According to a recent study performed by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine, the device that doctors currently rely on to prevent anesthesia awareness may not be as effective as was once believed.

“People who are unconscious due to anesthesia expect to feel and know nothing,” Alex Evers, head of the department of anesthesiology, said. “However, some people can recall things they heard, smelled, or pain felt from the surgery.”

For minor surgeries, the incidence of anesthesia awareness occurs approximately once per 1,000 cases. But Evers said that “for high-risk patients such as alcoholics, drug addicts, or people that are undergoing big surgeries, there may be an incidence as high as one percent.”

Second-year medical student Adam Searleman, who assisted in the study, added that those high-risk patients may not respond to ansthesia as effectively.

“Sicker patients, such as those who have drug or alcohol problems, have a higher risk because they often develop a resistance to the agents used in the anesthesia,”

With roughly 40 million anesthesia patients in the U.S. each year, the tenth-of-one-percent incidence rate may appear as an insignificant figure by itself. However, the tiny percentage does amount up to a considerable number of patients experiencing awareness during surgery.

According to Michael Avidan, associate professor of anesthesiology and the lead author of the study, patients who experience anesthesia awareness often suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder.

Avidan presented a documented case in which the patient woke up in pain and fear when the paralyzing agent of anesthesia wore off after the surgery.

“I woke up, I woke up.and felt excruciating pain in my abdomen. I remember being in tremendous fear,” the patient said, as recorded in the document.

A 2004 study called “B-Aware” reported that a Bispectral Monitor Device (BIS), which is the monitoring device that most hospitals use to regulate anesthesia levels, could reduce the occurrence of anesthesia awareness by ten-fold. With BIS, doctors can ensure that the patient’s brain wave index is kept between 40 and 60, in a scale where 100 indicates full consciousness, and zero indicates no brain activity at all.

In reading the study, Evers and Avidan encountered what they saw as a fundamental flaw. The study had not compared the BIS to a control group, such as any of the other existing monitoring protocols that can reduce the risk of anesthesia awareness.

In collaboration with a number of other doctors and medical students, Avidan conducted a new study called “B-Unaware,” published in the New England Journal of Medicine on March 13. Rather than comparing the BIS monitor group to a control group that received no treatment at all, the new study compared BIS to a monitoring technique called End-Tidal Anesthesia Gas (ETAG) to test for differences in the occurrence of anesthesia awareness between the two techniques. ETAG monitors the anesthesia gas contents that the patient is breathing out during the surgery.

The researchers performed the study on 2,000 patients, with half receiving BIS monitoring and the other half receiving ETAG. The results showed that both groups had between a 0.1 percent and 1 percent incidence. The study also demonstrated that neither BIS nor ETAG were 100 percent effective at preventing anesthesia awareness.

Patients in the study who were monitored through ETAG were also attached to a BIS monitoring system, allowing the doctors to test whether BIS would have successfully prevented anesthesia awareness in the few instances in which ETAG had failed to do so. The results showed that such was not the case.

Avidan is currently expanding the study by testing more patients to determine if a larger test pool will produce any disparity between the BIS group and the ETAG group that may not have arisen in the initial study of only 2,000 patients. This new study hypothesizes that the difference will be negligible.

According to Avidan, the study suggests that BIS monitoring-a highly expensive system-may not be worth its cost.

“The intent of the research is not to attack the Bispectral Index Monitoring System itself,” Avidan said. “The intent is rather to evaluate the integrity of the system dispassionately, and with no financial interests.”

Immediately following the publication of the research, the stock of BIS plummeted 50 percent.

A group of Washington University students are revolutionizing education with the recent launch of their new Web site, Schoology.

Schoology provides an online venue where students can share class notes, help each other with classes through online tutoring and make money at the same time.

When students join Schoology’s system of virtual education, they have the ability to download the class notes that others have posted on the Web site for free. To provide incentive for students to upload their notes, 90 percent of the Schoology advertising revenue will be distributed to the contributors.

“No one is going to post their notes if they are not getting compensated,” said Jeremy Friedman, one of the four juniors who founded the Web site.

Schoology uses an algorithm that takes a number of different factors into consideration, including the number of times that a posting of notes is viewed, to determine the distribution of compensation.

The notes are rated by readers on a five-star scale, which, according to Friedman, “forces people to upload legitimate, quality notes.”

