Point by point

11.4 million
Total meal points purchased between July 1, 2009-June 30, 2010

108,951
Unused meal points from 2009-2010 school year

18.27
Average unused meal points per person

The Bon Appétit Management Company pockets unused meal points at the end of each year, Student Life has learned.

About 1 percent of meal points purchased in undergraduate plans are returned to the food service company that operates dining halls on the Danforth Campus, according to Steve Hoffner, associate vice chancellor for operations.

In the most recent fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2010, undergraduates purchased a total of 11,382,712 meal points as part of predetermined meal packages. This number does not include food purchased via the Campus Card system.

At the end of the 2010 school year, students “forfeited” 108,951 points because they did not use all of them by the established deadline.

According to Hoffner, returning the points to Bon Appétit enables the company to keep prices low.

“If whatever points that are left at the end of the year were not going to the contractor, then the University and students would have to pay higher prices,” Hoffner said.

Josh Goldman | Student Life

Cooks prepare made to order stir-fry entrees at Bear’s Den on Sunday night. The unsued meal points returned to Bon Appétit at the end of each fiscal year help to keep food prices low.

Still, some students expressed concern when told by a reporter about the arrangement.

“That bothers me, but my friends in CS40 met with them, and apparently the money on extra points goes toward extra hours for workers,” freshman Emma Postal said.

Nadeem Siddiqui, regional manager for Bon Appétit, said that he simply wishes students used all their meal points.

“My ideal is that there would be no points left,” he said. “It’s less than a percent that is left at the end, and that number has gone down. That’s our preference, really.”

While some students might be shocked at the number of meal points that go unused, nearly 109,000 unused points is typical compared to previous years, according to Hoffner. On average, 18.27 points per student were forfeited, but most students used all of their meal points.

Hoffner said that the deal transferring all remaining meal points to Bon Appétit has been in existence since Dining Services first signed a contract with the vendor.

“Our contract with Bon Appétit specifies that unused points go to them, and they based their financial projections on this being the case,” he said.

Though Bon Appétit pockets the points at the end of the year, students may roll over meal points from the fall semester to the spring.

“We are very clear in telling students that their points can roll forward from the fall semester to the spring semester but that any points remaining at that time are forfeited,” Hoffner said.

Students said that the meal points should roll over from year to year.

“I thought it would be best if we got them next year,” said freshman Ignacio Ampuero. “It almost goes to waste. If you have extra, you’d get something back, because you paid for them.”

The transfer of unused meal points will not change, even though Dining Services is currently contemplating alterations in the undergraduate meal plan for the 2011-2012 school year. Dining Services will release possible changes in the University’s meal plans in the coming months as housing contract due dates near.

Hoffner said, “We think that a balance of approximately one percent when you’re talking over 11.3 million meal plan points is very, very reasonable.”

With additional reporting by Michael Tabb.

According to the Election Commissioner, sophomore Sarah Rubin, statistics from last year indicated that approximately 600 people voted in the elections held at the same time in 2009.

For the first time, Treasury elections were held in the fall, which might have aided in increasing voter turnout. The fall Treasury elections came as a result of the passage of a constitutional amendment last spring requiring that Treasury representatives be up for election every semester.

“In comparison to last year’s fall, the turnout has been great,” said sophomore Mamatha Challa, the speaker of the Senate. “It was great to see so many people voting.”

The elections brought in a wave of new faces to the Treasury and Senate.

“A lot of people that are leaving Senate are people that have served for a while, so they can no longer run,” Challa said. “I’m excited to get fresh faces and new people bringing energy to Senate.”

A large number of freshmen ran for office.

“We tried really hard to let [freshmen] know what was going on with Student Union,” Rubin said. “People who lost bids for Freshman Class Council positions were encouraged to reapply.”

Rubin said that SU did a great deal of advertising for the election to make the student body aware of which positions were being voted on and the times at which voting could take place.

The fact that all Treasury seats were up for election encouraged some students to run for Treasury positions.

“I had a better chance of getting on Treasury,” Treasury Representative-Elect and sophomore Paul Blachar said. “I wanted to do something that I felt had a real impact, and I thought that helping other student groups concretely do something has an impact in students’ lives.”

