Student Life Archives

Friday, Sept. 15

8:26 a.m. SUSPICIOUS PERSON – ELIOT HALL – An employee reported a suspicious person found sleeping near Eliot Hall. Investigation revealed this was a subject currently wanted by this department for credit card theft and fraud purchases. Disposition: Cleared by arrest.

9:32 a.m. DAMAGED PROPERTY – PARKING LOT #58 – Tree fell on a vehicle parked in the Northwest corner of the lot. Owner was notified. Disposition: Cleared.

1:50 p.m. LARCENY-THEFT – ATHLETIC COMPLEX – Unreported theft. Suspect arrested from Eliot Hall had a credit card in their possession stolen from this location. Disposition: Cleared by arrest.

Saturday, Sept. 16

1:37 a.m. PROPERTY DAMAGE – SHEPLEY DORM – Fire extinguisher set off on first floor. Nothing damaged. Maintenance and RCD were notified. Disposition: Pending.

6:35 p.m. FIRE – MILLBROOK #3 – Dumpster fire located on the north side of building three. Clayton Fire Department responded and extinguished the fire. Damage contained to the dumpster. Disposition: Cleared.

8:08 p.m. BURGLARY – ELIOT HOUSE – Student reported his wallet missing from his unlocked room. Time of occurrence: Sept. 16 from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Disposition: Under investigation.

Sunday, Sept. 17

1:19 a.m. FALSE FIRE ALARM – FRATERNITY HOUSE 4 – Officers responding to a fire alarm found the pull station activated. House was hosting a party and unable to determine who had activated the alarm. Disposition: Pending.

7:22 a.m. ASSIST ANOTHER AGENCY – UNDESIGNATED AREA OFF CAMPUS – Officers assisted St. Louis City and Metro Link Security with a subject who had created a disturbance at the MetroLink stop and again at Kayak’s. Subject taken into custody. Disposition: Cleared by arrest.

Monday, Sept. 18

2:02 p.m. PROPERTY DAMAGE – WOMEN’S BUILDING – Unknown person(s) wrote graffiti on the lower level women’s restroom handicapped accessible stall. Graffiti appeared to be written with some type of black marker. Time of Occurrence: Sept. 18 between 7 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Disposition: Pending.

Tuesday, Sept. 19

3:04 p.m. AUTO ACCIDENT – PARKING LOT #32 – Truck reported stuck on bollards. No damaged noted to the bollards or the truck. Disposition: Cleared.

5:10 p.m. LARCENY-THEFT – WOHL CENTER – Student reported stolen mail. University City police located/found several items. Disposition: Pending.

Wednesday, Sept. 20

11:32 a.m. LOST ARTICLE, POSSIBLY STOLEN – SOUTH BROOKINGS – Student reported her silver Nikon digital camera missing from South Brookings 205. Theft occurred sometime between July 17 and Aug. 23. Total loss value of $340. Disposition: Pending.

Thursday, Sept. 21

1:57 p.m. PROPERTY DAMAGE – MALLINCKRODT CENTER – Report of graffiti applied to a sub-basement storage area of Edison theater. Area is located under the main stage and is only accessible through the scene shop. Time of occurrence: on Sept. 20 between 5 p.m. and 12 a.m. Disposition: Pending.

The audiences for Mark Rank’s lectures vary from Seattlelite prisoners to Washington University students. Rank, an instructor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work and author of “One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All,” is today’s Assembly Series speaker.

Rank said he will discuss and question the direction America has taken to address the issue of poverty over the last few years in addition to lecturing about the nature of poverty and how it affects the entire American community.

“Poverty and inequality are issues of vital concern to America and we need a new moral vision as to the direction that this country has been heading,” he said.

Rank’s novel was selected for the Freshman Reading Program (FRP) book, which freshmen were instructed to read over the summer. Also, the book has a place in the standard Writing I course that all Arts & Sciences students are required to take.

“We wanted to find something that would speak to students and stimulate them to think about their role: what it means to be a part of a community and what the individual’s responsibility is to others,” said Karen Levin Coburn, assistant vice chancellor for students and dean of freshman transition. Coburn also co-chaired the FRP Steering Committee.

“We thought that the topic was provocative. The questions are questions that I would hope every student would think about,” Coburn said. “We wanted to find a book that would complement the theme of the year – a higher sense of purpose.”