Friedman conceived Schoology’s concept in March 2007, and up to its official launch this past Tuesday, the site has been constantly revised and improved with the help of co-founders Greg Mervine, Ryan Hwang and Tim Trinidad.

“We’ve remade the site so many times, each time weeding out components to make it simpler to use,” said Trinidad.

Schoology also offers an innovative system of online tutoring, whereby students can sign up to tutor others in various subjects for a self-selected rate that is paid by the minute. Students can contact the tutors through the Web site’s chat system. Past customers rate tutors and customers then decide whether the tutor will provide a worthwhile service.

“Students can get a feel for what the tutor knows,” said Hwang. “They can ask basic questions to see if the tutor is really an expert in what they say.”

Users of Schoology can add money to a prepaid account, which can be used to pay for tutoring services.

The account balance is automatically transferred by the minute to the tutor’s account at the rate that the customer agrees to pay. The customer can end the tutoring session at any time after the first minute so that no additional funds are transferred.

Individual tutoring sessions can also be merged together into large group sessions. There are already more than 100 registered tutors available on the Web site, and the founders are pursuing the services of professional tutors as well.

The educational service capabilities of Schoology are not limited to tutoring. Students can use the “job request” feature that allows them to request help for a specific task including math problems and proofreading papers.

Another user can provide the job request for a set price, whereupon the customer has the ability to ask for clarifications before either accepting or declining the help.

Schoology’s founders credit Burchan Bayazit, professor of computer science and engineering, for helping them develop a search system that can scan the context of the posted articles for an accurate match, similar to a search that is conducted on Google.

Bayazit also helped the students develop a feature on the site called “Whiteboarding.” Described by founders as a “virtual blackboard,” Whiteboarding allows a tutor to draw visual diagrams on the Web site that are instantly viewed by the customer.

“Schoology aims to create a collaborative environment, where people can come together to help each other learn,” said Friedman. “We are excited to enter the world of digital education, and are encouraged by the possibilities.”

In an attempt to draw more students into Greek Life housing, the occupancy requirements for fraternity houses at Washington University will be increased from 93 percent to 95 percent of each house’s ideal level of occupancy.

The expectation is that houses have 100 percent occupancy, but if any chapters fail to meet the minimum requirement, they will be fined by the administration.

The goal of the change is that by having more students living in the fraternity houses, there will be less strain on Residential Life housing, which will be limited by upcoming construction on the South 40.

Each chapter house on the Danforth Campus houses 19 to 38 men, said Director of Greek Life Ryan-Jasen Henne. As a result, each chapter has a different experience in trying to fill the house.

“[It] all depends on the number of men in the chapter and the size of the house that they live in,” said Henne.

The Inter-Fraternity Council works with the small number of fraternities that have difficulties filling their houses, to help them improve their numbers.

Some fraternities on campus require members to live in the house for a designated period of time to meet these requirements, while others do not. For instance, Beta Theta Pi fraternity members must live in the house for a year, while members of Sigma Phi Epsilon can choose whether or not to live in the house at all.

Beta does not usually have any difficulty filling its house, said Beta President Marius Johnson, as “everybody has to live in the house for a year so it’s just a matter of managing when they live there.”

As a means of enforcing the occupancy standards, if fraternity members choose to live elsewhere on campus rather than living in the fraternity house when they have the opportunity to do so, the students are dropped to the lowest level of the bidding process for Residential Life housing, the administrative round.

The University loses money on every room that is left unoccupied, which leaves the administration with less budget money to spend on improving the fraternity houses.

To many students, the decision to live in the fraternity houses is one that they do not regret.

“Living in the house is one of the greatest experiences that you can have,” said sophomore Slavi Fildish, a member of Sig-Ep.

According to Fildish, he has truly become “brothers” with all of the other men living in the house.

Some students choose not to live in the fraternity houses because they perceive the arrangement as a distraction from the academic demands of the school. These students are in the minority, however, as most students say that living in the house has made them more disciplined with their schoolwork and with other obligations.

“You can’t just sit around and be lazy if you want to live in the house,” says senior David Kurland. “You learn how to better manage your time and how to be organized with your class work, which are very valuable skills for anyone to gain.”

Having a fraternity house is seen as a privilege, and the idea behind the occupancy requirements is to force fraternity members to take advantage of these benefits.

According to Henne, “A fraternity house is an awesome place to be. You become extremely close with the other guys living there because you have the same rituals to back you up.”

