Idil Ali, a senior majoring in environmental studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, is one of the 23 semifinalists vying for the 16 finalist spots in voting that concludes this week.

This is the first time a female student has been nominated for the competition.

“Historically, it’s been 16 male candidates,” Anna Henkel, president of the student group that run Wash. U. said. “It’s just kind of campus culture. There’s no reason there shouldn’t be a female candidate.” There are no rules stating that candidates have to be male, and there has been no discussion about changing the name of the show, according to Henkel.

Ali’s decision to apply wasn’t affected by her major.

“It was more of a personal desire,” Ali said. Ali cited being inspired by her close friend Chase Sackett, who took second place in last year’s competition, as well as by other friends and a great cause.

While most students associate Mr. Wash. U. with the culminating show in March or April, Henkel and other members of the executive board spend all year working to select the candidates and raise money for charity.

One of the aspects of the spring show is the Rose Presentation, where traditionally a male contestant presents a rose to a female. But Henkel felt the ceremony has been conceived differently every year, and there should be no difficulty for Ali.

Sackett, Ali’s mentor, agrees. “I don’t think there’s anything a female candidate will have trouble with,” Sackett said. “Whatever Idil does, I’m going to support her.”

So far, being the first female candidate hasn’t posed any problems for Ali. “[The Mr. Wash. U. exec board members] haven’t treated me any differently than anyone else, which is exactly what I wanted,” Ali said.

The process begins with nominations by members of the student body or faculty. After filling out applications, the nominees are interviewed by members of the executive board, which then narrows the pool of applicants to 16 finalists. This week’s voting is one aspect in determining which 16 students will compete.

The group spends the entire school year fundraising for City Faces, a nonprofit organization based in the Clinton-Peabody Public Housing Projects. Members of Mr. Wash. U. hold T-shirt and candy sales, date auctions and letter-writing campaigns to raise money for the program. The 16 candidates also contribute their own individual fundraising efforts. Bob Hansman, a professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, started City Faces in 1993.

“We didn’t have many lofty goals going into it,” Hansman admitted. “What happened is a lot of my Wash. U. students started coming to the projects to help out down there, and, gradually, relationships started to develop. Those relationships deepened really quickly.”

Based in what Hansman called “one of the worst places in St. Louis,” City Faces provides books, musical instruments, art supplies and sports equipment for local children. Additionally, Washington University students spend time mentoring and tutoring in Clinton-Peabody. “Seeing that passion and energy, you can’t help not wanting to be a part of it,” Ali said.

Last year, the Mr. Wash. U. competition raised $31,000 for City Faces, and this year’s goal is $35,000. According to Hansman, much of last year’s money was used to hold cooking and nutrition classes, purchase musical instruments and stock the program’s growing children’s library.

Hansman emphasized the importance of continuity in the group’s efforts. “They don’t jump around charities,” he said. “They establish relationships that last. That’s a big part of our philosophy.”

Within Mr. Wash. U., however, the first female applicant could inherently change the nature of the competition. According to Henkel, the event could potentially become entirely co-ed in the future. “[Ultimately], we have to go back to our mission: We’re helping City Faces,” Henkel said.

With additional reporting by Johann Qua Hiansen

Last Wednesday, Saint Louis University (SLU) passed legislation forming its own chapter, SLU/FUSED. In doing so, SLU joins co-founders Washington University and Duke University. This new national organization U/FUSED (United for Undergraduate Socioeconomic Diversity) hopes to bring the issue of socioeconomic diversity to the forefront of national attention.

University seniors Fernando Cutz, Chase Sackett, and Duke senior Spencer Eldred will lead this new national organization as co-executive directors.

“We do have national structure [that] we’re trying to embed right now,” Cutz said. Sackett will be in charge of new chapter development, Cutz will be in charge of reaching out to faculty and outside organizations, as well as public relations, and Eldred will be in charge of communications.

“Part of the point of it is to gain a critical mass with this organization in order to bring more attention to the issue and, hopefully, improve socioeconomic diversity at the undergraduate level nationwide,” Sackett said.

The executive board of U/FUSED will also include the chairs of the individual chapters at each university, some graduating seniors at Washington University and at-large members.

According to Sackett, the goal now is to organize all the information that they have and put it into a format that will be useful for all the chapters that are currently in the organization, as well as possible new chapters. The website should be coming up in the next month or month and a half.

“We trying to present a united front moving forward so that we can press for this topic nationally,” Cutz said.

The licensing fees, which currently range from around $300 to as high as $1,000, apply to any film shown in University facilities other than private dorm rooms. The renewed enforcement of the policy has already resulted in at least one student group, the Disney Movie Appreciation Club (DMAC), suspending its activities indefinitely.

At least one student on campus finds the administration’s decision antagonizing.

