The ranking was based on factors including financial aid and academics. It was compiled using official university data and results from student surveys.

Director of Student Financial Services, William Witbrodt, says that the ranking is a reflection on how students feel about the University.

“For one thing I know that the financial aid office is as responsive as it can be to students. We provide excellent service and we would never let a student leave the University because of finances. When the Princeton Review folks interviewed the students on our campus I know that played a large part in the ranking,” Witbrodt said.

University officials say that the school’s academic programs also make it a best value for students.

“We offer a wide variety of academic programs here, so for students who choose to come here we offer a lot of flexibility and I think that certainly adds value. We are an institution where we are able to offer a lot of variety and diversity but we are also a place where you can get into classes that are small enough to interact with a faculty member in that specific discipline,” Assistant Vice Chancellor Rob Wild said.

Some students say that the University’s price tag and academics combine to make it a good value.

“I think for the same amount of money, you get a lot more here. When I visited other colleges of the same caliber, I thought that Wash. U. provided a lot better campuses, dorms, and food [...] As a pre-med [student], when I want to do research I could just ask a professor or he will point me at the right direction. I don’t know about other [majors], but it’s definitely a lot better for pre-meds to be here,” junior Phil Chen said.

Other students say that the school’s value comes in more abstract form.

“I think Wash. U. does it’s best to make it worth it. I think the intellectual capital is priceless. So in that sense I think it’s worth it,” sophomore Bailey Breems said.

Wild agrees with this sentiment.

“We always have felt that Washington University is a great investment for anyone who chooses to attend here as a student. The value has to do with the students feeling like they have gotten a good return on their investment here,” he said.

Eric Elias, who graduated with a degree in finance in 2007, took part in the competition in his senior year, but ran into technical issues that kept his group from being successful. This year, he was a member of SoMoLend—a peer-to-peer lending website that was one of the three teams to win this year’s start-up competition sponsored by the University’s Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. The prize was a $50,000 investment from the center.

The site, which Elias’ team is pitching to different regional investors over coming weeks, aims to link lending institutions to local businesses.

“It’s kind of like micro-lending, but for communities,” explained Ken Harrington, director of the Skandalaris Center. “It allows people to potentially form those relationships in a local economy … it serves a function that we’ve lost with the institutionalization of banks.”

The win in this year’s competition allowed SoMoLend to hire Elias as a full-time team member, as its director of product management.

“It was a $50,000 award, and we basically turned over that award to make a hire,” said SoMoLend Founder and CEO Candace Klein. “So we now have a full time employee committed to improving our technology and maximizing our customer experience.”

This year was the first time that three different teams won the competition, with the Skandalaris Center awarding more than $150,000, about double the normal amount. Harrington said many students took part in the competition, including one student team that won a $5,000 cash prize.

“I suspect probably 50% [of the participants] were students,” he said. “A lot of the teams are supported by students.”

Although the business is based in Cincinnati, Elias said it will continue to have a hold in the St. Louis community.

“I think our product development is going to happen in Cincinnati but the company and the platform we’re building will continue expanding, including working with St. Louis area investors as well as lending institutions,” he said.

Elias’ involvement in the St. Louis entrepreneurial community has included lecturing at the Nexus Leadership Program and serving as a mentor at the recent StartUp Weekend St. Louis, where individuals and teams met downtown to develop novel web-based or mobile applications in groups.

Junior Stan Rosenthal, a member of the Washington University Technology Entrepreneurs (WUTE) who worked with Elias over the weekend to develop an application to contact Congress-people through Twitter, said Elias has come to speak with the group and is continuing to stay in contact.

“We had an event last week where we had three alumni fly in to talk about their start-up—Schoology—so Eric came to that,” Rosenthal said. “We’re planning on continuing on our StartUp Weekend project [and] he’ll definitely keep in the loop with WUTE events.”

Black Anthology is an annual student production that explores important issues pertinent to the African-American culture through drama, poetry, dance and music.

This year’s show focused on remembering the tumultuous 1960s that propelled social change through protests and activism. University students nationwide protested unequal treatment and demanded an increase in black students, faculty, and the creation of African-American studies departments.

Senior Diamond Skinner, who directed the show, drew inspiration from the black community at Washington University for this year’s theme.

