested in crafty things. When I go to a bookstore, I walk to the craft section,” Jones said.

She had several moti-vations to learn these ba-sic mending and sewing skills.

“My parents are part of the clothing industry, and they didn’t like me wearing anything with holes in it. And in high school, I didn’t want to spend my money on clothes. Jeans are expensive,” she said.

Jones believes that many col-lege students don’t give them-selves the time to learn such skills.

“I think people get intimidated by the thought of darning or mend-ing clothes. And it’s easy not to have these skills in college. College kids

get away with microwave food and clothing that’s falling apart,” she said.

Students at Saturday’s mend-ing and alterations workshop seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Junior Rachel Hoar was ex-cited to find out that mend-ing jeans isn’t difficult.

“I was worried we were going to have to use sewing machines. I have no idea how to use a sewing machine. But mending jeans was actually pretty simple. And that’s great because a good pair of jeans is hard to find, and I can’t afford going to a seamstress,” she said.

First-year Nilce Alvarez was also pleasantly surprised.

“I am in love with these jeans. I had to save them. And mending them wasn’t complicated at all,” she said.

Hoar liked feeling self-sufficient.“It’s nice knowing how to do

this yourself and not having to rely on someone else,” she said.

Jones feels the same way.“It feels satisfying to have

created something,” she said.

by KARAH KEMMERLY

Staff Reporter

this year stipulated that no student in-ternational travel without a profes-sor would be eligible for funding, but WDA’s partnership with Semilla Nue-va allows for an exception to this policy.

Carson said that he sup-ported the continuation o$ WDA’s unaccompanied travel.

“While I understand the liability and insurance reasons for not fund-ing groups o$ students without a professor, it is dif$icult for faculty to take, say, two months of$ to visit Guatemala,” he said. “I’m not con-vinced that faculty will make student trips safer, especially in this case i$ a professor doesn’t speak Spanish.”

To learn about eco-stove design and construction, WDA has also sought guidance from Aprovecho, a U.S.-based NGO which teaches stove building. WDA recently received a grant from the Outdoor Educa-tional Leadership Fund (OELF), which will allow students to travel to Oregon for a weekend and re-ceive training from Aprovecho staff.

Jamerson hopes that the academic support behind this year’s project will help make it more successful.

“Independent study lends a re-ally academic and thoughtful manner to the way we carry out our projects, and I think the professors add an-other level o$ seriousness,” she said.

Another goal for the project is to empower women in Guatemala, because they do the vast major-ity o$ cooking and consequently suf-fer the worst effects o$ indoor air pollution due to inef$icient stoves.

“Aid can often be very focused on helping the men o$ the com-munity who work on the construc-tion and economic management o$ villages,” said Jamerson. % “We hope to do something a little different.”

Ultimately, Jamerson hopes that the project will allow WDA members to learn about international com-munity while applying their knowl-edge to help people in Guatemala.

“We have a valuable gift o$ edu-cation that we can share,” she said.

from WDA, PAGE 1

Ecostoves help build community

a major component to the ef-fort in keeping the aviary open.

“The community has been very generous,” he said. “Other businesses have been very sup-portive, but the people that I’ve leaned on the hardest has been the wine community. They have been spectacular and really stepped up when we needed them.”

Earthlight Books owner Da-vid Cosby is one of the many business owners who supports keeping the aviary open. Cosby donated a set of Audubon’s bird portraits to the silent auction.

“The aviary is a valuable as-set to our community and I would hate to see it go,” he said.

Sweetwater Paper and Home owner Robin Consani has also donated to the cause and echoes most of the community’s senti-ment toward the value of the avi-ary. Consani has kept a can in her shop for customers to donate to the fund and has seen consider-able amounts of support from the community after three months of keeping the can in her shop.

“The can is pretty full, cus-tomers usually just donate what-ever they have left over from their purchase,” she said. “[The aviary] is a historically significant place; it would be a shame to see it go.”

Joan Schille, a maintenance supervisor for Walla Walla Parks and Recreation, was optimistic that the aviary would stay open in the long run, one way or another.

“I’m not worried, we’re do-

ing the best we can,” she said. “I’m certainly hoping that we can find the funds. It’d be a shame if we didn’t because a lot of people have put a lot of hard work into this.”

Despite the remaining fund-raising hurdle, local artist Julian Raine also expects to see the aviary open for awhile and remains con-fident in the committee’s ability to raise enough money for later years.

“Craig has almost reached his goal and his work will make an impact,” she said.

from AVIARY, PAGE 1

Local businesses optimistic about aviary’s future, plan to raise more for future years

Second time was a charm for Whitman’s yearbook, who gained funding after a re-vote

during the ASWC senate meeting on Sunday, Feb. 13. After their ini-tial proposal to ASWC was voted down on Jan. 13, the yearbook staff came back with a new proposal.

The idea to produce a soft cover yearbook was mentioned as a possible amendment to the year-book staff’s initial proposal, but without a cost breakdown avail-able it was not voted on, and the staff was required to research that cost and feasibility of that option.

The approved proposal calls for 350 copies of a full color soft cover yearbook for a total of 11,511 dollars from the ASWC Travel and Student Development fund; the original proposal called for 250 hardback copies and would have cost 15,232 dollars. The ex-pected price to students for the yearbook is 20 dollars, down from the original price of 30. If all the yearbooks are sold, ASWC’s in-vestment would be 8,951 dollars, which includes stipend costs and some of the cost of the yearbooks.

Though the yearbook has money for this year, it did not secure long-term funding.

“In my opinion, the proposal that the yearbook staff presented to Senate this time around was much more agreeable,” first-year ASWC Senator Kayvon Behrooz-ian said in an e-mail. “Though it may not have been exactly what

they originally had in mind, it’s the first step in the direction of making their original goal of a hard cover yearbook a reality.”

However, the proposal had a hurdle to clear before it was ap-proved. The memorial service held for Richard O’Brien coincided with the time of the ASWC meeting, so several senators were not present for the first vote. The proposal did not reach the two-thirds major-ity to pass the first time around.

However, after a consulta-tion with the oversight commit-tee, a motion to re-vote was de-creed a valid option. The Senate passed the motion, and on the sec-ond vote the Yearbook proposal passed with 15 in favor, one against

and three abstaining from vote.“I’m glad we were able to come

back to ASWC with a proposal which garnered their near-unan-imous support. Everyone’s been extremely supportive given the size of the request we’re making,” Edi-tor-in-Chief of the Yearbook Ben Lerchin said in an e-mail. “They’ve put a lot of trust in us and I’m very excited to make this happen.”

Second, less expensive yearbook request funded by RILEY MEBUS

Staff Reporter

February 14th - March 11th

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your screen, just like a class.

Participating Employers: Lake Partners Strategy Consultants, SCAFCO Corporation, The Chicago Center, Seattle Parks and Recreation,

Fund for the Public Interest, Washington Bus, Peace Corps,

CloudTrigger LLC, Whitman Mission National Historic Mission,

First Investors Corporation, and more!

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They’ve put a lot of trust in us and I’m

very excited to make this happen.

BEN LERCHIN ‘13

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VISIT OUR WEBSITE

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content. Please don’t hack us.

ILLUSTRATION BY MOLLY JOHANSON

February 17 2011 P!"# 4

For two years, Whitman stu-dents have access to prepared healthy food options at least

three times a day via Bon Appétit meal plans. But what do students do after those $irst two years o$ obliga-tory responsible eating? Students may preach healthy eating, but when they $ind themselves hungry and facing an empty kitchen instead o$ a bustling dining hall, what actually occurs?

Some busy students value ease o$ preparation when making deci-sion about what and how to eat.

“It’s whatever you can get in your starving stomach fast-est and get on with your day,” said senior Christine Simbolon.

Some also value taste.“I’d like to say that I think about

nutritional value, but that’s not the case when going out … Generally it comes down to ‘Will I like this combi-nation o$ ingredients together?’ when trying to create a gastronomic experi-ence rather than trying to set up a func-tional meal,” senior Logan Skirm said.

