The project, which began in 2008, specifically targets low-income students. St. Louis currently ranks 24th out of the 35 largest metropolitan regions in the country in the proportion of its population that has a baccalaureate degree.

“The work that we did does target low-income students both because we think it’s the best and right thing to do and also because if you look at the demographics for this region, that is where the potential is for greatest growth,” said Faith Sandler, co-chair of the project’s steering committee and executive director of the Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis.

To gather research for the project, representatives conducted informational interviews with every university in the St. Louis metropolitan area, as well as with colleges and universities that serve a large proportion of students from the St. Louis metropolitan area, such as the University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri State University. Washington University provided support during the initial stages of the project.

Leah Merrifield, special assistant to the chancellor for diversity initiatives, supported the project during its early stages by serving as a representative from both the University and from College Bound, a college access and completion program in St. Louis.

“It really was a matter of having some key players in the St. Louis region who have been working on these issues and really wanting to see the state do something more,” Merrifield said.

Washington University remains involved with the project today.

“[The University] continues to be a place people choose to come to get their degrees, and we are a net importer of talent,” said Rob Wild, assistant to the chancellor. “We recruit a certain number of people from the region, and many, many more stay…here and join the workforce.”

Increasing the number of people in St. Louis with college degrees has implications for the local economy because it will make St. Louis a more desirable place for businesses that want to hire employees, Wild added.

The low proportion of students with college degrees is not exclusively an urban issue. North St. Louis County also has a low proportion of students with college degrees, and the more rural Jefferson and Franklin counties often see students graduating high school and not pursuing a college education.

“If we’re going to compete to attract business to this region, if we’re going to compete to keep youth within the region…then the way we’re going to do that is to reach the entire population,” Sandler said.

The project has already achieved results by informing the public, from the media and legislators to local people in St. Louis. Representatives from the project held a public forum on Oct. 7, 2009, in which Greg Darnieder, special assistant on college access in the U.S. Department of Education, spoke on the issue.

“We’ve seen first of all that the community is really hungry for the information,” Sandler said.

The project will continue to work to achieve its goal: reaching the threshold of 50 percent of St. Louis’s adult population having a baccalaureate degree or a post-secondary degree by 2020.

“In order to do that, we set forth six strategies that we think really all have to be in place, ranging from a better statewide data collection effort to creating in high schools a college-going culture where there’s an expectation that students can, in fact, pursue something beyond their high school diploma,” Sandler said.

Wild stressed the importance of the project for the region’s future.

“We are going to be a stronger region when more of our residents have access to high-quality higher education opportunities,” Wild said. “It’s just really important for our future economic stability that we continue to find ways to get more of our population educated with a college degree.”

The system, which is pending approval, would offer money or extra publicity to student groups that take measures to hold sustainable events.

Student Body President Jeff Nelson said that Student Union considered mandating sustainability to student groups and issuing penalties to those groups that were not sustainable, but decided to implement a system of incentives instead.

“We conducted a survey of the student body, and overwhelmingly students were not in favor of penalties and mandates,” Nelson said. “There was a lot of support for incentives.”

The plan that Student Union is considering would award credits to student groups that take specific actions to be more sustainable. Student groups could then redeem those credits for financial rebates or publicity resources, Nelson said.

“If a student group decides to buy T-shirts that are local, which would be considered more sustainable…they would get a certain number of credits for that action,” Nelson said.

Other measures that student groups can take to earn credits would include ordering food from local vendors, holding events outside to use natural sunlight instead of artificial light, buying smaller soda cans, and encouraging recycling.

Once a student group accrues a certain number of credits, it could redeem those credits for money toward the group’s next event or for prime space on the Underpass. While Category III student groups would not be eligible for financial credits, all student groups could obtain publicity credits.

Student Union also discussed the possibility of student groups holding raffles at events with prizes such as previous years’ T-shirts for students who came environmentally aware with their own water bottle.

“It’s sort of a dual benefit because we’re utilizing the old materials that we have that otherwise would just be thrown away or sitting in storage forever, and we’re also encouraging people to bring water bottles to events and reduce the usage of cups,” Nelson said.

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Campus Sustainability Matt Malten stressed the importance of implementing sustainability programs through SU.

“We strongly believe that the peer-peer interaction from students to their fellow classmates is really ideal,” Malten said.

In addition to SU’s efforts to increase sustainability, Chancellor Mark Wrighton released the draft Strategic Plan for Sustainable Operations. The University also announced a series of forums where students, faculty and staff may discuss the draft plan and sustainability measures.