Several other events embodying the higher purpose theme were planned for fall semester. In the next event, filmmaker Jill Petzall will show her film about “the emotional impact on children whose mothers are imprisoned for non-violent crimes, particularly drug-related prostitution and theft,” according to the FRP Web site.

Freshmen Kira Sargent felt Rank’s book provoked thought about the less fortunate.

“Reading the book gave me a sense of poverty in America which has helped broaden my thinking-specifically, in one of my classes about housing problems in poor communities,” she said.

Rank suggested that students “become engaged in these issues [and] think about the ways in which you can begin to create small changes in terms of your daily life. This can then lead to broader changes. The point, however, is to begin the discussion.”

Even Rank’s practices stem from his attention to the financially disadvantaged.

“Each year I donate a proportion of my overall income to a number of different groups and organizations involved in social justice,” he said.

Rank will address the University community in Graham Chapel at 11 a.m. today.

Freshman class council elections saw a much lower voter turnout this year than in the past, as 350 students voted compared to 635 last year and 668 two years ago.

Student Union President Paul Moinester attributes the decrease in voting to fewer candidates running for each position. He says larger candidate pools draw larger crowds because freshmen vote for their friends and floormates.

“Voter turnout is a product of how competitive the races are, especially freshman year,” he said.

This year, two candidates ran for each position whereas up to six had run in the past. Thus, the lower numbers are not necessarily related to apathy, according to Moinester.

“It’s not anything different,” he said. “Sometimes you just have people that may be more excited to run. The turnout is certainly lower.”

Newly elected class council president Jeannette Wong thinks other issues affected voting as well. She says not enough students knew about the elections or the opportunities available to them.

“Maybe we didn’t go around enough,” she said. “The difficulty is what we can do as a class council.”

She and other candidates campaigned around all the dorms on the South 40, created a Facebook group dedicated to elections, flyered, sent mass e-mails, chalked the sidewalks and made T-shirts.

But for many students, the election remained low key.

“I knew about it only because a candidate spoke to me about his platform,” said freshman Yosef Gillers. “I wasn’t well-educated or well-informed enough to vote. I don’t vote for someone based on an ad campaign.”

For freshmen, this is only part of the issue.

“We’re freshmen,” said Gillers. “We just got here and we don’t even know what [the class council] does. It’s partly the school’s and candidates’ fault.”

Freshman Caitlin Astrue did vote, although mainly to support her floormate D.D. Alexander for secretary.

“A lot of people didn’t know about it,” said Astrue. “And the date sort of snuck up on people.”

In some aspects, she says the election reached the point of confusion.

“No one was able to explain how it worked,” she said. “People were also confused about whether you had to vote for groups or individuals.”

She and Gillers both agree that students need a better basic introduction of the process before elections are held.

“There was a lack of information about the positions and who was running,” said Astrue. “We need a better understanding of what the positions are and what they can do. The candidates need to do a better job. It goes hand in hand.”

As of yesterday, 33 students at Wheaton College in Illinois have been placed in isolation to help contain a recent outbreak of mumps. “There have been 29 confirmed cases, and four suspected ones. So far, all of the students who have the infection had received the two required shots,” reported Tiffany Self, the media relations director at Wheaton College.

Mumps is a viral disease that causes an upper respiratory infection.

“For the most part, mumps is the classic story of the swelling of the salivary glands,” said David Mellinger, associate director and chief physician of Student Health Services. Other possible symptoms include fever, muscle aches, loss of appetite, testicular swelling, and inflammation of the brain.

The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination (MMR) is the most common form of protection from the virus. Documentation of two MMR immunization shots is a requirement for entry at Washington University. Most people receive the first shot at 15 months, and then the second one at five years of age.

“The population at WU should be pretty well vaccinated with the two doses. Even after the immunization, the vaccine doesn’t affect roughly 10 percent of people. These people are never going to develop immunity to the virus,” said Alan Glass, physician and director of Student Health Services.

Students can get around the required vaccination by taking a blood test that shows they are immune to MMR. “Oftentimes international students that come to WU do not have record of the two shots. They are given the option of immunization or the blood test. The blood test is much more expensive than the immunization which is available at the health center at a cheap price. Most students choose to have the shots,” said Mellinger.

Besides reviewing their immunization records, students can take additional precautions. Mumps is spread through respiratory fluids, and students can avoid coming in contact with them by taking several precautions.

“Students in a college community should follow standard hygiene by washing their hands, not sharing utensils, and covering their mouths when coughing,” said Tiffany Self from Wheaton.