Others prioritize health fac-tors, like senior Alex Kearns.

“The best part [o$ controlling my own meals] for me is knowing the health bene$its o$ it, knowing ex-actly what I’m getting,” Kearns said.

Senior Anastasia Higham and her housemates represent those students who prioritize local and organic foods, but she acknowledges how students are also constrained to varying de-grees by their undergraduate budgets.

“Cost is de$initely a factor o$ course, especially when ... going out, but also my house particularly [seeks] organic and local, at least as much as possible on a budget,” she said. “We get the 'Made in Walla Walla' box, which is great … we got beets recently and a whole huge thing o$ garbanzo beans, and you can just Google what to do with them.”

But not all students actually know how to cook beyond search-ing for recipes via online search en-

gines. Many students would rather go to a restaurant downtown or eat frozen meals than attempt to cook.

“My mom bought me four cans o$ Pam when I moved off-cam-pus, thinking I’d use them when I cooked.% And then I discovered [Tacqueria Yungapeti, a restaurant downtown] and I’ve yet to use one o$ them more than once,” said Sim-bolon, who, when eating at home, relies on prepared frozen dishes.%

“When I grocery shop I walk up and down the aisles and I see what looks good and I grab it…Hell no, [I don’t] look up reci-pes or ingredients,” she said.

However, some students prac-tice cooking and have good inten-tions towards developing good skills and an eye for healthy meals.

“I actually tried meeting with a professor to learn how to cook this summer,” said Skirm. “We didn’t get particularly far, but I like to think the interest is there. I appreci-ate good food and I’d like to learn.”

“My mom slowly taught me cer-tain dishes and the rest o$ it’s been experimentation,” said Kearns. “[She

also] taught me particular skills like how to slice vegetables … and then I kind o$ just smash them to-gether … [But] I burn things a lot … Once I burned mac and cheese so bad the pan had little elbow shapes burned into it for months afterward.”

Higham bases her experi-ence on learning from people like housemates or her boyfriend.

“I’m not to [their] level yet, but I have a lot o$ fun learn-ing from them and cooking with them. I get a lot o$ chopping and grating jobs,” said Higham.

This enjoyment highlights a surprising commonality found in Whitman students: the commu-nity and togetherness o$ their eat-ing—whether preparing and eating together with housemates or going out with friends or even getting to know staf$ at restaurants downtown.

Third and fourth-year stu-dents may not be going down to section meals dressed in togas to-gether anymore, but these Whit-ties still seem to value the social side o$ meals as much as ever.

Juniors Phil Ho$ius and Nick Michal hope to revive the art o$ storytelling on Whitman’s campus

through the creation o$ Missionary Mainstage, a new venture that is part live performance and part podcast.

Missionary Mainstage is mod-eled upon “The Moth Mainstage”, a storytelling project that features the live, unscripted stories o$ ordinary Americans (and occasional famous guests) at events nationwide and “The Moth Radio Hour”, a nation-ally broadcast radio program o$ these stories. Ho$ius was inspired to cre-ate the Missionary Mainstage by his own love o$ The Moth podcasts and by the success o$ “The Middle-bury Moth”, an event started by a close friend at Middlebury College.

“What interests me about the project is getting people to look more closely at their own experi-ences ... to show how everyday ex-periences can be something that are turned into stories. It’s an experi-ment on narrative itself,” said Ho$ius.

“We want it to be a celebration o$ everyday moments and the lives that we lead and how they’re really interesting although they might seem commonplace or mundane. We want to transform them into something that is meaningful,” Michal added.

Ho$ius and Michal are currently soliciting storytellers from the student body, faculty and staf$ for the launch o$ Missionary Mainstage. In addition to featuring a set list o$ performers, audi-

ence members will also have the op-portunity to take the stage and share stories o$ their own, i$ time permits.

Ho$ius and Michal will record the stories and create podcasts o$ each event, which they plan to link to the KWCW website and air on their weekly radio programs.

Depending on campus inter-est, they hope to stage monthly Missionary Mainstage events. Each event will revolve around a speci$ic theme, the $irst o$ which is “Winter Wonderland”.

“We chose the theme because it can make people very reminiscent o$ certain, wildly different events in their lives, and at the same time, it’s sort o$ cliché, so it encourages people to think outside the box,” said Michal.

“We’re really controlling nothing about this except for where it’s hap-pening,” said Ho$ius. “Most o$ our job is setting the atmosphere and mak-ing people comfortable with what they are doing, but it’s really up to the storytellers and audience to de-termine the direction o$ each event.”

They also have considered stag-ing Missionary Mainstage per-formers in conjunction with the Visiting Writers Series and cam-pus lectures in hope o$ involv-ing visiting speakers in the events.

The $irst Missionary Mainstage will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 8:00 p.m. in Kimball Thea-tre. The event is open to the public.Interested performers can contact Phil Ho!ius at ho!iuspd@whitman.edu or Nick Michal at michalns@whitman.edu.

Award-winning poet, Pro-fessor of Creative Writing and editor Garrett Hongo

will read his work and share tips with students at this semester's first Visiting Writers Readings Series event. Hongo’s published works include “Yellow Light”, “The River of Heaven” and “Vol-cano: A Memoir of Hawai'i.”

“Hongo is an important Jap-anese-American Poet and mem-oirist/nonfiction writer who's taught for years in the Graduate Program at the University of Or-egon,” said Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing and Garrett Fellow Katrina Roberts, who helps organize the series.

Hongo’s culture and per-sonal history influence his writ-ing, and his poetry often ad-dresses problems immigrants face, with a specific focus on the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II.

“Every writer offers provoca-tion and unique eyes through which to comprehend the human condi-tion, and Hongo's past provides him with a fascinating—and likely familiar to many who feel margin-alized in some way—story,” said Roberts. “For others, he offers cul-turally resonant experiences ren-dered in the music of natural speech and heightened by an eye atten-tive to vibrant, unexpected detail.”

In preparation for the event, creative writing students have stud-ied his work, focusing the unique style that has garnered Hongo com-parisons to poet Walt Whitman.

“The students in classes here at Whitman have been reading his poems and memoir and have noted

his lyricism, his ability to transport readers through richly detailed por-traits of place, as well as through his compelling arguments of im-agery that create seamless shifts and bridges through time,” said Roberts.

Many students, such as sophomore Lea Negrin, appre-ciate the series because it gives them an opportunity to ask au-thors questions about their craft.

"The [VWRS] is specifically relevant to me because I am an Eng-lish major who is hoping to one day publish written work," said Negrin. "It is truly inspiring to at-tend the reading series because the authors always answer questions and talk about their personal ex-perience with getting published.”

Hongo’s visit to campus marks the fifth writer to share his knowl-edge and expertise with budding

writers and interested students. The purpose of the series is to expose students to a wide array of styles, experiences and points of view.

“Hongo brings an important diversity to campus as part of the Visiting Writers Reading Se-ries,” said Roberts. “Each of the writers included this year has a range of established and emerg-ing voices who share work across genres, enriching the Whitman and greater community by chal-lenging and promoting discus-sions of humanitarian concern.”

Hongo will visit campus on Thursday, Feb. 17. The reading, followed by a question and an-swer session, will take place in the Kimball Theatre starting at 7 p.m.

This weekend, the struggles o$ Black Shawl, her grand-daughter and their tribe came

alive in Maxey Auditorium through the voice o$ a single woman on Fri-day and Saturday, Feb. 11 and 12.

Sharon French, an actress o$ Navajo/Paiute/Anglo descent, shared the story o$ her Navajo grandmother, Sarah, which she wrote in 1996. French crafted the story originally as an outdoor drama with a cast o$ 60 actors. O$ the original cast, 30 actors were Native American.

“They took ownership o$ it because it was about them,” said French o$ her actors.

At the end o$ 10 years with her cast, French adapted the show so she could continue it on her own. To tell the story o$ her grandmother French gives voice to 18 different characters. She also weaves stories from her own life into the performance, showing how the tra-ditions o$ the past shape her own story.