“I don’t see anything positive coming out of this decision,” said sophomore Kyle Kamerbeek, DMAC president. “Even if we did show Disney movies at Ursa’s, what are the odds that Bob Iger [CEO of Disney] walks in and tells me to stop? Even if somehow, somebody reports me showing the movie, I can argue that I was watching it with a few friends and others walked in, which is pretty much true for most DMACs.”

DMAC was recently barred from screening a Disney film at Ursa’s. As a non-Student Union  group, DMAC was not notified of the enforcement until the group attempted to screen a film.

Kamerbeek protested the fact that the administration failed to inform him of the policy ahead of time.

“I respect the school’s decision, but I find it ridiculous that they did not notify me, the student body or even the workers at Ursa’s, who know that I show a movie every Monday,” he said. “The complete lack of notification is what gets me. I had been doing DMAC for the previous two weeks, and then out of nowhere they tell me I can’t.”

Representatives from campus and student groups met over the summer to reword the administration’s policy on film screenings and consider enforcement options. Attendants at these meetings included senior Chase Sackett, speaker of the SU Senate; senior Anna Studstill, chair of the student group Filmboard; and Mary Zabriskie from Campus Life.

“Ultimately, I’m happy with the change,” Studstill said. ”It’s easier for us to do it, because we had warning, and we budgeted for the copyright. But ultimately, it’s a good change. We’re protecting ourselves so that nobody gets in trouble.”

“Yes, it can get a little expensive but that’s what we’re trying to show movies for—for a greater population,” she added.

Supporters of the enforcement efforts said they are merely clarifying a policy that was already in place and alerting student groups to the consequences of their actions.

“It’s not a new policy. It is the same policy that has always been in place,” said Leslie Heusted, assistant director of programming and marketing for the Danforth University Center. “Copyright is a law. What we did was re-examine the wording and the consequences around what happens if people don’t follow the law, and we wanted to make that more present in people’s considerations.”

Heusted noted that the policy update is mainly centered around raising awareness about the University’s adherence to copyright code.

“We didn’t really change the policy,” Heusted said. “We were just more mindful of the fact that we needed to make sure that people are aware of the copyright law. It’s always been the law. We just wanted to make sure that our student organizations and our departments are aware of that.”

The policy, available at http://getinvolved.wustl.edu, notes  that “federal law is clear that any copyrighted film (VHS, DVD, etc) in any university facilities, other than a private residence hall room, cannot be shown unless a license to show the film is obtained or special permission from the owner of the copyright is received.”

While enforcement of the policy is hardest for non-SU-recognized groups like DMAC, it is also affecting Category II groups, which can receive a maximum of $500 from SU every semester—the equivalent of two films or less.
“We thought about budgeting in for a movie, but is it really worth only having one event?” said senior Christy Nigh, president of the Christian student group One Voice. “I think they gave themselves a bit of a headache, especially in not announcing it last year, especially for the Category I groups whose budgets have already been finalized.”

Nigh called for a more specific redefinition of what constitutes a film-watching event.

“Is it okay for a group of people to get into a common room and watch it and not have it be an event? I don’t know,” she said.

While students like Kamerbeek and Nigh understand the reason behind the copyright policy, they still stress that the policy’s enforcement is more damaging to smaller student groups on campus.

“It probably will affect a lot of people. I understand why the University is changing its policy to conform with the laws,” Nigh said. “It’s just a little bit frustrating, because our group is very small and watching a movie with our group is very similar to watching with a group of friends.”

Amy Heard, Chase Sackett and Greg Schweizer, all Student Union (SU) senators from Arts & Sciences, have established Senate Outreach Week—an initiative intended to have senators connect to the students they represent while making students aware that senators are there to respond to their concerns.

“We’d done a better job of having contact with the administration last semester,” Sackett, a junior, said. “So this semester we’re trying to connect with students and bring it full-circle.”

That effort has included SU senators tabling in the Danforth University Center every day this week with a display about how the senate works, and what Heard calls “active outreach” on Thursday and Friday in public places on campus.

“We’re going to be walking around and talking to students, seeing what their views are on senate, seeing what they know, if they have any concerns,” Heard, a sophomore, said.

While the three organizers have tried to stay in touch with the campus pulse since joining SU, Sackett says that the difference is that they now hope to establish an organized system in Senate to stay in touch with students.

That system will revolve around “senator-constituent e-mails,” or e-mails that each senator will send out to a group of students on a regular basis, which started on Wednesday. The e-mails, the senators hope, will set the groundwork for each student to know that he or she has a senator representing him or her.

The senators hope, in turn, that by associating a face or a name with Senate, students will feel more comfortable bringing their concerns to the body.

“We obviously talk to a lot of people, but there hasn’t been that structure there,” Sackett said. “Constituent e-mails are something we’ve seen as missing. It’s one component in a greater whole of what we’re going to try to do.”

The proposed program is in many ways a resurrection of the Personal Senators Program that SU stopped two years ago. While the senators recognize that that project did not succeed, they say that this project includes changes that will make it more sustainable.

