Student Life Archives

I read the staff editorial in Student Life recently entitled “University must solve Internet access problems,” (Oct. 18, 2006) and I’d like to respond to it. The fact of the matter is that the editorial completely and utterly failed actually to understand the problem that is causing our Internet connectivity to be so spotty. The article indicates that the only explanations for the crappy service are that those managing the service are incompetent or that we as a university just don’t have enough bandwidth to go around and handle the load of Internet traffic. I quote from the editorial:

“Though it’s unclear where to lay the blame for failing Internet services – either the University has not provided NTS enough resources to handle the Internet traffic or ResTech and NTS have simply proved incompetent – it’s clear that the Internet Wash. U. provides simply isn’t working.”

In reality, it is neither of those reasons. What has actually been happening is a few inconsiderate students have been using peer-to-peer file sharing programs that suck up all the available bandwidth. In the past, this hasn’t been a problem because the University employs the use of some software that prioritizes the Internet traffic. Web traffic (accessing Web sites and browsing) is at the top of the list of priorities, well above peer-to-peer filesharing programs. But recently, the designers of those programs, and in some cases the students themselves, have recognized this obstacle and managed to disguise their filesharing programs as Web requests, so they get top priority. So solving the problem is a matter of tracking down those students and disconnecting them, but since the very nature of their method for subverting the prioritizing software is disguising their Internet traffic to look like everyone else’s, tracking them down has proven extremely difficult. But the bottom line is that this isn’t a matter of lack of bandwidth or incompetence on the part of ResTech and NTS, it is a few students who want to download pirated movies and porn and are throwing a wrench in the gears.

The article goes on to offer some suggestions for rectifying the situation that come from the same complete misunderstanding of the problem that garnered the incorrect explanations offered above. For instance, the article recommends firing the RCCs and using the money used to pay them to buy more bandwidth.

Now that you have an

actual understanding of why we have a bandwidth issue, it should be very apparent that purchasing more bandwidth would simply allow the aforementioned students to download illegal software, porn and whatever other pirated materials they’re interested in faster and still leave everyone else out in the cold as far as Internet access is concerned. Additionally, the idea the money paid to the RCCs is anywhere near the order of magnitude one would need to significantly increase the bandwidth we have on campus is laughable. We have a 128-megabit connection here. The combined payment to all 20-something RCCs wouldn’t even approach the amount required to say, double that or even add half of what we already have.

It should be apparent by now that the rest of the article that goes on to talk about opening up the service to outside competition is pretty irrelevant, given the actual nature of the problem. Anyone else managing or providing the service is going to have exactly the same problem ResTech currently has trying to track down those idiots, and they’ll certainly be less committed to doing it than those of us who are here, using the same Internet and suffering exactly as much as everyone else.

This information was readily available to anyone who would’ve taken the time to ask. Instead, the staff decided to print an editorial bashing ResTech and everyone else trying to fix the problem when the blame really rests on the idiots who decided their illegal software and porn downloads are more important than everyone having Internet access to do their homework.

Michael is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. You may reach him via e-mail [email protected].

I’ve flown home from school for these so-called breaks before, but I had not yet had the experience of flying home during the weekend of a University of Nebraska-University of Texas football game. Going home during a big game alters everything from the typical clothing apparel (red and orange were the only colors in style) to security policy (a boy around the age of ten with a cornhead tucked under his arm asked the security woman if he could carry on his cornhead. She told him he could bring a cornhead on the flight even if it was liquid and he didn’t have a plastic bag). The passion, dedication and even rule-bending people will do for the sports team they love led me to an important realization. No, not that we could be entering the era of cornhead or cheesehead terrorism, or that we should implement something like “Colorado University fan” profiling, but that a good Division I football team would solve all the perennial Wash. U. problems.