When Associate Professor o$ Chemistry Allison Calhoun saw this one-woman show in Colorado, she was so touched by the story that she lobbied to have Sharon French brought to cam-pus as a guest educator and performer.

At the outset, French climbed the stairs o$ the stage slowly. The 73-year-old began in a soft voice to tell the story o$ the natives o$ the New Mexico and Colorado area and to set the stage for the scene o$

her grandmother’s birth. Soon, however, the audience was surprised by the big voices o$ Aunt Kate and her husband, both embodied by the same woman.

French and her characters took the audience through Sarah’s birth and adoption by Lily and her set-tler family, her reintegration into a Navajo tribe at the age o$ 10 and Sa-rah’s last glimpse o$ her grandmother, Black Shawl, as the old woman be-gan the long walk to Fort Sumner.

At the close o$ the show, the au-dience appeared in awe o$ the fam-ily story that had just been shared with them. Several audience members took a moment to thank French for coming.

“It was amazing. She is a very power-ful storyteller,” said $irst-year Jenna Carr.

Carr found out about the show through posters in her residence hall. She expressed a wish that more peo-ple could have attended the show to hear French’s story and message.

French shared more than a touching tale; she showed re-spect for history and storytelling.

“To the Navajo elders, money means little. But stories are precious,” she said at the beginning o$ her performance.

Her dramatic retelling o$ Sarah’s story and her own personal stories in-spired interest in American history through a special, private setting. “Black Shawl” offered a unique glimpse into a history that has often been suppressed.

SPOTLIGHT ON ART:Missionary Mainstage brings

local stories to life

On Sunday, Feb. 6, notes were posted in Stevens Gallery at Reid Campus Center. “I’m su-

per$icial,” read one. Another: “I’m not mature.” These notes were posted, but not written, by gallery curator senior Liz Hockett. They were sent to her anonymously as part o$ a commu-nity art project running through the end o$ the month entitled PostSecret.

The idea behind the PostSecret gallery is simple. I$ someone has a se-cret they want to share, they grab a blank note card from the gallery and write their thoughts down in simple script or with creative decorations. Participants then send their secrets anonymously by campus mail to Hock-ett, who tapes the secret up in Stevens.

Originally, the gallery was in-spired by the PostSecret “commu-nity mail art project” started by Frank Warren in 2005. What started as a blog with 10 new secrets every Sun-day ballooned into $ive published books and speaking engagements on various college campuses. A mail brochure advertising a talk by War-ren inspired the Stevens installation.

The artistry o$ the event comes not

only from the presentation o$ the se-crets on the note card, but also the idea o$ publicized secrets itself. The baring o$ one’s soul re$lects the dif$icult crea-tion o$ honest art. PostSecret allows anyone, not just artists, to express themselves in direct and intimate ways.

“I think a secret is kind o$ like someone’s art,” said Hockett. “I$ you are an artist yourself, to put something that you created and put like love and time into onto a wall—it’s something very scary.”

The brief, modest cards evoke the casual intimacy o$ graf$iti on a bathroom stall. Hockett, how-ever, has never had to deal with an inappropriate submission.

“I guess because it’s such a ... personal thing, and they’re all per-sonal secrets [it has not been a problem],” she said. “I don’t think that anyone would take this as an opportunity to be obscene.”

So far, every secret that Hock-et has received has gone up. Un-like a bathroom wall, PostSecret goes beyond simple shock value, which gives both secret-givers and viewers a cathartic experience.

“Anonymity brings truth,” said Hockett. “It takes away the fear o$ putting that secret up there.”

In past years, secrets have cov-ered the venue wall-to-wall. The postcards o$ the past are kept to-gether in a “drawer o$ secrets”—a massive archive o$ 3 x 5 sentiments.

First-year Emma Man-nheimer views many o$ the se-crets as trite and saccharine.

“I think people just try and ro-manticize love through it,” she said. “One o$ the ones in the art gallery [states] ‘I’ve never been in love.’ Okay, you’re probably 19. How many 19-year-olds have been in love?”

It’s easy to read through the se-crets and pick out the general trends that Mannheimer lampoons: many or most o$ the secrets deal with sexuality, insecurity and relation-ships—both romantic and platonic.

Hockett recalled a few se-crets that stood out to her.

“The ones that are most surprising are the little funny ones,” said Hock-ett, “just because they’re not in that vein o$ frustrations or insecurities.”

One card carries its mes-sage inside a crude pencil out-line o$ male genitalia. Another confesses a secret about boogers.

Hockett believes, however, that the overarching idea behind the PostSecret event involved the

communal impact o$ publicized se-crets rather than individual talent or particularly memorable secrets.

“Maybe individual secrets don’t stick in your mind,” she said. “I think the grander idea you get out o$ this

is that everyone does have secrets and it’s okay to have secrets and that displaying them is kind o$ empow-ering ... maybe you see people with the same issues you’re dealing with.”

by SEAN MCNULTYStaff Reporter

Off-­campus students weigh options for cooking healthy meals on budgetby KATE ROBINETTEStaff Reporter

Johnny Zimmerman '11 (left), Curtis Reid '10 and Ali Schlueter '11 (right) prepare curry and enchiladas in their off-campus home. PHOTO BY BRANDON FENNELL

Poet Garrett Hongo shares work, past at 'Visiting Writers Reading Series'

'Black Shawl' examines cultural, individual history

by MCCAULEY SINGER-MILNESStaff Reporter

by MOLLY SMITHEditor-in-Chief

by TANEEKA HANSENStaff Reporter

Sharon French assumes the role of her own great-great-grandmother, Black Shawl, one of the many characters in her one-woman play. PHOTO BY MARIE VON HAFTEN

Walla Walla Sweets Rollergirls help their teammate break through the pack during the Feb. 12 bout against Spokane's "Maidens of Mayhem." PHOTO BY BEN LERCHIN

PostSecret brings community art to campus&!'()* '!+, (-./#&0 &-#!0#* &!01!-0+& #2(#-+#3&# 4+! 5#&.-!0#5 3.0#&!-5*

ILLUSTRATION BY SLOANE

February 17 2011 P!"# 6

On Whitman’s campus, $ile-sharing turns even the most highly-edu-

cated and well-groomed col-lege student into a criminal.

Few would disagree that using the Internet to obtain music and movies without paying for them is a copyright violation; students are aware that when they do this they are breaking the law. This knowledge, however, deters few from illegal downloading.

Socially accepted“Yes,” senior Ian Gill asserted

when asked i$ students at Whit-

man illegally download music and movies, “I know this for a fact.”

According to junior Theo Pratt, to students who obtain media illegally, violating copy-right doesn’t feel like a crime.

“Consciously, people know that they are stealing,” he said, adding that students, “wouldn’t consider it the same as walking into a store and stealing a CD or DVD of$ the rack.”

Gill echoed this sentiment. “It is stealing, but it’s okay; there’s a

disconnect,” said Gill, attributing stu-dents’ willingness to violate the law to the fact that “it’s not a physical item.”

The ability to gain access to mov-ies, TV shows and music free o$ cost

in the privacy o$ a personal liv-

ing space is ir-

resistible to many. It’s illegal, but it is viewed with an “everyone does it” mentality and shrugged off. And because this act is so commonplace, there is no fear o$ repercussions.

“Not really,” said Pratt when asked i$ students worry about the conse-quences o$ illegal media use. “People who do it are a third party--i$ you’re going to enforce laws, you’ll go after the people who are redistributing it--the sites as opposed to the individuals.”

Whitman’s policyWhitman addresses the issue in its

Whitman Campus Network Accepta-ble Use Policy, which can be found on the WCTS website. Copyright viola-tion is listed as unacceptable conduct.

This policy refers to the violation o$ the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Whitman receives complaints o$ copyright violations from the Motion Picture Association o$ America and the Recording Indus-try Association o$ America. This sum-mer, new provisions o$ the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) went into effect, placing a greater ob-ligation on institutions o$ higher edu-cation to have polices on copyright infringement and to notify students about these policies. Action against copyright violation at the college level increased after the HEOA went into effect, according to Whitman’s Chie$ Information Of$icer Keiko Pitter.