In most of the Senate races, there were few candidates. In the Arts & Sciences Senate election, seven students won positions out of a field of eight candidates. One write-in candidate, freshman Matt Re, won with a total of nine votes, narrowly beating out another write-in candidate, sophomore Ross Passo, who garnered seven votes.

Also on the ballot was a constitutional amendment that altered the format of Treasury elections. The amendment won in a 1,186 to 207 vote and states that half of the Treasury seats will be voted on in the spring while the other half will fall under the fall election cycle.

The method of voting, in addition, changed slightly from last year to this year. Previously, students would vote on WebSTAC using a link on the left hand column. The old method required that a technology staff member create a form based on data delivered from SU. This year, however, the SU election commission used new software to deliver the ballot directly to the student body.

“My main job is to make sure elections run smoothly and campaigns are run fairly,” Rubin said. “A big challenge this year is using the new software. This year we had to build the ballot and create the new formatting.”

Now that elections are over, SU is gearing up for a number of projects it has been looking to implement by way of Senate. One project relates to increasing the availability of the alumni network to the career advisors on campus. Additionally, Senate is looking to spread information on the University’s honor code and to improve the way that freshmen go through alcohol education. Finally, SU is looking into internal operations in order to improve its efficacy and efficiency.

All in all, SU leaders say that the election brings promise for next semester’s student government.

“This election is adding enthusiasm and energy to the work of SU,” Challa said. “When you have people around for a long time, a ‘groupthink’ mentality emerges. By bringing in new people, we will be able to represent the opinions of everyone on campus.”

Correction: In the original posting of this article, it was reported that “Also on the ballot was a constitutional amendment to revert the election rules pertaining to the Treasury back to the old method of electing Treasury representatives for the year, instead of the newly-instituted method of electing representatives twice a year. The amendment won in a 1,186 to 207 vote.” This is incorrect. Half of the Treasury seats will be voted in each fall and the remaining half in the spring. Student Life regrets the error.

McCullough is a two-time National Book Award winner, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

McCullough was supposed to speak at last year’s Founder’s Day, but he fell ill. He returned this year. McCullough spent the day, which is meant to commemorate the founding of the University, speaking to students as well as delivering the keynote address to the 900-person audience at the Founder’s Day event in downtown St. Louis.

The Student Alumni Ambassadors Program (SAAP) sponsored McCullough’s speech.

He spoke off the cuff about the importance of writing in a college education.

“When we start writing, we often have insights that we wouldn’t have had had we not been writing,” he said. “Keep writing; keep a journal, work your thoughts out on paper.”

McCullough also highlighted the crucial role that asking questions plays in everyday life.

“So much of our education is predicated on knowing answers. Don’t let that side of the educational process let you stop asking questions,” he said. “Show you have curiosity. What distinguishes us as humans is curiosity.”

Students responded positively to the advice offered by McCullough.

“The whole time he was speaking, I thought he was talking directly to me,” junior Andong Cheng said. “I didn’t want it to stop.”

Organizers of the event agreed with Cheng’s sentiments.

“He is such an articulate speaker and had great things to say about life,” said Brit Royal, a member of SAAP who graduated from the University in 2009.

McCullough is currently in the process of writing a book about Americans in Paris during the years between 1830 and 1900. According to McCullough, these Americans sought experience in certain fields, such as architecture, that were not taught in American schools at the time.

McCullough noted the difference between his form of history, which is intended for a general audience, and academic history, which is written by historians for other historians.

“You can tell a perfectly accurate and truthful story of what happened, and you can tell it in a boring way or an interesting way,” he said. “Some historians are writing for other historians. I am writing for all of us. I am an amateur historian.”

McCullough also stressed the importance of understanding a time period in order to understand the wide scope of history.

“It is important to read what they read as opposed to reading what they wrote. They weren’t like us because they lived in a different time and culture,” he said. “The more you know of people at other times, the more you have an understanding of history.”

According to McCullough, teachers should be held in the highest esteem in American society.