After learning that Washington University recently missed out on an opportunity to host a visit by presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., students are expressing frustration with the University policy that prohibited the event, which would have taken place this Saturday.

Last week, the Washington University chapter of Students for Barack Obama learned that Obama was planning to make an appearance in St. Louis on Feb. 2 and that the campaign was considering the University as a possible location for an event. Three students in the organization then met with Vice Chancellor for Governmental and Community Relations Pam Lokken to request permission to have Obama speak on campus in the Athletic Complex.

“The Vice Chancellor told us that because the University could not offer the same opportunity to every candidate and because of tax concerns, the University could not host Obama,” said senior Ben Kastan, one of the students involved in making the request.

According to the IRS Web site, under current tax code the University would need to provide “equal opportunity to the political candidates seeking the same office,” could not “indicate any support of or opposition to the candidate” and could not allow any political fundraising at the event.

“In order to open our doors to one candidate, we are obligated to open our doors to all candidates,” said Rob Wild, assistant to the chancellor. “In order to minimize disruptions, the University has made the decision [not to invite any candidates].”

Some students were skeptical about the University’s justification in the tax code.

“From what I’ve read, I don’t see any general restriction that prevents a private university from allowing a candidate to speak,” said sophomore Jake Laperruque, another student involved in the appeal. “Many public and private universities have hosted candidates in the last year.”

Among the many private universities that have hosted presidential candidates and have not lost their tax-exempt status are Brown University, Wellesley College and Boston University.

“[Those universities] are willing to open their doors to any candidate when they request it,” said Wild. “We encourage other means of political involvement than inviting candidates.”

After the initial request was turned down, the students sent a second request directly to Chancellor Mark Wrighton, with similar results.

“The e-mail response cited concern over overall fairness and logistical issues in allowing a candidate to speak on campus, but also nervousness about any perceived favor prior to the vice presidential debates that Wash. U. will be hosting,” said Kastan.

“Because the University cannot equitably accommodate all such requests for the use of its facilities for candidate campaign rallies without disrupting academic and extracurricular operations, the University has decided that it cannot sponsor these types of events,” wrote Wild in an e-mail to Student Life. “To make an exception for one or two campaigns would be to give the appearance of favoritism or partisanship, especially given the literally dozens of declared candidates currently seeking the nomination by several political parties.”

This is not the first time that the University has refused to allow political candidates to speak on campus. One prominent example was in 2004 when students unsuccessfully pushed to get approval for Democratic candidate and current Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to speak at the University.

Former President of the College Democrats Aaron Keyak, a 2007 alumnus said that this decision is a testament to the University’s failure to foster an environment for healthy political discourse.

“[Wash. U.] encourages open discourse when it comes to educational matters, but not when it comes to political issues,” said Keyak.

Keyak cites his failed effort to get the administration’s approval to host the National Convention for College Democrats in 2006, which instead was hosted by St. Louis University.

An official petition to bring Barack Obama to St. Louis has been created on Facebook by senior Matt Adler. As of the print deadline, over 1,000 students have joined the petition group.

“The idea behind the petition is much broader that just Barack Obama,” said Adler. “It is about informing students that a great opportunity has been lost.”

Adler hopes that the event will help facilitate student contact with the administration about the decision.

Currently, there is a mixture of anger and frustration among students on campus.

“I understand there are logistical hurdles and concerns about neutrality,” said Student Union President Neil Patel. “But at the same time, I was disappointed when I heard the decision. Hosting Barack Obama could have been a great opportunity for both the school and the students.”

-With additional reporting by John Scott

A new partnership between Enterprise Rent-A-Car and the University will make rental cars available to students in a cheap and environmentally sustainable way.

A project of the Parking and Transportation Services department, the WeCar program, as it is known, allows students over the age of 18 to rent cars for hourly rates of 10-12 dollars.

WeCar is also open to University faculty and employees and offers rental cars at all times.

Although the program is open to all students over the age of 18, students under the age of 20 need to receive parental consent before they can participate in it.

This program is new to the St. Louis area, but is just one of many car-lending programs that exist throughout the country.

Other programs, such as Zipcar, which operates at 33 universities across the country at schools such as Princeton, MIT, Harvard and the University of Chicago, have been huge successes.

At these schools, the car-lending program has reduced parking and driving congestion.

