AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE » SPRING 2012 » ISSUE 011
A YEAR AFTER THE VAWA PROTEST
STUDENT ACTION LEADS TO CHANGE + CONTRACEPTION & CONTEMPORARY POLITICS + STORIES FROM IMMIGRANT WORKERS + AWOL'S TRAVEL BLOG TEMPLATE WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2012
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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE » SPRING 2012 » ISSUE 011
MISSION: AWOL is a progressive magazine run by American University students in Washington, DC. Founded in the spring of 2008 with support from Campus Progress, we are a recognized publication of American University. We exist to ignite campus discussion of social, cultural and political issues, and serve as an outpost for students to explore solutions to local and global problems. We hope to build bridges between American University and the world around it, ultimately making our campus more inquiring, egalitarian and socially engaged.
“Serbelio's tale, as well as Adán's, is unique. However, both represent something greater than just themselves: a generation of young men, toiling day after day in the hope that their families, living in distant worlds, will be able to prosper.” - Jimmy Hoover, p. 15
Illustration by Hannah Karl
AWOL is not affiliated with any political party or ideology. Our stories have an angle, which is different from having an agenda; our reporting is impartial and fair, but our analysis is critical and argumentative.
EDITORS: EDITORS-IN-CHIEF: Alex Burchfield & Kelcie Pegher MANAGING EDITOR: Lori McCue DESIGN EDITOR: Hannah Karl STAFF EDITORS: Claire Dapkiewicz, Zac Deibel, Ashley Dejean, Meridian Ganz-Ratzat, Joe Gruenbaum, Shaina Lipsy
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DESIGNERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, ILLUSTRATORS: Carolyn Becker, Aaron Berkovich
WRITERS: Allison Butler, Eleanor Greene, Jimmy Hoover, Taylor Kenkel, Ean Marshall, Ethan Miller
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SUPPORT // AFFILIATIONS
CAMPUS PROGRESS AWOL is published with support from Campus Progress / Center for American Progress (online at CampusProgress.org) and the support of AU Student Activities. Campus Progress funds, trains and mentors students running a diverse and growing group of progressive campus media organizations. Grants and assistance can help you build and maintain a web site, expand print runs and promote your organization on campus. For more, visit CampusProgress.org/publications.
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FIELD REPORTS
JABS AND JEST
03 JAN BREWHAHA ARIZONA GOVERNOR DRAWS STUDENT PROTEST
09 A YEAR AFTER THE VAWA PROTEST STUDENT ACTION LEADS TO CHANGE
21 PROFESSOR PROFILE SALLY SHELTON-COLBY
by Allison Butler Activity from America's most political campus
04 THE ADJUNCTS STRIKE BACK AU'S LOWEST-PAID FACULTY UNIONIZE by Ethan Miller Collectivization among part-time professors
05 A HARD PILL TO SWALLOW CONTRACEPTION & CONTEMPORARY POLITICS by Kelcie Pegher Birth control—the new abortion?
07 IT'S SHOWTIME! AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE AVALON THEATER by Eleanor Greene Encouraging DC moviegoers to look local
08 CRACKING DOWN ON LIGHTING UP AU CONSIDERS ANTI-SMOKING MEASURES by Taylor Kenkel A feature from our blog
by Ashley Dejean
by Ashley Dejean & Lori McCue
What AU has done without a $300,000 grant
Vodka and Reagan: the life of a diplomat
14 BEHIND THE COUNTER STORIES FROM IMMIGRANT WORKERS by Jimmy Hoover Little El Salvador at Petit Plats
16 PHOTO ESSAY LOOKING AT LIFE IN LHASA by Shaina Lipsy & Aaron Berkovich Looking at modern-day Tibet
23 AWOL NEWSWIRE by AWOL staff Editors’ choice news cuts
25 "MUSEUM CITY'S" LESS POPULAR ATTRACTIONS A SURVEY OF NON-SMITHSONIAN SITES by Ean Marshall History off the beaten path
26 GREETINGS FROM ABROAD! AWOL'S TRAVEL BLOG TEMPLATE by Zac Deibel & Claire Dapkiewicz Choose your own [exciting • elitist • condescending] adventure!
