As soon as I leased an apartment in the same building as a good friend two years ago, he suggested that we host a Passover seder and make everything from scratch. I love to cook, and the idea of planning a small seder with my good friends excited me; the small seder we had envisioned eventually transformed into a 35-person event that required three straight days of cooking and more calls to my mother than I make in a semester. I was really nervous that our event would flop, but the opposite occurred. Everyone enjoyed the lively discussions and good food, and I hosted another seder this year while a group of juniors, who were at my first seder, hosted one of their own. I went from nervously inviting friends to a meal to possible starting a long-term tradition, which is pretty cool.

I took a larger risk when my family and I went to Belize over winter break, an opportunity that not many students receive and for which I am incredibly grateful. While planning the trip, my mother gave us the option of spelunking through the Actun Tunichil Muknal, a large cavern that one must swim into before scaling rocks with nothing but a guide and a headlamp to illuminate the vast cavern. As someone who struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder into high school, I never thought I would agree to an activity where I would be in a completely foreign environment; the cave was my favorite part of the vacation. I let myself into an initially uncomfortable situation, and I benefitted from a unique experience that not many are bound to have.

I realize that my “risks” were not huge risks, but to me, they seemed like big steps at the time. I urge my peers that are graduating and those who will return to the Danforth Campus next year to take advantage of this unique time in our lives where we can take some chances and possibly benefit immensely. Take a road trip with some friends without planning every stop; go to that huge party next door even though you don’t view yourself as “cool” enough to belong; try new foods (ethnic food is far better than any Italian food offered in St. Louis); take a class unrelated to your major; most importantly, resist the urge to blend in. I have enjoyed my collegiate tenure immensely, but I admit that my experience could be labeled boring.

“It was our best weekend yet, and this is what we’ve been working for,” head coach Kelly Stahlhuth said. “We’ve been trying to get stronger every week, and [the players] did it.”

No. 11 Carnegie Mellon University took a 2-1 lead over the No. 15 Bears through doubles play on Sunday, but the Red and Green fought back in singles until freshman Evelyn Qin defeated Courtney Chin 6-2, 7-6 (7-2) at second singles to complete the comeback and secure the 5-4 victory.

“It was amazing,” Qin said. “I really wanted to finish strong for our team especially since I hadn’t won a match this weekend, and I was thinking about our upperclassmen and how it was our last UAA match for them, so I wanted to do really well for them.”

Down 5-6 in the second set, Qin leveled the match at 6-6 before winning the tiebreaker.

“It was nice. It’s the first time we’ve beaten Carnegie since I’ve been here. Evelyn has been playing phenomenally, and we knew she could do it,” said Stahlhuth, who has coached the team since the 2005-2006 season.

Sophomore Kate Klein, freshman Theresa Petraskova and sophomore Paige Madara also collected the singles victories for Wash. U. at third, fourth and sixth singles, respectively. Madara and freshman Corinne Rauck also won 8-4 at third doubles.

After winning its opening match of the tournament against the University of Rochester on Friday, the Bears faced No. 3 Emory University on Saturday. The Eagles shut out Wash. U. 6-0 to advance to the UAA title match. Agaisnt the Eagles, the Bears lost by at least four games in every completed match and only won sets at fourth and fifth singles in matches that were not completed.

Tournament play opened for Wash. U. on Friday against Rochester, and a strong start from the Bears clinched the match halfway through singles play.

Rauck and Madara got the Bears on the scoreboard early with an 8-2 win at third doubles, and Petraskova and senior Elise Sambol gave the team a crucial 2-1 lead by taking second doubles 8-2. Madara, Petraskova and Klein then won their singles matches in straight sets to win the match for the Red and Green, though the Yellowjackets would win at first, second and fifth singles.

Inclement weather relocated all matches from the Dwight Davis Tennis Center in Forest Park to the Kings Point Sports Club in Belleville, Ill., and the Sunset Tennis Center in Sappington, Mo. The Bears played both their first- and third-round matches at Kings Point.

While Emory, the eventual conference champions, received the automatic bid into the NCAA Championships, Chicago, Wash. U. and Carnegie are in line to receive at-large bids to the tournament as teams ranked in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Top 25.

“[The UAA has] usually gotten in four. There’s always a few teams left out. I think a few of our solid wins have helped, especially this late in the year, but we just have to hope they write our names down and hopefully they will,” Stahlhuth said.

Washington University (15-5) concludes its regular season with a match at No. 17 DePauw University on May 7. The Bears defeated the Tigers 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the Midwest Invitational in Madison, Wis., on April 8.

“Against DePauw, we [have] to stay strong against them since we already played them once earlier in the season and keep up our toughness and competitiveness,” Qin said. “The same goes for nationals.”

Bonser tossed a complete-game shutout in game two of the team’s doubleheader against the Dutch, allowing just seven hits in seven innings pitched while striking out four without allowing a walk. Bonser also induced 14 ground ball outs to improve to 4-0 on the season and lower his ERA to 2.76.