“One of several reasons why we’re doing these forums is to give ourselves the opportunity to engage the entire campus community, including students, to help us achieve our goals,” Malten said.

Another goal of the forums is to hear students’ ideas and suggestions for increasing sustainability. The forums will take place on the Danforth, Medical, North and West campuses. Malten will also hold forums on the South 40.

Malten has worked with student events, primarily W.I.L.D. and ThurtenE, to address sustainability.

“The enthusiasm and the commitment that the students that we worked with to really make those events as green as possible has been tremendous,” Malten said. “I think we all agree that there’s always room for continual improvement.”

Students have reacted positively to the idea of sustainable events, Nelson said.

“Groups have been very receptive to the idea of sustainability,” Nelson said. “I think that it’s something they want to do already, and if we encourage it using incentives where they can get a little extra money to put toward an event later on or they can get a PR resource or something like that, I think it’ll just ramp up the adoption of some of these sustainable measures that we’re outlining.”

Feed St. Louis currently delivers leftover Bon Appétit food to three different homeless shelters in St. Louis, and cooks meals for the homeless at Centenary Church on Sundays. The new kitchen will be located in the First Congregational Church of Christ, which is adjacent to the South 40. In the kitchen, students will have the opportunity to prepare and deliver meals to the homeless.

Feed St. Louis received a grant to start the kitchen from the Campus Kitchens Project, a national organization that partners with schools to create on-campus kitchens and prepare meals for the needy.

“The Campus Kitchens model is that you deliver to single-family homes, so you actually work with a social service agency to identify food-insecure people who need a meal on a regular basis,” said junior Karin Underwood, president of Feed St. Louis. “That’s something we hope to move toward in the future so that we can deliver to families that are really close to Wash. U.”

Feed St. Louis volunteers will cook food donated by Bon Appétit, grocery stores and local restaurants.

“We’re going to be able to prepare an actual balanced meal,” Underwood said. “We plan on hopefully working with [Bon Appétit] to hold nutrition sessions and cooking classes for our volunteers.”

Bon Appétit has donated cold storage from the old Wohl Center to the new kitchen, and it will continue to work with Feed St. Louis.

“We’re going to help them with whatever it takes,” said Nadeem Siddiqui, resident district manager of Bon Appétit. “We have talked about doing things that could help them organize and distribute and provide healthy, safe foods.”

The location of the new kitchen will make it accessible to students. “We really want students to see the need that is local to Wash. U.,” Underwood said. Underwood hopes that the proximity of the new kitchen to the South 40 will “make it less intimidating for people who wouldn’t normally volunteer.”

Feed St. Louis is recruiting volunteers, from student chefs with no prior cooking experience to shift managers for the kitchen. All shift managers will be certified to commercially prepare food.

Freshman Julianne Gagnon, who currently volunteers for Feed St. Louis, hopes to become involved with the new kitchen.

“I think it will make it more immediate for Wash. U. students because it’ll be closer,” Gagnon said. “More students will be able to see the difference that we’re making, and that’ll just get more people excited about it.”

Both Underwood and Siddiqui see long-term potential in the kitchen. The Campus Kitchens Project usually provides grant money in gradual, decreasing installments over the course of three years.

“It’s really a long-term model,” Underwood said. “They don’t want you to just start a fun student project, but this is something that they want…to start to be sustainable over the long-term.”

Siddiqui noted that the structure of Feed St. Louis gives the project long-term potential because of the variety of students involved.

“We hope that it’ll grow and be part of Wash. U.’s campus identity,” Underwood said.

The Feed St. Louis kitchen exemplifies students’ eagerness to volunteer. “One of the core factors of this campus is students generally like to help others,” Siddiqui said. Underwood hopes that every student will have volunteered in the kitchen by the time they graduate.

“I’m just really happy to be part of this program,” Siddiqui said. “It really is meaningful to me personally, and I think it is quite meaningful for students.”

Called “A Fresh Look at Government Jobs: Civil Service in the 21st Century,” the event featured George Selim, a Department of Homeland Security employee who spoke with students at the Danforth University Center and attended a luncheon with them. A number of other government employees attended the event, including representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Employees from the FDIC and the Department of Commerce held programs at the Olin Business School.

The event stemmed from a grant that created a partnership between the Gephardt Institute and the Career Center to promote government careers.