SHOUTS FROM THE CORNER
Informed opinion and provocative editorial
JAN BREWHAHA
ARIZONA GOVERNOR DRAWS STUDENT PROTEST By Allison Butler // Illustration by Carolyn Becker
On Feb. 24, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer entered MGC 4 and started speaking at 5:55 p.m. Twenty minutes later, we got more than we bargained for, or less, depending on who you ask. Over 100 students turned out to the event sponsored by AU College Republicans. Brewer opened her speech with thanks to AUCR, the audience, and the AU community for inviting her, calling AU the “best university in the country.” From the outset the room felt emotionally charged, both with excitement and displeasure. Brewer signed the Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (SB 1070), the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act into law on April 23, 2010. The law requires aliens to carry documentation of their immigration status and encourages law enforcement officers to ask for individuals’ immigration status when they are stopped, detained or arrested. Opponents of the law argue that it sanctions racial profiling and treats those of Latin American descent as second class citizens. Protests also directed their attacks on a later law banning ethnic studies on the grounds that they would incite hatred in schools.
inspire you.” Unfortunately, Brewer was unaware that conservatives made up the minority of the audience. The speech portion ended and the event quickly moved into a question and answer session. Nick Linsmayer asked the first question, but before Brewer could answer almost 30 people were on their feet and yelling “mic check,” calling for a disruption of the event. “A surreal scene ensued when near pandemonium took over after Jan Brewer started to address my question,” Linsmayer said. Protesters yelled, “The people, united, will never be defeated,” and carried signs with messages such as “My history is NOT inferior.” Supporters in the room reacted quickly with rallied responses of “U.S.A! U.S.A!” One
"The AUCR's will never end our commitment to bringing high-profile conservative speakers to campus, simply because a handful of students decided to disrupt one of our high-profile events."
Brewer’s speech certainly played to a conservative audience, with jokes about both parties and casual mentions of issues and policies. Brewer was engaged and conversational. She gave students advice, such as “What’s right won’t be easy” and “Never abandon the dreams that protestor was removed from the room by Public Safety, while other officers, as well as Brewer’s personal security, escorted her from the room, with several members of AUCR trailing behind. The AUCR apologized to Brewer as she left the building while the protest moved to the steps of MGC. Chanting and further mic checking continued outside while other protesters lowered a banner over MGC denouncing SB1070. Other attendants of the event sat in shock and anger in MGC. The protest started in the blink of an eye, catching most people off guard. By 6:25 the group was back inside the doors of MGC and still chanting. Chants ranged from “Hey, hey, ho, ho, racism has got to go,” to “Jan Brewer, escucha, estamos en la lucha,” (Jan Brewer, listen, we are in the fight), to “Jan Brewer, go away, racist, fascist, anti-gay.” Onlookers’ feelings seemed mixed, most silently watching events unfold or taking cell phone pictures. One student shouted at the protesters, “No hablais English?” in reference to Spanish chants. The protest inspired several waves of controversy on campus, which spread from print publications like The Eagle to individual students’ Facebook profiles, and culminating in the resignation of College Democrats President Chris Litchfield. The Eagle published 10 opinion pieces in the weeks following, covering both sides of the argument and publishing a response from the Executive Board of AUCR. In a Facebook poll with 273 voters, nearly
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64 percent of people believed it to be an unacceptable form of protest, while 30 percent approved of the action.
IN DEFENSE OF COLLEGE REPUBLICANS Most of the backlash centered on the timing and nature of the protest. The protest started while Brewer was still speaking, even though the event had moved to the question section. Nick Linsmayer and others had genuine questions they were not able to ask. Some students say free speech was squelched because participants could not engage in dialogue with Brewer. The AUCRs had a right to engage with a speaker they brought on campus. Brewer was on campus for less than half an hour, from her energetic entrance to her untimely exit. “The AUCR's will never end our commitment to bringing high-profile conservative speakers to campus, simply because a handful of students decided to disrupt one of our high-profile events,” said Chandler Thornton, a freshman representative for AUCR.