“Bonser was fantastic, and for the most part this year, he’s done that. He’s gone deep into games, he’s given our bullpen a chance to rest, and he’s baffled opposing hitters for most of the year,” head coach Steve Duncan said. “I look for him to continue that towards the end of the season. He and Adam Merzel pitched extremely well and kind of put us on their back in terms of getting us to a victory.”

Bonser was helped by seniors Matt Bayer and Joe Noon, who each picked up two hits in the game. Noon hit a two-run homerun and also contributed an RBI double and a sacrifice fly in the 7-0 victory.

Wash. U. also received a strong pitching performance from Merzel, a senior, to take game one of Sunday’s doubleheader at Coe College 8-3. Merzel pitched 6.1 innings, while giving up eight hits but just three runs to improve to 3-2 on the year. He struck out five but walked four and threw three wild pitches.

The second through sixth hitters for the Bears all recorded two hits and scored at least one run. Junior Brandon Rogalski knocked in two runs, Bayer drove in two and Noon drove in two on two groundouts.

“They [the offense] were as good [as] they have been at any point this year. We would have had far more hits had the wind not been blowing at around 30 miles per hour straight in from left field,” Duncan said. “The only thing a hitter can control is what kind of an at-bat he has and how hard he hits the ball, and I was very pleased with how we hit the ball on Sunday, even in the game we lost.”

The Bears fell 8-3 to the Kohawks in the second game on Sunday. After senior David Liebman surrendered two unearned runs in 2.1 innings pitched, the bullpen allowed five more runners to cross the plate in 3.2 innings pitched.

Freshman Kyle Billig scored all three runs for the Bears, going three for four out of the leadoff spot, but the Kohawks never allowed the Bears to score more than one run in an inning.

Wash. U. opened the weekend with a 7-2 loss against Central College. Sophomore Taylor Berman suffered his first loss of the year, surrendering seven runs on six hits and five walks over four innings.

The Bears (21-13) are looking to make a final push for an NCAA tournament bid in their final 12 games. The team is vying for an at-large selection to the tournament along with other Pool B teams. Teams in Pool B do not play in athletic conferences with guaranteed tournament bids.

Duncan said that the improved defense needs to continue to develop and that the team’s pitching needs to be a little more consistent to close the season.

“We have work left to do, we have a number of good teams left on the schedule, that if we take care of business the rest of the way, I think we’ll be in excellent shape for the postseason,” Duncan said. “We’ve played one of the more difficult schedules in the country, so we’re optimistic that will be taken into account when it’s time to judge who the most worthy team is.”

After taking two of three doubles matches against No. 30 Trinity University, the Bears saw the Tigers win four of six singles matches to pull off the 5-4 upset on Friday. Wash. U. then rebounded with a 7-2 victory over No. 26 University of Texas-Tyler and an 8-1 win over the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

The Bears played without sophomore Kate Klein and freshman Betsy Edershile, the second and third singles players for the Bears, who will both miss the remainder of the season due to injury.

“I think we did really well, considering the circumstances,” freshman Corinne Rauck said. “It was really random to have two players injured.”

In Friday’s match against the Tigers, the Bears needed to change their doubles and singles lineups to compensate for the injuries to Klein and Edershile. Freshman Evelyn Qin, who normally plays with Klein at first doubles, teamed up with junior Natalie Tingir at first doubles and lost 8-4. Senior Elise Sambol, Tingir’s usual partner, played with freshman Theresa Petraskova and won 8-5. Sophomore Paige Madara and freshman Corinne Rauck played third doubles and won 8-6.

In singles, the team also played without top player Tingir, who missed the match with an injury. Petraskova and Rauck won at second and sixth singles, but Trinity took first, third, fourth and fifth singles to win the match.

“I think we all played really well, especially without two of our top players,” Qin said.

Wash. U. won all but two matches easily against the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor on Sunday. The Bears dominated the Crusaders from the outset, winning all three doubles matches.

Qin and Tingir won at first doubles, 8-1, Petraskova and Sambol won at second doubles, 8-2, and Madara teamed up with Rauck to win at third doubles, 8-6. The same lineup won five of six singles matches, with Tingir suffering the only loss of the day at first singles, 6-2, 6-3.

Saturday’s 7-2 win over the University of Texas at Tyler was much closer than the score indicated.

All three doubles matches were decided by tiebreakers. Qin and Tingir fell 7-4 in the tiebreaker while Petraskova/Sambol and Madara/Rauck won their tiebreakers 7-1 and 7-5 at second and third doubles, respectively.

“We would have been in big trouble [if they had not]. We were happy to play as well as we did,” Qin said of the team’s doubles effort.

Tingir split sets with opponent Michelle Hagler at first singles before dominating the third set to win 6-4, 4-6, 6-0. Qin, Petraskova, Madara and Rauck all won their singles matches in straight sets, but Sambol fell in three sets, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1.

Coach Kelly Stahlhuth has stressed the importance of getting off to a fast start by winning doubles matches, and the team responded by winning seven of nine contests this weekend.