“Both recording and mo-tion picture industries acceler-ated their ‘infringement notice’ activities,” Pitter said in an e-mail.

Whitman saw a huge in-crease in copyright violation com-

plaints in the fall 2010 semester.“Prior to last fall, the most

infringement notices we had ever seen for any given se-mester was 14. In fall 2010, there were 77,” said IT Security Of$icer/Deputy

Director, Enterprise Tech-nology Mike Osterman in an e-mail.

Our campus isn’t the only one to see these types o$ numbers.

“Comments from other schools on professional listservs indicate that all schools saw a huge uptick in infringement notices during the same time period,” Osterman said.

Whitman acts an intermedi-ary when it receives a complaint from a copyright holder, forward-ing the complaint to the user--who is identi$ied by their IP address.

“We do not identify the person to the copyright holder,” Osterman said.

The student is required to sub-mit a statement that acknowledges the violation and con$irms that the copyright-violating material has been removed. I$ the student does not take these steps and denies the claim, legal action may be taken.

“Under the DMCA, the claimant may pursue a subpoena to obtain the identity o$ the system user and may $ile a lawsuit against the user,” says the WCTS website under “Response to claims o$ copyright infringement.”

Pitter notes that this has never occurred; all students have complied with the policy.

“Fortunately, we've nev-er had to go there,” she said.

Though Whitman’s pol-icy is online, students gener-ally are not knowledgeable o$ it.

“I don’t think that at all,” said Pratt when asked i$ Whitman stu-dents know the policy on copy-right violation. “I can’t think o$ any e-mails, talks, notices ...” he said.

Gray areaDeliberately seeking to obtain

a media $ile without paying for it is one thing, but sometimes students violate copyright in less obvious ways.

“Illegal $ile sharing some-times occurs ... when a person owns music and ‘shares’ it online with friends.% The person doesn't think o$ this as illegal,” Pitter said.

Whitman students do just

that, sometimes using the pro-gram Mojo to share $iles. Pratt re-calls a professor quite openly dis-cussing sharing $iles on Mojo.

“They said that they had illegally downloaded a lot o$ music and were open to sharing music,” said Pratt.

Deusty Designs stopped dis-tributing Mojo in 2010 due to le-gal pressure from EMI music.

Streaming video online is also common. In this case, the stu-dent doesn’t download anything, but watches a video on a site that is hosting the $ile illegally. Both Gill and Pratt acknowledged that this occurs with frequency.

“I$ you’re watching a TV show, it’ll probably be online, but not in a legal way,” said Gill.

“Megavideo is big,” Pratt said, referring to a video-hosting site. He added that “a lot o$ people actually do use legit sites like ABC, Fox, Hulu.”

As there is no actual download-ing involved in video streaming, to many the act hardly seems criminal. Furthermore, often sites will do their best to appear legitimate so users don’t know that what they’re doing is illegal.

“Some sites it’s hard to tell,” said Pratt.

Free and easy

Filesharing and streaming video allows students to enjoy media free o$ cost and at their own conveni-ence. They don’t have to wait for advertisements, and they can eas-ily share $iles with their friends. Stu-dents don’t worry about potential repercussions from their actions and are largely unaware o$ Whitman’s policy on copyright infringement.

Though legal means o$ obtain-ing media online are gaining mo-mentum, and sites like Pandora and Hulu are popular alternatives to il-legal downloading or streaming, the ease and seemingly consequence-free nature o$ these crimes ensures that, for now at least, they are here to stay.

Wanted: Criminals in flannelOn Friday, Feb. 11, two Whitman students removed a

large framed poster o$ Hamlet from Prentiss Din-ing Hall during the dinner rush. Students and

Bon Appétit employees looked on, but no one did anything to stop them. Though this occur-rence was unusual, thievery in the public eye is present in various guises on Whitman’s campus. This week, Feature investigates three forms o$ theft that are not always con-sidered "criminal" by Whitman students.

by PATRICIA VANDERBILT

Feature Editor

Whitties don't toe the line when it comes to sharing files online

“Dining hall hours are restrictive. I understand that they have to be, but at the beginning o$ the year, I would eat at 5:30 p.m. and be hun-gry again at 10 p.m.,” Hudson said. “I$ it's all you can eat, does it really matter i$ you're eating it in the din-ing hall rather than in your room?”

In the past, Bon Appétit was not always so to-go friendly. Ten years ago, students were not allowed to take anything out o$ a dining hall; it was all you could eat as long as you ate it there.

“It used to be a police battle, al-most,” said Susan Todhunter, man-ager o$ Prentiss dining hall. “As our culture evolved into more o$ a 'to-go' culture, it changed the dynamic o$ the dining halls,” Todhunter said.

Now, Bon Appétit is more con-cerned with its relationship with students, but this is hard to maintain while still preventing students from stealing extra meals or food items. Staf$ members address people on an individual basis i$ necessary, but would rather not spend time policing. Thus, the policy remains fairly relaxed.

“I think the real difference is that in [Prentiss], you can take food, and likely no one will say, ‘Hey, what are you doing?’” said

sophomore Brian van Oppen, ex-plaining the difference between Reid's Ca$é 66 and the dining halls.

At Reid, most students are more hesitant to steal meals and to-go items, and view such behavior as a greater risk.

“When it gets pretty crowded, students sometimes slip drinks into their backpacks or take snacks from the espresso stand. Or some-one will pay for one meal, then their friend goes up and takes two. But almost always when I confront stu-dents, they tend to panic a little and not say much,” said Michelle Ik-erd, a barista at the espresso stand.

The set prices and ca$é am-biance make the atmosphere in Reid more socially restricting.

“At Reid, there's a $ixed price for each speci$ic meal, which de$ines your limits,” said sophomore Ian Lambie.

The Flex dollar rather than meal swipe system makes Reid feel more like a restaurant and thus farther away from the Whitman bubble.

“I$ I were to not pay for food at Reid, there would de$initely be a sense o$ guilt. Reid feels more ca$é-like; it resembles a more real-life place, and from the time we're little, we're told not to steal from places like that,” said sophomore Sergio Garcia.

At a college campus, the word “crime” usually conjures images o$ laptop theft, break-ins or muggings. We seldom think that an incorrectly written paraphrase or poorly cited quotation constitutes a serious trans-gression. However, these minor errors can result in a failing grade or--in extreme cases--expulsion.

The Student Handbook goes to great lengths to de$ine academic dis-honesty, speci$ically those offenses it identi$ies as plagiarism, which “occurs when you, intentionally or uninten-tionally, use someone else’s words, ideas or data without proper acknowl-edgment.” Further down the page, it states, “[Plagiarism] is a form o$ cheating; indeed it is a form o$ theft.”

“The theft language has been in there for a long time ... I suspect that one reason for keeping language like that, which is kind o$ sharp, is because we are so much in a cut-and-paste, download-it-from-the-web era that people need to be reminded that yeah, this is real,” said Andrea Dobson, chair o$ the faculty and associate profes-sor o$ astronomy and general studies.

“I think it’s probably the goal o$ the college to make it seem that se-

rious, but I think that when people plagiarize they don’t realize it’s that se-vere,” said sophomore Katie Haaheim.

Despite Whitman’s effort to clearly de$ine and express its pol-icy--especially the section on pla-giarism--the word’s meaning still proves slippery for many students.

“[Plagiarism] is the elephant in the room when talking about academic dishonesty, the thing people are go-ing to get tripped up on … [it] requires a bigger de$inition, it’s the hardest to wrap your brain around,” said Dobson.

Students tend to understand the gravity o$ intentionally present-ing another’s work as their own and identify such actions as plagiarism.

“Plagiarism has the connota-tion o$ being overt, where you liter-ally just copy and paste something and do it intentionally,” said Haaheim.

However, it is often unclear to students that the college views the unintentional cases as an equally serious offense. Interest-ingly enough, this type o$ plagia-rism is more frequent at Whitman.

