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(04/20/05 12:00pm)
Students lined the long ramp and leaned against poles in the dining area of Brower Student Center last Wednesday, but they were not just hanging out.
They had gagged themselves with rainbow-striped cloths, or had duct tape with words like "fag" or "queer" written on them across their mouths.
Hung from around their necks or in their hands were signs with stories or statistics about violence against homosexuals.
The students were participating in the National Day of Silence, organized by the Gay Union of Trenton State at The College of New Jersey (GUTS).
The National Day of Silence has many meanings, according to Noel Ramirez, GUTS president.
It represents the silence of gay youth to avoid hatred, bigotry, rejection and harassment, he said. It also represents silence that people employ every day in the face of blatant homophobia.
"The Day of Silence is to take a vow of silence to actually represent or illustrate the severity of silence," Ramirez said. "I'm not speaking today, but that's my choice. The whole day was very emotional. It's one of the most emotional things I've had to do as far as activism is concerned, just because it's something so personal brought to the public."
Ramirez estimates that somewhere between 40 and 60 people participated after he and other members of GUTS tabled for a couple of days in the student center to sign people up to take the vow of silence. It was a really great turnout, he said.
Nationally, the Day of Silence had "well over 450,000 participants in well over 4,000 middle/high schools, colleges and universities in every single state, (Washington,) D.C. and Puerto Rico" this year, making it "the largest single-day, student-led action on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered (GLBT) issues in history," according to dayofsilence.org.
The demonstrators met with little resistance. Ramirez said he received no reports from other participants, but encountered some static himself.
A poster Ramirez hung in Wolfe Hall was vandalized on the Day of Silence. The poster stated, "Every six hours a gay youth will attempt suicide. What will you do about the silence of homophobia and discrimination?," after which the vandal wrote, "I hope they succeed. I hate fags," as well as a person's name.
The defacement has since been torn off, and the remaining poster is still hung on the wall next to a billboard with a letter signed by students and residence life professionals declaring their disapproval of the vandalism.
The letter said that the vandalizer's "words and lack of consideration for GLBT students and their struggle perpetuate a culture of hate," and how "this intolerance is not welcomed in Wolfe." According to Ramirez, the whole board was covered with signatures.
"I originally had thought that our school was pretty much, like, all right," Ramirez said, but he realizes that "there still needs to be a lot of work done here" if things like that happen.
Ramirez stood in the student center in front of an Army recruitment table during his shift with the story of Private Barry Winchell around his neck. In 1999, another soldier killed Winchell in his sleep because someone thought he was gay.
Some of the recruiters approached him, and he said he was happy to have the duct tape over his mouth because he didn't know how to respond, since he couldn't gauge their intentions.
GUTS members printed out cards to hand out that explained why they were silent.
When Ramirez handed one to a classmate, she read the card and was struck by the last line: "What will you do to end the silence?"
"And she pointed at the line and she just hugged me. And I was like, that's so sweet!" Ramirez said.
The incident, as well as support from his friends, made Ramirez realize, "I've been silenced, I've been hurt, my feelings have been broken ... my spirit has been broken, I've been assaulted, you know, harassed. But in the end what I also had to realize was that I had people there."
Being silent all day made Ramirez remember "all the pain that I had when I was in the closet, as well as all the allies that are really there for me."
"I was very impressed by my friend Dom," he said. "Um, he's very ... alpha male, you know, very masculine, but also very ... supportive."
Dominick Serra, junior criminology and justice major, said he was more than willing to help out. He said he wanted to bring the phenomenon of silence to light.
"By not saying anything, we're basically saying its OK," Serra said.
Serra's story was of an anonymous 14-year-old whose parents told him the harassment he received was his fault and that his sexuality wasn't natural.
Serra said he was an atypical participant because he is a heterosexual male. He thought it was important to participate because it was like "the majority trying to help (the minority) out," he said
"That was really touching," Ramirez said of Serra's willingness to involve himself in the Day of Silence.
"The one thing I want to say about GUTS is it's not a gay thing, it's not a straight thing, it's a human thing," Ramirez said.
(04/06/05 12:00pm)
How would you like to live in an apartment with a picturesque view while learning about a foreign culture and preparing for your career?
Such was the experience of Erin McCarthy, senior elementary education and sociology major, when she did the eight weeks of her student teaching on the island of Mallorca, Spain as part of the Global Student Teaching (GST) program at the College.
"The goal of our program is to give the education majors a great opportunity to experience the culture, especially the educational culture, in other countries," Xinlan Li, graduate assistant for the Office of Summer and Undergraduate Global Programs, said.
This year, from January to March, 18 students went to schools in Ireland, Spain, Italy, Thailand, South Africa, Bolivia, the Gambia, Croatia and Costa Rica.
Students apply for GST one semester before departure, Li said. Qualified candidates have a GPA of at least 2.75 and submit their resume, GST rationale and a biography sketch to show why they are qualified and how the experience will benefit them. Then they must pass interviews and wait for the decision from the host schools.
Students submit their top three destination choices but are placed by the GST program. Mallorca was McCarthy's first choice, so she said she was "really excited" when she was chosen to go there.
McCarthy and two other education majors from the College roomed together in an apartment on the Mediterranean Sea.
"It was beautiful," McCarthy said of her living quarters, where she said she bonded with the other students. "It brings you close to each other," she said.
The students were given a crash course in the culture of Mallorca the week they arrived, when they witnessed a weeklong celebration for the patron saint of the island. It was a huge celebration with bonfires and concerts that McCarthy said she compared to the Fourth of July in America.
"It was a really good introduction to the culture," she said.
McCarthy taught in a British private school that educates Spanish students. The school followed a British curriculum and the students spoke English in the classroom, so there was not a language barrier between McCarthy and the students.
Though McCarthy had taken a year-and-a-half of Spanish at the College, she found the dialect on the island to very different. Fortunately, since Mallorca is a tourist attraction during the summer, many people speak English. This, coupled with her basic familiarity with Spanish, prevented McCarthy from having trouble communicating outside the school.
Mallorca is a reasonably small island, as it only takes two-and-a-half hours to drive across it, so McCarthy and her roommates rented a car and explored it. Still, she didn't get to see and do everything Mallorca has to offer.
"There's so much to do there," she said. "There are so many beautiful places right on the island."
McCarthy also wanted to experience the mainland culture, so she and her friends took a weekend trip to Barcelona. She said she enjoyed the trip but felt rushed because they only had the weekend.
McCarthy said the British curriculum at the school in which she taught was very different from an American program. She taught a kindergarten class but said the students follow what she considers the equivalent of a second-grade American curriculum.