“I just felt that over the years, black students at Wash. U. started to take their education for granted without really paying homage to the people who within our parents’ generation did all these things so that we can have all these amazing educational opportunities,” Skinner said. “Also, once we started working on the script, the passing of Dean McLeod brought on a whole new meaning to the show because his legacy in everything he did for black students and faculty lives on in each and everyone of us.”

Jonathan Fenderson, a postdoctoral fellow in African and African-American studies at the University, led a pre-show discussion on Saturday. He discussed the continuing struggle for racial equality around the world, and stressed the importance of maintaining open communication about racial issues between students and the administration.

“People like to avoid talking about race by saying we are a post-racial society, but that is far from the truth,” Fenderson said. “Diversity is not a destination, but an ongoing project that needs engagement from both sides, the administration and the students.”

Sophomore Elissabeth Martin liked that this year’s theme was rooted in historical events and addressed some of the current struggles students face, including decreased funding for minority initiative projects.

“Last year’s show was more focused on the dynamics of the black community, but this year’s concept is deeper, more universal,” Martin said.

Held during Black History Month, Black Anthology’s main purpose is to educate people about the rich history of African-American culture while confronting controversial issues such as racism, self-identity and human rights.

For senior Sruti Chivukula, attending the show was her way of supporting not only her friends who performed, but also for a greater social cause.

“Black Anthology is one of the few cultural shows on campus that’s not just purely dance and music,” Chivukula said. “It’s about people and learning about the issues that are affecting us today.”

Students and faculty filled the seats of the Women’s Formal Lounge on Tuesday to hear Behr, a professor at Rhodes College and author of “The Smell of Apples,” in a discussion on literature, race and gender.

Behr began his lecture with a reading of a short piece he wrote in response to Jamaica Kincaid’s essay, “Girl.” Behr’s piece, titled “Boy,” which emphasized the pushing of the male stereotype onto boys.

He focuses his writings on themes of identity construction, race, sexual orientation and militarization. “The Smell of Apples” has won the M-Net Award as well as has received a nomination for the Booker Prize Award; it has also been translated into ten languages.

Behr, who was born in Tanzania before immigrating to South Africa, said his life and writings have been shaped by his experiences growing up during Apartheid and serving as an officer in the Angolan Civil War.

Following his first piece, Behr read a longer text he wrote, called “Cape Town, My Love.”

In this piece, Behr was intrigued by an event that took place in 2003, where 9 workers were murdered, and one was seriously injured at Sizzlers, a gay massage parlor in Cape Town. He used this event to share his reaction to bigotry, and ultimately reflect on his own life experiences with identity in the face of military service.

Behr focused “Cape Town, My Love” on the question, “Why didn’t they fight back? Surely the 10 [victims] could have overpowered the two [attackers].”

In the discussion portion, Behr later told the audience that feminist and African American activist Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” changed both his life and writing.

“It turned everything that I knew about myself inside out. I could never, after that book, write popular fiction again,” he said.

Behr said he continues to struggle with issues of sexuality, race, and gender issues. At Rhodes, he teaches Queer and Gender Theory, African Literature and Literature and War, among other classes.

“My confrontation with my homophobia is daily … How can you grow up without being homophobic even if you are comfortable with your sexuality?” Behr said.

Some students said they found that part of the presentation especially captivating.

“It was really intriguing to hear about Professor Behr’s struggle with gaining a sense of sexual identity and nationality. It was potentially even more intriguing to hear dialogue on the disconnect between his two identities and how this disconnect impacted the development of his groundbreaking ideals about South African gender and sexuality,” sophomore Ryan Sasse said.

The lecture was sponsored by students in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, an international program intended to bring students into the life of academia in the humanities. The program emphasizes identity, social justice, and diversity.

“I think that he [Behr] has a lot to offer in terms of not being afraid of being provocative. I think that we have a tendency on campus to want to be too [politically correct] and I think that he has the ability to be a fantastic speaker without feeling a pressure to stay within the box. I think it is what we need,” said senior Mariana Oliver, a Mellon Mays fellow.

Other students said they found the speaker particularly compelling as well.

“I was particularly struck by his presence and voice. There was an incredible eloquence in the recounting of his experiences,” sophomore Emily Tulloch said.