“There are plenty o$ times when people are actually not giving you the references and are plagiarizing with in-tent, but I think accidental plagiarism is more common and that it comes from a lack o$ knowledge o$ how and where to cite things,” said Dobson.

This is most likely due to Whitman’s liberal arts aca-demic environment, which is founded on close relationships between faculty and students.

“I think that we probably have less students buying stuf$ of$ the In-ternet,” said Dobson. “We know stu-dents’ work better and someone who turns in wildly irregular work would be more obvious here than some-one doing it at a larger university.”

Haaheim echoes this opinion.“I think people here are genu-

inely serious about academics … It’s not necessarily laziness or not want-ing to write your own work, it’s being busy and not realizing how much you had to do, then panicking and maybe cutting corners on one assignment [and] in cases where people don’t cite correctly it’s more o$ an unaware-ness o$ proper citation,” she said.

As a proactive measure against academic dishonesty, the college re-quires that the policy be introduced to all students early in their under-

graduate career. Upperclassmen may recall an initial meeting with a pre-major adviser where

the policy was presented and the stu-dent signed a statement, acknowl-edging his or her comprehension.

“I remember getting something, seeing something in the Student Handbook to the effect o$ reading what the policy was. But I don’t re-member having it actually explained to me point by point,” said Haaheim.

This year, the incoming $irst-years were introduced to the col-lege’s policy by means o$ a group advising session led by Juli Dunn, director o$ Whitman’s Academic Resource Center. The result o$ the policy being updated during the 2009-2010 school year, the change aims for greater clarity and uniform-ity in the presentation o$ the policy.

“I think it is fair to say that we wanted to ensure a consistent mes-sage about academic honesty and in-

tegrity at Whitman.%It is one conduct area that brings with it some o$ the harshest consequences that the col-lege can hand down to a student and yet i$ you asked students about the types o$ conduct that might warrant such consequences it was one that was rarely mentioned,” said Dunn.

Though it will take several semes-ters before the administration can de-termine whether the adjustment will yield fewer cases o$ plagiarism, some visible changes have already occurred.

“The one thing I did notice is that I had more students than ever this fall wait to sign their forms until they re-ally understood what they were sign-ing.% I saw this as an important step in the right direction in that students weren't just signing a form; but rather, signing a form after they understood its full implications,” said Dunn.

And what exact-ly does this signature imply?

“By signing it you’re say-ing, ‘Yes I did know,’ and we’re going to hold you responsi-ble for knowing,” said Dobson.

Idea theft: Minor transgressions can trigger major consequences

by CARA LOWRY

Feature Editor

Stealing from Bon Appétit small potatoes to studentsfrom FOOD THEFT, PAGE 1

ILLUSTRATION BY SONG

[Plagiarism]brings with it some of

the harshest con-sequences that the

college can hand down [...]

JULI DUNN, DIRECTOR OF THE ARC

ILLUSTRATION BY SONG

ILLUSTRATION BY SONG

February 17 2011 P!"# 6

First-year basketball player Meghan White believes that the Whitman fans make a strong im-pact on her team’s performance.

“I definitely feel our Whitman crowd aids our women’s basketball team’s success,” White said. “Noth-ing beats the invigorating feeling of hearing a cheering crowd as you play basketball. It pumps me and every one of my teammates up, bringing the competition to the next level.”

The strength of fan support can also be seen where one may not expect it: the pool. During a recent home swim meet, sopho-more phenom Kevin Dyer found himself trailing a Whitworth oppo-nent through most of the grueling 1,650-yard freestyle. As he started to gain on the other swimmer, the packed crowd really got behind him and helped him overtake the Pirate, winning the 17-minute race by a mere 34-hundredth of a second.

“Usually you can’t hear peo-ple when underwater, but when I started to catch the guy I really started to hear the crowd,” Dyer said. “It happened at the point in the race when I was starting to get tired and knowing that there were so many people cheering me on re-ally pushed me through to the end.”

Some athletes, including sopho-more soccer player Jed Jacobson, find that travel and the disadvantag-

es that come with being on the road largely contribute to teams possi-bly performing worse while away.

“Playing on the road is of-ten more difficult,” Jacobson said.$ “Long bus trips, not-so-great food, and sharing beds may all negatively impact performance, as well as the unfamiliar location.”

While an unfamiliar location may be a disadvantage while on the road, the fact that athletes do not get to play in the quality of fa-cilities that they are used to prac-ticing in may exacerbate the situa-tion. Many Whitman athletes feel that all of the Whitman facilities are superior to those of most of the other schools in the confer-ence which could play a large role in this home field advantage.

“Whitman has one of the best, if not the best, soccer fields/complex-es in the conference,” Jacobson said.

White agrees in the superior-ity of the venues here at Whitman.

“Sherwood Center is by far the best place to play in the North-west Conference,” she said.

The roar of the home crowd, playing in familiar and supe-rior facilities and not having to spend four hours stuck on a bus all add up to Whitman varsity teams having a substantial ad-vantage when playing at home.

Whitman is a place that prides itself on giv-ing students every op-

portunity possible to succeed and experience all that college has to offer, and the Off-Campus Stud-ies (OCS) program is no exception.

Every year, countless students leave the self-proclaimed Whitman bubble in exchange for the chance to travel and study abroad in nearly any place imaginable, from South Africa to China. For varsity ath-letes who would otherwise be in the middle of off-season t r a i n i n g , h o w e v e r , the choice to study abroad can directly impact their athletics.

“I may have thought a lit-tle harder about whether going abroad would be in my best interest, but for me, going abroad is some-thing I always knew I wanted to do, regardless of where I attended school or whether I played soc-cer,” said junior soccer cap-tain Libby Watkins, who is currently studying in Washington, D.C., and spent the summer of 2010 in Tanzania.

“[M]y study abroad decision was greatly in-fluenced by my being a varsity athlete,” said sen-ior swim captain Jamie Nusse, who studied last spring in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “Due to the in-version of seasons in the southern

hemisphere, the Argentines had summer vacation while we had win-ter break, so their semester did not start until about a month after ours. I knew swimmers who had studied abroad in South America and New Zealand who were able to finish the swim season and then depart, which is why I chose to go south.”

While being a varsity athlete made Watkins and Nusse think about their study abroad options, senior swim captain Ali Schlueter wasn’t influenced at all by athlet-ics in her decision to go abroad.

“I knew that studying abroad was a once-in-a-

lifetime opportunity, and I

knew I would have my whole senior year season [ahead],” said Schluet-er, who went abroad to Frei-burg, Germany in the fall of 2009.

It appears to be a common theme that being a varsity ath-lete has little to no effect on a stu-dent’s decision to study abroad, as the opportunity is not some-

thing students want to pass up.“When advising students, I

find that [they] rarely mention athletics as an issue [for study-ing abroad], other than occasion-ally talking about a preference for study abroad in the spring rather than the fall because of a sport,” said Susan Brick, OCS director.

Winter sports athletes find themselves faced with a tougher

decision in fig-uring out when to go abroad, since studying in the fall or

spring semester will cut into reg-

ular season train-ing time. Nusse, who

left after the Northwest Conference Champion-

ships, believes it is easier for winter athletes to go abroad for spring semester, when the

off-season is just beginning.Schlueter, who went

abroad in the fall, agrees that “joining the swim team at the peak of their sea-son was difficult,” since all of the first-years were newcomers as her own season was beginning.

For all of the varsity athletes who study abroad,

the return to Whitman is equivalent to a homecoming of sorts, as the athletes are

welcomed back into the community by their

teammates. Motiva-tion to maintain fit-ness and improve individually can

be difficult to come by while abroad for many athletes, but returning to the team dynamic makes the transition all the more easy. The connection between teammates isn’t often something that can be broken by distance.

“It was extremely difficult to exercise without a team,” said

Schlueter. “Exercising by yourself is boring when you’re used to doing it with 40 of your closest friends. There’s no replacement for that kind of support and motivation.”

“I always find that it’s harder to motivate myself when my team-mates aren’t around, but knowing that everyone back at Whitman is working harder than ever re-ally pushes me,” said Watkins. “I don’t want to let my teammates down, so often that is what gets me going even when working out is the last thing I want to do.”

