Student Life Archives

From where does our namesake come? Last time I checked, campus is not very close to Washington, Mo. There does not seem to be any connection with Washington, D.C., our capital, or Washington State. If the name has anything to do with a certain president, Mr. George Washington, then one would think we might have a day off from school in his honor. Maybe make it a four-day weekend right after work starts getting really hard after Christmas break, when everyone could really use a vacation. When was his birthday again? It wouldn’t matter if no one else celebrated the day, we would be special because we are named after the glory and moral fortitude of our exemplary president. Because this is not the case, and no such break for Washington University students exists, I have a hard time seeing any connection with anything Washington.

Furthermore, the name holds our school back from true greatness. One sign of a school’s greatness: its sweet school apparel. As it stands now, we have some of the most awkward looking school sweatshirts, t-shirts, jackets, etc. In no way do I blame the designers of said clothes, they have done the best they can with what they have been given. Where does one put the title “Washington University in St. Louis” on an article of clothing?

Across the chest the phrase is too long and the words either become miniscule to the point of illegibility, or they need to be put on two lines making the name into an ironic statement as is popular among contemporary t-shirt designers (e.g. I have a shirt that says “Sugar Daddy” on the front. The irony: I’m broke). I have seen the name written on the sleeve such that it goes from the top of the shoulder to the start of the wrist, a horrific sight indeed.

I have also looked enviously on one word sweatshirts that ring with the pride and power of some of the other top 15 Universities in our nation: Duke, Penn, Stanford, Brown, Yale. These names fit nicely on a shirt, but more importantly each of them presents a distinct picture of the school’s identity. There are many people that own, and wear, Duke and Yale clothes who do not go to Duke or Yale. I think you would be hard pressed to find someone not related to Washington University in St. Louis wearing one of our cluttered shirts. From a marketing standpoint, Duke and Yale have free advertising on the chests of all those wearing the college gear while Washington University in St. Louis drifts into obscurity.

Another sign of greatness for an American university is its name recognition. An experiment: take – 0 people from across the nation and show them the U.S. News report of the top 20 colleges in the nation and ask them what they know about each college/university. I will bet my life savings (careful now-remember, I’m broke) that Wash. U., for the largest percentage of people, is the least recognized school on the list.

How many times have you, my fellow students, had to explain that Washington University in St. Louis is in St. Louis? I cannot count (mostly because I am an English student) the number of times I have been asked what going to school on the West Coast is like, or how I view the fast paced political life going on all around me. How is it possible that all of your natural talents, inherent brightness and hard work is almost entirely unappreciated by the masses of people that do not know where you go to school, whereas if you went to a more reputable yet academically inferior school, like Brown, you would be celebrated as a genius? This, my friends, is an outrage.

Here is what I propose: Budweiser University. It is no secret that there is a deep and long lasting relationship with Wash. U. and the Anheuser-Busch company. We can thank our friends making Budweiser beer for Anheuser-Busch Hall, Busch Laboratory and Busch Hall, three prominent buildings on our campus. The school’s liberal drinking policy clearly says something about Wash. U.’s existing relationship with the Anheuser-Busch company (after all, who is drinking Natty Light other than underage college students?).

The amount of money the school would make from such a sponsorship would allow the school to continue growing in size and excellence. It might even be enough money to stop charging us for printing in the library. The national recognition would make the school the most popular university in the nation and, if the school kept its same selective standards, might firmly root our school in the top ten in the country.

Our school apparel would be professionally designed and memorable, and our school’s name would have a connection to deep-rooted St. Louis heritage. Most importantly, however, we would finally have a household reputation: “You go to Budweiser University? You must be some kind of freakin’ genius! How do you like St. Louis?”

Christian is a junior in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

Sitting in a well-heated classroom today I thought about the $40 million that Wash. U. spends for gas consumption. A great degree of effort has been put into this community in order to use new sources of energy such as Olin Library’s solar panels. Whereas the whole Danforth Campus uses 24,000 kilowatts per hour, the solar panel generates merely one kilowatt per hour. It is more than apparent that the cost of building a solar panel for educational purposes is far greater than its actual benefit, especially when we now understand the extent of a solar panel’s capabilities. Instead of putting more money on novel features, it is time to focus on saving energy and money by using the current system; in other words, we should save money first and spend money on novel designs second. Environmental problems cannot be achieved by only throwing money at them. The most important thing is to change the habits of energy use.

During the summer I did a study to find out how much energy and money we can save by having different temperature set-points on thermostats. Using LabSci 300, Ross & Baruzzini (an engineering firm) estimated for me the effects of lowering the set-points in terms of conserving energy and money. The annual utility cost for LabSci 300 is $37,000 when the set-point is 74 degrees, $34,000 when it is 72 degrees and $30,000 when it is 70 degrees. Normally, the default set-point is 72 or 73 degrees, but it varies according to the professors and students. The energy usage at 74 degrees is 3.3 million kBTU, 2.9 million at 72 degrees and 2.6 million at 70 degrees. From this result, we could hypothesize a 70 degree temperature set-point will save us up to $7000 and .7 million kBTU annually just for LabSci 300 alone.

