Student Life Archives

Scott Bressler

Construction is in full swing on the William H. and Elizabeth Gray Danforth Center, which is scheduled to be open in time for the fall 2008 semester.

Thursday, November 29

12:51 p.m. LARCENY-CHARLES F KNIGHT EXEC ED-Manager reported two of his personal credit cards stolen and used at area gas stations. Time of complaint November 28 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Disposition: Cleared by arrest.

2:12 p.m. FRAUD-FACILITIES-Facilities reports someone attempted to use a corporate credit card number issued to Facilities. The purchase was caught by the bank and was not completed. Disposition: Further investigation to follow.

Sunday, December 2

3:44 p.m. LOST ARTICLE-MALLINCKRODT CENTER-A student reported losing his wallet between purchasing tickets at the Edison Theater Box Office and the theater. Time of complaint December 1 7:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Disposition: Pending

Monday, December 3

3:03 p.m. ASSAULT-BRYAN HALL-Disturbance esculated into an assault while students were studying. Time of complaint November 28 1400 hours. Disposition: Pending

7:39 p.m. LARCENY-OLIN LIBRARY-Victim reported that person(s) unknown had stolen his checkbook from the Olin Library on November 8. Victim did not report it until his check were forged at area banks. Disposition: Pending

Tuesday, December 4

12:23 a.m. DRUG OFFENSE-UMRATH DORM-Students smoking marijuana in their dorm room. Disposition: Cleared, referred to JA.

5:23 a.m. AUTO ACCIDENT-SIMON-While patrolling inner campus, Officer struck the construction gate with the side mirror, damaging same. Disposition: Cleared.

8:58 a.m. LARCENY-SIMON HALL-Complainant reported finding a wristwatch which was later stolen from his office cube. Disposition: Pending.

Wednesday, December 5

8:53 a.m. LARCENY-STEINBERG ART GALLERY-A professor reported a laptop computer belonging to the Washington University Art School was stolen from his office in Steinberg Hall. Theft occurred between 0820 and 0835 hours this date. The laptop computer was valued at $2000. Disposition: Pending

3:31 p.m. FOUND PROPERTY-EADS HALL-Bicycle found locked to the handrail, blocking the entrance, was removed and confiscated for safekeeping. Disposition: Pending

Thursday, December 6

9:16 a.m. LARCENY-PARKING LOT 4-Bicycle seat stolen from the area of the Metrolink Station between December 3 at 6:00 p.m. and December 4 at 9:15 a.m. Value $30. Disposition: Pending

In celebration of the Chanukah holiday, the Jewish community at Washington University is turning the festival of lights into a festival of fun, with a charity casino night and an a cappella concert on the verge of exam week.

The casino night, jointly sponsored by the Jewish Student Union (JSU) and the St. Louis Hillel at the University, is being dubbed ChannuCASINO. The event will take place in the Holmes Lounge Monday night from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m.

ChannuCASINO will feature several traditional casino games, including poker, black jack and roulette, as well as free food and live music.

According to junior Margy Levinson, a coordinator of the event, in the past, the JSU and Hillel held Chanukah parties, but this year they decided to try something new.

“We decided to explore the area of casino-type games,” said Levinson. “In the spirit of the holidays, we’ve also made it a charity event.”

The entry fee for the event is five dollars and proceeds will benefit the Warm Neighbors program run by Ameren, a local energy company that provides power to more than 2.2 million people in Missouri and Illinois. All money donated to Warm Neighbors goes directly to helping those who cannot afford to pay their heating bills this winter.

Traditional Chanukah foods, including potato latkes, or fried potato cakes, and sufganiyot, or ball-shaped doughnuts with a jelly filling, will be served for free.

Levinson said that ChannuCASINO goers will be able to enjoy the food and casino games, all while listening to live music performed by on-campus music groups.

“We’ve tried to make it a classy event,” said Levinson. “The music is going to be mostly jazzy, and it will be kind of like soft, background music.”

Additionally, there will be an a cappella performance by Staam, the University’s premiere Jewish a cappella group. Known as Staamika Hanukkah, the concert will take place on Tuesday night, the final night of Chanukah, at Ursa’s Fireside from 9 to 11 p.m.

At the second Chanukah party, Staamika Hanukkah, Staam will feature its newest lineup of songs. Potatoes latkes and chocolate gelt, small chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil, will be served as well.

According to sophomore Jonathan Friedman, a member of Staam, the event is meant to provide an opportunity for students to relax during reading week and enjoy good music and food. The religious aspect of the holiday, he said, will be downplayed.

“It’s not really that much of a religious event so much as it is us performing and getting people to come out and eat some good food, listen to some good music and generally have a good time,” said Friedman.

This year, the event coincidentally fell on the final night of Chanukah.

“Normally we just like to do [the event] during one of the days of reading week, but it just so happened that the last night of Hanukkah fell when it did this year,” said Friedman.