The decision to divert school resources to becoming a football powerhouse would be shocking, which lines up perfectly with the strategy of pretty much every college on the planet right now. Though spawning a Division I football team might be a little crazier than Harvard’s elimination of early decision and new religious distribution requirements, with Wash. U.’s dire need of name recognition, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not only the shock value of the decision to become a great football school that will give Wash. U. attention, but also the continuing tradition of the team. What’s Notre Dame without Rudy and the Fighting Irish? While this is an obvious benefit, it’s only part of the bigger story.

Everyone knows one of the biggest challenges Wash. U. faces is how to break into the coveted “U.S. News & World Distort” sorry, I meant “U.S. News & World Report,” top ten college rankings. A solid Division I football team would do the trick. A good, Division I football team means Fox fighting ABC for coverage of the big rivalry against Mizzou (okay, maybe the game against Mizzou only makes it onto Fox Sports, but the point still stands), and there will be money associated with the football games.

The money won’t just come from advertising and television, but mainly from the suddenly loyal and school-spirited alumni who will fly across the country to set foot in Francis Field on game day. There will also be money associated with the fan gear we can sell for our team, which is going to be important for generating revenue, now that it’s pretty much school policy to name anything with brick “Danforth.” There’s no need to worry about deterring potential benefactors, not only can we name sections of the stadium, we can make up in Bears shot glasses, sweatshirts, pens, flags, trash cans – basically anything you can conceive of can be a huge money-maker, so long as it has a Bears logo. With our significantly increased alumni-giving ranking, we’ll definitely surpass Cornell and begin to threaten the University of Chicago on that alone.

Though some of the extra money has to go toward maintaining the football team, we’ll make enough money that we could hire seven new research professors without causing anyone to flinch. These professors can do research all day to add to the prestige of our school and teach classes of one student to bring down the average class size – they’ll be a true asset to our educational experience, and this will show up in the rankings.

Finally, the administration can save face and continue to over-admit freshmen without looking like it has poor foresight. Instead, the school can claim that it’s part of a long-term plan to provide better support for the football program (we’re going to need a marching band and student trainers), and I think the student body could get behind it. I mean, in the name of school spirit? Besides, as long as Student Life stands ready to solve Wash. U. overpopulation problems with hot dog cart proposals, we have nothing to worry about.

This is an ultimate win-win situation. And all this time we thought moving up in the rankings was difficult.

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

Dear Editor:

You seem to have missed the point of my letter, entitled by you “More Regulation of Student-Faculty Relationships Needed.” My point is best expressed by the motto of the University of Pennsylvania, my doctoral alma mater and Josh Smith’s: “Leges sine moribus vanae,” or in English, “laws without morals are empty.”

Let’s bring back the “Ethics and Values” requirement. Washington University needs it.

-Jerome Bauer
Lecturer in Religious Studies

The fairness of women’s hunger

Dear Editor:

I would like to applaud Chelsea Murphy’s thoughtful remarks in her article “A Campaign for Curves.” Chelsea very artfully points out the way in which women so harshly criticize each other’s bodies despite a worldwide “thin epidemic” that should, ideally, band women together rather than tear them apart.

I agree with Chelsea’s comments wholeheartedly, but I’m not sure that women were themselves the instigators of such a movement. Rather, I’d like to argue that women carried on, and perhaps internalized, a backlash against their rising successes in the 1960s and 1970s. Is it any coincidence that the close scrutiny of women’s bodies began at a time when women were indeed starting to “grow bigger” than their previous roles’ requirements in such areas as the workforce and education? Masked behind the pressure to be thin is a pressure to be small, feeble and powerless. Perhaps on a grander and more obvious scale, the demands of being thin leave women hungry. But hungry for what? Whereas women’s hunger during the feminist movement was driven by a desire for success, prosperity, choice and self-fulfillment, women’s hunger is now characterized by whether or not to have that brownie, a constant battle that is often followed by guilt and “I really shouldn’t haves.” One look in “US Weekly” or “People,” magazines that tout celebrity diet tips and diet products, confirms this switch.

When did our hunger as women for such grand ideas become threatened by such small and trivial matters? When did we become coerced into counting calories instead of our goals?