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For over a decade, Whitman climbing enthusiasts have pur-sued their passion by partici-

pating in the mountaineering club. Now, the club has undergone a trans-formation into the Whitman Rock Climbing Club and upped the ante.

The Rock Climbing Club of/icially began under its new name at the begin-ning o/ the fall 2010 semester. Outdoor Program (OP) Director Brien Sheedy leads the group, which includes climb-ers o/ all skill levels. During the sum-mer, Sheedy was approached by sen-iors Nat Clark and Aidan Beers about starting a climbing club at Whitman.

“I suggested that we change mountaineering club into more o/ a climbing club,” said Sheedy.

Instead o/ focusing solely on mountaineering technique and prac-tice, the climbing club has broadened its base, which can be broken down into three elements: mountaineer-ing, competitions and climbing trips. The climbing trips exist separate from the OP and don’t have of/icial trip leaders. In addition, there are no prerequisites to go on the trips.

“The idea is to offer trips be-yond the level offered by the OP,” said Lilly Dethier ’10.

Dethier worked for the OP as a /irst-year, and was hired as the climbing wall manager follow-ing her graduation from Whitman.

Instead o/ trip leaders organ-izing speci/ic routes that everyone has to follow, climbers have more freedom to choose where they want to go. This allows the climbers to have a more individualized and, ultimately, enjoyable experience.

“The trips are more personal,” said sophomore Charlotte Hill.

Competitions add yet another di-mension to the club which the moun-taineering club lacked. Colleges and

universities around the Northwest host these competitions, which range in skill level from beginner to open and include male and female categories.

“[Competitions] are pretty laid back,” said Hill. “It’s a pretty casual atmosphere. Anyone can compete because there are different levels.”

Along with several other mem-bers o/ the club, Hill went to the East-ern Washington University climb-ing competition held on Jan. 29. The EWU competition was the second o/ eight competitions available for the Whitman climbers to participate in.

For any and all interested Whit-

man students, the Rock Climbing Club is very easy to join. The club’s listserv keeps members up to date on schedul-ing, competitions and climbing times.

“Anyone can come during open hours [at the climbing center],” said Dethier. “You can take clinics to get the technical skills to go on certain trips.”

Students have several options i/ they have interest in learning about climbing or improving their skills. There are climbing classes available each semester, including beginner, in-termediate and instructor courses, as well as clinics and general wall use. The wall is also available for sports teams,

clubs and residence hall sections to sign up for team building activities or sim-ply as something fun to do together.

The climbing wall is one o/ the more popular spots on cam-pus, and averages about 80 vis-its per day during the week.

“Once people get down here, they realize that there are actually a lot o/ people in here,” said Sheedy.

The climbing club will par-ticipate in competitions periodi-cally for the next two months be-fore coming home to host the Sweet Onion Crank on April 30 at the Whitman Climbing Center.

Ahren Stroming ‘14, Isabel Hong ‘11 and Chelsea Cordell ‘14 take advantage of whitman’s exceptional climbing center, practic-ing belaying technique in a beginning climbing class. PHOTO BY MARIN AXTELL.

by PAMELA LONDON

Staff Reporter

Club provides greater opportunities for climbers

Athletes tackle study abroad, separation from teamsby PAMELA LONDON

Staff Reporter

ILLUSTRATION BY LOOS-DIALLO

ILLUSTRATION BY URIU

Whitman athletes feel benefit of home competition

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February 17 2011 P!"# 7

It used to be that capitalism was the archenemy o$ the environ-ment. In the days o$ cheap energy

and limited environmental regula-tion, it made business sense to pollute

But today, with energy prices creeping higher and the eco-con-scious global population increas-ing, companies are $inding that they have to “go green” or else face the prospect o$ a poor public im-age and higher operating costs.

Many in the Green Movement see this as a victory o$ their own design. They have managed to con-vince business that harming the en-vironment is simply unacceptable, they argue. They have forced cor-porations to recalibrate their bot-tom lines so that pro$it is not privi-

leged to the detriment o$ the planet.But this is simply not the case.

The goal o$ the $irm, as it is preached in every business textbook in the na-tion, is and always will be to maxi-mize pro$it. As much as the Green Movement would like to take credit for “changing” how businesses do business, very little change has actu-ally occurred. Instead, companies are realizing that limiting their use o$ fos-sil fuels or disposing o$ their hazard-ous waste in a responsible manner, can help them cut costs and improve their pro$it margins. Quite simply, being environmentally responsible is beginning to be good business.

This is because consumers are increasingly choosing to buy goods or services that identify themselves as “green”. A recent survey con-ducted by The Washington Post, for instance, found that 30 percent o$ utility customers in Minnesota were willing to pay extra for elec-tricity that comes from renewable resources. In the $inance industry, mutual funds that put “social re-sponsibility” as part o$ their mission have managed to add new investors at a faster rate than those that do not according to the Social Invest-ment Forum’s recent biennial report.

This change in consumer tastes is being felt by businesses. In order to satisfy their customers, companies are compelled to “go green” or else they risk losing customers to their com-petitors. A pertinent example is the auto industry. Following the success o$ the Toyota Prius, many car com-panies, like Honda, Ford and Chev-rolet, invested hundreds o$ millions o$ dollars to develop their own hy-brid vehicles, which have better fuel economy and emit signi$icantly less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

I$ they had chosen not to invest in hybrid technology, they would have lost out on one o$ the indus-try’s fastest selling sectors—that o$ highly fuel-ef$icient small to mid-size cars. Others are $inding that “go-ing green” can help them cut costs. Timberland, the outdoor clothing company, found that by reducing its carbon emissions it could also sig-ni$icantly reduce its energy costs.

For Timberland, reducing its carbon footprint was less a matter o$ “greening” its corporate image and more a matter o$ business ef$iciency.

As Timberland CEO Jeffrey Swartz stated in a New York Times article, “What idiot will leave costs on the table? I hope it’s our com-

petitors. I get paid to create value.”Indeed, more and more busi-

nesses are recognizing that they can pro$it by doing things like reduc-ing their reliance on fossil fuels or promoting sustainability. To help them towards this end, an increasing number have added a new position to the executive ranks—a chie$ sustain-ability of$icer whose job is to make money of$ o$ the push to go green.

According to a report by The New York Times, these CSO’s have real power too. Linda J. Fisher, the chie$ sustainability of$icer at DuPont, refused to sign of$ on an acquisition o$ another $irm whose business she deemed was not “sustainable”, killing the deal. Companies are beginning to realize that i$ they do not give care-ful attention to the environmental impact o$ their business, they are going to have to pay a huge price for their lack o$ diligence in the future.

Most o$ Europe, for example, abides by the tenets o$ Kyoto Pro-tocol, which sets binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Companies that do business in Eu-rope are bound to certain emission limits and those that exceed these limits are forced to buy carbon cred-its to comply. By ratifying the Kyoto

Protocol, governments are provid-ing $irms with the incentive to make their operations more environmen-tally friendly. I$ they go over their carbon limit, it costs them money; i$ they manage to stay below, they can sell their extra carbon cred-its on the market and turn a pro$it.

To be sure, governments are beginning to incentivize $irms to be more environmentally friendly, in part, because o$ pressure from environmentalists. In this way, en-vironmentalists have managed to convince business that harming the environment is unacceptable. But it is unacceptable to business not because it goes against their mor-als to be polluters, but because it negatively affects their bottom line.

As Gordon Gekko famously put it in the movie “Wall Street”, “Greed is good.” The sooner activ-ists and government of$icials realize this and focus on incentivizing busi-ness instead o$ appealing to their better consciences, the sooner they will be able to actually make change.

Staten Hudson is an English major with a

passion for both Shakespeare and the stock

market.