“Teachers are the most important people in society. There is no more intensely valuable career,” he said. “I know many teachers who changed my life, made me see, and I am forever indebted to them.

McCullough responded to questions from the audience for the majority of his talk. He then expressed his desire to meet the subjects of his books and other figures from world history.

“John Adams is one of the most infinitely brilliant figures I’ve written about,” he said. “If I could talk to anyone from the past, I’d love to have a chat with Michelangelo or George Gershwin.”

Overall, those in attendance saw the event as a success.

“It was an intimate gathering that gave students a great opportunity to know McCullough,” said Natalie West, assistant director of alumni relations for SAAP.

Students in attendance who had read his work found themselves further interested in McCullough’s writings.

“I felt myself wishing I had brought a notebook so I could write down everything he said,” junior Courtney LeCompte said. “His work seems fascinating. I have never read any of his books, but now I will.”

At the end of the day, McCullough stressed that through writing, he is able to do what he loves. He urged students to find their calling, whether it is through writing or some other medium.

“As long as people are willing to help support me financially, I am going to keep writing my books.”

Matt Lanter | Student Life

Jon Meacham opens his keynote address for the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Graham Chapel.

“This is a very important formal beginning,” said Chancellor Mark Wrighton Tuesday as he introduced Meacham and former Missouri senator Jack Danforth. The Center’s aim is to link scholarship with public discourse, civic life and higher education.

Danforth, while introducing Meacham, pointed to the importance of open discussion about the role of religion in the public sphere.

“The word ‘religion’ connotes holding things together, but throughout history, nothing has been more divisive,” he said. “The more light shed on the relationship of religion to politics, the healthier America will be.”

Meacham, who is the co-anchor of PBS’ “Need to Know,” former editor of Newsweek and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion and the New York Times bestseller American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation, spoke to the audience about how the country’s founders dealt with faith while forming the nation.

In between making quips about Jessica Simpson, William Howard Taft and Chancellor Wrighton, Meacham took the audience on a historical trip through time, highlighting the use of religion in the writings and speeches of post-World War II American presidents.

“The American gospel is that religion shapes the life of this nation without strangling it,” he said.

Meacham also discussed the longevity and power of the system designed by the Founding Fathers, pointing to the fact that no president has made a serious effort to rewrite the preamble to the Constitution.

“The power of the republican system is its ability to check extremism,” he said.

Following his address, Meacham fielded questions from the audience. When asked whether he thought true religious pluralism was possible in America, Meacham called it “demographic destiny.”

“The American story, for 400 years, has been that the wider we’ve opened our arms, the stronger we’ve become,” he said.

Meacham also discussed the upcoming midterm election, saying that the frequency with which sound bytes of information are disseminated has contributed to a culture of dissatisfaction and anxiety among voters.

“Next week will be a victory for those who are angry and anxious about what’s happening right now,” he said. “There’s not a political cycle anymore—there’s a political treadmill.”

Though the event was well attended by members of the community—including many Washington University alumni—there were few students in attendance.

“I didn’t think it was very well publicized,” junior Daniel Rubin said. “It’s tough to know what the Center for Religion & Politics is and does before it really begins with programming or curriculum, and I feel like unless you’re really in tune with politics, you probably don’t know who Jon Meacham is.”

Other students agreed.

“I would attribute [the low student attendance] to midterms and the fact that it wasn’t well advertised. I didn’t know about it until my friend told me about it an hour before,” junior Jacob Witt said.

Still, Rubin enjoyed the event.

“I thought it was really interesting,” he said. “Meacham was awesome.”

With additional reporting by Kate Gaertner and Michelle Merlin.

Bill Corrigan

Corrigan grew up in Florissant, Missouri and attended Chaminade College Preparatory School. He attended the University of Notre Dame for his bachelor’s degreed and the University of Missouri for his law degree. Corrigan served as president of the Missouri Bar Association. He serves on the Board of Directors of several private and public companies. He is a member of the executive committee of a firm and has received a 40 under 40 award from the Saint Louis Business Journal. Corrigan is a former president of the Edgewood Children’s Center Development Board and a former Vice President of the Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital Development Board. He announced on June 2, 2009 that he would be running for county executive. He won the Republican primary with 88.59 percent of the vote.