I am not suggesting that women are not striving for achievements beyond those that they previously had access to. What I am questioning are the reasons behind, and the fairness underlying, the need for our society to backlash against these successes, to encourage women (who then, as Chelsea points out, encourage other women) to grow smaller instead of stronger, to focus on the brownie instead of getting women in positions of power. Chelsea is absolutely right that we, as women, need to concentrate on becoming healthy in whatever way makes sense for our own individual bodies. Part of this, as Chelsea points out, is accepting our curves. There’s a reason why many of us have a small “stomach pooch:” we are fit to bear children. But another way to accept a healthy body as women is to regard our physical means as supporting our ambitions. We cannot begin to satiate our mental and spiritual hunger if we do not satisfy our physical hunger, if we do not provide for our body’s own natural growth and development.

-Laura Wolkoff
Class of 2008

Lack of diversity a serious problem on campus

While studying abroad this semester in the beautiful country of Chile, I received a surprise that offered me a little taste of home. One of my friends decided to send me the Wash. U. planner so that I could see the goofy facial expressions I make, featured as one of the people in the pictures on the cover. My initial fascination of seeing myself soon wore off when I observed the rest of the cover. Although the cover does a good job of encapsulating the many events in which Wash. U. students get involved, it also lacks a great deal of diversity. I realize that it’s striving to do so by covering some of the cultural events that took place last year, but overall, finding the minorities is almost like reading “Where’s Waldo?” – they’re there, you just have to look.

Some of you may feel that I’m making too big a deal out of this, that it’s just a dumb calendar. While this might be somewhat true, I feel the lack of diversity on the cover reflects the general apathy amongst the general student body for a more pluralist population. At the same time, more should be done to promote the diversity that does exist. As an emblem of our university, it is important that the calendar more equally portray all groups. When I see it, even though I was fortunate enough to grace the cover, I only feel exclusion for all those who did not make it. Since the black population probably got the least amount of representation, what happens when a potential black student visits, sees the cover, and sees very few black students on it? What does that tell him/her about our institution? The same goes for East Asians and Latinos who are rarely seen.

I think it is important that students’ consciousness be raised. It might not seem evident to many when representations of the University lack diversity, but it exists in the consciousness of others, especially to those outside of our institution whose impressions of the university are limited to images and hearsay. If we are to attract a more diverse student body to this university, which can only add more value to a university education, we must challenge ourselves to increase this consciousness.

-Daniel Ramirez
Class of 2007

Temu Brown

Last week, while watching the Cardinals upset the Mets in the NLCS, I saw a commercial that caught my attention. Images of some of America’s most historically significant events were flashed on the screen, along with “patriotic” music played by none other than John Cougar Mellencamp. My first thought was, “Oh, great. This must be a new Jim Talent ad.” I was wrong, though; at the end of the commercial a voiceover said, “This is our country. This is our truck,” and a brand new Chevy Silverado appeared. Now, at first I was taken aback. What did Chevrolet have to do with all of the events I just saw? To solve the riddle, I decided to break down some of the most notable images of the commercial and try and find the Chevrolet connection.

One of the first images in the ad was the famous photo of Rosa Parks riding a bus in Montgomery, Ala. on the first day that the city’s bus system became integrated. I thought for a while about this one before coming up with an answer. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a carpool system was established in order to provide transportation to work for the boycotters. The carpool system was integral to the movement, and without it, the boycott might have failed. I’m willing to bet that at least one of the cars used in the carpool was a Chevy. Chevrolet, therefore, played a crucial role in Montgomery and has a crystal-clear connection to Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement. In case that connection wasn’t clear enough, soon after the Rosa Parks photo was shown, Chevrolet hammered the point home with footage of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the March on Washington in 1963.