Minimizing the number of students who commute to and from campus is especially important in lieu of the Highway 40/I-64 closures that are ongoing in St. Louis.

“While many employees and students wanted to explore alternate modes of transportation for commuting, such as public transportation, biking or carpooling, they had a problem if they needed a vehicle during the day for a meeting, an errand or to respond to a family emergency,” said Lisa Underwood, director of the Parking & Transportation Services. “We saw this program as a great way to address that problem.”

As part of the University’s commitment to the environment, the WeCar program only offers environmentally friendly hybrid cars that emit less carbon pollution and have greater gas mileage than typical cars.

The two available vehicles include the Hybrid Toyota Prius, a sedan, and the Hybrid Ford Escape, a sports utility vehicle.

“A key part of our university sustainability initiative is to assess our greenhouse gas emissions and our impact on global climate change, and then implement solutions that will reduce them,” said Matthew Malten, assistant vice chancellor for campus sustainability.

The hope is that there will be a diminished need to have a car on campus, which will lead to fewer cars on the road and more effective use of public transportation like the MetroLink.

The cars are located in four locations across campus designed to provide convenient access to the greatest number of people; cars are available on the South 40 near Liggett House, in the Snow Way Garage, east of Brookings Hall near Givens Hall and near the Mallinckrodt Student Center.

Customers can register and reserve time slots online; fuel and maintenance are included in the hourly rate, and the cars can be kept overnight for an additional fee.

Aside from the benefit that the program provides for commuters, the program is meant to be a convenience for anyone living on campus.

“WeCar provides students with the freedom of having a personal automobile at their fingertips without the hassle and expense of having a car on campus,” said Underwood.

Students can register for the program online by visiting http://wecar.com/wustl.

Students may find themselves looking for alternative means of transportation as the commencement of Highway 40′s reconstruction project has left them stuck in traffic.

In its largest single building project ever, the Missouri Department of Transportation has shut down the major St. Louis highway for reconstruction, causing a significant increase in traffic throughout the city.

Drivers now have to find alternative routes to navigate throughout the city. This controversial two-year initiative is forcing St. Louis residents to change their daily schedules to deal with the new driving conditions.

The anticipated $535 million dollar project has made commuting to the University a daunting task for students who live off campus.

“There are only so many routes from my house to Wash. U., and with traffic and random construction on all of the possible routes, commuting has become the worst part of my day,” said junior Erin Swaller, a commuter student. “It takes twice the time to get anywhere and makes it so that once I go home for the night, I don’t want to go out again.”

The rebuilding of Highway 40 also affects campus clubs and teams, such as the women’s and men’s tennis teams. The new traffic constraints have forced the teams to move to a new indoor practice facility and vary their practice times from day to day in order to avoid the heavy traffic.

“It is difficult for us to plan practices around all the different class schedules of everyone on the team due to the limited times offered to us by the practice facilities and the need to avoid the bad traffic times,” said Ania Tchergueiko, co-captain of the women’s team. “We still waste a lot of extra time in transit, and we are only able to practice together as a whole team twice a week.”

The next two years will be difficult for Missouri drivers, but many believe that this is a necessary sacrifice. Some sections of the highway are as many as 70 years old, with dangerous overpasses and exit ramps that have caused serious car accidents.

Sophomore Danny Levy, a native of St. Louis, attests to the hazardous conditions of the old highway.

“Even if you were familiar with the abruptness of some of the old off-ramps, if you weren’t extremely careful, you could have been in for a nasty surprise,” said Levy.

Student Union (SU) is encouraging student groups on campus to appeal for more funding after spending from the appeals fund lagged considerably in comparison to previous years.

As of Thursday afternoon, there was about $115,000 available in the appeals fund for Washington University student organizations.

This amount is significantly greater than it has been in past years, which is typically around $30,000, said SU President Neil Patel.

The appeals fund is used to supplement student group’s allocation for the purpose of funding programs that are not originally budgeted for.

The surplus this year comes on the heels of a year in which the treasury ran out of money more than a month before the end of classes.

Last March, the treasury emptied its appeals fund prematurely, preventing student groups from appealing for funds for any end of semester programs.

At the time, many students criticized the process by which treasury spent money from the appeals fund saying that they were too lax in their allocations; this year they have reallocated part of the money set aside for appeals because there has been such low demand.