“With the economy being what it is now, students I think are more open to the idea of looking at different alternatives, including the public sector,” said Robin Hattori, program director for the Gephardt Institute.

Hattori also noted the need for young talent in government agencies to replace retiring government employees.

While the event was relevant to seniors who are considering pursuing government jobs after graduation, it also catered to graduate students, sophomores and juniors.

“People might not be ready to start looking for a job yet, but maybe a summer internship would be another option to look at,” Hattori said.

For Washington University law student Michael Wu, his internship created job opportunities on Capitol Hill. After working as an intern, Wu became a staff assistant and subsequently a scheduler for three different members of Congress. Wu is now enrolled in law school with the hopes of becoming a national security lawyer.

“Lawyers represent clients generally, and I feel like that’s not as exciting to me as the idea of trying to do good,” Wu said.

Senior Laura Lane-Steele is considering joining AmeriCorps during her gap years between graduating from the University and enrolling in graduate school for anthropology.

“I’m interested in working with people and trying to get on that community-based level,” Lane-Steele said. “I’m more of a public interest kind of person, and corporate America doesn’t really appeal to me in terms of social justice.”

Lane-Steele also finds the health insurance, benefits and non-discrimination policies that government jobs provide to be appealing.

In addition to providing opportunities to work for the public good, government jobs allow new employees to take on significant responsibilities.

“Most of the agencies have a lot of money for professional development and for training,” Hattori said. “The pay is not what you would find in the corporate sector, but to make up for it you really do get some great responsibility at the get-go.”

Hattori added that government jobs also provide mobility.

“Once you get in the government you can look at other agencies, and you can look at other departments within your agency,” Hattori said.

Undergraduates at the University are preparing for government jobs by selecting specific coursework.

Senior David Weisshaar, who has an interest in international policy and development, double majors in Latin American studies and political science with a concentration in international relations. He also minors in business.

“Having a little bit of quantitative skill I think is always useful in any government career,” Weisshaar said.

In addition to preparing for a government career through his majors, Weisshaar learns from the experiences of his fellow students.

“Just hearing their experiences, how they’ve gone about getting internships, the kind of perspectives they have on this field have certainly informed my own opinion and perspective on how I can best go about procuring a job in this field,” he said. Weisshaar also plans to pursue a master’s degree in public policy.

“I’m personally encountering a kind of skepticism among people in our general age range, 18-22, and a cynicism about government that I think is rather unhealthy,” Weisshaar said. “My personal viewpoint is that government is the quickest and most effective way to have an impact on public policy.”

“Government is a place where good can happen and inspiration can happen,” Wu said.

Nussbaum was born in Mönchengladbach, Germany, in 1925. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his brother was arrested on Kristallnacht in 1938, only to be released, re-arrested and sent to Auschwitz. Nussbaum and his sister escaped to Belgium shortly after Kristallnacht via the Kindertransport train, which carried German children away to safety.

Nussbaum was separated from his sister in Belgium and then fled to southern France and finally to Switzerland. Swiss authorities jailed him, but he fabricated a story and was released. Nussbaum studied mathematics at the University of Zurich. His parents and brother died at Auschwitz.

“I knew that he’d had a rough time in the war, but I never knew any of the details,” said Edward Wilson, a professor of mathematics at the University who knew Nussbaum for 40 years. “For him it was a private matter. It was in the past, and he didn’t want to revisit it.”

According to Wilson and Professor of Mathematics Guido Weiss, Nussbaum arrived in New York in 1947 with little money. He took courses at Brooklyn College and attended Columbia University for graduate work in mathematics. He received his master’s degree from Columbia in 1950, and Columbia appointed him a lecturer only one year later.

“That doesn’t happen very often,” Wilson said. “That means they thought very, very highly of him.”

Nussbaum worked on the electronic computer project headed by John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. This electronic computer project led to the building of one of the first computers.

After serving as a faculty member at multiple institutions and receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1957, Nussbaum became an assistant professor of mathematics at Washington University in 1958. He had already published several papers, which most new Ph.D.s do not accomplish, Wilson said. He continued to work in the areas of Hilbert spaces, and he was promoted to full professor in 1965.

Wilson said he was impressed with Nussbaum’s teaching.

“If you were interested in the subject and wanted to really understand what was going on, start in the beginning and build gradually…he gave great courses,” Wilson said.
Nussbaum is survived by Anne, his wife of 52 years, and their children Karl and Franziska.