Shortly after this, there was a brief shot of a helicopter and several soldiers in Vietnam followed by the famous footage of Richard Nixon waving goodbye from his helicopter after resigning in 1974. These two caught me a bit off guard. I really didn’t know that Chevrolet had anything to do with the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who died or were wounded in Vietnam or that they had any role in uncovering the Watergate scandal. However, after much searching, I found a connection. Most likely many Vietnam War veterans now drive Chevrolet cars, and perhaps Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein owned a Chevy during Watergate.

The commercial then skipped about 30 years and showed a couple of historically significant events of recent years. There was an aerial shot of New Orleans filled with water, just after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. I think Chevrolet was trying to point out that if more New Orleans residents had owned Chevy trucks, they would have been able to evacuate the city more quickly. After that relatively easy one, there came a shot at the end of the montage that still has me perplexed-a picture of the Manhattan skyline after 9/11, with two spotlights pointed at the sky to symbolize the Twin Towers. The other ones made sense, but this one is just ridiculous.

After the commercial was over, I started thinking about what Chevrolet had forgotten to put in their advertisement. Maybe in the next version of the commercial, Chevrolet could include footage from the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination. Wouldn’t the Zapruder film fit in nicely? The icing on the cake could be the Rodney King video. (Oh, no, that wouldn’t work. Ford makes Crown Victorias.)

The truth is that so-called “patriotism” has become a mockery. When Chevrolet uses images of the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 in order to sell their cars, it’s gotten out of hand. The country has become so obsessed with waving American flags and singing corny songs about how great freedom is that we’ve forgotten what patriotism and freedom actually mean. It’s also served to brush aside the many problems that we still face today by painting a utopian vision of the country. Ain’t that America?

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

Our university is in a sad state of affairs. A brief perusal of any public space will show that Wash. U. is overpopulated. The student body has outgrown the facilities on campus, such that anyone unwilling or unable to wait fifteen minutes in line must go hungry. We are all equal contributors to the university’s population, though some are seemingly more entitled to be here than others; professors and researchers before students, and upperclassmen before underclassmen. Our facilities have only recently become inadequate, and it is the opinion of this author that the source of strain on the University lies in the ranks of the class of 2010.

As dedicated Student Life readers, surely we all know about “The Freshman Problem”: whereas WU expected 1,350 incoming students, they received 1,470. The superfluous 120 freshman can be found almost anywhere. Stop by the room that was yours before ResLife moved you to the Village; you’ll find one of the 120. Stand in line in Mallinckrodt; anyone in front of you that you don’t recognize is one of their number. Odds are good that today, you’ve already broken stride to avoid bumping into one of them. Their presence can be felt in your legs from your long walk to campus, in your stomach from not having time before class to buy a bagel, and in your eyes from the barrage of Res College T-shirts. Their presence is undeniable, but is it unmanageable?

The clear responsibility of the University is to expand, to provide more housing, classrooms and high-volume eateries. However, these changes are not likely to occur until half of the present undergraduate populated has graduated. So what can the estranged classes of 2007 and 2008 do to manage “The Freshman Problem?”

I have it on the authority of many former Bon App‚tit employees that an 18-year-old college student can make as nutritious a meal as most of the food Bon App‚tit has to offer. I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that the 120 superfluous freshmen should be reallocated from their courses of study to the courses of a meal. If we were right in determining these 120 as the source of strain, then this solution will relieve the strain two times over.

Let us suppose that each of these 120 weighs, on average, 125 pounds. Let us further suppose that, of those 125 pounds, roughly 95 pounds are edible material. This translates to roughly 11,400 pounds of food (and 120 fewer students around to consume it). The demand Bon App‚tit could meet with that sort of surplus is phenomenal; it would take WU students 76 days of Center Court brunch to waste that much food. The boon this would provide to our institution is undeniable.

There are those who might balk at my proposal; I urge those less progressive students to keep an open mind with regard to these changes. Many adamantly opposed the removal of Taco Bell Express from Mallinckrodt, and those same opposers now readily populate the line at the Asian Station. So, before you reject my proposal on grounds of culinary conservatism, realize that the Buffalo Freshman Wrap might well be your favorite dish next semester.

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