Genevieve Hay | Student Life

Senior Elana Nemitoff decorates cookies with neighborhood children

The event, a seasonal party hosted by the Neighborhood Voice Community Council, is a part of an ongoing effort to reach out to the neighborhoods around Ames Place, Trinity, Kingsland, Greenway and Melville Avenues.

In the past few years, these neighborhoods have been host to numerous complaints concerning noisy and unruly student behavior.

“I think, from students’ perspective, the relationship [with the neighbors] have been going very well this year,” senior Ashley Brosius, the student liaison between Washington University and its neighbors, said.

The University’s faculty and students have been working to improve the school’s relationship with the neighborhoods after a string of incidents in 2010 which led to a number of student citations and arrests. One step was the creation of Neighborhood Voice Community Council.

“The council has really given the students and neighbors an opportunity to get to know one another better [and] to strengthen the ties between the campus community and the local neighborhood,” Brosius said.

The council includes students and faculty members who serve as liaisons between the University and the local community. They meet monthly and hosts block parties each season.

“We are seeing a lot of improvement with the relations with the neighbors,” Ashley Swanson-Hoye, the residential college director for University apartments, said. “The block parties and the neighbor meetings have been beneficial for students and neighbors to come together, not as us versus them.”

The council has also been looking to create new events in which both students and neighbors can participate. Alley Art, for instance, will be a painting contest to beautify the dumpsters in a University City alleyway.

Many neighbors have also been invited to the men and women’s basketball game on Feb. 12th.

Sunday’s party featured soups from the St. Louis Bread Company, and each table had materials for blowing bubbles.

Both students and faculty at the event said that the relationship with the community has improved significantly over the past year.

“I haven’t heard of any incidents recently. I think that the University has been trying to do a lot to promote awareness across the student body,” junior Alex Ferris said.

Ferris is a resident of Greenway Place, known as one of the “problem areas” in the past.

“I think [the council members] do a great job,” Professor William Lowry, a neighborhood resident, said.

Neighbors in attendance shared similar positive sentiments.

“I think the students sincerely want to be neighbors,” local resident Cindy Finkenkeller said. “I like living next to a University. I think University students bring life to the neighborhood.”

In addition to the council members and local students who live in the neighborhood, various student groups, such as Alpha Phi Omega and the North Side Association, also volunteered at the event.

The North Side Association is hosting two stations in the neighborhood that allow students and local residents to sign cards welcoming soldiers home from their deployment abroad.

“We are working with Thurtene to bring together the spring block party,” Swanson-Hoye said.

The next council meeting will be on Feb. 15th.

Students and community members attending the three-hour Occupy meeting, called Occupy the University, in the basement of the Mallinckrodt Center had to relocate to a new room after two hours because another student group had booked the room.

Approximately 40 community members and students attended the meeting to discuss the motivations goals for the Occupy movement in relation to Washington University.

Fewer than a dozen of the participants, though, were actually students.

Senior Adam Hasz, who coordinated the meeting, attributed this to marketing and student’s busy schedules.

“We didn’t do that much outreach for this event,” Hasz said. “I think a lot of the students that had been coming [to similar meetings] had made plans or just weren’t aware that we were doing it.”

Hasz said that he and other student activists would like to get the University student body more involved in discussion about Occupy and the issues surrounding the movement.

“We are still trying to see what’s most [relatable] to the student community here and if Occupy is not the correct vehicle to transmit [our] message…we’ll explore other ways as well,” he said. “I think that [the] idea of Occupy right now is still somewhat foreign or uncertain to students.

“Having these conversations is essential for us to [be able to] understand how we can actually work together to create the results we want to see and understand what is necessary to move our society in a different direction.”

Junior Ken Kumanomido also said he would like to see Occupy expand its support base to spread its message further.

“A dialogue that will expand and include more students and community members [is] where I see it [going] for now,” Kumanomido said. “It’s our responsibility to make ourselves aware of the injustices we need to leverage our power and privilege as students of an influential institution to address the injustices around us and to not leverage that power is an unfortunate waste.”

Participants in Occupy the University also discussed the future of Occupy at the University.

Beyond reaching out more to the student body, many participants discussed the possibility of protests, walk-outs and teach-ins. Teach-ins are lectures or series of lectures given by faculty about various topics.