“We certainly knew him as a very kind, gentle man,” Wilson said.

National researchers in cell biology have identified proteins that turn normal skin cells into brown fat cells, which use energy to generate heat.

“Energy only gets burned when your heart beats or your muscles walk up a flight of stairs or when you breathe,” said Clay Semenkovich, chief of the division of endocrinology, metabolism and lipid research at the Washington University School of Medicine.

Brown fat cells do not store energy. They burn it without carrying out a function, such as beating the heart or walking, Semenkovich said.

Until recently, scientists believed that only animals and human babies had brown fat cells. But researchers discovered brown fat cells in adults when PET scans showed higher rates of glucose metabolism in patients who had been waiting in cold waiting rooms at their doctors’ offices.

Brown fat evolved to help people and animals in cold environments stay warm, Semenkovich said.

“People were freezing in the waiting rooms, and they were actually turning on brown fat,” he said.

The presence of brown fat cells in human adults carries implications for obesity research.

“People who are overweight have much less active brown fat,” Semenkovich said.

Researchers at Harvard engineered skin cells from mice and humans to become brown fat. This technology requires further research, though, before scientists can test it on humans.

“There’s always a disadvantage to tricking the body into doing things that it probably should not do,” Semenkovich said.

With brown fat, that disadvantage stems from the heat that the cells release. The excess heat could lead to dangerous and possibly deadly fevers in humans.

In the early 20th century, a chemist identified 2,4-dinitrophenol, a chemical that produced the same effects as brown fat cells.

“At one point somebody estimated that there were perhaps 500,000 people who had taken doses of this industrial chemical,” Semenkovich said. “It really did make them lose weight, but it also made them show up in emergency rooms with such dangerously high fevers that they died.”

Brown fat cell technology will require extensive research into controlling heat release.

“I want a therapy for people who are morbidly obese…but we’re going to have to be very careful about the way this is done or we’re going to cause a whole new set of problems,” Semenkovich said.

Weight loss research has implications for nutrition as well. Connie Diekman, director of University nutrition and former president of the American Dietetic Association, sees students on campus attempting to lose weight by changing their food intake and exercising.

“What many students get caught up in, though, is it doesn’t happen as quickly as they want, so they wonder about the fast loss, whether it’s the pills, whether it’s the diet, whatever it might be,” Diekman said.

Diekman said that while obesity research is essential to provide an understanding of metabolism, the public should approach weight loss techniques cautiously.

“You want to follow guidelines that are based upon what we know,” Diekman said. “Don’t change every time a new research study comes out.”

Currently, the scientific evidence shows that food changes are the proven method of losing weight.

“Physical activity alone will not do it,” Diekman said.

Diekman works with chefs on campus to create healthy food options for students. She also works to educate the University community on healthy food choices by writing informational brochures placed on the tables at dining locations such as Wohl Dining.

Sophomore Stephanie Trimboli finds that eating healthily on campus is “easy if you want to,” but she does not see much evidence of the administration’s attempts to educate students on healthful eating choices.

Despite nutritional guidelines, the implications of new weight loss research remain appealing to the public.

“It’s so seductive to people to be able to take something that will solve their problems without having to exercise [or eat less] that someone will always wind up doing it,” Semenkovich said.

With the case pending in court one year later, students and administrators remain mindful of security on the Loop.

The University City Police Department has not increased its presence on the Delmar Loop since King’s death.

UCPD Chief Charles Adams said the department had already increased its presence of patrol officers on the Loop before King’s death, and it maintains these heightened levels today.

To improve security further, a pilot program began last April whereby the Washington University Police Department (WUPD) coordinates with the University City and St. Louis police departments to patrol the Loop.

Based on preliminary results, the joint patrol effort seems to be improving safety on the Loop.

“Looking at a snapshot of crime statistics from that area would suggest that it’s been a very positive thing to have operating there,” WUPD Chief Don Strom said. “The feedback we get from business people in the area has been extremely positive.”

Strom said the program was not started in direct response to King’s death.

“[It was] a terrible tragedy, but I think most people felt pretty safe in the Loop at the time, and I think they feel pretty safe today,” Strom said.

The joint patrol program began in response to a larger perceived need to keep all people who visit the Loop safe.

“It was more about wanting to maintain a certain type of quality of life for users of the Loop, and we felt by joint efforts we could do that,” Strom said. A goal of the joint patrol program is to maintain a “healthy and vibrant business district” on the Loop, Strom added.