Returning to Grant Elementary School in Trenton for the second eight weeks of her student teaching requirement has been an adjustment, McCarthy said.
She said there is less structure and support from the staff in the Trenton Schools than in Mallorca.
McCarthy was impressed at how receptive the staff in Mallorca was to the students from abroad, opening their school and homes to them.
The one gripe McCarthy said she had with the program was having her student teaching broken up into two chunks, though inconvenience is not enough to give them regrets.
For Spring 2006, the six-year-old program will offer two new schools in Italy - one in Rome and the other in Genoa - as student teaching options.
The program is also growing in participants. For Spring 2006, 39 students have passed the interview stage, which more than double last year's number, Li said.
At a recent information session, McCarthy and her roommates from Mallorca were told not many people had interest in Mallorca so they should convince others to consider it. McCarthy was floored someone would need to be talked into it.
She said she could have talked for five hours about her experience. When she shows her pictures, people cannot believe she lived at such a beautiful location, she said.
(03/23/05 12:00pm)
Conventional language is an important tool in relaying the meaning of art, Adrian Piper, an artist who visited the College last Thursday told students during her lecture at the Music Building Concert Hall.
Piper is an artist who for over 30 years has created work through various forms of media that focuses on racism, racial stereotyping and xenophobia. She now investigates the deeper spiritual and ideological pathologies that cause these issues.
The award-winning artist who teaches at Wellesley College shared insights from her career on the use of conventional language in understanding art with the College community.
Piper said that when she started to move away from photorealism, a style of painting which resembles photography, she was surprised at how many people misinterpreted her art. Her goal, she said, was to make people question, "Well, what's that?"
"In my own mind, I just needed to do what I needed to do," she said.
But with her work under review from busy art critics who needed to produce text quickly, she said it was easy for the public to read an erroneous explanation that had nothing to do with her take on the art.
She was always astonished when people didn't react the same way. But she later come to realize that we come from a diverse society so it made sense for them to perceive things differently.
At this point, Piper said an artist has two choices: to be quiet and receive the comments directed at you or to correct people and jeopardize your career.
To avoid such a conflict, she said that an artist needs to be prepared to explain what he or she is doing because public perception can distort the intended meaning.
To adequately explain the piece, Piper suggests embracing the use of conventional language. Using plain English can act as a training ground to accustom people to see the intentions of artist's work, she said.
"All the words, all things we say and write are objects," Piper said, adding they can function as tools regardless of their interpretive function. According to Piper, when we see text as aesthetic, we see art differently.
To demonstrate her point, Piper repeated "now" 10 times until the word lost meaning to listeners. "Starts to sound pretty weird," she said. "But weird's a good thing."
To further explain, Piper presented autobiographical self-portraits in which text was laid over pictures from her past.
One piece portrayed her struggle with being an African-American woman who doesn't look black. The text over her picture described incidents in which she felt this conflict.
"If I (settled) to just show the image, the range of interpretation would be way, way more broad than I would be happy with," she said.
Another example was a picture of her as a child in a coat. Her parents spent a lot of money on the coat because at the private school she attended, a student who didn't wear the right label was a social outcast.
"It was basically the same story as the movie 'Mean Girls,'" she said.
Piper's work also includes video pieces. "I am black," she declared in her production. "Cornered."
In the video, she sat like a news reporter at a table in a corner and told the audience what it is like to be a black person who is not easily discernible as an African-American.
"I really would prefer not to disturb you," she said. "But, you see, I can't because I'm cornered."
Piper said she developed the piece because she was frustrated by how people who thought she was white treated her with respect until they found out she was really black. She said the piece "is about overcoming distances."
Pipe received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the City College of New York and her master's degree and doctorate from Harvard.
Her work has been exhibited in museums across the world, from the Museum of Modern Art to the Musee d'Art Moderne de Ville de Paris, the Galleria Emi Fontana in Milan and Voges und Deisen in Frankfurt.
(03/23/05 12:00pm)
Singing deans, dancing faculty, the newly released Martha Stewart and the aged Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton.
Such were the sights and sounds of the College's fourth annual Faculty/Staff Variety show.
Family, co-workers and even some students spent their Friday night in Kendall Hall watching the College's finest prove they can do more than run a school.
"TCNJ, All my troubles just won't go away. Transformation got the best of me," James Lentini, dean of art, music and media, sang as he strummed his guitar to the Beatles' "Yesterday."
"Should be a member of the faculty. Work two days a week, maybe three," he sang.
Lentini, hidden behind his sunglasses, was accompanied on guitar by the leather-clad dean of the school of science, Gail Simmons.
Simmons had just finished her renditions of the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville" and the Austin Lounge Lizards' "Shallow End of the Gene Pool" when she and Lentini slowed things down with their reworded song.
"It was a real variety show," Ann DeGennaro, director of Campus Wellness and organizer of the show, said.
There were more office-based skits last year, she said, but this year they had real performers.
DeGennaro said the show was a tradition back in the 1980s, but then it fizzled out. She brought it back when she reorganized it four years ago and is now looking for it to gain momentum.
Magda Manetas, director of Student Life, and Health Services' Nurse Practitioner Holly Heller were masters of ceremonies at the show, dressing as a 70-year-old Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton, and later as Martha Stewart.
They cracked jokes about the celebrities and about the College, saying the show needed to be reformed after last year because the school just couldn't afford another $50 fine, comparing the show to the halftime Super Bowl show in which Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunctioned. Proceeds from the show benefited the College's tsunami relief fund. The audience realized the importance of the cause they were helping during director of Community Standards Lynette Harris' performance of Yolanda Adams' "What About the Children."
Pictures of tsunami victims appeared on a screen behind her as she sang, "Remember when we were children. And if not for those who loved us and who cared enough to show us, where would we be today?"
Technical difficulties did not bog down the performers, though sound technicians dominated stage time for the first few acts, making frequent trips to center stage to change microphones, it only made the audience appreciate the laid back atmosphere.
One of the disrupted acts was that of Alvin Figueroa, associate professor in the modern languages department, member of the New Jersey Gay Men's Chorus and a four-year veteran of the variety show. He sang Frank Sinatra's "I've Got a Crush on You."
After the problem was fixed, he was joined by Marimar Huguet-Jerez, assistant professor of the modern languages department, who slinked out in a satin dress and danced across the stage with Figueroa.
Genevieve Perkins, Student Life Program Coordinator, sang a version of "Angels," made popular by Jessica Simpson, that sent chills down the listeners' backs.
The audience became emotional when Jacquie Norris, assistant professor of educational administration and secondary education, performed Barbara Streisand's "The Way We Were."
The variety show committee opened the show with a song and dance number to "These Paws Were Made for Walking" to honor the College's mascot, Roscoe the Lion.