We should set the temperature set points in all buildings in Danforth Campus 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It was impossible for the facility department to make estimation about how much in total we can save by implementing this idea to the whole campus, but the example of LabSci 300 would convince everyone that lowering temperature set-points is an effective way to conserve energy. Doing so will be simple, practical and promising in changing the root of the habits of energy use. A similar campaign called “Warm Biz” has been carried out nationally in Japan as a way to reach their goal for the Kyoto Protocol, and has been proven effective after two years of implementation.

Some would argue why we have to sit in colder classrooms when we pay an already too expensive tuition-don’t we deserve the most comfortable studying environment? Yet, it is not simply about saving energy and money. This country is rich and water, heating and cooling is taken for granted by most. However, this availability is not the norm for most people in the world. By using so much energy than other countries, especially developing countries, we are forcing those who cannot even afford heating to share the burden of environmental destruction with us. Simple as it is, the thoughts behind it stride over many other important issues.

We would not need any great amount of finding to save energy because just wearing one more layer of clothes would do. We could ask the administrators to spend the money that we saved on something that is beneficial to the students. Decreasing the activity fees or having a better recycling system could be good examples. If successful, this idea could be applied even to the local communities. As Mother Teresa said, “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

Yiye is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

Fall break almost broke me. I was expecting a much needed vacation; I didn’t realize it would be a stint in solitary. Starting Thursday afternoon, Wash. U. unleashed a mass exodus. It felt like just about everyone split. Everyone with the means to flee, everyone with ties or connections in the Midwest, everyone with a safe house somewhere, anywhere, to protect them from the vacation devastation about to hit campus. So many of my friends scurried away like rats abandoning a sinking ship. But this Californian stayed put. I held my ground, and man oh man, do I wish I hadn’t.

On Saturday, I stared at the ceiling for an hour. Then I watched “Look Who’s Talking.” If there is anyone out there who would like to argue for the comedic chemistry of John Travolta and Kirstie Alley, you have my e-mail address, and you’re going down. I’m not sure what happened to the rest of Saturday, but I do know that just to rub salt in the wounds of those who stayed, Bear’s Den closed early (so no dinner for Tess) and Bear Mart simply shut down (so no M&M fix for Tess). It was a long, long weekend. But starvation and chocolate distress are nothing compared to people deprivation. And here’s where I try to tie all this whining into something bigger and deeper.

This isn’t really about Fall Break. Fall Break was just an uncomfortable extreme that highlights the insidious truth about getting older and not being a freshman any more. I’m all by myself. A lot.

I don’t remember ever being alone freshman year. I had a roommate. I had my freshman floor. And I had maybe two other alternating social groups to protect me from the echoing silence of alone time. I traveled in a pack of freshmen and almost always ate at the big Bear’s Den tables. Forget all that stuff about knowing how to be your own best company. I unlearned all of that in my freshman year.

Now I need it back. I stuffed myself at the freshman buffet of interdependence, but now I’m on the sophomore crash diet. Compared to all the shrieking and giggling of last year’s horde, the quiet of my single room can be deafening. All this personal space is a daunting thing. At least it’s much more intimidating than I ever imagined it could be.

If I were still on my freshman floor, would I have lounged in bed for two and a half hours watching John Travolta work his infinite charm? Surely someone would have stopped me. Or at least joined in to make the scenario a little less pathetic.

The trick, of course, is balance. I haven’t forgotten the crazed, sleepless times last year when I plotted escape from my freshman floor. I now have a door that closes and locks (and locks EVERYBODY out). I no longer have to be social all the time. The party doesn’t go all night, every night any more. It has a bedtime. And so do I. This year at Wash. U., I choose my own social hours, my own study hours. I rule. And of course, I suffer the consequences. Sometimes alone time gets pretty damn lonely. Next fall break, I’m loading up on M&M’s and leaving the Wash. U. weekend wasteland in my dust.

Tess is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. and a Forum editor. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

Dear Editor:

Student Life needs to calm down and recognize that Dean Sansalone is not the enemy (“Dean Sansalone: tear down this wall,” Oct. 23, 2006). On the contrary, she is an extremely talented academic leader, who has taken on the challenge of moving the School of Engineering into the top ranks, and we are very fortunate to have her as our dean. She has been tackling this challenge with a wide-ranging vision, a clear-sighted assessment of what’s working well and what isn’t and she has brought tremendous energy and dedication to the task. She has spent countless hours meeting with faculty, students and staff and has worked hard to understand their concerns and share her vision for the school.
While institutional change can be unsettling, we all need to understand that in a field as dynamic as engineering, continuous change comes with the territory. If we are to keep up with our peers and move the institution forward, we need to be constantly reevaluating what we do. As faculty, we need to be thinking about how the curriculum must change to meet the evolving needs of society and the career aspirations of our students.