Ultimately, Hasz said he hopes the group’s efforts will get more students involved in the discussion over the issues that will affect their future.

“The goal for me is to have people more conscious about the world we are inheriting and how the problems that are touched on in Occupy, or just touched on in the New York Times or in the media relate to our lives,” he said.

Aslo see

Video: How to raise a dragon show

Although the fireworks took place earlier in the week, a profusion of dance numbers, sparkles and costumes set the crowd of the 16th annual Lunar New Year Festival (LNYF) ablaze with excitement.

When the lights dimmed in Edison Theater on Friday and Saturday evenings, students were treated to a three-hour-long sample of both traditional and modern Asian dances.

This year, the LNYF celebration was focused on the Year of the Dragon.

“The theme of this year’s show was to be a dragon. To be a dragon is to learn your strengths and to develop your own independence, your own individual differences from others—the journey to becoming your own individual,” junior Kathee Li, LNYF executive director, said.

The performances at the show ranged from samul nori, a traditional Korean drum performance, to an Asian pop performance, a fashion show and the traditional Philippine tinikling dance.

Proceeds from the event were donated to Youth for 3.11, an organization that has helped young people volunteer in northern Japan following the major earthquake and tsunami that affected the region last March.

“We’re really excited to be donating to Youth for 3.11 this year partly because it’s a platform formed by college students; it’s a network of college students and young people trying to rally to support those who have been affected by the disaster in Japan,” Li said.

According to the performance’s philanthropy chair, sophomore Miki Maruyama, the group planned to raise $1,500 to donate to the charity. Although she has not tabulated the total amount of money raised, she expects it to exceed the goal.

“We haven’t counted all of it yet, but we were definitely close to that by the time the show came around, so I am pretty sure we met it,” she said.

According to Maruyama, the LNYF executive board chose Youth for 3.11 as its charity, because the members wanted to make sure that the affected areas of Japan continue to receive aid.

“I think we will make a pretty big difference. They [Youth for 3.11 executives] said the amount of public interest is decreasing so they need all the support they can get. They still need the manpower and the resources to rebuild, there is still a lot of work to be done and there are still a ton of people displaced; it will definitely help to send more volunteers to the north,” she said.

Audience members said they enjoyed the performance.

“I was very impressed,” junior Grace Preston said. “A lot of college productions, you can tell they are college productions but this one looked professional.”

Freshman Elynna Youm was a performer in the show. She said it helped her to grow and work on her own strengths.

“When we first started out our performance we weren’t dragons, but after we performed, we were dragons,” Youm said.

Cicerone, introduced by Chancellor Mark Wrighton to about 300 peer scientists, students and other members of the Washington University community, said the problem of global warming will not go away on its own.

And while individual people may try to make a difference, he doubts that such small steps will be sufficient.

“I’m more optimistic about science and technology as the solution than human behavior; I don’t think human behavior is going to change fast enough, and I think science and technology can, but I don’t know how fast,” he said.

He said that while the issue of global warming has become politicized over the past few election cycles, the science alone necessitates that actual solutions be pursued.

“I think the clarity of the science is improving, partly because the charges are accelerating, they’re getting easier to see. But in terms of solutions, I don’t see much commitment yet, even with the relatively easy targets out there, [such as] money to be saved with energy efficiencies. There’s just not as much out there as I would have expected,” he said.

He noted that while people should be worried about the consequences of man’s environmental recklessness, no one knows exactly what these consequences will be or when they will appear.
“Continued dependence on fossil fuels is eventually going to lead to a very serious problem; we don’t know exactly what, but we have to get started changing our energy [sources].”

Members of the undergraduate Pathfinder program in environmental sustainability were in attendance, and many said they were pleased with how well the lecture consolidated and built off of much of what they had learned from the University.

Check back on Thursday for the full story.

According to senior Amanda Sabele, the former vice president of the Washington University in St. Louis Habitat for Humanity campus chapter, the group has won the grant one other time in recent memory, although it has been turned down for the grant the past couple of years.

State Farm will match every dollar that the University’s chapter raises, up to $5000.

According to Sabele, the group raised around $8000 last year. She says that this year is Habitat for Humanity St. Louis’ 10 year anniversary, and that the group hopes to increase the money it raises by at least 25 percent. She expects the grant will help the group meet that goal.