Property taxes: Corrigan believes that property taxes need to be kept under control and curbed. He wants to make property taxes fairer by working with the state legislature to cap increases in property values of comparable sales of homes for the past year, instead of sales for 2 or 3 years.

Jobs: Corrigan seeks to promote and foster small businesses by improving the usage of Saint Louis County’s three business incubators, which he says are underutilized. He also aims to keep large companies and corporate headquarters in Saint Louis by attracting investment in Saint Louis businesses with his tax plan.

Tax reform: Corrigan laid out a solution to high tax rates in Saint Louis County. First, he wants to impose a moratorium in raising property tax rates on Saint Louis residents. He also wants to cap the increase in property values to the rate of inflation. Next, he wants to elect a county assessor to guarantee accountability and fairness. To keep jobs in Saint Louis and to attract business, he aims to promote fair and consistent taxes. Finally, he wants to make current tax assessments realistic and fair by utilizing a consistent and accurate comparable sales assessment process.

Code of ethics: Corrigan plans to implement a code of ethics for Saint Louis County, if elected. According to the plan issued on his campaign website, the purpose of the code of ethics is to establish and maintain the highest ethical standards for the Saint Louis County Government and instill the public with confidence in the integrity of the elected officials and employees of the count. It will also include a pursuit of costs-effective and fiscally responsible policies for the operation of the government. Finally, it will provide guidance to elected officials and employees in the discharge of their duties.

City-County Merger: Corrigan opposes a city-county merger. He says that there should be collaboration between the county and the city, but a merger could lead to the county assuming the city’s debts and its operating costs.

Charlie Dooley

Dooley is the current County Executive of Saint Louis County, the first African American to hold the position. He has been in the position since 2003. Dooley grew up in Saint Louis and attended Wellston High School. He served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and then proceeded to work for McDonnell Douglas for thirty years. Dooley began his political career with part-time positions in the village of Northwoods. He was elected there to the position of Alderman and later as Mayor. He served in that positions until being elected to Saint Louis County Council in 1994. In 2000, he led an unsuccessful primary campaign for Congress against Lacy Clay. He was appointed to the position of County Executive after the death of the sitting Executive in 2003. He has since been elected in a special election and for a full term.

Fiscal responsibility: According to Dooley’s website, fiscal responsibility is his first priority. Following the recession, he called upon his administration to make budgets cuts to the Saint Louis County Expenditures. He asked each member of his County Government team to cut costs where they could without impacting citizen services or existing employees. The cuts led to $26 million in savings and led to a balance budget. He seeks to continue this trend and maintain Saint Louis County’s status as one of a handful of counties with a AAA bond raring, which is a mark of financial stability.

Health care: Dooley has guaranteed that every woman in Saint Louis County has access to a yearly mammogram. In 2009, the County’s state-of-the-art mammography vans provided care to more than 400 women.

Property taxes: Dooley says that the county property tax rate has decline by more than five cents for each $100 assessed valuations in seven years. Seeing that tax increases result from rates set by jurisdictions, he does not want municipalities and schools to raise the rates.

Economic Development: Dooley promotes the biotechnology industry in addition to including a business incubator that would provide startup businesses with a low-cost way to begin. He supports the establishment of a “china hub” near Lambert Airport in order to promote trade with Asia. As County Executive, Dooley has dedicated many resources in his administration to find a new use for the former Chrysler Assembly Plant in Fenton. The property received a $1.6 ,million federal grant to search for a new tenant. The new team will have $2.1 million to develop a new life for the property.

City-County Merger: Dooley is in favor of Saint Louis’ entering Saint Louis County as the 92nd municipality but argues that Saint Louis voters should decide the issue. He also believes that a merger will not cost the county to expend any additional funds.

Ethics: Dooley established an ethics codes prohibiting former county employees from lobbying an elected official. Department or employee for a minimum of a year after they leave their position in county government. Dooley’s code mandates that all companies with county contracts comply with its provisions.