One of those changes is that students will be assigned to a seat in Senate rather than to a specific senator, meaning that if a senator graduates or leaves the position, students will have a successor with whom they can connect.

Heard added that another goal of the new program is to shift attention to the schools outside of Arts & Sciences. Although a senator will represent students from her school, the body wants all students to feel that the whole senate speaks for them.

“We want to focus on more than just the senators from their school,” Schweitzer, a sophomore, said of students outside of Arts & Sciences, “so that they feel like they’re involved with everyone on campus and that it’s more of a cohesive unit than separated by school, by what your interests are.”

Although the Senate has contacted SU Treasury regarding the initiative, Schweizer said that one of their goals was to create an identity for Senate separate from that of the Treasury. Schweitzer said students are more aware of Treasury than of Senate because Treasury deals with funding issues and communicates with the heads of student groups.

“We’re trying to establish what Senate itself does,” Schweizer said. “Students are concerned about Treasury, and the [SU] executive is more visible. We’re trying to show what we can do as senators and make sure that people know that there is a second branch and that they can bring their concerns to us as well.”

As a result of this program, the senators hope that they will be able to act as more of a liaison between Senate and the administration, and that this will enable senators to come to administrators with more student support for their proposals.

“If more students buy in, the more power we have to actually get the administration to enact the change that students want,” Sackett said. “We’re doing what students want and we’re getting the administration to do what students want.”

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The proposal seeks to make gender-neutral housing, currently offered by the Office of Residential Life (ResLife) under a limited pilot program, an available option for all upperclass housing on the North Side and for all off-campus, University-owned apartments starting in the fall of 2009.

The resolution was sent to ResLife and the University administration last Friday, according to SU senator Chase Sackett, a junior, who supported the resolution.

Associate Dean of Students Jill Stratton said she is not aware of ResLife making any firm decisions about gender-neutral housing for the fall of 2009 at this time.

“My understanding is that the University is assessing the success of the gender-neutral pilot program that has been implemented this year,” Stratton wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “Since we are not quite halfway through with the year, we do not have a full picture or all the information on how this year is progressing.”

Sackett believes that implementing gender-neutral housing would serve as a great direction for the University.

“The Senate passed it unanimously (22-0), which I think was a great example of the student body strongly supporting gender-neutral housing expansion,” Sackett said. “[This] would be a really great step for the University to take.”

The pilot program, operating in Greenway Apartments and the Village with 30 students, was launched this fall following a SU resolution last year for a pilot program, and resulted from a survey conducted by ResLife in Dec. 2006 that indicated 74 percent of students would consider gender-neutral housing if it were an option.

In a more recent survey from this past October, residents in the current pilot program responded positively to their experiences so far and suggested the program be expanded to a full housing option.

Sackett, the SU representative in the Housing Selection Task Force, introduced the resolution to SU earlier this semester after learning about the results from the recent survey.

“We were talking about the reasoning behind [gender-neutral housing] and the results from [the pilot program],” he said. “I thought, why not expand it? It made the most sense.”

Sackett noted that gender-neutral housing might provide a greater comfort zone and more options for transgender students and others in the LGBT community.

“It’s supportive to transgender students, who may not be comfortable coming forward to self-identify,” he said. “I’ve spoken with Pride Alliance, which is solidly behind the resolution.”

Pride Alliance Public Relations Chair Malcolm Ray, who was present at the Senate’s vote, said that Pride Alliance is satisfied with the resolution’s mission and progress toward gender-neutral housing so far.

“Non-gender neutral housing assumes that gender is differentiated in a binary way. There are students at the University who are transgender or intersex—not the majority, but [Pride Alliance] and the University still have a duty to stand up for those who are not represented,” Ray said.

Ray, a junior, believes that gender-neutral housing would promote greater equality in housing and, unlike non-gender-neutral housing, would not force students to conform to a gender with which they do not identify.

“Especially in a residential situation, when you really create a sense of home, you should feel comfortable with being who you are,” he said. “But just on a basic level: non-gender-neutral housing is a little outdated.”

Although gender-neutral housing serves the purpose of providing a more comfortable environment for LGBT students, SU’s resolution does not specify that the option will be offered discriminately.

Gender-neutral housing has been made available in approximately two dozen other institutions nationwide, including New York University, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Michigan and six of the eight Ivy League schools.

“We have done extensive research on what other peer institutions have done in this area. Specifically, we have spoken with staff at NYU and Case Western as well as conducted research into other programs that provide gender-neutral housing,” Stratton wrote.

Vice Chancellor for Students James McLeod said that he might not necessarily look to the University’s peer institutions to help him make the decision.

“For many decisions, I don’t use our peers as a guide,” McLeod said. “We have a certain tradition [in] housing. From time to time, we change that tradition. This is a community decision; all of us have a stake in housing.”