IN DEFENSE OF THE LOUDEST VOICES Others find the action fairly reasonable. “SB 1070 degrades an entire group of people and codifies white privilege,” Matthew Metcalf wrote in a contribution to The Eagle. Protestors say they allowed Brewer time to speak, only interrupting the questions, not the speech. They felt compelled to draw attention to the controversial policies in Arizona. One protester said he was amazed she was even allowed on a campus that prides itself on social justice. In fact, the Community Action and Social Justice Coalition publicly supported the protesters. The protesters, who were of many racial and ethnic backgrounds, cite ongoing discriminatory and racist laws in Arizona, many of which were signed by Brewer, as grounds for the protest. “We do not want a racist bigot speaking on campus,” said Andrea Gonzalez, a freshman who protested the event. On both sides of the issue, people got hurt. Latin Americans in Arizona are hurt by the targeted policies of the state and AU students were hurt because their event was disrupted. Regrettably, Jan Brewer was hurt, and, equally regrettably, her policies hurt people. Unfortunately it’s a lose-lose situation. We need to move away from examining the action on an esoteric, moral level and realize that people were passionate enough to stand up and others were passionate enough to be upset about it. However, the Student Code of Conduct does define “intentionally or recklessly interfering with normal university or university sponsored activities” a prohibited activity. A group of students protested AUCR's more recent event with Texas Governor Rick Perry, but these protesters chose to stand outside the building rather than mic check from the audience. There was little-to-no backlash from that action, but it also garnered less attention on campus. A protester who attended both events said that reasonably, they could only stand up in the audience a few times before it would lose its effect. Perhaps, pushing the limits is the price you must pay to get your voice heard in AU’s highly charged political environment. •
ADJUNCTS STRIKE BACK
AU'S LOWEST-PAID FACULTY UNIONIZE By Ethan Miller
Adjunct professors at American University succeeded this semester in their nearly year-long effort to unionize as a collective group. Though organization efforts began in fall 2010, organizing stepped up in 2011, when Service Employees International Union dedicated support, publicity, and financial resources to the campaign. The aid was a much-needed springboard for the movement, as adjuncts’ schedules made large-scale organization difficult. Adjuncts often met in each other’s homes and connected via on-campus networks in order to spread the word. With more than 1,600 eligible voters, many of whom no longer teach at the university, the vote came in 379-284, a victory for professors who have been struggling with low pay, no benefits, and no job security. Through the initiative, AU adjuncts became the third school in the DC area to join the Service Employees Local 500, in addition to George Washington University and Montgomery County Community College. Several student groups and leaders rose in support for the unionization efforts. As part of the Student Worker Alliance, Ethan Miller, author of this article, produced a video where AUSG President Tim McBride endorsed adjunct unionization. The SWA on campus collected over 200 signatures from students and presented the petitions, together with a letter of support, to every department head, the deans of each school and University Provost Scott Bass. Students also held two flashmobs in the week leading up to the vote count, culminating in a demonstration in the provost’s office. Questions arose whether an increase in adjunct salaries would result in tuition hikes. However, even if adjunct pay doubled, it would still make up less than three percent of the university budget. After the vote, AU administrators agreed to recognize the union and not
Through the initiative, AU adjuncts became the third school in the DC area to join the Service Employees Local 500 in addition to George Washington University and Montgomery County Community College.
Allison Butler is a freshman studying journalism and political science. WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2012
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SHOUTS FROM THE CORNER
Informed opinion and provocative editorial
of Contingent Academic Labor and the Modern Language Association, all focusing on uniting contingent faculty.
Photo from usas.org Students for adjunct unionization hold up protest signs.