Despite the shooting of King and other crimes that have occurred, students and administrators say they generally feel safe visiting the Loop.

Sophomore Emma Liss said she is not less likely to visit the Loop after hearing about violent crimes that occur there.

“I’ve never gone by myself,” Liss said, “[but] incidents like this happen everywhere.”

Assistant to the Chancellor Rob Wild echoed Liss’ sentiment on safety in the Loop.

“One of the great things about our campus is that we are in a vibrant, urban area,” Wild said. “As is the case with anytime you’re living in an urban area, you should take precautions. Don’t walk by yourself, make sure you have a cell phone with you, things like that.”

King’s death also raised the issue of gun control, particularly in urban areas.

“Stricter gun control, unless it kept a firearm out of the hands of the particular individual who [killed] Sergeant King, I don’t know that it would have made a difference,” Strom said. “I don’t think it’s a matter of anything that specifies the Loop in particular as it relates to firearms.”

Regardless of individual sentiment toward safety on the Loop, the University City and Washington University communities commemorate King and all fallen police officers. UCPD held a memorial on Oct. 31 commemorating fallen officers of the University City police department, and the city made a monument to honor those fallen officers.

“[King] was an extremely professional and compassionate police officer,” Strom said. “We certainly grieve not only for him but for his wife and family.”

Wild echoed Strom’s statement.

“We lost one of our distinguished alums last year when this happened,” Wild said. “The biggest part of this tragedy is the loss of a career police officer and an alumnus of Washington University.”

From Oct. 19-23, Washington University will participate in a national “Fat Talk Free Week,” in which participating students will sign pledges agreeing to think positively about their bodies.

The Reflections Body Image Program of Tri Delta created Fat Talk Free Week last year. On the University’s campus, the student group Reflections—not associated with Tri Delta’s Reflections Program—will run the event.

Reflections promotes positive body image and spreads eating disorder awareness.

“Nowadays, these issues are really starting to become very prevalent, and more people are starting to pay attention,” said senior Tess deBlanc-Knowles, event chair for Fat Talk Free Week at the University. “I think it’s really important that we’re on campus now.”

Fat Talk Free Week aims to ban the use of the word “fat” and other terms associated with a negative body image.

“Our modern society, especially on college campuses, is [a] breeding ground for negative body image,” deBlanc-Knowles said. “We really have to cultivate a positive body image for every person to be comfortable with themselves.”

The standards for a positive body image are not extreme or even out of reach.

“A healthy body image is someone who is comfortable in his or her body,” Steve Kraushaar, staff psychologist at the Habif Health and Wellness Center, wrote in an e-mail to Student Life.

Students with healthy body images “are not spending excessive time focused on their body that may result in interference with academic and social functioning or general quality of life,” Kraushaar wrote.

During Fat Talk Free Week, participants will wear pins as reminders to “be cognizant, for this one week, of how many times a day they think negative thoughts about themselves or others,” deBlanc-Knowles said.

Students may participate by signing pledges to be “fat talk free” for the week.

“The Underpass itself will be a blank petition,” said senior and Reflections president Sara Silbert. “We’re also going to have a big board outside the DUC. Every day, there will be those places that people can come sign.”

Fat Talk Free Week has both short and long term goals for improving body image.

Reflections would like to see students refrain from thinking negatively about their bodies, “even if it’s just for that one week,” deBlanc-Knowles said. “Hopefully, that’ll spark something in them to try and change their thinking so they think about themselves in a more positive way.”

Silbert added that one objective of Fat Talk Free Week is to encourage students to appreciate their bodies and stop comparing themselves to others.

Struggles with body image are not uncommon on college campuses.

“85 percent of college females believe that they are either slightly or seriously overweight,” Kraushaar wrote. “Males tend to have less body image concerns, however, they can still be quite significant.”

Body image concerns may be related to the media. Kraushaar noted that women’s magazines tend to have 10 times more advertisements about body image and weight loss than men’s magazines. Many of these magazines emphasize weight loss over health.

“It is important to note,” he continued, “that far fewer individuals will act on [body image issues] with disordered eating behaviors. Some studies suggest that 10 percent of female students have engaged in self-induced vomiting.”

Fat Talk Free Week might help students begin the process of improving their body images.

“Beginning the process of accepting their bodies may result in [students’] engaging in therapy or other valuable resources,” Kraushaar wrote.