A returning act, The Sizzlettes (composed of Harris, associate professor of communications studies Anntarie Sims, and director of College and Community Relations Patrice Coleman-Boatwright) lip sang and danced to Aretha Franklin's "R.E.S.P.E.C.T."
Sandra Whaley, head clerk of psychological counseling services, performed a dramatic reading of poetry by Edgar A. Guest with her grandson Jeremy.
"You were born with all that the great have had, With your equipment they all began, Get hold of yourself and say," Whaley read to Jeremy, and together they finished, "'I can.'"
DeGennaro performed an original skit entitled "The Self-Scanner" along with alcohol and drug counselor Joe Hadge and Stacey Pannone, scheduling assistant for Records and Registration.
The skit illustrated the direction in which technology could be headed: scanners that allow you to pay for your items without having to face a cashier. Instead, it would give you the commentary about your purchases that a person would keep to themselves.
Out of 100 audience members, only about 20 were students.
DeGennaro said she is looking to sell out the show in the future, and the best way to do that is to get more students to come.
(02/16/05 12:00pm)
Despite last year's concerns that the new Spiritual Center would not be big enough to accommodaste weekly services, campus religious organizations have found its facilities adequate.
"It's working pretty good," Father Joseph Hlubik of the Catholic Campus Ministries (CCM) said. CCM, with Father Gabe Zeis at its head last year, was pushing for a larger building.
Since a larger chapel was not possible, Hlubik polled students that attended Saturday evening and Sunday masses last semester to determine a different schedule to redistribute attendance.
"The building itself is beautiful and we are so grateful to have a building used solely for religious purposes," Laura Munice, junior childhood education and sociology major and president of Hillel/Jewish Student Union (JSU), said.
JSU uses the Spiritual Center every Friday night for Shabbat services, usually drawing 15 to 20 people each week.
The Islamic Society uses the Spiritual Center once a week for their meeting and a prayer, he said, but they plan to use it more for small discussions, studies and prayer.
"It's accessible, clean, quiet and peaceful," Atheeb Khateeb, junior business major and president of the Islamic Society, said.
"I love the new building," Reverend Rich Kocses of the Protestant Bible Fellowship said. "It's like a palace."
Kocses is grateful that students finally have one central location to assemble because in years past their meeting places were moved many times.
The old chapel, he said, was "worthless" because it was so small. Kocses considers himself and students privileged to have the sizable Spiritual Center for meetings, Bible study and worshiping.
He said he is very thankful and happy and couldn't ask for a better place.
Leslie Bailey, junior history major and president of the Gospel Choir Ministry, said the group isn't using the Spiritual Center this semester because she didn't want to plan any major events with possible construction.
"It's a really cool thing," she said of the College's effort to replace the old chapel and providing students with a "peaceful place on campus."
CCM quelled its own concerns by reorganizing their mass schedule to accommodate its popular services. Sunday morning masses moved from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. to take some of the rush off the usually high-attendance evening masses, which were changed from 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Saturday evening masses stayed at 5 p.m.
Hlubik said making the Sunday morning mass later gives those that had a late Saturday night some time to sleep in and attendees can head right to lunch afterwards.
Catholic services usually accommodate 25 to 35 people on Saturday evening, 50 to 70 on Sunday morning and anywhere from 80 to 130 people at Sunday evening mass, Hlubik said.
Until Ash Wednesday services, when people were lined up out the door, CCM did not have difficulty with seating in the main multi-purpose room with a capacity of 142.
Hlubik said he looks forward to the day when he has to complain that there is not enough room.
"It's a nice place for people to have as a focus for spiritual life," Hlubik said, adding he is very thankful for the new building.
Khateeb said he'd give the Spiritual Center a nine out of 10 because he has minor complaints about the setup.
"The rooms aren't exactly set up for our prayers with all the attached chairs," Khateeb said. "Which is more of a small inconvenience rather than a problem. We just have to do a little rearranging, that's all."
Overall though, Khateeb is satisfied with the secular interior design.
"I also like the fact that although the main sanctuary looks like it may be set up for mass, it's still inviting to all other faiths, as there aren't any symbols or representations for any particular religion," he said.
Munice has similar sentiments. "It makes our organization feel more welcome on campus," she said.
The only problem JSU has with the Center is that on four separate occasions it was not opened when they had events scheduled.
"Eventually, they will have swipe card access for us, but in the meantime it is very annoying to have to wait in the cold for them to open it after we call them," Munice said.
Ann DeGennaro, director of Campus Wellness, said that the meditation area of the Spiritual Center should be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Any student that finds otherwise should notify her office so that can be corrected.
The sanctuary area will remain locked, however, because there are some minor problems that need to be fixed, DeGennaro said. And until they are, she said, activity in that area needs to be kept to a minimum.
Some such problems include leaks that have resulted from the abundance of snow and rain. The floating floor in the main sanctuary has moved a little as a result of the moisture.
Other than minor repairs and scheduling conflicts, DeGennaro said she has received mostly positive feedback from the campus' religious organizations.
"The Spiritual Center can be defined in many ways," she said. "It is not just for religious groups, but also for those who do not believe in organized religion." DeGennaro said it is a place where people can meditate and find inner peace.
(02/09/05 12:00pm)
Seniors at the College are getting flashbacks of four years ago: having anxiety about leaving a familiar setting, preparing to go into the "real world," feeling the need to fit in all of the fun they can before they have too much responsibility to do so, and not caring a thing about what's going on in class.
Some seniors are student teaching and some are interning to get an advantage in the job market. Others are sitting pretty, having lined up a job or gotten accepted into graduate or medical school. Still others are freaking out because they have no idea what they are doing after commencement on May 13.
"I'm living it up," Zac Follmer, senior business management major, said of his final year at the College.
Although he admits it is a little stressful because he is interning and has core classes for his major, he's not letting that get him down.
"When I look back, I'm going to remember the time with my friends, not time studying in my room or rushing to finish projects," he said. He's as social as he was freshman year, he said, and even as a senior he's still meeting new people.
"I'm making the best of it and enjoying myself," he said.
Part of making the best of his time was attending this year's formal. "The formal was good," he said.
His greatest disappointment about his senior year, though, is the Giants' poor showing this season. He designed his class schedule around football, making sure he had nothing Tuesday mornings so he could watch Monday Night Football each week. Sadly, his team finished with a 6-10 record and many disappointed fans.
Follmer has a job lined up in management at Blinds To Go, where he interned this past summer, but he said he wants to keep his options open. He's still sending out resumes to places just in case he can find something better.