challenge the election results, alleviating supporters’ concerns over AU’s potential reactions. Other unionization efforts on campus have encountered far more obstacles. In 2007, the University contested shuttle bus drivers’ efforts to join Teamsters local 922 through extensive legal proceedings. Despite this, shuttle drivers unionized. But in 1996 the university successfully employed suspect tactics to prevent operating engineers from collectivizing. Other workers have unionized successfully, such as janitorial staff and food service staff, personnel employed through Aramark and Bon Appétit, respectively. While many colleges, especially public institutions, find themselves in a financial bind, American does not. The budget for fiscal year 2012 projects a roughly fifteen percent growth in expenditures when compared to the budget for fiscal year 2011 of $479,200,000. And while the overall budget for adjunct salaries has also grown slightly in the last few years, the hiring of additional adjunct faculty has outpaced such improvements. Salaries for part-time faculty make up less than two percent of the total university budget, while salaries for the top five highest-paid administration figures have soared in the last five years to near $3 million combined. Full-time tenured professors make up to $156,100 a year. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, more than forty percent of the professors at AU are adjuncts. Many adjuncts at the university are paid as little as $2,000 per course, receive no health benefits, and retain little job security. However, motivations for collectivization were not simply financial. Many adjuncts feel isolated from the university community. Erik Cooke, an adjunct in the Philosophy and Religion Department, said adjuncts “often feel very marginal to the conversation.” Part-timers, until recently, had held no positions within the Faculty Senate or any other university governance structures. Adjuncts across the country face difficulties similar to our adjunct professors. A 2010 study on the conditions faced by part-time faculty at two-year and four-year institutions, published by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), reported that only 28 percent of adjuncts receive health benefits through their colleges and onethird receive less than $2,500 per course. Almost half say they make less than $15,000 annually from teaching. These conditions have led many to challenge their status through organizations like the New Faculty Majority Foundation, the Coalition
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Years ago, the majority of adjunct professors were professionals who taught on the side, a short-term arrangement where teaching was not their primary income. But with full-time, tenure-track positions at colleges and universities increasingly rare, many newly minted PhDs are going straight from graduate school to teaching as adjuncts. Because of this, adjuncts remain qualified, valuable faculty members who receive the short end of the financial stick. Hopefully, unionization will afford adjunct professors the compensation they are undoubtedly due. Anne McLeer, Director of Research and Strategic Planning for SEIU Local 500, said that by voting to unionize, “American University adjuncts are now joining the many adjunct and contingent faculties across the country who are refusing to allow themselves to be treated as a second tier.” •
Ethan Miller is a junior studying economics and an organizer with the Student Worker Alliance.
A HARD PILL TO SWALLOW
CONTRACEPTION & CONTEMPORARY POLITICS By Kelcie Pegher
While the country revved up for another economy-driven election, something unexpected happened: contraception stole the spotlight from abortion as the center of the social conservative agenda. This is odd, because the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that focuses on research for sexual and reproductive health, estimates virtually 99 percent of women use some form of contraception over the course of their reproductive years. According to Jessica Waters, assistant professor at American University in Justice, Law and Society, contraception is becoming a state issue largely because of the Affordable Health Care Act and the upcoming election. “I think some of this is part of the primary season," Waters said. "When we have Republican candidates playing to the right and playing to their most conservative base and you have a couple of Republican candidates willing to take that stance…that's part of it. Part of it is just politicking.” Additionally, states have been introducing fetal personhood mea-
sures, which would codify the fetus as a person. “They propose initiatives that are written so broadly that there are questions as to what they should cover,” Waters explained, saying with attempts to define what a fetus is, “We’re seeing other things get swallowed up. I think that’s purposeful.” Such a measure was passed in Oklahoma this year, and similar measures have been rejected in Virginia and Mississippi. Elizabeth
“They propose initiatives that are written so broadly that there are questions as to what they should cover. We’re seeing other things get swallowed up. I think that’s purposeful.”
