Campus & City Campus Crime Logs
Still Better Than Twilight By Robin Ngai Daily Free Press Staff
The following reports were taken from the Boston University Police Department crime logs from Feb. 18 to Feb. 24. A female BU student was arrested for allegations of domestic violence Wednesday night at 3:36 a.m. at 277 Babcock St. The female, an international student, was placed under arrest for assaulting her boyfriend. Her boyfriend, also a BU student, allegedly sustained bumps, bruises and a bite mark but refused to be hospitalized. Hate mail Thursday at 11:47 a.m., a female student reported an offensive note at 90 Bay State Road. A male tenant wrote the note after the female student previously confronted him about noise. BUPD officials handed the issue over to the rental property owner. Blazin’ and blazes Students smoking marijuana set off a fire alarm at 3 Buswell St. Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. Boston Fire Department firefighters evacuated the building and no damage was done. No culprit is held responsible because there were no witnesses. Don’t touch me, I’m sterile BUPD officers assisted Brighton Police Department officers in issuing a restraining order to a student living at 277 Babcock St. Thursday at 6:30 p.m. The other party who filed a domestic no-contact orders is a non-affiliate. Like that scene in Home Alone Two non-affiliated high school students flooded a bathroom at 928 Comm. Ave. Friday at 2 p.m. They turned on water faucets to full blast in a School of Hospitality Administration men’s room, resulting in large amounts of flooding in the bathroom and to the carpeting outside. Although they were videotaped earlier selling candy on campus, the suspects have not been caught. Condom Fairy’s evil twin A student reported a harassing note left on her door at 277 Babcock St. on Saturday at 6:17 p.m. The note had crude words and a condom attached to it. BUPD officers are investigating the case. Benched Four students were found damaging a bench they claimed had already been broken Sunday at 3 a.m. An officer caught them throwing slabs of wood across Nickerson Field. In addition to being charged with malicious damage to property, three of the students were caught with falsified licenses. They will be summonsed to Brighton District Court for their hearings.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Gender Neutral BU seeks student support Mass., Colombia
forge relationship for science, tech.
By Kayla Canne Daily Free Press Contributor
As Boston University officials continue to consider implementing gender-neutral housing, Gender Neutral BU members set plans Monday night to engage the community in advocating for gender-neutral options on campus. “This semester GN BU has been talking about talking to the student body and getting everyone on board,” said GN BU member Rea Sowan. “People don’t really know what gender-neutral housing is. We need to reach out to them and tell them what it really is.” Members gathered at the Center for Gender, Sexuality and Activism Monday for the first of weekly meetings for GN BU. Participants planned to reach out to students and to work with administration officials in securing gender-neutral housing. Sowan, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said the group decided to begin focusing on student support when BU administration officials directed the Committee on Student Life and
By Clinton Nguyen Daily Free Press Staff
Policies to assess gender-neutral housing’s plausibility. “The administration has told us that they have delegated this to a committee, which we don’t know a lot about, but we do know that they are working on it,” Sowan said. “At this point, we have discussed and come to a consensus that we are comfortable that the administration is working on this.”
Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore, who is on the committee, said committee members are researching gender-neutral housing and are responsible for making recommendations to BU President Robert Brown. “We’ve had three meetings and we’re in the process now of drafting some recommendations for
ed by guidance counselors at their schools, according to the study. Students’ responses on where they wanted to enroll for college determined the schools’ rankings in the study. “This means that for our sample of high school graduating seniors we had information on the schools that accepted the students, and the school that the student selected from among those choices,” said Mark Glickman, BU School of Public Health professor and co-author of the study in an email. Glickman said the analysis has limitations because it was based on data collected from 2004 high school graduates. “The actual rankings may be out of date and not exactly relevant to 2013,” he said. “Also, the rankings have some uncertainty connected to them because they are based on a limited sample of comparisons.” Avery said BU’s desirability ranking would most likely increase if the data were made current. “Many colleges, including BU, have changed in selectivity since then,” he said. “The rankings would probably be considerably [higher] today if we had data and could use
the same methods for more recent student enrollment.” BU spokesman Colin Riley said the study’s results might be flawed based on how the researchers decided what is desirable. “The validity of any ranking depends on the methodologies and values ascribed by the individuals [who] do the ranking,” Riley said. “They are the ones who determine the weight of a particular variable and that is always a debatable point.” A number of BU students said they do not believe this ranking is worth consideration. College of Arts and Sciences freshman Sarah Blackwell said desirability is an unspecific term and undermines the value of the rankings. “How do you even determine what desirability is?” she said. “It’s subjective. I would think it would be more desirable because we were ranked seventh in employability [among colleges in the U.S. according to an October survey published by The New York Times].” Alex Michel, a CAS senior, said she did not consider rankings strong-
Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick and President Juan Manuel Santos Calderon of the Republic of Colombia signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday that will grant formal collaborations between the two entities in the areas of science, technology and innovation. “Massachusetts is a leader in the life sciences, clean energy and other innovation economy sectors,” Patrick said in a press release Wednesday. “In order to maintain that edge, we must position ourselves for success in growing markets, like Colombia, to drive job growth and catalyze international investment.” Santos said Massachusetts has the resources to aid Colombia in the fields of innovation and research. “I am aware of how important the innovation ecosystem, technology and research are to Massachusetts, and they are also important to Colombia. The state of Massachusetts has a lot to offer to Colombia and Colombia has much to offer to the United States and the state of Massachusetts,” he said in the release. The memorandum will build upon the free trade agreement that U.S. President Barack Obama signed in 2012, as well as the 10-year $1 billion Life Sciences Initiative enacted in 2008 by Patrick, according to the release. Bryan Jamele, vice president of government relations and policy at the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, said the memorandum provides a great opportunity for the Commonwealth to collaborate with an emergent economy. “[We need to be] making sure that we have that exposure point early on and that we start those discussions with the Colombian government ... so that we can identify the policies that we need ... to collaborate in a way that’s mutually beneficial for Massachusetts and Colombia,” he said. Jamele said Massachusetts’ and Colombia’s companies, research facilities and universities could collaborate on projects and share information.
Rankings, see page 4
Colombia, see page 4
SARAH SIEGEL/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
College of Fine Arts freshman Lennie Naughton and School of Management sophomore Fiona Chen deliberate how to inform the student body about General Neutral Housing at the GNH meeting Monday night at the Center For Gender, Sexuality and Activism.
GNH, see page 4
BU’s low ‘desirability’ ranking outdated, officials say By Lee Altman Daily Free Press Contributor
Boston University was ranked in the bottom 20 percent of schools surveyed on the basis of desirability, according to a new study. However, the study is dependent on old data and may not be representative of BU’s current reputation, said co-author and Harvard University professor Christopher Avery. “We ranked colleges in this study solely on the basis of choices by students who were admitted to multiple colleges,” he said. “We rank colleges based on the preferences indicated by students, with more preferred colleges getting higher rankings.” BU was ranked 90th out of 110 schools surveyed in desirability, according to the study released in the February issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. This position is almost 40 places lower than its U.S. News and World Report ranking of 51. The results were based entirely on student interpretation and opinion, Avery said. About 5,100 high school seniors were surveyed and were hand-select-
Two MIT professors given new $3 million life sciences award By Holly Bieler Daily Free Press Contributor
Two Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers were among the first recipients of the new Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Wednesday, a new philanthropic venture which rewards scientists with a $3 million prize for contributing research focused on curing intractable disease and elongating human life. Dr. Eric Lander, and Dr. Robert Weinberg were both recognized and given the prize. Lander is a leader in human genomics research and a founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Weinberg is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute of MIT, author of the seminal cancer textbook “The Biology of Cancer.” Lander and Weinberg were among 11 life scientists honored for their contributions and awarded $3 million.
Weinberg said he was shocked when he was notified of the award. “Everyone gets those e-mails [that say] you’ve just won $100 million, now just give us your bank account number,” he said. “That’s what I was thinking. But this one turned out to be true.” Phillip Sharp, an institute professor at MIT and a faculty member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology, said colleagues’ recognition is well deserved. “They’re both outstanding scientists,” he said. “Professor Weinberg continues to lead cancer research. His textbook on cancer is now used for teaching students around the world. He’s one of the intellectual leaders in cancer research. And Professor Lander has done just brilliant work analyzing the genetic complexity of many human diseases.” Both scientists have contributed major work to the field of life sci-
MIT, see page 4
CHRISTIANA MECCA/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
The president and founding director of the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Eric Lander, and associate member Robert Weinberg were among 11 winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.