If a student at Washington University were to develop the infection, the University is required by law to report it to the state. The University would place the contagious students in isolation and monitor them in rooms available on campus. If there was a true outbreak of mumps at the University, the Student Health Center would start to review people’s immunization records.

Like any other viral illness, such as chicken pox, there is no specific treatment for the mumps. The body will eventually recover from it and keep antibodies specific to the disease as a way to arm the immune system against further infection.

Mellinger urged students not to panic over the outbreaks. “The important point is that the mumps is an inconvenience for people, but not life threatening. People get very caught up in the mumps outbreak, but it’s not an unusual occurrence. We tend to see it in cycles in the United States,” he said.

Iowa has been experiencing outbreaks of mumps since Dec. 2005. Illinois sees roughly 10 cases annually, but so far this year 598 cases have already been reported.

Glass reported that the only outbreak of infection that the University has experienced is influenza.

Matt Rubin

The game may be played among floormates, friends or strangers, in common rooms or online. No matter the specifics, the chips are down and the money is out at Washington University.

“I started playing sophomore year of high school,” said sophomore Jason Friedman of his poker game. “It was more of a social thing. It was a good way to meet people.”

Friedman, like many other students at Washington University, bets on Texas Hold ‘Em, the game played in the World Series of Poker (WSOP). ESPN has been televising the WSOP for several years, during which time Hold ‘Em’s popularity has skyrocketed.

“Poker [is] very popular now, particularly Texas Hold ‘Em,” said Psychology Professor Larry Jacoby. “That has got a lot of media press. There is exposure, and lots of people are learning about it.”

Friedman’s game is a weekly get-together of five to ten friends that began on Sunday nights during his freshman year. While Freidman said that the participants do buy into the game “anywhere from $20 to $40,” he says he plays less for the money and more to keep in touch with old friends.

“The core of it is the same people from last year, from my freshman floor,” he said. “If you want a high-stakes game you can go to a casino. I would rather hang out with my friends.”

While many regular poker games start as social affairs on freshman floors, they often become more intense as students continue through their college years. One high-stakes player is senior Ben Jarrett, who prefers online poker to the games on campus. Jarrett, like many other enthusiasts, began playing in high school and says he enjoys playing with friends, but that the Internet game is more lucrative.

“I started playing poker midway through high school,” said Jarrett, who now plays every day. “I was just playing with friends. I found out that there were a lot of bad poker players online, so I tried it and it worked out well.”

Jarrett buys in for $200 to $300 and makes, on average, $300-$400 a night. He says, however, that pots can get much larger.

“The best I have done is $3,000 in an hour,” said Jarrett. “You just go on one of those tables and you play well, you get that high.”

Although Jarrett might see hundreds of dollars slip away in a matter of minutes, he makes sure not to lose too big by only betting the money he has already made.

“If I had to risk my own money, I would not risk it,” he said. “I only play high with my profit. I do not know too many people that can afford to lose that much of their own money.”

Another online poker player, senior James Smee, plays on the Web not to win big but rather to play more often. While he used to play with friends, Smee says the Internet game is more convenient.

“I just like playing poker and it is easier to find a game online,” said Smee, who has been playing for a year and a half. “There were a bunch of us on campus who played, but it was tough to find a game. It kind of fell apart.”

Senior Puneet Singh worked last year as a Residential Advisor (RA) in Beaumont, a freshman dormitory. She had a sizeable group of residents who played poker and gambled in the lobby.

“It was hard because we had to make sure that they were not playing with money, but the reality is that they want to gamble with real money and they want to make money,” said Singh.

Singh sees the social value in gambling, but at the same time is wary of students’ behavior becoming detrimental to their college lives.

“It is a positive social experience when money is not involved, but if you start adding in variables like money where there is a lot to be gained or lost, that can escalate into risky behavior,” said Singh. “The reality of it is that a lot of them are big on winning. Most students do not see anything really wrong with it. They do not see that gambling can have some serious consequences.”

But Jacoby, whose department has done research on gambling trends, says that as long as participants check themselves, there is nothing wrong with betting on poker.

“I can’t get outraged about that,” he said. “It has been going on for too long and across generations. As long as it is done with some level of moderation, it is okay.”

He added that there may even be positive effects from regular poker play.

“If a person developed good Texas Hold ‘Em skills and it transferred to other areas of life, all the better for them,” said Jacoby, who noted that research shows a recent rise in overall gambling among the general populace. “You have to be able to read what your opponents have and pick up subtle signs. Picking up subtle signs is not a bad thing.”