Courtesy of Washington University in St. Louis

The editorial board for the new Washington University undergraduate law journal called The Circuit. The journal will be interdisciplinary and will seek to help educate readers on legal issues in the nation and worldwide.

There’s a new item on the docket for the Washington University Pre-Law Society. The group plans to publish an undergraduate law journal called The Circuit.

According to a release from the society (WUPLS), “The mission of The Circuit is to provide students across a myriad of academic fields the opportunity to publish their academic essays that grapple with law, legal concepts, institutions or issues from any time and place.”

Junior Aaron Kacel, the president of WUPLS, came up with the idea for the publication prior to the start of this school year.

“We spend so much time articulating thoughts and revising and making sure we’re proud of our words that we’re presenting to our professors [in papers],” he said. “It kind of goes away into the abyss of our computer. There needs to be a way to bring together the ideas we spend so much time working on in order to further knowledge about law, so I came up with the idea to reward undergraduates and in the process of doing so, we would advance law related knowledge.”

The members of WUPLS aim to promote greater understanding of the legal puzzles that face or have faced the nation and the globe. Additionally, they seek to reward undergraduates for their intellectual explorations and advancement of law-related knowledge outside of the classroom.

WUPLS has created an editorial board to oversee the collection, publication and dissemination of the articles.

“It’s not an undergraduate law review,” history professor and WUPLS adviser David Konig said.

Rather, the publication will be interdisciplinary.

“It’s consistent with a general emphasis on undergrad research to encourage by reward of undergrad research, we want to see connections between law and other areas of American thought and behavior that might not be readily available,” Konig said. “It’s going to be related to law and its broader context.”

The Circuit is looking for academic essays that grapple with law, legal concepts, institutions or issues from any time period. Essays from any course can be submitted.

WUPLS has started to advertise the publication and has been seeking articles through a variety of ways. The editorial board created a Facebook event and sent a message to its mailing list, which contains 250 people. The board also appealed to professors to generate interest.

“We have contacted individual classes and our editorial board is implementing our strategies by using course listings and contacting professors who are teaching classes that are relevant to the journal,” Kacel said.

Konig said the editorial board expects to get articles from students majoring in several departments. This week, for example, members of The Circuit’s editorial board will be speaking in the Introduction to Political Theory class about submitting to the publication.

Kacel hopes that the publication will set a precedent for the future.

“Our ultimate goal is to establish the journal’s presence on campus and pave the way for the publication to be a fixture of the University for years to come,” he said.

Besides creating the publication, WUPLS has spearheaded numerous events since its inception in 2009.

Next week, WUPLS will be hosting an event called “True Life: I’m in Law School.” The event includes a panel discussion with students from every year in law school who will provide insight on law school.

“We want to help foster career aspirations,” Kacel said.

In the past, WUPLS put on test preparation events, as well as an event in which attorneys speak about different opportunities available in the law field.

WUPLS has been successful in reviving the previous pre-law organizations that existed on campus.

The publication and the events have provided a good infusion of energy for pre-law,” Konig said.

Voters in Missouri’s 24th state senate district have a decision to make: whether to vote for Republican John Lamping or Democrat Barbara Fraser.

The 24th district is a politically moderate district including Clayton, Richmond Heights, Brentwood, Ladue, Frontenac, Des Peres, Creve Coeur, Saint Ann, Overland, Olivette, Maryland Heights and parts of University City. It is comprised of affluent and middle class families. The district has been Democratic in recent elections, despite being solidly Republican prior to the 2000s.

Scott Bressler | Campus in Focus

(Left to right) Nick Brooks, Blake Jones, Chuka Chike-Obi, Franklyn Pandolf-John and Regis Murayi stand outside the Original Mothers Bar in peaceful protest during last year’s senior class trip to Chicago.

It began when the Original Mothers Bar rejected the students, who were on the senior class trip, on the basis that their jeans were too baggy. After one of the students switched jeans with a white student, who was then admitted to the bar, the black students said they had been discriminated against because of their race.

The Senior Class Council organized a protest the next day, and numerous news organizations, including the Associated Press, picked up on the story. Within a few weeks, the incident was being covered in 27 countries.