Maggie Dugan, senior English and elementary education major, said that one great thing about this year is that she has been seeing people who she met and spent time with freshman year but had not seen much of since.
"It's so funny how people were just popping up everywhere," she said. "That's who we came in with." Seeing people with whom she began college life in her senior year is like making the full circle in her collegiate career.
She said she hopes to spend quality time with her friends this year because she fears she will not keep in touch with many people, which is what happened with her high school friends. She wants to hang out with people on campus while she still can.
"I want to see people while they're here," she said.
Dugan said her senior year has been good but is busier than expected. That is partially because she is student teaching fifth grade at Delaware Township Elementary School. She finds her experience pleasurable, though.
"They're a good group of kids," she said.
She's glad she did student teaching in the spring, she said, because it makes the transition to the real world easier. She felt that fall semester just seemed like busy work because the way education majors are scheduled, her semester was filled with general education classes.
She remains anxious about next year because she does not have a job lined up. She has utilized the Education On-Campus Recruitment through Career Services, but it has not turned up any openings near her home in Manasquan.
Dugan said she wants to live at home for a while to take her dad up on the offer to bank her first few pay checks.
Besides acquiring a job for next fall, one of Dugan's goals for senior year is to make it to one of the Senior Nights at Kat Man Du, but she has not had luck so far. Dugan's best effort was thwarted when the event was cancelled last semester, and every other plan has fallen apart as well. But she remains determined to rock out on the dance floor at Kat Man Du with her classmates.
Jeremy Mitchell, senior marketing major, is enjoying his senior year. He doesn't have much work, he said, partially because half of his schedule is comprised of two electives: Stress Management and Outdoor Recreation.
He uses his downtime constructively: having the best time he can. He enjoyed this year's formal, and looks forward to leaving the day after graduation to spend three weeks in Europe with his friends.
Mitchell is anxious about next year and working in general. He was offered a sales operations position through his internship at Liz Claiborne; however, the position needed to be filled immediately and that was impossible with his classes.
Like many other seniors, Mitchell doesn't really want to live at home next year but sees that as a possibility because, as he said, "I need money."
Seniors all over campus are having similar experiences to Follmer, Dugan and Mitchell. Each balances planning for the future and living for now.
No matter how they choose to spend their time this year, none will forget their senior year at the College.
(11/10/04 12:00pm)
The Asian American Association (AAA) held FantAsia, an assortment of cultural workshops to promote Experience Asia, the November phenomenon celebrating Asian culture with events, speakers, and other workshops, Friday night in the Cromwell lounge.
Thoa Nguin, junior early elementary education and psychology major, as well as Vice President of Internal Affairs of AAA and organizer of FantAsia, estimated that more than 100 people visited the free event between 8 p.m. and midnight to enjoy refreshments, entertainment, and learn something about Asian culture in the process.
FantAsia kicked off with a demonstration from the Aikido Club. According to the club's Web site, "Kokikai Aikido practice is characterized by realistic, focused attacks, fluid responses that employ timing and rhythm to take the opponent's balance completely before the application of a throwing technique." It uses "the minimum effort necessary to achieve maximum results."
The demonstration left John Larocco, freshman bio-medical engineering major, wanting more. Larocco, who sometimes writes for the AAA newsletter, said the exhibition ended "too abrupt[ly]."
Members of AAA also took the opportunity to promote other big Experience Asia events later in the month, said Katrina Wong, senior elementary education and mathematics major and President of AAA.
"They were promoting Mystique of the East by performing Todo Todo, which is Filipino line dancing," she said.
Other attendees learned traditional Indian dancing from AAA members in traditional Indian dress.
Wong also helped some students translate sayings to determine Chinese letters to draw on their bodies with henna, a dye used to make decorative designs on the skin. At the same table, people participated in origami, the art of paper folding, creating animals with provided squares of paper.
Neil Sumter, sophomore interactive multimedia major, occupied one corner of the lobby much of the night, dominating the competition in Dance Dance Revolution, a video game in which players are on a platform with four arrows and must step on the corresponding arrow as it scrolls up from the bottom of the screen.
"I just came here to hang out with friends and play," Sumter said. "I'm very deprived," he said of the rare opportunity to play DDR.
"I'm eventually going to check out the other stuff," he said. "It's very much a stress-free evening. I don't have to think about work."
Larocco also came to learn and play some of the many traditional Asian games offered at FantAsia. Attendees gathered for games of Chinese checkers, Chinese poker, and Mah Jongg, "a fascinating game [that is] played with domino like tiles, and is quite similar to the popular card game of Rummy," according to mahjongmuseum.com.
Genghis Tan, freshman English major, sat tableside, watching one student teach another Go, a Japanese game of strategy. Tan said the event was "pretty interesting" and he enjoys being a member of AAA.
"I get to hang out with people who kind of share the same way of life because of our parents and how we were raised," he said.
Experience Asia kicked off on November 1 with a ceremony in the Brower Student Center atrium. Also preceding FantAsia was a food workshop in which participants learned to make easy Asian dishes that don't require a stove.
The next event on the AAA calendar is the True Colors round table discussion of the current issues, stereotypes and concerns of Asian Americans in the Allen Drawing Room on Thursday at 7 p.m. The following night you can check out "Stir-Friday Night!" featuring an Asian-American comedy troupe from Chicago in the Student Center room 202 at 8 p.m.
On November 15, "Better Luck Tomorrow," a film about a group of Asian American friends who wreak havoc in their high school, will be shown in the Cromwell main lounge at 8 pm. Then, on November 18, Parry Shen, the star of "Better Luck Tomorrow," will speak about his experience as an Asian American male actor in Hollywood at 8 pm in the music building theater.
Other Experience Asia events include: a calligraphy workshop where students will have the opportunity to make personalized greeting cards with Chinese calligraphy on November 16; Baking for Humanity, where participants will bake desserts for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen's Thanksgiving dinner on November 21; a viewing of "American Chai," a film about Indian American college student who harbors a dirty secret (his father thinks he's a pre-med major, but he's really a music major!); and the AAA will be part of the multicultural buffet on December 1.
(10/06/04 12:00pm)
Weblogs have been around for years, providing anyone with Internet access a forum to express his or her views and discuss his or her life. But words are not enough.
Blogs, described by Brian Garrity of Billboard magazine as do-it-yourself Web sites composed of journal-style commentary, have been supplemented with links to news and other Web sites and photos. New phenomena have emerged though, taking blogs to the next level.
MP3 blogs are a new way to share personal insight - and music. The sites usually consist of the writer's thoughts about a certain musical group, song or phenomenon and offer free access to an example of his or her reviewed work.