Nash, the state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, argued the fight for contraception has already become a state issue because of these fetal personhood measures. She rattled off a list of states that have become particularly unfriendly to the right to choose. “Kansas, Nebraska, Arizona, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Indiana, and now Mississippi, Utah and Virginia,” Nash laughed. “Okay, there’s half the country.” Last year saw a record 92 provisions in state laws that restrict abortion, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute. The locations are noteworthy because in most states Republicans gained power of state governments in 2010. “What does seem clear is those who oppose reproductive health have clear conservatives at the state level and they have a lot of success. Now they’re turning their sights on family planning,” Nash said. In the 2008 election, abortion continued to be the centeral social issue, but contraception was not. In 2006, former Governor Sarah Palin said, “I'm pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues." In the 2008 election, Palin amended her statement to say she believed in abstinence only education, but to offer alternative solutions as well. Because of the Affordable Health Care Act, contraception will continue to be an issue in the 2012 election. Waters explained this election has shifted into a debate about health care reform as a whole. “People may not understand the intricacies of health care reform," Waters said. "They understand ‘I have sex and if I have sex and it's unprotected, I might have a baby.’ People have views on that. So they're sound-bite issues, they're easy issues, they're hot button issues and they're ones you can play to your base.” According to Waters, the comments from the past few months are not new. In February, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee met to discuss the Obama administration’s controversial decision to require employers to provide birth control to employees. The panel was all-male, which brought harsh criticism from the feminist community. A woman named Sandra Fluke was unable to
speak because her testimony was not submitted on time. When she was invited back to speak, she became a scapegoat for slutty college students everywhere. Conservative radio sensation Rush Limbaugh said of Fluke on his radio show, “She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps.” Limbaugh’s show has lost 140 advertisers since he first made those comments. Many other Republican commentators have denounced the use of birth control, demonizing contraception as just as harmful as abortion. Besides a complete lack of knowledge about how to use birth control (hint: it’s not like a condom—you don’t take it every time you have sex), the language is problematic because it could restrict women under the poverty line from knowing about contraception. “Do I think we're going to see something where there's an outright ban on birth control? No. Do I think that we will see continued efforts on who has access to it, particularly for low income women? Yes,” Waters said. •
Kelcie Pegher is a senior studying print journalism.
WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2012
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SHOUTS FROM THE CORNER
Informed opinion and provocative editorial
IT’S SHOWTIME!
AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE AVALON THEATRE By Eleanor Greene // Illustration by Hannah Karl
Stepping back into the roaring 20s isn’t just for Woody Allen movies anymore. After a short bus ride from campus and a shorter trek along the Maryland border, any AU student can easily reach the Avalon Theatre. Nestled among the store fronts, the the theater’s name glows bright red on the vertical sign hanging from its prominent façade. The gold awning, framed with classic incandescent light bulbs, leads to the glass-encased ticket booth, which offers tickets to students at the price of nine dollars. The ticket prices were probably lower when the charming theater first opened its doors, under the name Chevy Chase Theater, in 1923, but the increase is a small price to pay to feel like a part of history. The Avalon originally opened with a single screen and pipe organ for silent films, but was updated for sound capabilities in 1929. On a wall upstairs, the Avalon pays homage to the community of theaters it used to be a part of, displaying pictures of each single screen movie house with summaries of their lifespan. Most of these theaters that opened as early as 1907, amid the heyday of silent films, are now closed—all except the Avalon, which narrowly escaped use as a retail space after its commercial closing in 2001. Due to an enthusiastic campaign by local moviegoers, the Avalon was revived as a non-profit movie theater, kept alive today by contributions from the community and an annual fundraiser. The Avalon, which opened its doors in a time when neighborhood theaters were the norm, is now a relic among the theaters in Washington, the rest of which are all part of national or regional chains: AMC Loews, Regal and Landmark. Chevy Chase was not the only nearby suburban neighborhood to have its own movie theater. In fact, the Apex used to stand on Massachusetts Avenue in the Spring Valley neighborhood. It stood from 1940 to 1976 when it was closed and torn down to make an office building. Now, American University’s Washington College of Law stands in the location where the Apex Theatre once stood. It is an unfortunate fact of modern life—independent movie theaters are a dying breed. According to the National Association of Theatre Owners, the past ten years have seen an increase from 27,000 to 38,000 screens in the country, along with a drop from 7,000 to 5,500 movie theaters to house those screens. In short, multiplexes are getting bigger, and tiny establishments that can’t compete are falling by the wayside. Bill Oberdorfer is the Executive Director of the Avalon Theatre Project, and is not embarrassed that the theater’s greatest accomplishment is “keeping our head afloat.” In face of the theater’s biggest challenge, movie acquisition, even this minor accomplishment is a feat. The struggle against “clearing” of movie theaters is one that Oberdorfer is all too familiar with.