“I just texted the six guys this morning,” said last year’s senior class president, Fernando Cutz, who dealt with much of the fallout from the incident. “I said something like ‘A year ago tonight we had a really long night, then two weeks where we didn’t go to class, because we were dealing with the media.’”

Mothers follows through

In response to the student protest, the bar’s management agreed to a contract with the six black students stipulating that the bar issue a public apology, organize a rally protesting racial discrimination, have its staff undergo sensitivity training and host four fundraisers.

Mothers issued an apology. The rally was canceled because of logistical difficulties, particularly in obtaining a permit and renting sound equipment. The cancellation occurred with the students’ consent.

Thirty Mothers employees attended diversity sensitivity and awareness training led by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL said in a letter to Mothers that it was pleased with the attendees and their willingness to “move forward towards positive change and growth.”

The first was hosted by Northwestern University. Following a low turnout, the contract was altered to allocate the remaining resources into one larger fundraiser in St. Louis. This event, a wine and cheese tasting in Holmes Lounge, drew about 200 people and raised approximately $1800. Part of the money was donated to a charity that works to promote racial and religious diversity among high school students, and the remaining sum was given to the ADL.

“As far as the legal settlement goes, they’ve definitely fulfilled everything they agreed to. In that sense they can’t fulfill anything else, and we have to be happy with that,” Cutz said.

At Washington University, better communication?

On campus, the Mother’s Bar incident gave Washington University students a concrete and undeniable example of real-world racism.

“I think that people are a lot more cognizant of the issues that African Americans have to deal with on a daily basis with the incident of Mothers Bar being so systematically explored,” senior and Association of Black Students president Adam Abadir said.

Following the incident, Connect4, a student group that aims to promote dialogue between students of different backgrounds, hosted a roundtable and created task forces for addressing discrimination, each of which dealt with a different aspect of campus life.

Student Union senators formed a body called the Diversity Affairs Council in order to promote dialogue and foster an increased understanding of diversity at the University.

Many believe that the reaction to the Mothers Bar incident was a step in the right direction.

“It was encouraging to see activism on an issue many on campus never have to or will confront,” said junior Betel Ezaz, co-chair of U/FUSED, an undergraduate organization that focuses on socioeconomic diversity.

Cutz and Abadir both hope that the University has developed a new attitude toward racism as a result of the incident.

“I hope that people don’t think that what happened at Mothers Bar is an isolated incident. My hope is that people aren’t as surprised when a student experiences racism,” Abadir said.

“The one thing I hope for is that something’s changed because of it,” said Cutz. “That dialogue, or some sort of understanding, even if just on the Wash. U. campus, has actually improved, because of everything that we did last year and everything that we went through.”

However, some wonder whether the institutionalized reaction has truly been effective.

“We’re mislead to believe that being diverse is about having these events and groups and that’s promoting diversity,” senior Monis Khan said. “What we lose sight of is ‘what is diversity, how does it manifest itself in the world?’ What we need is to allow people to express themselves in their cultures and their traditions, and I don’t think that Wash. U. realizes that’s what diversity means.”

“We have become complacent again,” said Ezaz.

With additional reporting by Cyrus Bahrassa, Kate Gaertner, Michelle Merlin, Chloe Rosenberg and Michael Tabb.

The “Fighting 3rd” is in the eastern part of the state. It includes much of the City of St. Louis, southern St. Louis County and all of Jefferson County and Ste. Genevieve County. The district is home to much of Washington University’s campus, including the South 40.

A Democrat has held the congressional seat for more than sixty years. Former Rep. Dick Gephardt, who served as both majority leader and minority leader, held the seat from 1977 until his retirement in 2005.

Democrat Russ Carnahan currently holds the seat and is running for re-election. His opponent is Republican Ed Martin, who served as chief of staff to former Gov. Matt Blunt and as the chair of the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners.