The organization has four main objectives: to build, educate, advocate and fundraise.

“I think it’s going to be great because with this grant we will be able to donate even more to Habitat for Humanity St. Louis. Every bit of money helps, and this is a lot of money,” former chapter president Justin Dollinger said.

The Washington University chapter of Habitat for Humanity has between 20 and 30 members and participates in around six builds each school year.

According to Sabele, the increased donation that the group will likely make will enable it to participate in more builds than before.

The group holds about six fundraisers annually. The two biggest are a trivia night in the fall and the Washington University Build Challenge in the spring.

Sabele, who completed the application process for the group, says that the decision was based on factors including the group’s fundraising efforts and the number of builds they attend.

To apply, the group had to fill out an online application and participate in a phone interview.

“The app process was so nerve-racking,” Sabele said. “It was insane, an hour long interview. [They asked] what we would use the money for, what our involvement on campus has been and about our fundraising and how effective we have been.”

Habitat for Humanity is an organization that aims to provide affordable housing for all people.

“Housing is such a difficult issue. Children under the age of 18 account for 40 percent of the homeless population worldwide, and it is our mission to offer stable housing worldwide. That extra money, $5000, is an incredible amount for us,” Sabele said.

A graduate student spilled three chemicals that produced a tear gas-like substance in one of the building’s labs Monday night. The issue was taken care of and the building was usable in time for classes Tuesday morning.

The student needed to have his eyes flushed and was driven to the hospital by WUPD as a precaution, but was otherwise fine.

Students taking the test said that there were only a few minutes left in the exam when the alarms went off. The Teaching Assistant (TA) proctoring the exam spoke to other people in the building and found out about the spill, Bruce Backus, assistant vice chancellor of environmental health and safety said. Members of his office were called to the scene and were still investigating the incident Wednesday night.

Even as the alarms went off, students continued taking the exam. Clayton Fire Chief Mark Thorp said that a fireman had to instruct the test takers to leave the building even after the alarms had sounded.

“The fire alarm went off when there were about 12 minutes of the test left…then the police came and said to get out of the building, and that was with seven minutes left,” sophomore Michael Harding said.

Students say the TA gave them the option of staying in the building to complete the exam, or leaving due to the alarm.

“The alarm went off and it was really obnoxious, and clearly not conducive to focusing,” sophomore Miles Black said. “Everyone thought it was going to shut off really soon, [and] the TA said we could leave now or we could stay around to finish [the test].”

But some felt like the TA made them choose between their grades and their safety.

“[The TA] was basically saying that if we were really concerned about the fire alarms we should turn in the tests, but if we were really concerned about [organic chemistry] we should stay and finish,” Harding said.

Some students had already completed the exam, and left the room.

“My understanding is he gave students option of handing in exams or, if needed, to arrange to get a room to give students a few more minutes,” Backus said.

Students moved to Louderman after waiting outside as the emergency crew inspected the building.

“Everyone went out for a good 20 minutes, and then we moved over to Louderman and took the last 10 minutes of the test. It was just really irregular,” Harding said.

Backus said that all chemistry TAs and faculty are taught standard safety procedures each year by the office of environmental health and safety. His office is now checking in with TAs to make sure they do know how to react in emergency situations.

“Everybody should know that if there’s a fire alarm people have to evacuate the building,” organic chemistry professor John-Stephen Taylor said.

The building was evacuated when the Clayton hazardous materials response team arrived at 8:44 p.m. The team, consisting of seven fire trucks and an ambulance, left the scene at 10:37 p.m. Meanwhile, police officers rerouted all traffic around the building.

The incident occurred after a graduate student mixed 30mL of lithium, dibromo-o-xylene and tetrahydrofuran in a 50mL flask on a bench top instead of under a fume hood. The top came off the flask and vapor came out, irritating the student’s eyes, Backus said. According to Backus, other people nearby pulled the fire alarm and recommended the building be evacuated and ventilation systems turned off.

“My staffer there went in and the only concern we had after vapors had been dissipated was the trace amount of lithium might be present, since that’s a reactive metal,” Backus said. “We just covered areas of the flask with oil, which smothered it, sealed up lab, [and] cleaned up [the] next day.”

With additional reporting by Michael Tabb.