Courtesy of SustainUS

After two weeks in Bali, Indonesia, Washington University junior Kelley Greenman remarked that what has most surprised her while working for sustainability abroad is the tactics of official United States delegates.

“We are trying to manipulate India and China in a way that will cause division within the conference and effectively slow and impede negotiations and progress,” said Greenman in an e-mail to Student Life.

Greenman, an environmental studies major, said that the United States is attempting to persuade the India and China to declare at the upcoming United Nations Conference on Climate Change that they will refuse to accept any binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases.

“This will cause the divisions with in the parties that is likely to impede progress at the negotiations,” said Greenman.

She is one of 22 delegates of SustainUS, a youth delegation of the internationally recognized SustainUS-Agents of Change program, which was implemented to encourage youth involvement in international policymaking and advocacy for a sustainable future.

Travelling with Greenman are a Rhodes Scholar, a Watson fellow and an elected official; among all of the young adults in the delegation, 13 languages are spoken.

For the last six months, the student delegates have been researching platforms and writing policy proposals to prepare for the conference.

Greenman arrived in Bali on November 30 to coordinate efforts with the other delegates and will remain there until the end of the conference on December 14.

The conference is particularly important for determining goals for post-2012, when the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period is over.

As of last Monday when Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the United States is the only industrialized country that has not yet ratified it.

In Bali, Greenman is focusing on adaptation, which includes actions that can be taken to prepare for future risks that will result from climate change. Last week, Greenman participated in a demonstrated on “emergency swim lessons.”

“Our message was that, as delegates, leaders must take action to mitigate the effects of climate change so that adaptation in the form of swimming lessons, which clearly isn’t an effective adaptation strategy, doesn’t need to take place,” said Greenman.

Greenman has had past experience in international policymaking.

She has traveled to Washington D.C. several times to present Climate Change Legislation to representatives and Senators.

In 2005, she attended the 11th Conference of the Parties in Montreal in 2005, as a part of an international youth caucus of over 100 youth from around the world. Greenman learned of the delegation in Bali through contacts from the conference in Montreal.

At the University, Greenman is a program leader for VERDE, an environmental education program through the Campus Y.

Some cringe, while others sigh in relief when they hear that all eight semesters will now be included in the calculus of Latin Honors.

Washington University has historically counted grades only through the seventh semester when deciding if a student receives honors and at what level.

After considering the change for nearly a year, all undergraduate schools and disciplines at the University will use grades from every semester to calculate the grade point average (GPA) of students pursuing honors-including those earned in the last semester. The change will apply to those graduating in May 2008.

According to Dean James McLeod, many at the University feel a student’s entire record should be taken into account when awarding honors. Supporters believe the change will benefit students by providing them with every possible chance to improve their standing.

“[The change] has been requested by a number of people-students, faculty, staff members and deans,” said McLeod.

GPA alone does not decide a student’s honors, as the student must also complete a honors thesis or project. However, the GPA arguably remains the most important factor.

A particular GPA is required to undertake most honors theses, and a student’s final average determines the type of honors for which he qualifies.

A high-quality thesis serves more to approve, rather than change, the level of honors determined by a student’s GPA. If a student qualifies only for cum laude, a stellar project will not change this to magna or summa cum laude.

Many students are relieved that their last semester will count towards their honors GPA. Those with fewer semesters under their belt, such as transfer students, may be among those who benefit the most.

The more grades a student accumulates, the less each weighs on his or her GPA.

Similarly, students with low grades in previous semesters will also benefit from the additional time. A student who temporarily explored a discipline difficult for him-such as a freshman on the pre-medical track-will have another chance to improve his GPAs before assignment of honors.

However, the decision, announced in the middle of the academic year, has caught some students by surprise. Many entered their senior year believing the fall to be the last semester in which grades matter. Some on the honors track registered for classes assuming their spring grades would not affect their honors standing and are now reconsidering which courses to take in their final semester.

Upon hearing that this change will apply to the anthropology department, senior Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld felt misled.

“This totally changes how I approach next semester, especially in terms of classes to take,” said Steinert-Threlkeld.

Ruth Poland, also a senior in Arts and Sciences said she had planned to audit some classes or take them as pass-fail, but is now reconsidering. She does not expect to expand her choice of classes as much.

“I think people won’t be able to branch out and audit classes,” said Poland. “Instead, they’ll take classes they can get a good grade in.”

Dean McLeod was asked why the decision was not announced at the beginning of the year, or held off until next fall to allow students to plan their year around the change

“If it’s a positive for the students, I would think that you’d want to do it as soon as you could,” responded McLeod.

The policy was considered and approved now at the time when the administration starts planning spring 2008 graduation.

Dean McLeod was not aware of any “outspoken opposition” to the adjustment. He admits, however, the challenge will be to successfully apply the change to different disciplines, saying the University must be “flexible enough to leave space for the different approaches” each department takes to implement the policy.

A nationwide study done by a Washington University medical student has shown a relationship between ethnicity and top-level success in medical school.