‘Greed is good ’: Activists need to appeal to capitalism’s desire for more

Beauty oppresses our bodies

Way back in 2007, when the iPhone was still a brand-new, fairly untested prod-

uct, Apple suddenly dropped the price o$ the original iPhone by 200 dol-lars. Consumers were outraged that the phone they had previously paid 500 or 600 dollars for was now going for a paltry $300 or $400. But peo-ple who followed technology and the way companies deal with new prod-ucts shrugged. Apple’s price reduction was nothing new. People who buy new products soon after they come out often have to pay a premium for them. I call it the early adopter tax.

Those o$ us who saturate our-selves in technology have a name for the people who have to have the lat-est, greatest product at any given time: early adopters. When these people see a cool new gadget that they like, they’re going to go out and buy it on the day it launches, or a few days there-after. They also tend to be wealthy enough to be able to spend massive amounts o$ money on new gadgets.

By doing so, they reap a lot o$ bene$its. After all, having the newest gizmo before everyone else is pretty cool. But there are also a bunch o$ potential issues. Most new products, while cool on the surface, often ship with bugs that can be annoying or do not work as intended. Despite the ef-forts o$ everyone who ships a product, I’ve never seen something that’s en-tirely bug-free. For example: “Fallout: New Vegas” shipped with crippling problems, and people who bought it on launch day had to wait for a patch to $ix the bugs that were keeping it from working. I’d bet the develop-ers didn’t see those bugs coming.

There’s also the issue o$ price, with a product often getting progres-sively cheaper, sometimes even a few months after its launch, as in the case o$ the iPhone. Early adopters are pay-ing a premium for things that will get progressively cheaper as they get older. In addition to being cheaper, gadgets like smartphones, comput-

ers and tablets are constantly being revised by their manufacturers, of-ten with new features and perfor-mance upgrades for the same price.

All o$ these issues add up to what some people (mysel$ includ-ed) call the early adopter tax. It’s a shorthand way o$ talking about all the problems people face when they pick up a brand new product.

So, what should you as the consum-er do about the early adopter tax? The short answer is: be mindful. It’s not go-ing to go away any time soon, and there are some gadgets that I believe are truly worth paying it for. (I’m considering picking up a Nintendo 3DS on launch day.) At the same time, everyone has a $inite budget. Sure, laying down a big chunk o$ cash for the Next Big Thing may make sense at some point, but you have to pick your battles, unless you have a massive amount o$ dispos-able income. That’s especially relevant for college students because, let’s face it, most o$ us are fairly short on it.

At the same time, it’s important to realize that the early adopter tax is here to stay. Early adopters play in the tech ecosystem. These are the people who, through their purchases, provide seed money for companies to continue producing new and better products. I$ everyone had waited to buy the iPhone, or any other gadget because something newer and better would be coming within a year, there wouldn’t have been something newer and better. Making a new widget, especially something new and revolutionary is often a huge risk. Any company that does such a thing needs to recoup its development and manufacturing costs and gauge consumer support before moving for-ward with any subsequent products. Often that means that new products are expensive, or not as technically capable as the ones that follow them.

By means o$ a conclusion, allow me to offer a few words o$ advice. I$ you believe in a product, and want to pick it up the day it comes out, think about the early adopter tax. I$ the idea o$ paying more for something in terms o$ both $inancial and func-tional costs is still outweighed by own-ing that product, go ahead and pick it up. Just don’t be surprised i$ the price drops a few months later, some key component breaks, or there’s a bet-ter version o$ it out in six months.

Blair Hanley Frank is an English major and

the technology columnist for The Pioneer. He also writes for PCWorld’s GeekTech

blog and can be found on Twitter as @belril.

Early buys have risks, rewards

While I like to complain that things in London are wildly expensive (Ten

pounds for a sandwich?!), there is one exception: theatre is cheap. At the National Theatre, tickets to “Hamlet” actually cost 10 pounds (the price o$ certain sandwiches).

Cheap theatre tickets are pos-sible because o$ how London thea-tre is funded: the two sectors o$ the London theatre are the pro$it-making sector, which encompasses the West End (think Broadway), and the sub-sidized sector, which encompasses basically everything else. Arts Coun-cil England, one o$ the major sources o$ funding for the subsidized sec-tor, is part o$ the UK government’s Department for Culture, Education and Sports, and sponsors individual projects as well as the running costs (i.e. salaries, publicity) o$ off-West End venues and theatre companies.

Corporate sponsorships and pri-vate endowments also contribute to the subsidized sector, but not to

the extent that they do in the United States. England is a shining exam-ple o$ government arts funding. We should be emulating them; they’re doing something right here. Eng-land should not be emulating us--which is why these cuts worry me.

In October, the English govern-ment’s spending review resulted in a 30 percent cut to Arts Council Eng-land’s budget, with a 24 percent cut overall to the Department for Cul-ture, Education and Sports spread out over the next three years. According to The Guardian, the cuts will begin to affect arts organizations this April.

American theatre isn’t in a great place right now. Theatre in the United States is, and has been for years, referred to as a dying art form. In order to save it, we should take a page from England’s book and make theatre that’s worth seeing, at prices that won’t cost us an arm and a leg.

We should push harder for the de-velopment o$ new works. We should make ticket prices cheap and get young people into the theatre. Then maybe this terrible trend o$ adapt-ing Hollywood for the stage will end; maybe young people will spend their money to see a play rather than “The Roommate” or whatever crap is play-ing right now. Then maybe theatre won’t be that perpetually dying entity.

Public funding makes a difference and in$luences the type o$ theatre that exists in London and the kinds o$ people who go to the theatre. For instance, in London there are several popular theaters dedicated solely to

the production o$ new work. Two notable examples are The Royal Court Theatre (birthplace o$ “The Rocky Horror Show”, as well as work by Caryl Churchill, Sarah Kane and Martin McDonagh—to name a few) and The Bush Theatre, which is sub-sidized entirely by public funding.

The average age o$ theatergoers is much younger in London than in the United States; usually when I see plays in the states, the age range o$ the audience is from middle-aged to very, very old. The environment o$ London theatre is different, too: it’s more social, more relaxed. “People go to see theatre [in England] like they’re going to the movies,” one o$ my pro-fessors here explained. And often the ticket price is less than that o$ a mov-ie--with concessions (e.g. student, under 26, unemployed). Shows usu-ally cost between $ive to 12 pounds. These prices could only be achieved with the help o$ taxpayers’ money.

The quality o$ the work differs as well and illustrates the implica-tions o$ public funding versus private funding. More strings are attached to private money. Public money not only allows but demands theatres to take risks; plays are assessed on the basis o$ their artistic merit and am-bitiousness, rather than their ability to turn a pro$it. As a result, London theatre in the subsidized sector tends to be riskier, bolder and more ex-perimental than American theatre.

And a symbiotic relationship can exist between the subsidized sector and the pro$it-making sector. The

subsidized sector will create mate-rial for the West End, which will make money that can then be fun-neled back into the subsidized sec-tor. For example, “War Horse”, which is playing in the West End right now (also, a $ilm adaptation directed by Spielberg is scheduled to be released later this year), start-ed out as a National Theatre play. In fact, many shows on Broadway started out as off-Broadway shows.

I understand why they’re mak-ing the cuts: it’s partially because o$ the hugely expensive 2012 Olympics, but also because this coalition gov-ernment seems to be trying to emu-late the U.S. in sending the message that they don’t care about the arts. By cutting public funds for the arts, they expect theatres to rely increas-ingly on private money (i.e. corpo-rate sponsorships and endowments).

Obviously the theatre industry wil survive these cuts. But in what form? Will we look back on this mo-ment in 20 years and think wistfully, “England was the last bastion o$ real, good, cheap theatre?” Will we strug-gle to name the last play we saw, only to give up, shrug our shoulders and say, “Look, this is interesting, but I need to go i$ I’m going to catch the 7:30 showing o$ ‘The Roommate 4: Return o$ the Revenge o$ the Room-mate’?” I really, really hope not.

-

ies major studying abroad in Lon-

don. She misses peanut butter, maca-

roni and cheese and having money.