Sound sketchy? It is. Sharing music via blogs is in a legal gray area. Because bloggers most often do not get consent from the label or artist before hosting or posting links to unlicensed MP3s, copyright owners have a potential problem, Garrity said.
Sites take some measures to avoid legal trouble by linking to stores where a reader needs to buy the song to hear it or by offering free songs only for a limited time.
Whether or not the government should be cracking down, however, has not been definitively decided. So far, record companies have not bothered to pursue the question of legality of sharing music by way of blogs, largely because the unsolicited positive discourse has served as grassroots advertising for their Indie rock groups.
Xeni Jardin, technology correspondent to National Public Radio's "Day to Day," said popular music is unlikely to be found on Web sites because MP3 bloggers make it a goal to find the most obscure things to post on their site.
"And it's really more of a social experience than it is a file-sharing experience," Jardin said. "It's a place where people share their love of music."
Michael Perpetua, founder and editor of Fluxblog (newflux.blogspot.com), one of the longest running MP3 blogs, told Garrity that blogs are helping record labels find their target audiences.
"You have a whole subset of people who are willing to take marketing into their own hands because they want to spread the word on stuff they are interested in," Perpetua said.
Recently, Perpetua reviewed Bugz In The Attic's "Booty La La," saying, "This is certainly an occasion when my immediate enthusiasm for a song is at odds with my ability to write something about it which does it some justice. The truth is, I've barely thought about this song because I've been too busy feeling it."
The artist and song title heading the excerpt are linked to the MP3 at mac.com, and a link to the band's homepage is appended at the end. The exposure (Garrity says blogs like Fluxblog can get thousands of visitors each day) and ringing endorsements are what record companies hope to gain from having their artists the subject of such blogs.
In fact, an Aug. 16 New York Times article reported that in early August, Warner executives e-mailed at least eight MP3 bloggers, saying they loved their sites and asked if they would post the attached single by The Secret Machines, Warner's newest act.
While independent labels have been using music blogs to get their acts heard in some manner since they get little play on strict radio playlists, the major record label pushing its wares on bloggers was seen as a test of principle. Music for Robots (music.for-robots.com) was the only site to post and did so under the title "Music for Robots Sells Out," claiming they only posted to form a relationship with Warner and to keep readers informed.
Those looking to check out MP3 blogs are suggested to check out mp3blogs.org, a blog that has collected links to other MP3 blogs.
Another newer form of the blog is the photo blog, also known as a fotolog. A trend since 2000, the photo blog involves posting photos with text, or more recently, just photos with no accompanying text.
Some photo blogs are just a site for one to get the blogger's photos out of the drawer or off of the hard drive, according to The New York Times. For others, though, such as those at fotolog.net, it is "a place where you record 'the interesting ephemeral moments of life."
Those looking to check out photo blogs are suggested to check out Forbes.com's list of Best Photo Blogs, along with fotolog.net.
(09/29/04 12:00pm)
If summer internships sound like months of doing pointless work in a dull lab or office with no self-fulfillment, consider spending a summer working in Venezuela to save millions of South Americans, feeding deprived alligators and being surrounded by rattlesnakes. That's what Ryan Fehr, senior psychology major specializing in industrial organizational psychology, did for his internship this past summer.
Fehr earned the opportunity to conduct research this past summer in Oklahoma and Venezuela by winning a National Science Foundation grant. He was awarded the grant based on research he conducted in Italy during his junior year. The grant provided a $3,000 stipend as well as traveling costs and accommodations.
After assisting with studies for a few weeks in Oklahoma, Fehr headed to Venezuela with a fellow undergraduate student from Ithaca College and an Oklahoma State graduate student. The Oklahoma State University student was originally from Mexico and fortunately for the two American undergraduates, spoke Spanish.
It soon became obvious, Fehr said, that he and the other undergraduate were not originally from Nerid?, the small village where which they stayed in Venezuela. At 6 feet 2 inches and 6 feet 3 inches, they both stuck out in a crowd.
"Some times people would be like, 'Fuck you, Americans,' and next people would be saying how much they love American movies and stuff," Fehr said.
Fehr made sure to go sightseeing while in South America. He was able to go horseback riding in the Andes and to Pico Espejo, the highest point in Venezuela at 4,765 meters. He reached the site by what is called the longest cable car in the world.
"The air is so thin up at the top that people pass out all the time," Fehr said. "One woman fainted as she was standing next to me, and started bleeding a lot. She ended up OK, but it's not the most comforting thing to see when you're three miles up and have no semblance of guardrails around you."
Fehr said he also became sick while in Venezuela and lost 10 to 15 pounds, possibly due to food poisoning.
His work there centered on Chagas disease, which is incurable and, in its chronic phase, may cause damage to the heart and intestines. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports Chagas disease as being endemic in 21 countries, with 16 to 18 million peopple infected and 100 million people - about 25 percent of the population of Latin America - at risk.
The disease is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted by triatomine bugs, large bloodsucking insects, according to the WHO. If the triatomine bites, Fehr said, the infected person would have medical problems for 20 years and eventually die.
The bugs are currently kept under control with pesticides. WHO says many countries have had success with programs that include spraying walls in houses and creating peridomestic resting places with residual, long-lasting insecticides.
Using these chemicals, however, is bad for the ecosystem, Fehr said. It also can get expensive and diluting the pesticides would allow the bugs to become immune.
Fehr's work included testing ways that would kill the triatomine bugs in a more environmentally friendly way. One way is to constipate the bugs by making them drink saline.
It may sound like an easy task, but it actually involves unique tactics. Fehr filled rubber condoms with saline as the rubber simulates skin. Heating the condom entices the bugs to bite from short range, but the interns then needed to find different scents to attract the bugs from longer ranges. One, Fehr said, was that of raccoon urine, which he had transported with him into the country.
The interns' contributions paid off, as the research was subsequently published in a Brazilian parasitology journal.
Fehr spent the first few weeks of his summer program at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla. He worked there with a comparative psychologist studying alligators and rattlesnakes.
Fehr carried out feeding experiments with alligators, testing the reptiles' after being fed and after not being fed. The research was aimed at studying the eye revolution of the creatures.
"It was pretty funny," he said of the hungry alligators jumping at him after food.
Fehr was startled by the abundance of rattlesnakes in the lab where he worked.
"There were snakes everywhere," he said. Upon casually leaning against a bag on the counter, he would jump before realizing that one of the research specimens was inside.
Before leaving for Venezuela, Fehr was also involved in phrenology research. Phrenology is the study of the different shapes of the head to determine a person's character.