Freidman, meanwhile, says that money is not a factor in his game, and that it has yet to detrimentally affect either his social or academic life.

“I would say I break even,” he said. “Most of the people who show up regularly break even. It is more of a social thing. Clearly academics have to supersede that.”

Anna Dinndorf

Entering the field of academia as a professor is a daunting task. Universities demand an applicant’s curriculum vitae include teaching experience, personal publications and a staggering amount of formal education.

“In what has become a very competitive job market, a Ph.D. is essentially required,” said Michelle Loyet, director of operations for the College of Arts & Sciences.

Professor hopefuls embark on the doctorate path after receiving an undergraduate bachelor’s degree. From there, the aspiring teacher attends graduate school to first pursue a master’s degree and then the doctorate. This process, however, is changing.

“Most graduate programs now lead straight to the Ph.D. with a master’s included as part of the process. Terminal master’s programs are becoming rarer,” said Loyet.

Doctorates typically span anywhere from four to six years, but program lengths vary by field.

“A really important aspect of graduate school is gaining teaching experience,” said Loyet, adding that developed teaching skills can strengthen any application.

After receiving a Ph.D., many applicants transition into post-doctoral work, programs instrumental for further application development of professors.

“Post-doctoral programs are a great place to do research, build on a dissertation, put publications in the pipeline, and eventually be very competitive going into the application process for professorship,” said Loyet.

Post-doctoral work can be done through a university or a research institution. Loyet, for instance, did a program in anthropology at the Smithsonian Institute.

Rather than turning in a resum‚ to potential employers, all this work culminates into an impressive curriculum vitae (CV).

The CV “not only includes your work and teaching experience but also lists your publications, grants you have received, awards, and research,” said Loyet.

There are further distinctions separating the hiring of professors from typical industry careers, such as requests for reprints of publications or recent course syllabi. The interview, the next step, is also distinct within academia.

“When you are invited to interview, you may give what we call a ‘job talk,’ a kind of seminar where you present your research to the department where you are applying,” said Loyet. “You will probably also have a series of interviews with the members of the hiring committee, or an interview in front of a panel. It can be very intense.”

Derek Pardue, assistant professor in the Anthropology and International and Area Studies departments, went through the arduous process of becoming a professor fairly recently.

“My path was German, to music, to a more cultural view of music, to cultural anthropology,” said Pardue. His doctorate took about five years to receive. Before joining Washington University, Pardue did a short-term appointment at Union College in upstate New York.

“For me, that experience was good because I gained a lot of experience teaching many different courses. I was lucky because the anthropology department at Union allowed me the flexibility to experiment and create new courses,” said Pardue.

Pardue sees these short-term professorships as valuable for many, especially in making them more attractive in applications for full tenure.

“My sense is that this sort of track of both time off between degrees and temporary appointments after Ph.D. are fairly common in today’s market. It is very difficult to land a tenure-track academic appointment fresh out of graduate school.”

Residential Technology Services resolved the network connectivity issues of the past three weeks early yesterday, according to Matt Arthur, director of network systems & operations.

The problems plaguing the network were linked to several individuals who were using a variation of BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file distribution protocol, to encrypt peer-to-peer traffic as Web traffic. Since ResTech prioritizes Web traffic over peer-to-peer traffic, little bandwidth was available for students to launch services such as Instant Messenger.

Using new technology capable of identifying and managing the nefarious BitTorrent software, Arthur reported a 25 to 50 percent reduction in yesterday’s total traffic. Cautious of the resolution, Arthur said that the true test of the network will be over the weekend.

“Technology always runs behind by a little. This time, it took two weeks longer than normal to come up with a solution.”

Washington University’s peer institutions report similar connectivity issues.

Carnegie Mellon’s network serves about 4,000 users, comparable to the number serviced by Washington University’s ResTech. To avoid some of the problems the Washington University recently faced, Carnegie Mellon has restricted its students to 10 gigabytes over a five-day interval. Residents who use more than their allotted bandwidth receive a series of warnings. If bandwidth abuse persists, Internet privileges are revoked for a 45-day period.

“Bandwidth is a shared resource. If there are a few users trying to download lots of files, our system will prevent them from ruining the commodity for everyone,” said Dan Cuella, a student consultant at Carnegie Mellon’s Residential Computing Services. “We give people limits and they respect that.”