“It’s always really important….It lets us know how much we need in singles,” Qin said.

The team travels to Madison, Wis., to compete in the Midwest Invitational tournament this weekend, opening at No. 14 DePauw University on Friday.

“I think a lot of the upperclassmen really want to win against them,” Rauck said. “I know we’re all going to try our best.”

The Bears will not play a home match this spring until hosting the University Athletic Association Championships on April 22.

John Hergenroeder | Student Life

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, addresses the Washington University community in a mostly filled Graham Chapel on Friday evening. Wales delivered the keynote address of the Global Leadership Conference, a speech that was also part of the Assembly Series.

“I’m basically some guy on the Internet who spent the whole day today completely geeking out in my hotel room editing Wikipedia,” Jimmy Wales said to open his address. He launched the online encyclopedia in 2001 along with co-founder Larry Sanger.

Wales’ speech, titled “Democracy and the Internet,” began with an explanation of Wikipedia’s mission of spreading the sum of human knowledge worldwide.

The remainder of the speech addressed how Wikipedia developed into the fifth most visited site in the U.S. from a humorous angle. Wales addressed a mostly full Graham Chapel on Friday evening in a speech that was also part of the Assembly Series.

The site currently offers more than 16 million articles in more than 270 languages. Posts in English account for more than 3.5 million articles, and more than a million posts have also been created in French and German. The encyclopedia receives more than 408 million unique visits a month, according to comScore, a company that monitors internet traffic.

“Wikipedia tends to be very similar in all of the languages. There is a certain geek culture that transcends national culture, so we are really strong in ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Star Wars’ everywhere in the world,” Wales said. “Things that geeky, smart people are into tend to be very well covered.”

Initial studies into the workings of the encyclopedia revealed that popular culture, geography, sex and local news are the most researched topics on Wikipedia.

“The Germans are the most interested in geography. Just saying,” Wales said. “Sex is in the top topics in every language here except for in French and Spanish, and I thought this was kind of puzzling until someone explained to me that it’s because the French and Spanish are actually having sex, and everyone else is just reading about it.”

The world’s most popular encyclopedia is written and edited by hundreds of thousands of users worldwide while internal operations of the site are managed by around 70 employees that staff the Wikimedia Foundation’s office. The nonprofit foundation is set to open a second office in India to assist users in developing posts for the various languages spoken there.

The editors of Wikipedia are 87 percent male and have an average age of 26, both of which Wales acknowledged were an area of concern.

“There are barriers to editing Wikipedia that exclude not just women but exclude all kinds of people who are not as tech savvy,” Wales said. “We are plagued a little bit with young males sort of hollering at each other, but we do try to have a very friendly, welcoming culture….Wikipedia is written in a very authoritative style, and men have no problem speaking in an authoritative style about things they know nothing about.”

Toward the end of the speech, Wales addressed the growing role of Wikipedia as a news source.

“[For] people today who are coming up in the next generation, Wikipedia is going to be something that is always there and is the default standard way we go to get information. That means that we have an enormous responsibility at Wikipedia within our community to be open, to be transparent, to be accountable, and above all, to be very high quality, to be as good as we possibly can be,” he said.

In order to ensure this quality, volunteers filter through posts to identify any unsubstantiated information.

The website is rarely asked to censor any of its content, according to Wales, though the site has been completely blocked in China three times since 2004. The Chinese government currently blocks posts to issues that it deems controversial to the regime, such as Taiwanese independence and the winning of the Nobel Peace Prize by Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese human rights activist who has called for a transition to democracy.

Wales sees Wikipedia as a portal for collecting verifiable information, and he sees a need for future collaboration between professional journalists and Wikipedians as society shifts to online news markets. Wikipedia currently receives more visits per month than readers of the world’s 20 most popular newspapers combined.

Wales, 44, received a bachelor’s degree in finance from Auburn University and enrolled in two Ph.D. programs but never finished his dissertation. He previously worked as a financial trader before making the transition to website development.

His first project, Bomis.com, launched in 1996 and became a search engine frequented by male users to search for “adult material.” Wales then launched Nupedia, an encyclopedia with articles written by professionals, before launching Wikipedia in 2001. Wikipedia was first managed through Bomis but has been run by the Wikimedia Foundation since 2003.

As Wikipedia continues to grow, the site hopes to reach more than a billion people per year and hopes that it is used more in developing markets like China, where “Wikipedia” may be more well known for being listed as an ingredient on translated Chinese menus in Beijing than as a source of information.

“We think they just had somebody translating who just said, ‘How do we such and such in English?’ Look at Wikipedia,” Wales said. “Even if we may not ever make it into the top 10 of websites in China, maybe we do have a business model there. Maybe we should open a restaurant.”

The No. 12 Bears defeated the host Titans 87-77 to set up a rematch of last season’s national semifinal game against No. 2 Amherst College.

The Bears have made the title game each of the past three seasons and will be looking to win back-to-back titles on Saturday.

Editor’s note: Complete coverage to follow from Bloomington, Ill.

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