Other universities in Missouri planning to participate in Fat Talk Free Week include Saint Louis University, the University of Missouri – St. Louis and five others.

Wrote Kraushaar: “Anytime we break down prejudice about words that have been historically inflammatory or hurtful we are moving in the right direction.”

Aphis glycines, or soybean aphid, is one of two suspected types of insects believed to be swarming Washington University’s campus. Students have recently reported the bugs clinging to their clothing and skin, amid reports of increased aphid activity in Midwest states like Iowa and Nebraska. (Photo Courtesy of Alex Wild | Alexanderwild.com

Over the past two weeks, tiny flying insects have swarmed the Washington University campus and the surrounding areas in University City.

For many students, the clouds of pests are great nuisances, to say the least—with their presence so increased on some days that it is almost impossible to walk anywhere outside without the tiny insects clinging to students’ clothes and skin.

Sophomore Jordan Entin experienced the swarms first hand.

“It was about 4 o’clock, and I was walking home from Schnucks, and there were swarms of flies everywhere,” Entin said. “When I got back to my dorm, both of my grocery bags were covered in dead flies.”

Sophomore Morgan Loewith said she walks through the swarms every day on her way back from class to the South 40.

“The flies have been swarming my eyes, nose and face,” she said. “They’ve been everywhere. Most of the time, it’s when I’m walking back from classes in the afternoon, so between 3 o’clock and 4 o’clock.”

This sudden upsurge has left students wondering what kind of insects are plaguing the air and why they are here.

Jon Chase, associate professor of biology, declined to comment on his own speculations on the classification of the insects.

While the taxonomy of these particular insects remains a mystery, university campuses across the Midwest have been noticing similar outbreaks of airborne insects.

At Iowa State University, the swarms are specifically soybean aphids, which are taxonomically different from flies.

Erin Hodgson, assistant professor and extension entomologist at Iowa State University, has noticed a significant increase in soybean aphids on the college campus. Hodgson said she has been informed of increased aphid presence within the states of Iowa and Nebraska in general.

“Normally, soybean aphids feed on perennials or annuals in the summer, but when the leaves start to fall off, the aphids are forced to choose another host to feed on,” Hodgson said. “Right now, they’re moving from what they normally feed on in the summer, which is soybean, to a woody shrub called buckthorn.”

If the insects appearing on the University’s campus and in surrounding areas were indeed aphids, the switch to buckthorn would explain their sudden increased presence.

“That’s why they’re migrating from rural to urban areas. There’s a lot of buckthorn in parks and schools,” Hodgson said.

The increased aphid presence may be more significant this year than in the past because Iowa’s summer was “one of the coolest summers ever,” Hodgson said.

“Aphids prefer cooler weather, so they do their best as far as producing offspring when it’s between 70 and 80 degrees,” Hodgson said. “If it’s a generally cooler summer, they just grow in number really fast compared to if it was a really warm summer. So there’s probably just more aphids at the end of this summer than normally.”

Hodgson noted that these aphids do not pose a health risk.

“They’re absolutely harmless,” Hodgson said. “They’re just a big nuisance.”

The aphids will not decrease in number until the weather turns colder.

“They’re most likely to continue flying until we have a couple of freezes or overnight frosts,” Hodgson said. “That could be a few more weeks.”

Increased aphid presence is “probably going to be a fairly common scenario” in the Midwest, Hodgson said.

The possibility remains that the insects on Washington University’s campus are gnats, which are flies, and not soybean aphids.

Hodgson said that like aphids, gnats swarm in cooler weather.

“If you’re getting cooler nights like we’ve been having here in Iowa,” she said, “they’re looking for places to settle down…before it freezes.”

Students look forward to seeing fewer of these swarms on campus.

“It’s not like the school can put up a defense field against these flies,” Loewith said. “We just have to wait it out. As far as I can see, they’re tiny gnats. What else can you do besides ride it out?”

“They weren’t here last year, so hopefully they’ll go away soon,” Entin said.

“It’s really gross to walk through them, but at least I know that it’s not just me,” Loewith said. “I’ve heard everyone on campus complaining about them, so that makes me feel a little bit better.”

Wash. U. professor John Bowen has been asked by the French government to testify before a panel on the burqas often worn by Muslim women. (WUSTL Images)

The burqa debate is back on in France, and a Washington University anthropologist has become part of it.

The French government has asked anthropology professor John Bowen to testify on the matter, as a parliamentary commission is investigating a possible ban on burqas in public places. France banned burqas in public schools in 2004.