Ed Martin

Besides serving as chief of staff to former Governor Matt Blunt and as the chair of the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, Republican Ed Martin is a member of the Missouri State Park Advisory Board. He is originally from New Jersey, but entered law school at Saint Louis University and remained in St. Louis after graduate school. He headed the leadership team that designed and implemented the Missouri Accountability Portal, which is an Internet search engine that tracks state spending in order to boost transparency. He is also the founder of SaveAB.com, a group dedicated to stopping the sale of Anheuser-Busch to InBev.

ENERGY

Martin is strongly opposed to the Obama administration’s cap-and-trade legislation, which according to his website, is meant to redistribute wealth. He believes the initiative will artificially increase energy costs, destroy jobs, increase the costs of utilities and groceries, have a hard effect on agriculture, penalize the Missouri coal industry and enrich interest groups. He supports an “all of the above” approach to energy to reduce the country’s dependency on foreign sources of energy.

While working for the Governor, Martin helped push legislation requiring gasoline sold in Missouri to contain 10 percent ethanol. He is in favor of biomass, biofuels, wind power and solar energy.

JOBS

Jobs are a main focus of Martin’s campaign. He is also in favor of reducing excessive regulation on Missouri businesses that hinders job growth. Finally, he wants to cut taxes.

During his time working in state government, Martin assisted Blunt in bringing about tax cuts, tort reform and workers’ compensation reform. He also helped spearhead the Quality Jobs Program, which continues to run. Under Blunt, Missouri saw a net increase of 70,000 jobs.

HEALTH CARE

Martin is opposed to Obama’s health care plan. He seeks to replace it with a series of controversial reforms. He believes that the plan was passed haphazardly and added too many people to Medicaid. He also says that the plan will drop insurance plans in favor of paying the relatively lower cost penalties.

While working for Blunt, Martin pushed forward a MO HealthNet plan to replace the old system. The new plan empowered patients by increasing access to health care, gave access to primary care for all participants and reduced the number of uninsured Missourians.

EDUCATION

Martin is in favor of annual increases for construction of K-12 schools. He is also in favor of college construction and expanded college scholarships. While working with Blunt, he was in favor of selling Missouri’s student loan agency in an effort to pay for endowments and new school construction. He also believes that schools should be spending a majority of their money on education.

Russ Carnahan

Russ Carnahan was born in Columbia, Mo., and raised in Rolla, Mo. He was elected to the U.S. House in 2004, after winning a tight Democratic primary race against nine competitors, including Mark Smith, director of career planning and placement at Washington University and Jeff Smith, former University professor and former Missouri state senator. Carnahan is a member of the New Democrat Coalition. He is assigned to the Committees on Science and Technology, Foreign Affairs and Transportation and Infrastructure.

ENERGY

According to Carnahan’s website (www.russcarnahan.com), “The United States must move towards energy independence by developing alternative fuel sources.” Carnahan seeks to remove the tax credits being given to the oil industry. He also wants the federal government to support research that will create technology that will lower energy costs.
In Congress, Carnahan voted for tax incentives for renewable energy, removing oil and gas exploration subsidies and keeping the moratorium on offshore drilling. He voted against authorizing construction of new oil refineries, and he supports letting states define stricter-than-federal emission standards.

JOBS

Carnahan supports union rights. He also wants the government to focus on strengthening job opportunities on a regional level. In February, he unveiled a regional job plan that included an overview of the economy, an evaluation of local assets, an industry-by-industry analysis and a growth plan for each industry.
In Congress, Carnahan voted in favor of extending unemployment benefits from 39 weeks to 59 weeks, restricting employer interference in union organizing and increasing the minimum wage to $7.25. Carnahan is in favor of banning discriminatory compensation and seeks stronger enforcement against gender-based pay discrimination.

HEALTH CARE

Carnahan is in favor of government-sponsored national health care. He believes that Congress should restore taxes on the wealthiest two percent of Americans and use those funds to provide access to basic medical services for all Americans.

Carnahan voted yes on expanding the Children’s Health Insurance Program and on the health care bill.

EDUCATION

Carnahan is opposed to the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act, claiming that it lacks the funding that is required to maintain the legislation. He supports the Obama administration’s initiative to provide college access for 100 percent of Americans.