(03/31/04 12:00pm)
Sure, people joke that Bert and Ernie were gay, that Cookie Monster would do anything to get a fix and that the whole thing where Big Bird was the only one that could see Snuffleupagus until one day when magically everyone could see him, too, was just plain weird. The fact is, however, that "Sesame Street" most likely played a significant role in getting us to where we are today. So have a little respect.
In the United States alone, "Sesame Street" has helped over 74 million people become adolescents and adults. Every week, it reaches out to eight million more Americans. It also has 120 international productions, to make it the most widely viewed children's series in the world.
"Sesame Street" will be celebrating its 35th anniversary with a primetime special, airing Sunday, April 4 at 8 p.m. on PBS. The show will take a journey back through time to revisit some of the its most memorable moments. It will then re-air on April 5 on PBS Kids as the first episode of the new season, so you'll have more than one opportunity to re-visit your childhood pals, including Big Bird, Snuffy, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Telly and the Count.
In the special, Elmo, the energetic and fuzzy little red monster, takes a trip back through time, in the format of his popular "Elmo's World." With the help of "your adorable little pal" Grover, the excited and talkative blue monster, he learns about the street where he lives.
Elmo visits moments that we may remember from our childhood television watching. He watches the wedding of the owners of the Fix-It store Maria and Luis, originally in 1988, and sees the birth of their daughter Gabi, from 1989. He also meets Mr. Hooper, the original owner of Hooper's Grocery Store, who died in 1983 before Elmo was even born.
Throughout its years, "Sesame Street" has always maintained its commitment to providing a meaningful learning experience for children to acquire the academic, social, emotional and thinking skills necessary to prepare them for school and life.
"Since its inception, "Sesame Street" has acknowledged children as thinking individuals, ready for a bigger and richer world, embracing life's challenges in a nurturing and age-appropriate way," Rosemarie T. Truglio, vice president of education and research of "Sesame Street," said.
The writers and producers work with child development experts and early childhood educators to create shows that provide lessons of letter and word recognition, number, size, shape and amount identification and comparison, cooperation with others, respect for differences, acknowledgment of similarities, and expression of their emotions while coping with feelings and overcoming obstacles.
In recent years, the show has taken on a new format, which has been successful in keeping children interested and engaged throughout the hour and comprehending the lessons. It also took on more segments to teach kids about different cultures, such as "Global Grover" and "Global Thingy," and teaches words in different languages on a daily basis.
"'Sesame Street' fosters a love of learning and models respect for others who may be different," Truglio said. "Whether these differences include race, language or ability."
It has numerous international productions, including an Israeli/Palestinian version that promotes respect and understanding and a South African version that includes lessons about Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
The show has been recognized for its excellence numerous times. It has won 91 Emmy awards, more than any other show in television history, as well as the George Foster Peabody Award, for outstanding achievement in broadcasting and cable.
The upcoming 35th season will feature various parodies featuring many celebrities.
A new character named Dr. Feel, the "feelingest" guy in show business, will teach kids about expressing and interpreting emotions. He'll also deal with conflict resolution when he ends up on the set of "Dr. Phil" and the two quarrel about whose show it really is.
The show will also feature parodies of "Joe Millionaire," "Spongebob Squarepants" and "Six Feet Under," featuring three pairs of feet under a table. Julianne Moore will co-star with the Count, as they realize they both love to count, and Norah Jones will do a special take on her hit song, declaring, "Don't Know 'Y' Didn't Come."
(02/11/04 12:00pm)
Get ready, vaginas. The third annual production of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" will be on campus this Valentine's Day weekend.
But don't turn away, penises.
"I know it's called 'The Vagina Monologues,'" Nina Davidson, sophomore English and women's and gender studies major, and one of the five student directors said. "I know it's a little intimidating, but, like, once you get in there, you just lose your anxiety for everything."
The Vagina Monologues is about every woman, and every human being can relate to the stories.
Eve Ensler traveled the world to interview thousands of women about their vaginas. From her expeditions, she produced "The Vagina Monologues." Each monologue tells the story of a woman Ensler interviewed.
"Some make you really want to evaluate the privileges women in America have," Davidson said. "Some make you want to cry because of all the things they've gone through, and, you know, we kind of take advantage of in day-to-day life. Some of them actually make you laugh, a lot of them are funny."
Published in 1998, the book has become an agent of Ensler's V-Day organization to raise awareness of violence against women. V-Day produces volunteer and college shows of "Monologues" to benefit charities of the group's choice.
All proceeds from this year's student-produced show, sponsored by Women in Learning and Leadership (WILL) with contributions by the Women's Center, will benefit Womanspace, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq and the Murdered and Missing in Juarez, Mexico.
The V in V-Day stands for victory, valentine and vagina. This year, however, it will also stand for vote. As keeping with the "Vote to End Violence" campaign, a movement to urge political leaders to make violence against women a central issue, there will be stations at each show where attendees can register to vote.
Anyone who has seen a production in the past, and for which registering to vote is not enough of a motivator may think they will be bored by this year's show. Not to worry. This year brings a new and bigger cast to perform the 16 monologues, some of which have been changed from last year. The Vulva Choir also breaks up the show.
"Every performance is different," said Mary-Lynne Hopps, director of WILL and the women's and gender studies program, and second-time cast member. "We have different cast members and everyone has a different interpretation."
Also, for the first time, at each performance there will be a ceremony to recognize Vagina Warriors, students from the College working against violence towards women. This year's honorees are Ryan English, Chrissi Minerva and Caitlin Stinneford.
Because "The Vagina Monologues" is a feminist production, giving women the courage to feel liberated about their vaginas, WILL is selling shirts to endorse the show. The tees are black with bright pink printing, reading "Vagina Revolutionary." They sell for $10.00, and they sell fast.
"The Vagina Monologues" also has a universal appeal. All those involved stress that both men and women will enjoy it, and everyone can learn from it.
"A lot of (men) actually left last year saying they learned things they would never even think about," Davidson said.
Marileny Valera, junior elementary education/ Spanish major and women's and gender studies minor, celebrates her third year as a cast member. This year she'll be performing in the monologue "My Vagina Was My Village."
"The main reason I got involved was because I feel that each monologue represents a different woman and tells her story," she said. "I wanted to be that voice, their voice that perhaps no one hears. The monologues are a way to make everyone listen."
"People should expect to laugh, cry and learn plenty of important facts when they attend the show," Valera said. "It will open up the eyes of many people and help create awareness of many issues. We will not call them 'women's issues' because they do not only affect women."
"The two words that come to mind (when thinking about "The Vagina Monologues") are empowering and enlightening," Nicole Calvano, senior biology major and WILL member, said.
"You can laugh hysterically, and you can also cry hysterically," Hopps said.