We need to be looking for new research opportunities and trying to understand where to direct our efforts to have the greatest impact on our fields and peoples’ lives. And we need to be prepared to reorganize ourselves and adjust the way we do things in order to better address the larger objectives of the institution. While the resulting changes in departmental structures and administrative operations may be unsettling, we have to be prepared to make such changes in order to move ahead.

These are exciting times for the School of Engineering. There is a great deal that needs to be done in order to move the school into the top ranks, but in Dean Sansalone, we have a leader who relishes the challenge and recognizes the tremendous opportunities that lie before us. She enjoys broad support from the university administration, and all who have met with her and worked with her on issues recognize that she is a leader of tremendous energy, uncompromising integrity and outstanding administrative ability.

While not everyone will agree with every change that takes place over the next few years, I am confident that five to ten years from now, we will look back on this period as one of the most dynamic, creative and productive times in the history of the school, and I very much look forward to being a part of it.

-Jon Turner,
Barb J. & Jerome R. Cox, Jr. Professor of Computer Science

Campus card not quite successful

Dear Editor:

In your staff editorial on Wednesday, you assert that the campus card implementation in laundry machines is a success. Well, it’s mostly a success, but in Rosedale, we are still using quarters. There is a box on the wall that looks like it is supposed to accept our cards, but it is not hooked up to anything, and it displays a blank screen.

I e-mailed ResLife in September asking when they planned to get the system up and running in Rosedale, and they responded only that they were working on it. Nearly a month later, nothing.
So, not quite a success.

-Derek Dohler
Class of 2007

Rachel Tepper

I used to think I was immune to addictive television series. I considered myself among the lucky few who managed to resist the magnetic allure of TV every season. I say all this in past tense because over the past few weeks I have quickly spiraled into a love affair with one of the nation’s favorite shows- “Grey’s Anatomy.” It started out innocently enough. My suitemate, having recently acquired the first two seasons of the medical-based drama, asked the rest of us if we were interested in watching. After discovering no one had seen a single episode, we decided it was only fair to pay homage to the rare occurrence by watching the episodes in chronological order together as a suite. Quickly, nighttime viewings became a sacred ritual we’d look forward to throughout the day. On some days, our only sense of true peace was huddling together in the glow of the show’s projection emitting from the tiny laptop screen. We’d laugh together, cry together, gasp, woot and swoon together in perfect unison. As the days passed, life inevitably began to impede on our nightly ritual and episodes were missed, private viewings were guiltily confessed, and tensions escalated. Our grades began to slip and we lost interest in extracurricular activities. Life just didn’t seem to have the same joyful spark without a steady dose of “Grey’s” each night. It was as if a small part of our existence was inextricably linked to the exhilarating roller coaster ride of emotions the show so lovingly bestowed upon us every time we pressed play, and there was nothing we could do to stop watching.

The somewhat unsettling fact is my suite’s experience is probably similar to that of the majority of people exposed to television. Be honest with yourself. I’m sure some of you would still think it impossible to be seduced by a television drama, but maybe you shouldn’t be so sure. Think of the multitudes of shows that have been obsessively followed on our campus alone-“Project Runway,” “Nip/Tuck,” “24,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Lost,” “The OC,” “American Idol” and “Grey’s Anatomy” (to name a few).

Having thought a lot about the matter, I’ve noticed some uncanny parallels between those who are addicted to particular television shows and those who are addicted to drugs. For instance, those who have been “using” for multiple seasons might find themselves anticipating their next fix and feel a genuine sense of loss when they miss an episode one week. Thankfully, modern inventions such as TiVo have made this devastating experience a thing of the past for those who are fortunate enough to have the technology. And for those in need of a quick fix due to escalated tolerance levels, an iPod and a freshly uploaded episode will instantly satisfy your between-class cravings. Let’s look at another, somewhat creepy parallel. How about when the plot takes a shockingly positive turn, say if two characters finally get together after months of anticipation, and viewers experience a sense of warmth, well-being, euphoria or contentment. Coincidently enough, all of these effects are also consequences of heroine use. And then there are the devastating repercussions of watching the season finale. The withdrawal experienced post-finale is very real and can last for a few days, weeks, or even months depending on your individual level of dependence. Ok, so maybe I’ve blown the situation a little bit out of proportion, but you can’t deny there is startling evidence to support the theory that TV these days may have an unhealthy, somewhat controlling grasp on our lives. If nothing else, it’s something to think about.

So the question is: do we embrace this nationwide addiction or do we treat it? Television companies certainly would profit from our social acceptance of this rapidly diffusing phenomenon. If the delicate concoction of drama, romance, and neatly packaged life lessons becomes any more powerful, television companies could become the equivalent of today’s tobacco companies-leeching off of consumers despite what’s in their best interest. Maybe one day we’ll have a healthy detachment from the shows we watch on TV, but until it becomes a major health issue, I say we embrace it (then again, I’m hooked on the stuff).

Marissa is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].