Public support keeps theatre creative

J. STATEN HUDSONColumnist

ILLUSTRATION BY LOOS-DIALLO

No one ever tells you di-rectly, “You are fat.” Which is strange, considering we

live in a country that is obsessed with dieting, exercise, shaping those buns, working those calves, slimming those thighs, shed-ding those few extra pounds and choosing salads over sandwiches.

We are a society obsessed with “fat”, and speci$ically, how to “lose” it. And yet, we hate to acknowledge that fat isn’t some evil force that ex-ists out on its own in the world. The fat that we so fear and hate belongs to a human body, and that body be-longs to a person, and that person likely has many other traits and at-tributes besides their body fat. I$ we talked about fat bodies all the time, we might quickly realize how ridicu-lous our obsession is; but instead, we only talk about “the fat,” as i$ it were separate from the per-son. In con-versation at least, we talk about body fat, not fat bodies.

But then there are some o$ us, may-be even many o$ us, who do talk about the fat bodies, but mostly just to ourselves. We constantly survey the bodies that sur-round us: “My thighs are much bigger than that,” but “my stomach is $latter.” We function quite nicely as our very own fat police, pre-cisely because we never have to speak the words direct-ly. You. Are. Fat.

Why can’t we say it? Plenty o$ people in other places say it. Go to rural Mexico. They’ll tell you, “You’re fat,” and “Eat more tortil-las,” and “You’ve gained weight,” all

in the same sentence—except you feel no shame. But, in the United States, when someone tells you (or you tell yoursel$), “You are fat,” you are also saying that you should be “less fat.”

No one ever tells me I’m fat be-cause, to be honest: I’m not. And yet, all o$ the facts and $igures some-how get overlooked in the time be-tween when I look in the mirror and when I think to mysel$ “I am fat.” The weird part is, I don’t re-ally think I’m fat. I like my body, and more importantly, I appreciate my body. And yet, I still. feel. fat.

To make things worse, I’m sup-posed to believe that I came up with this crazy idea o$ ‘feeling’ fat all on my own. Trust me though, I’m not imagining it: society is constantly telling me (and you) that we should feel fat. Regardless o$ whether our BMI, body type, clothing size or the number on the scale are considered acceptable in society; we are made to feel guilty about our bodies, the things they do and the way they look.

It’s no secret that people on tel-evision, people in movies, people

in magazines, do not look like me.

All o$ us are con-

stantly exposed to images and ideas on television shows, the news, magazines, movies and the Inter-net, that are fairly consistent with a societal ideal o$ what we “should” all look like. But these images and ideas don’t just get produced. They produce something that we call “beauty”. And they produce “us”, how we see ourselves and each other, and how we see “beauty”. We become people who pinch and prod and poke at their bodies. Who scratch and cut and starve their bodies, because they are not “beau-tiful” enough. Who subject them-selves to horrors o$ manipulation and abuse and mental oblivion, all because they want to be “beautiful”.

I would love for everyone to feel beautiful. But still, I don’t think it would be enough. I think some-thing is awry in the very idea o$ bodies being “beautiful”. Our ideas about “beauty” don’t have much to do with making people feel beautiful. The presence or absence o$ “beauty” is a tool that we use for body polic-

ing and body shaming. And as long as we have societal

standards o$ what is “beau-tiful”, we will have people who are systematically oppressed and excluded from that standard: peo-ple made to feel ugly, imperfect, and like they

will never be enough.So, fuck beauty.

My body is not here for your viewing

pleasure. My body is here for me, and me alone. My

body is my life and my world;

it’s the only thing in this world that is truly mine. So don’t try

to tell me it is ugly. And don’t try to tell me it is beau-tiful. My body has nothing to do with you.

P e o p l e have bodies. Bodies have fat. Let’s try to get over it, can we?

A. QUARDColumnist

AMITIANColumnist

BLAIRFRANKColumnist

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Editor,

Regarding last week’s article enti-tled “Whitman looks to add 10 tenure track faculty as economy picks up”:

We would like to clarify the statement that Whitman is adding 10 tenure track faculty.% The eco-nomics position is new in the sense it will cause a net increase in the number o$ overall number o$ tenure track faculty.% The environmental studies-classics and geology posi-tions have never existed before, but are being created through the real-location o$ existing resources and do not represent a net addition to the number o$ tenure track positions.

We would also like to happily point out that the Whitman admin-istration is in the process o$ applying for a Melon Foundation grant that, i$ received, would convert eight visit-ing professor positions into tenure track lines. ASWC is highly support-ive o$ this effort and has spoken to the Board o$ Trustees about the im-portance o$ its funding, as well as the general addition o$ tenure track lines.

Thank you,

John LorangerASWC Student Affairs Chair

Carson BurnsASWC President

A. Quard is a happy poli-

frustrated and depressed

by the ways of the world.

February 17 2011 P!"# 8

This week we chose to do a throwback issue and feature some of our favorite articles from The Pioneer archives. Why? Shits and giggles.

KEEP ON RAGIN',Diana

ACROSS1. Wildebeest4. DVD supersession org.7. Crosscut and rip11. Yang counterpart12. Coal and conval suf$ix

15. n S.F. Giant or St. Louis Car-dinal, to name a few17. Like peanut butter in 200918. Foam party risk20. Highest range a trombonist can get21. Style o$ sambal chili paste23. Chessmen cousin?

28. Paolo or Bernardo do Campo29. Sorority restriction33. Tooth doctor org.34. “Don’t shoot!”35. Vietnam capital37. Opposite o$ trochee41. Jewett-Lyman or Hunter-Reid connector46. “_____ boy”47. Mad or Us48. 1930s urban train org.49. Israeli networking corp.50. Paper citation org.51. Mother Earth to Telemachus52. Ancient Nigerian city53. Cassette limit, abbr.

DOWN1. Meats served in pitas2. Your daughter, to your brother3. Pablo’s hair4. Musician Fleck5. Like a Canon EOS D606. Northern Indonesian sultanate7. Rowling’s Severus8. “I$ _____ fails…”9. Pinniped clothing retailer?10. Apt. for one

13. London’s oldest tailor: _____ and Ravencroft16. Well-remembered battle19. 1976 Alex Haley novel22. Daily _____: liberal blog24. Has hangtime25. Children’s dinosaur movie, abbr.26. “_____ we not men?”27. Most popular Hebrew wom-an’s name29. Humbug preceder30. To the stars, to Nero31. 125 Broadway musical “No, No, _____”32. Big name in ketchup36. Marion County, Florida city38. Like many a manga adapta-tion39. _____ Park, CA40. Goat’s cry42. Ambulance attendant cert.43. “Illusionist” writer Jacques44. Weekend-welcoming abbr.45. Union guidance org.46. 16-down, on Wall St.

Hey all,

I’d like to apologize for last week’s puzzle. I spelled “ochre” wrong, I mistook an oboe for a string instrument (sorry oboists) and I left out two clues. This sloppiness shouldn’t be tolerated—I’m a high-class Puz-zle Slut. Getting the hang o$ this crossword business is a little hairy, so forgive me in the coming weeks as I challenge you to decipher crazy abbreviations—I try only to include them when absolutely necessary—while I learn the ropes. With more practice and experience as Puzzle Slut I should get a tighter handle on what my answers are. As for now, i$ I screw up like I did last week, give me a holler at braytoac@whitman.edu and chew me out for it.

Forever slutting it up,Adam Brayton, Puzzle Slut

CROSSWORD

The Backpage would like to reopen this case. Our list of possible suspects includes: a crazy alumni, a jealous Whit-man department, the old Backpage and Hamburglar.

H O C B R A D O H N O

A B L U E L I A E R O

J O E L O B E S L A P

J E F F B R I D G E S

L S D A S I D E

U P T O A P S E N O R

C H A R L I E P A R K E R

L I L U N T O A I R S

A L K Y L R E I

B I L L Y E L L I O T

T R A P E A S E R C A

O N C E D R A C O R C

Y A K S S E C T N E T

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S

6 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14

15 16 17

18 19

20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32

33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45

46 47

48 49 50

51 52 53

by ADAM BRAYTON

Puzzle Slut

MESSAGE FROM THE PUZZLE SLUT