The "Monologues" will be performed Thursday, Feb. 12 in Kendall Hall at 8 p.m., will move to the Student Center room 202 for another 8 p.m. show on Friday, Feb. 13 and will move back to Kendall on Sunday, Feb. 15 for a 4 p.m. matinee performance. Show time is approximately two hours. Students can purchase tickets for $8 with an ID. All other patrons will be charged $12 for admission.
(10/14/03 12:00pm)
Early forecasts predicted rain, but the sun shone down on this year's Community Fest. Visitors to the event, co-sponsored by the Township of Ewing and the College, enjoyed live bands, events for kids, carnival food and an opportunity to interact with community businesses and organizations.
"It was a beautiful day for a beautiful event," Tenesha Morris, Ewing resident, said. "It's a great event to have a lot of businesses and organizations to see what's out there."
The WB Channel 17's event staff attended, giving out posters, yo-yos, cups and key chains to promote the station and some of its shows.
The College's campus impressed event staff member Julia MacMullen of Philadelphia. "Is this a private school?" she asked a student.
Habitat for Humanity was the featured non-profit organization this year. Visitors decorated cedar shanks and nailed them to the provided shed or made their own gingerbread houses.
The group also judged fifth graders from Antheil Elementary School's entries for the "Make Your Dreamhouse" contest and awarded prizes to the winners.
The lawn between Loser Hall and the Brower Student Center was plastered with tents, each hosting a local business or organization promoting their services or merchandise.
"It's a really large event," Susan Mottley, Commerce Bank Pennington branch manager, said. "It's great exposure."
Jamie Griswold, a representative from The Ewing Observer, greeted passers-by with a smile and free frisbees.
"We're trying to get out there and meet our readers," he said.
Representatives from the Ewing Police Department and Little League delivered information about their services, while the Ewing Recreational Department encouraged visitors to shoot some hoops on their basketball net.
The Ewing Township Democratic Club was on site to promote their local candidates and to inform people about the Democratic Club.
"People have to get involved with the political system," Angela Tolleris, club representative, said.
Melissa McCormack and Amy Secchetti from Moms Offering Moms Support (MOMS) of Ewing provided information about the group, which offers a daytime social outlet to mothers who choose to be at home with their children.
Some students were on hand to represent organizations in the Ewing/Trenton area that they are involved with.
Cara Willis, junior sociology major, was at a table trying to spread the word about Mobile Meals of Trenton. The organization, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, delivers prepared meals to people homebound due to illness or age.
"We're always looking for volunteers," Willis said. Those who cannot volunteer are welcome to donate money, she added.
Chris Minerva, junior sociology major, dispensed pamphlets to attract volunteers for Womanspace, which provides services to women who have been subjected to domestic abuse or sexual assault.
Virginia Hundley, a former school nurse in the Ewing school district, gave out rulers and pencils from the Ewing Municipal Alliance that read, "Be smart, don't start." She said that the anti-drug message is put onto utensils kids will use so that they'll always see it.
Children enjoyed the "Fun Zone" which featured inflatable jumps, slides and bounces, laser tag and activities hosted by student organizations. Children made bead bracelets with Women in Learning and Leadership, painted pumpkins with Lambda Theta Alpha and made gumdrop molecules and slime with the Student Chemists Association.
Children also laughed at the Westcraft Pirate Magic Show, sang along with Amy Otey's interactive acoustic performance and had a chance to do some karate with Firestar Dragon Dojo.
Additionally, kids had the opportunity to meet their favorite TV personalities, such as Sponge Bob Square Pants and Dora the Explorer, who were available for hugs and pictures.
Adults and children alike enjoyed the live bands, including the country-blues-rock-influenced Tone Rangers and the Bruce Springsteen tribute band, BSTREETBAND.
"I liked (the bands)," Lori Sparzo, Ewing resident, said. "I would have listened to them more," Sparzo added, if she hadn't taken her daughter, Emily Lawson, to other events.
"My favorite thing was the giant slide," Lawson said, with a glittery blue dolphin shining on her cheek. She also saw the College's orchestra perform in the Music Building, before the Wind Ensemble and Chorale went on, so she could collect extra credit points from her teacher, a member of the ensemble.
Both have come to Community Fest in the past. "This was the best one," they agreed.
(10/07/03 12:00pm)
A girl soldier in Liberia appears to be laughing as she points a gun toward someone off-camera.
"She was threatening my friend with a gun," said Michael Kamber, the photojournalist who took the picture. "They were having a good time." The audience laughed slightly, not sure if he was joking.
Kamber, an award-winning freelance writer and photographer, presented his work to approximately 50 students and faculty members last Wednesday in the Allen Drawing Room. Richard Kamber, professor of philosophy at the College, introduced his nephew at the event sponsored by the Society of Honor Students.
Kamber recently completed an eight-month, 24-country tour of Africa. Some of the photos from the trip were recently featured in a series in the New York Times.
Kamber went to Africa in January to cover positive stories about the continent. During his time there, however, the four countries featured in his presentation- the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia - were fighting wars. Kamber was worried he would give the wrong impression, but said, "as a photographer, you see what you see."
Many of Kamber's photos from Liberia featured child soldiers. They're ideal fighters, he explained, because they don't eat or drink as much, do what they're told and don't fully understand the weight of their actions. One photo features a child holding a gun in one hand and a joint in the other.
Other photos depict children who were not soldiers. In one photo, two kids were trying to shield themselves from bullets by crawling under mattresses. Another shows a baby suffering from malnutrition. Others show family members grieving over their lost children.
"I felt like the press made a real difference in U.N. (decisions)," Kamber said as he displayed pictures of citizens of the Democratic Republic of the Congo frustrated with the United Nations' minimal involvement. "This was one of them."
Kamber's photographs also chronicle refugee camps, orphanages, support groups for women who were rape victims and prayer groups that met in churches or gathered in large fields.
He spent time in Lagos, Nigeria, documenting a community built on water. His photographs include a schoolhouse for children that consisted of a one room shack built on stilts to keep it above the water. There are also photographs of a church on Palm Sunday with its parishioners all in white, and a floating store that consisted of a canoe-shaped boat filled with food and being paddled by a single vendor.
Another shot depicts a Shell oil pipeline that burned out of control for five weeks, Kamber said. "This stuff is everywhere," he said of the oil. "Everywhere you go. They really destroy the environment."
Other shots chronicle the flight of Liberian refugees on the Ivory Coast trying to get back to Liberia. With the country in such bad shape, he said, you could imagine what conditions were like in the Ivory Coast that people would rather be in Liberia.
"It's good to know what's going on," Kamber said of doing research before beginning his journey. Safety is also important, he said. He was always accompanied by a writer or other photographers, and tried to stay with someone who knew the area.