The study, which polled 2,395 medical students from 105 institutions, concluded that non-white students receive consistently lower grades in their final two years of medical school.

Students in those two years train through specialized clinical clerkships and are graded mostly subjectively by the physicians evaluating them on a daily basis-a stark contrast to the test-heavy first two years.

Never before has such a wide range of schools been surveyed on the topic, according to Katherine Lee, the study’s co-author and a fourth-year medical student.

“Across the board, a higher percentage of white students received the highest grade in every clerkship,” said Lee, who initiated this study after many of her minority friends felt slighted by the clerkship process. “Being an underrepresented minority was independently associated with receiving lower grades in all clerkships.”

In addition to polling students on their ethnicity, the study also evaluated them on a number of personality traits, such as assertiveness and reticence, in order to determine the complicated relationship between success in the clerkship, nationality and behavior.

Overall, the students who scored most assertive received the highest grades, while those more passive received lower marks. To Lee, these conclusions do not reflect a lower intelligence level among minorities, nor do they prove whites to be superior doctors.

Instead, the study is evidence that the medical education system does not account for the cultural differences that shape students’ personalities, said Lee.

“The data indicates that perhaps the medical school environment needs to be improved to facilitate the experience of the minority medical students,” said Lee. “It indicates that the medical community at large would benefit from better understanding different cultures.”

At most medicals schools, clerkships are a major determinant-up to 70%-of the final four-year grade point average.

“I’m a little surprised because the stereotype has always been that Asians always lead the class,” said Adam Luber, a junior who plans to go to medical school.

Luber does not see culture as a major issue in evaluating medical students.

“In the clerkship years, your grading is based on practice, and ultimately how well you can do the job,” he said.

In contrast, Rohit Parulkar, another junior who plans to attend medical school, sees both a cultural and generational divide in the medical community.

“It’s a disconnect between cultures,” said Parulkar. “The way you view yourself is different across cultures, and for Asian students, there’s a tendency to downplay how smart they are. There are different ways to approaching medicine, and one way isn’t more right than the other.”

Lee has traveled around the country to offer her findings as proof that minorities face unfair roadblocks in their final years of medical school-roadblocks that could ultimately derail their career paths. Lee even presented her work to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), attended by deans from every major national medical school.

Administrators were shocked to hear her conclusions, according to Lee.

“[As a doctor,] you need to understand that there are certain cultural traits that might be different from your own,” she said. “You have to evaluate how students perform, and not apply a value to personality traits. Who’s to say that a physician who listens is any worse off than a physician who makes small talk?”

While the study provides some of the first statistical proof to a long-believed inequality, Lee thinks more evidence will bring the issue to the forefront.

“I don’t think things will change rapidly. More data needs to come out to convince people,” said Lee. “But I think we are in a position right now to lay the groundwork for change.”

Scott Bressler

Exhorting students to step up to the environmental issues facing the current generation, Professor Richard Smith delivered his final lecture Friday afternoon to an overflowing lecture hall.

Speaking for just over 50 minutes to the final session of his Introduction to Human Evolution course, Smith discussed the future of human life on Earth, human impact on the environment and the moral imperative to change the environmental status quo.

“This is a special moment in time,” said Smith. “This is the first generation where we know we are destroying the habitat and that in 100 years the world will be very different from today.”

Next fall, Smith, who is currently the chair of the Department of Anthropology, will begin new duties as the dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

“After 30 years in the classroom, this Friday may be my last lecture,” said Smith in his class on Wednesday. “I’m more emotional than I thought I would be.”

Since Smith began teaching the course in the Fall of 1992, which offers students an introduction to physical anthropology, over 4,300 students have enrolled in his class. Many of those students, some of them now alumni and graduate students, returned to hear Smith’s final lecture, filling the aisles and overflowing into the hallway. Upon finishing, Smith received a standing ovation.

“I really hope that he changes his mind and chooses to teach again,” said sophomore Nikki Spencer. “[Human evolution] wasn’t a topic that was particularly interesting to me beforehand, but my suitemates and I have constantly been talking about it now.”

Smith’s last lecture examined the human influence upon the environment in a scientific context and suggested that life on earth will be radically different from that today unless people undertake serious change now.

Citing the rate of extinction, the growing problem of deforestation and a series of other ecological changes that have developed within the last century, Smith laid out a grim chain of events that could potentially befall the earth due to human causes.

“You are a witness to the end of the Cenozoic Era,” said Smith. “But this time its not happening because of an asteroid, its not happening because of a volcano, it’s happening because of human alteration to the environment.”

In his final remarks, Smith called upon University students-and all students at universities across the world-to take on the challenge of enacting change because of their unique position within society.

“Not only is it up to you, it’s up to you now and it’s up to you because you’re here,” said Smith. “The first thing you have to do is believe-and not the usual, self-deceptive ‘Yeah, I believe.’ I mean real believing. And when that happens you’ll get angry and no one will need to tell you what to do.”