“The treasurers wanted to see the funding percentage [for category I groups] higher,” said Marius Johnson, SU treasurer. “Because they could safely do it, they moved $15,000 so the funding percentage would be higher.”

The student activities fee, which is set at one percent of the annual tuition paid by each student, determines the SU budget; because tuition rates are rising faster than inflation, the budget is larger this year.

Also, a new rule restricts the groups that can receive money from the SU Treasury. Funding for class councils, school councils and executive committees-and specifically the appeals for those big ticket items-is now the responsibility of the executive branch.

“You can see the effect,” said SU Speaker of the Treasury John Ablan. “More money overall and a decrease in the number of entities able to make funding requests is bound to lead to the remaining groups having greater access to those funds.”

This change comes as a result of a decision handed down last year by the judiciary branch.

Based on this year’s surplus, Patel encourages student groups to make the case for additional funding if they are unhappy with the initial budgeting process.

“We have no use for this money,” said Patel.

Many student groups are finding the initial SU budget allocation to be sufficient, and are therefore making fewer appeals for additional funding.

“This was a very good year for allocation,” said Tatyana Taranukha, co-president of the Russian Club.

Taranukha says the Russian Club may request additional funding later in the spring, but the club is content with the money currently remaining from its initial allocation.

Student Union executives stress that now is a great opportunity for student groups to receive SU funding to add more activities to their existing schedules, as well as for students to establish new clubs for the University community.

To further that goal, the treasury recently reallocated more than $15,000 from the appeals fund to the category I allocations fund allowing category I groups to receive more money in the first round of allocations that will occur over break.

Consequently, category I groups will need to do less fundraising for their programs next semester.

Campaign donation records show that Washington University employees financially support Barack Obama while the Board of Trustees back Mitt Romney.

University employees have donated more than $15,000 to presidential campaigns in the last year-almost half to the Obama campaign. Members of the Board of Trustees have contributed more than $54,000 with Romney receiving the most from among the Republican candidates and Hillary Clinton receiving the most of the Democratic candidates.

The donations from members of the University community are a part of $372,517,276 that has been donated nationwide and more than $2.7 million in the state of Missouri.

Campaign donation information is publicly available from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and is regularly released online.

As a result of the FEC’s efforts to make campaign financial records more easily accessible, viewing how much money a specific person has contributed to the various presidential campaigns is no more difficult than checking e-mail.

Federal law provides that individuals can donate up to $2,300 per candidate per election cycle; additional money may be donated to the national committee for each political party-for example, the Democratic National Committee or the Republican National Committee.

Student Life made use of data made available directly from the FEC and aggregated data from the New York Times Web site.

The FEC data showed 22 faculty members making donations since the official start of the election cycle earlier this year. There were also 22 donors recorded amongst the 55 members of the board of trustees.

University employees have contributed nearly $8,000 to Obama’s campaign.

While this amount seems insignificant, due to strict campaign finance laws that limit individual donations, financial support for Obama is by far the strongest amongst the candidates. The biggest fundraiser after Obama is John McCain, who has received around $3,500.

“I believe Barack Obama has the character, intelligence, judgment and leadership skills to move this country in a positive direction again after the foreign and domestic disasters of the current administration, and to make our country once again respected throughout the world,” said Claude Bernard, a professor of physics who is among the largest contributors to the Obama campaign.

Nationally, Obama has the second highest level of fundraising, raising $79.4 million. He trails Clinton by almost $10 million.

In terms of campaign donations, however, Board of Trustees members are significantly less fond of Obama. According to the records, the Board has donated the least to Obama, $3,500, but has contributed almost $17,000 to Romney. Even so, trustees donate to Democrats and Republicans alike.

President and co-Vice President of the Board of Trustees were both among the contributors to the Mitt Romney campaign, however the declined to comment on their reasons for supporting the Massachusetts governor.

Nationally, Romney has raised the most of any Republican candidate, weighing in at $61.6 million.

Although the Community Service Office (CSO) has always offered money for summer work, this sum of funding is larger than that available in previous years.

The CSO has teamed up with The Career Center and The Gephardt Institute for Public Service to offer this money through 49 different grant and stipend programs for students who wish to volunteer this summer helping in communities here in St. Louis, or anywhere in the world.

The grants come in denominations from $3,000 to $10,000 for undergraduate students who want to innovate or pursue social change projects of their own.