He tries to keep in touch with his contacts, and has friends all over West Africa. He regrets, however, that he can hop on a plane and in 24 hours be in a completely different world from the U.S.
"You take this for granted," he said.
Besides his work for the Times, Kamber also works for The Village Voice. He covered Afghanistan and Pakistan in late 2001 for the Voice, and a three-part series entitled "Crossing to the Other Side," which documented the migration of impoverished Mexicans to New York City.
In May 2002, Kamber received the Columbia University School of Journalism's Mike Berger Award, which honors human interest reporting about daily life in New York City. Last January, Kamber was nominated for a World Press Photo award for his photography of Mexico, New York, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and for a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for his series on Mexican immigration.
(09/16/03 12:00pm)
Kimberly Dougherty is making a career change.
For 22 years, she was one of the few women navigators in the United States Air Force, and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring. This fall, however, she became a student.
She began taking graduate classes at the College in the hopes of one day teaching English.
"It's a little bit of a job change," Dougherty said.
Originally from Terryville, Conn., Dougherty graduated in 1980 with a B.A. in English from Concordia College in New York. She entered the job market during a recession much like the one that graduates face today, so she found the Air Force instead.
"Jobs were hard to come by," Dougherty said. "I had a brother in the Air Force. I figured I could do some writing for them. Then the recruiter asked me if I wanted to fly."
Dougherty passed the qualifying test and entered training to become a navigator. She attended officer training school, navigational training, Air Force survival school, specific training for her plane and some training at the local base.
She was the premier female navigator at the first base she was deployed to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.
"It's tough being first," Dougherty said. "Whenever I was the first in a field, it felt like the future of all women in that career field was on my shoulders. If I messed up, I didn't want people to say 'See, if she can't do it, no woman can.'"
However, she was not always the first. In Sacramento, Calif., where she was often based, others preceded her. It took some of the pressure off, she said, to know that if she failed, they could look to the others' successes.
Dougherty attributes much of her to success to the support she received from her mother. Her mother had her sights set on joining the military during World War II, Dougherty said, but her mother would not let her. So when Dougherty told her she was going to be a navigator in the Air Force, her mother was enthusiastic.
Dougherty has been deployed to the conflicts in Kosovo and Bosnia. Most recently, she flew seven combat missions in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. She was based out of Oman on the Saudi Arabian peninsula.
Her primary mission was to navigate the KC-135, a refueling tanker that refills planes in mid- air. As a navigator, Dougherty was responsible for directing the rendezvous with the aircraft that needed refueling. This was a tricky job, she said, as the maneuver was done at 500 mph.
Navigating on a flight, which lasted usually seven or eight hours, was Dougherty's secondary job. Her primary job in Oman was to plan tanker operations. Usually she worked 12-hour shifts on the ground planning future missions.
Living conditions in her tent city in the middle of the desert would make any college student thankful for their room, even Centennial.
"It was all sand, no green here," she said. The tent she stayed in housed seven women at a time. Each person had a cot, a metal locker and a metal chair.
"We made shelves out of boxes," Dougherty said. "It was kind of like my dorm room at college."
Think the walk to the community bathroom is long? The bathrooms in the tent city were 10 minutes from Dougherty's tent.
"If you thought you had to go to the bathroom, you'd better start walking right then," she said, "because by the time you got there, you'd really have to go."
Dougherty retired shortly before the War in Iraq. She characterizes her career as a "great experience." She said that she was able to work with a lot of great people in her years in the military. Unfortunately, two of these great people were friends who lost their lives.
Overall, Dougherty is thankful that she was able to travel and fulfill her patriotic duty. "I got to serve my country," she said, "which I think is important."
To this day, Dougherty has no regrets. "I enjoyed it," she said. "I would do it again."
(09/09/03 12:00pm)
You and your significant other are home alone. Candles are lit. Soft music is playing in the background. You get into bed as things heat up. As you get ready to seal the deal, you reach over and turn out the light.
This is when having the lights out is a positive thing. But at 4:10 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 14, people along the east coast as far north as Toronto, as south as central New Jersey and as west as Detroit were involuntarily subjected to blackouts.
Meghan Gandy, senior history major, had just gotten onto a subway in New York City, on her way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when the power went out.
"It was very strange," Gandy said. "Everyone was so calm and organized. At first we thought it was just on the train. We thought it was just inconvenient." After learning from the conductor that the entire city had no power, Gandy decided to make her way to Penn Station.
"There were just masses of people in the street," she said. "There was a fair amount of cars trying to get around. Random people were conducting traffic."
When she learned N.J. Transit trains were not running out of the city, she joined the hundreds of people sitting on the post office steps. Two hours later, however, she overheard a man informing someone else that one train would soon be running to Trenton and managed to get aboard. Gandy said she considers herself fortunate. Not many people knew about the train, she said, so it was mostly empty.
Although she is thankful for her good fortune, Gandy wishes she could have been in the city at night. "It would have been interesting to see when it got really dark," she said.
April Drumm, freshman psychology major, did not lose power while she was working in the CVS pharmacy in Shipbottom, but she did feel the effects of the blackout.
People came in requesting to buy potassium iodide pills, Drumm said, which are used to protect the thyroid gland from radiation. The customers, who live near the Lacey Township Nuclear Reactor, feared the power outage was caused by a terrorist attack and wanted anything they could get to protect themselves from possible bio-terrorism.
"Some dude came in and bought like 12 boxes," Drumm said.
Some tried to make the best of having no power by enjoying outside activities. As Anish Doshi, freshman biology major, drove into his hometown of Fair Lawn and noticed all of the lights out, he decided to and go play some basketball. Instead he found himself on the scene of an accident.
Doshi didn't think much of the police officers directing cars in the surrounding streets with the absence of traffic lights, but when multiple police cars suddenly pulled just next to the basketball court, he became concerned.
"We ran to see what happened and all we saw was a scooter, then a kid," he said. A driver had disregarded the officer's directions, Doshi said, and had hit an 8-year-old boy, breaking the boy's leg. "It was bloody," he said. "The kid went up and over the car."
Jessica Rebisz, junior nursing major, had no power in her Butler home for 10 hours. While she waited for her mother to return from work, she tried to contact her cousin who was stuck in the city and was forced to sleep on the steps of the Port Authority Police Department.
Rebisz obtained some news about the blackout as intermittent spurts of power allowed her to catch reports on the television. Though she immediately thought it was a terrorist attack, she didn't panic. "I figured after Sept. 11, it couldn't get much worse," Rebisz said.
Whether students were at home, in the city or witnessing accidents, almost all will remember what they did on the day of the worst blackout in American history.