Arthur said that Washington University considered moving to a similar system, but rejected the idea after receiving negative feedback from surveyed students.

Alan Rueter, director of computing technology services, suggested two alternative solutions if the problem persists.

“One thing is to charge students extra if they need extra bandwidth,” he said.

The ResTech network currently uses half the University’s total bandwidth capacity. While Rueter explained that the University could also remove the limit on ResLife, such a decision could cost the rest of campus.

“The problem that came up a couple of years ago was that the dorms used up all the University’s bandwidth, so people couldn’t get their work done. [The limit] lets the rest of the University and the medical center have bandwidth.”

Provided that University community members use appropriate bandwidth, programs such as Instant Messenger should be able to function without impediment.

Lecturer Jerome Bauer might be out of a job – but not if his students have anything to say about it. The religious studies department recently informed Bauer that his position as lecturer would be replaced with the position of assistant professor. The new position is not reserved for Bauer, but rather he, along with all other qualified applicants, are invited to apply for it. Both Bauer and some of his students have taken action against this new academic opening.

The positions of lecturer and professor have substantive differences. University lecturers are considered to be in the “Teaching Track” and are therefore not expected to regularly write and publish research papers, as per the “public or perish” rule common to the realm of academia. An inter-department move from lecturer to assistant professor would require Bauer to research and publish papers.

“The Religious Studies Program and I,” wrote Bauer in an open letter protesting the religious studies department’s actions, “have had an agreement: I would pursue diligently the ‘Teaching Track,’ not looking for a job elsewhere, in exchange for a reasonable semblance of job security. I would sacrifice other “career goals” for my vocation, mentorship of our students. This I have done, faithfully. Now this University is not keeping its end of the bargain.”

Department Chair Beata Grant said no such agreement was reached.

“The lecturer position in South Asian religions that Bauer has held for the past several years was from the very beginning designated as a temporary lecturer position that would eventually be upgraded to a regular tenure-track position,” Grant wrote in an e-mail.

Grant explained that “the Department’s decision to upgrade the lecturer position in Religious Studies reflects a strong commitment on the part of the University to build Religious Studies, a commitment that includes a recent tenure-line hire in Islamic studies, a current search for a tenure-line position in the history of Christianity, and future searches in areas such as American Religious History.”

According to Bauer, he expected to receive a promotion to senior lecturer.

“Last year.the program was promoting me to senior lecturer,” said Bauer. But “last spring, I was told my position would be eliminated after a year. They [University administration] really need to rethink their strategy.”

Bauer thinks that the University’s stance towards lecturers, both in and outside the Religious Studies Program, needs significant revisions.

“Some sort of reasonable job security would be good for this community,” he said.

Furthermore, Bauer has argued for the expansion of the Religious Studies Program into a department, noting a rise in the program’s popularity among undergraduate students.

“If it were a department, then faculty would have better job security. With Religious Studies, we are embattled from both the left and the right. It’s a controversial discipline, and I think it would be better with a more secure status. It’s about time the University reevaluate its strategy with Religious Studies.”

Undergraduate students have lent support to Bauer through signing a petition to retain him as a lecturer. Senior Nivedita Kulkarni began the petition three years weeks ago at an Ashoka meeting.

“I really hope the University sees how great he is with the students,” said Kulkarni. “I understand the University is upset at his not publishing research, but he does far more for the students.”

Within a week of starting the petition, Kulkarni had over 100 signatures from Ashoka members.

Bauer himself was surprised at the degree of support he received from his students, noting that a number of undergraduates asked to take his courses even if he left the University. The University, said Bauer, should pay attention to undergraduates’ stances regarding employment of faculty.

“They’ve been very, very helpful. I’ve been trying to stay out of University politics; when I first got the news, I was in shock. It turns out I had a lot of student support. If the students like what lecturers do, I think the University ought to listen. It’s only reasonable.”

Bauer noted that his situation was not unique, and encouraged individuals who wanted to primarily go into teaching and lecturing at Universities.

“I support all lecturers at the University and [support] more respect for people who want to teach. A lot of it comes down to respect.”

Ultimately, Bauer hoped that the University would reconsider its stances toward lecturers like himself in all departments and programs.

“The University must restore the lecturer’s position in Religious Studies,” Bauer continued in his open letter, “and must also restore employment to other unjustly terminated lecturers. This is a matter of justice. If these reasonable requests are not met, I will stay here as I have promised to do, working for the community in whatever way I can.”