The burqa differs from the headscarf in that it is a “complete cover” for Muslim women that “shows only the eyes, and sometimes not even the eyes,” according to Pascal Ifri, director of graduate studies in French.

There are different styles of what the French government collectively refers to as “burqas,” Bowen said. While the burqa covers the entire face including the eyes, Bowen added, the niqab leaves the eyes exposed. The potential ban would prohibit both the burqa and the niqab, although the French government refers to both styles as “burqas.”

“The assumption is that women who wear burqas are somehow oppressed,” Ifri said. “It’s not always a sign of oppression, but that is the assumption.”

The French commission investigating the potential ban rationalizes that “in a republic, where everybody is equal, there shouldn’t be obvious signs of oppression,” Ifri said.

Bowen said that none of the French Muslim women who have been interviewed on the matter have indicated that they wear burqas because they feel forced to do so, although he recognized the possibility that those women exist and simply have not provided interviews.

Most women who have been interviewed “said that they decided to put it on as part of an effort to discover what true Islam is,” Bowen said. “Some said they might wear it for a while and then decide whether to continue or to stop wearing it, but nobody reports they were forced to do it.”

Having the choice to wear a burqa ensures “that women have the freedom to explore their religiosity without being forced to do one thing or the other,” Bowen added.

“Some of them say, ‘I want to wear it. I feel better. I feel protected. I don’t feel like a target,’” Ifri said.

Sophomore Kelly Diabagate, who practices Islam, said that wearing the burqa “is a matter of modesty.” She added that in her experience, most women wear the burqa because of a personal choice, seeing it as a means of “expressing liberty and personal rights.”

Bowen said that only a few hundred women in France wear burqas. A ban, though, could potentially have a profound impact on some of those women.

If women who wear burqas are no longer allowed to wear them in public, “they may disappear from public view. It may be worse for them. They won’t go out anymore. That’s the danger,” Ifri said. “That’s one of the reasons why it may not pass.”

Diabagate said that she “would imagine it would be very difficult” for French women who wear burqas if the ban were to come to fruition.

“I can see a lot of people trying to leave” and moving somewhere where “they are given the right to exert their religion the way they see it,” Diabagate said. “Because obviously no one can stay home all day.”

“I feel like a lot of people will not be willing to compromise,” Diabagate added.

The issue of Muslim religious symbols in French public spaces gained prominence in 1989, when a public middle school expelled three Muslim girls for wearing head coverings, Bowen explained in his 2004 article “Muslims and Citizens: France’s headscarf controversy.”

While forbidding headscarves in public schools was initially at the discretion of individual principals, in 2004 the French government passed a law that officially banned headscarves in public schools, Ifri said.

The French government values laïcité, or public secularism, Ifri added.

“French politicians…don’t want obvious signs of religion if it offends some people,” he said.

While public secularism formed the basis of the headscarf ban, more practical reasons contributed as well.

Some public school students wore not only headscarves but also coverings that concealed their arms and legs, “and you cannot do gym if your legs and arms are covered,” Ifri said. “It’s not so much that it’s a religious sign, but can you be like every other kid, meaning can you do gym…when your legs and arms are covered?”

Ifri added that “there are very few cases of girls who don’t want to go to school” because of the headscarf ban, and “school is compulsory.” If a Muslim girl does decide not to attend public school because of the headscarf ban, she can “go to private school” or “have private tutoring,” he said.

Diabagate said that she would consider a burqa ban to be a constraint on religious expression. Bowen, though, said that the French government “protects organized religion…which refers to activities that take place in churches, temples, mosques, etcetera, and not to the behaviors of individuals outside of those places.” Religious protection, then, does not apply to the public spaces that the potential ban would include.

Ifri noted that right now the issue is simply a debate, and the French government is not close to passing a law banning the burqa. Bowen considers it highly unlikely that a ban would ever pass.

“What they really wanted to do was have a public discussion and debate about the issue and not necessarily propose a law,” Bowen said. “I think that French politicians will find that it would be absurd to create a set of clothing police to decide whether what a woman is wearing on the street counts as a burqa or a niqab…or just a headscarf.”

Diabagate does not think that the government should have the authority to ban religious dress.

“It’s your personal freedom,” she said. “No one can tell you how to practice your religion, especially if they’re not Muslims and they don’t know the rules of Islam.”

Additional reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/europe/01france.html