In the past, junior Kelly Greenman received a $3,000 grant through the program, “Village India” to teach English to children in India.

“This was an incredible opportunity to branch out of my comfort zone and have an amazing and unique experience while performing community service,” said Greenman.

According to Greenman, she was able to teach the Indian students about English creative writing, as well serve as an instrument through which the kids could learn about American culture.

Greenman was also able to grow and learn herself through the cultural immersion process while she was living in India.

In 2001, University student Jay Swaboda used the Stern Social Change grant to create a free magazine titled What’s Up for the homeless and poor.

The magazine strives to educate, organize and motivate the community to fight urban poverty.

Furthermore, the magazine is a social enterprise that provides work and income for many of the unemployed individuals in the city of St. Louis.

What’s Up Magazine is still in publication and Swaboda runs the magazine today as his primary occupation.

“[The grants] are an opportunity to dream big and produce real outcomes for the community,” said Swaboda on the University community service Web site. “I wouldn’t be doing anything that I currently am had I not had the opportunity to be exposed to this environment through the Stern Scholarship. I am still busy publishing and organizing What’s Up Magazine and currently employ a working staff of 30 homeless individuals.”

The Career Center is offering 36 stipend programs of up to $3,000 for unpaid summer internships.

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service is offering 10 stipends of $2,000 for both undergraduate and graduate students who wish to pursue any unpaid community service, political action or social justice internships this summer.

In an attempt to highlight grant opportunities and to help students understand how to write proposals for funding, there will be a session on November 8 at 4 p.m. entitled “Got Enough Money?”

“The Proposal Writing workshop is even broader than just learning how to write stipends and grants,” said Stephanie Kurtzman, the director of the CSO.

Kurtzman added that the presentation will provide beneficial guidance for writing any research funding request, graduate school application, post-graduate scholarship application or post-graduate fellowship application

For more information about funding opportunities, visit the CSO Web site at http://communityservice.wustl.edu.

Barack Obama, one of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, is looking to receive student support in his presidential bid.

Today, the Illinois senator will speak at Union Station in St. Louis at an event catered specifically toward his growing base of student voters.

“Traditionally, the youth vote, the generation 18 to 25 [years old], has been the least likely to turn out and vote,” said William Lowry, a professor of American politics. “If more young people are going out to vote, that segment of the population becomes that much more important in an election that could be pretty close.”

Obama’s campaign is actively looking to engage with students for the Illinois senator’s presidential pursuit.

“Barack Obama listens to the people,” said sophomore Michelle Stein, the Missouri State Commissioner of Students for Obama, the student wing of the Illinois senator’s campaign. “It’s nice to feel like you have a voice in the campaign.”

Students For Obama is an amalgamation of different chapters of high school, college and graduate school students that spans across the country, including a chapter at the University.

Washington University Students For Barack Obama has been involved in aiding campaign efforts in St. Louis. The group has been particularly involved in this event, which is the first stop on Obama’s “Countdown to Change” tour of Missouri.

The efforts of the Obama campaign come as part of an effort by candidates nationwide to motivate students and to mobilize a segment of voters that has been largely apathetic in recent years.

“Campuses have not been as active in recent years as they were, certainly 30 years ago,” said Lowry. “There are so many issues right now that should be so relevant to that generation-not just military involvement overseas but issues involving the federal deficit-that should make people more willing to take the effort to go out and vote and campaign.”

In efforts to lure more students to Friday’s event, student ticket prices have been discounted from $25 to $15. According to a Facebook event for the rally, more than 400 students have indicated their intent to attend.

Obama was the first candidate to open a political office in St. Louis, and that office is one of the two offices he has in Missouri.

“Missouri is a pretty important state because it has been so close in the last couple of elections,” said Lowry. “It generally reflects the way the rest of the country is going to go.”

The Missouri presidential primary is scheduled for Feb. 5, 2008, on the nationwide “Super Tuesday.”

According to recent polls of the Democratic primary field, Obama is trailing Senator Hilary Clinton in the bid for the Democratic nomination.

Despite this, the Obama campaign remains hopeful that it can reach out to students and effect change in the political system.

“I believe that if we focus and work together, then the results will be very good,” said Stein.

Tickets to the event can be purchased online as well as at the door before the event scheduled to start at 5 p.m.

To buy tickets for the event or to learn more, visit Obama’s website.

-With additional reporting by Sam Guzik.