Carnahan voted in favor of allocating $40 billion for green public schools, providing an additional $10.2 billion for federal education and Health and Human Services projects and offering every parent a choice between charter schools and public schools.

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Barack Obama participates in a conference call with college newspaper editors in the Oval Office, Sept. 27, 2010.

In a conference call with college and university student-journalists, Obama answered any pressing questions students might have. Prior to taking questions from reporters who had called in to the conference, Obama issued a statement, highlighting aspects of his education and jobs policies.

First, Obama claimed that his administration wants to make college more affordable for young Americans.

“Instead of handing over $60 billion in unwarranted subsidies to big banks that were essentially getting this money even though the loans were guaranteed by the federal government, we’re redirecting that money so that it goes directly to students,” he said. “And that’s allowing us to support community colleges and make college more affordable for nearly eight million students and families.”

In addition to giving loans directly to students, the Obama administration is tripling the investment in college tax credits for middle class families, raising the value of Pell Grants and making sure that future borrowers are able to choose a payment plan that doesn’t require students to pay more than 10 percent of their salaries toward loan repayments. For those who go into public service, whatever debts are remaining will be forgiven after ten years. Finally, the administration is continuing to simplify financial aid forms.

Obama highlighted the benefits afforded to students under the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as the “health care bill.” Young adults are able to remain under their parents’ health plans until age 26, which gives students the opportunity to take the first job offered to them, even if it does not include health insurance as part of its compensation package.

Another priority Obama wants to fulfill is training a strong workforce that may be ready for the occupations in the future. He sees community colleges playing a large role in such training.

“Community colleges are going to play a critical role in getting there, and I’ve asked Dr. Jill Biden to hold the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges,” Obama said. “That way stakeholders are going to be able to discuss how community colleges can make sure we’ve got the most educated workforce in the world in relevant subjects that help people get jobs.”

While Obama recognizes that it will be up to students to complete their degrees, the government can help remove certain barriers, especially for those Americans who are in school while holding a job or raising a family.

“I’ve long proposed what I call a college access and completion fund, which would develop, implement and evaluate new approaches to improving college success and completion, especially for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds,” he said. “We’re also making sure our younger veterans are supported through a post-9/11 GI Bill.”

Obama and his administration seek to make college access easier for those students whose parents brought them to the United States illegally. Through the DREAM Act, which has not passed Congress, these students would have the opportunity to obtain legal status through education.

The president succinctly summarized the objective of his higher education program.

“The key here is, is that we want to open the doors of our colleges and universities to more people so they can learn, they can graduate, and they can succeed in life.”

Student Life, as well as the student newspapers of Radford University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison participated in the conference, along with many other participants.

Colin Daileda, a participant representing southwest Virginia’s Radford University asked the president about the realities of the “lost generation.”

“I’ve heard some of my professors call our generation the ‘lost generation’ because we get out of school with a ton of debt due to student loans and not be able to…get a steady job…and the economy is in the shape it is currently in,” Daileda said. “So I guess my question is, do you think there’s some truth to that? And do you think it will take a longer time than usual for our generation to get on out feet?”

Obama responded with optimism: “Don’t let anybody tell you that somehow your dreams are going to be constrained going forward,” he said. “You’re going through a slightly tougher period.  But if you think about it, what we called ‘the greatest generation,’ my grandparents’ generation, they had a situation where unemployment reached 30 percent and they ended up essentially building the entire American middle class to what it was and making this the most powerful economy in the world.  So right now we’re going through a tough time, but I have no doubt that you guys are going to be successful.”

Obama also noted that for the coming election, it is important for the current generation of college students to participate.

“And so even though this [election] may not be as exciting as a presidential election, it’s going to make a huge difference in terms of whether we’re going to be able to move our agenda forward over the next couple of years,” he said. “And I just want to remind young people, they’ve got to get re-engaged in this process.  And they’re going to have to vote in these midterms elections.  You’ve got to take the time to find out where does your congressional candidate stand on various issues, where does your Senate candidate stand on various issues and make an educated decision and participate in this process—because democracy is never a one-and-done proposition.”