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When national independent theater chains, such as the Landmark group, specialize in independent films, they promise to show certain films at all of their locations. But if the company that owns the film rights offers the rights to a nearby independent location (like the Avalon), the chain may threaten to pull it from all of its screens. The film companies, of course, would like to show their film in more locations, so their loyalty to the chain effectively clears the surrounding geographic zones of that film. The Avalon couldn’t acquire the rights to Academy Award Winning film The Artist, a silent picture that would have surely filled the 428 seats in the Avalon for weeks. Oberdorfer says this clearing process often leaves the Avalon out in the cold. Either small-project indie movies or well-known popular films dominate the selection, and the venue loses its personal touch. The Avalon isn’t so interested in the male 20-35 demographic that wide release films often cater to; their audience tends to have an older skew—from the art house audience, to local families who bring along children. If the Avalon is not on many students' radar, it might be because the theater doesn’t have the funds for advertising—it depends on the continued business of patrons more than it does on new or one-time customers. The Avalon doesn’t devote much attention to the AU student demographic, a community that is only a half hour away by bus and foot. If students do watch a movie “they may be watching it on Netflix for all I know,” says Oberdorfer. And of course, most students are watching movies on Netflix, pirated, from the library, or at the multiplexes downtown. But there’s something to be said for going to the Avalon to see a movie. Fairly low ticket prices, homemade ice cream in the concessions café (Appley Ever After is a current flavor), and embassy-funded foreign films offer community members and students what other movie-going experiences cannot. The Avalon's authentic 1920s sophistication makes the theater well worth a trip. •
Eleanor Greene is a freshman studying print journalism.
CRACKING DOWN ON LIGHTING UP
AU CONSIDERS ANTISMOKING MEASURES By Taylor Kenkel
More than 600 colleges in the United States ban smokers from lighting up on university grounds—and some administrators and members of the student body think AU should become a smoke-free campus as well. The thorny issue of students smoking on campus is not unfamiliar territory for the administration. The school banned lighting up in the Tavern way back in 1998 (wait, you mean people used to smoke inside?) and stomped out smoking in and around residence halls back in 2003. The prospect of a campus without cigarettes has faded in and out of debate since 2007. AU came close to a smoking ban in 2008, when a bill to enact new guidelines on limiting smoking on campus made its way before Student Government; the bill passed the senate despite a veto from SG President Joe Vidulich. As the kerfuffle over smoking shuffled through SG, the University President’s council began investigating the feasibility of a campus smoking ban. When confronted with the issue in 2008, University President Neil Kerwin expressed cautious disagreement with both the limits of the bill and the prospect of a ban, instead opting to begin a more passive courtesy campaign and implementing smoking cessation programs. SOC Professor W. Joseph Campbell served on the President’s Council when they considered the possibility of the ban four years ago and said he was disappointed when the effort did not result in a smokefree campus policy. “It’s clear that it would take a concerted effort to get it done,” Campbell said of the current effort to ban smoking on campus. As a selfdescribed “reformed smoker” who gave up the habit several years ago, Campbell cited the health issues, financial expenses and the unsightly nature of smoking as the main reasons for his support of a campus-wide ban. Campbell indicated that phasing the regulation in over the course of a few years might make a ban easier to swallow, saying he hopes the University decides to take a firmer stance on the issue as the debate picks back up again. Gary Weaver, a professor in SIS, takes a different stance on the prospect of a smoking ban. Although Weaver kicked the habit 20 years ago and is not a fan of smoking, he does not think an all-out ban is the best idea. “When I was a smoker, I always resented the self-righteous fanatics who believed it was their personal responsibility to stop me from smoking,” Weaver wrote when contacted, underscoring the main source of tension in the debate. He also pointed out that AU attracts a number of individuals— including faculty, staff and students—from cultures where smoking
is common and questioned if the university should necessarily require them to “give it up” upon arrival.
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Just to clarify: I don’t smoke and don’t plan on picking up the habit any time soon. I oppose smoking for health, environmental and animal rights reasons (cigarettes are still tested on animals, after all). I become annoyed when I walk out of a building and into a cloud of smoke and disheartened by all the cigarette butts littering the sidewalks and garden areas around campus. These irksome experiences, though, largely result from the irresponsibility of individual smokers— and warrant more of an emphasis on the personal responsibilities and courtesies associated with those electing to smoke. Making AU smoke-free does seem to mesh with campus sustainability and health goals. Banning smoking would certainly prevent piles of cigarettes from littering the quad—an especially offensive reality, considering the role the campus plays as an arboretum, but a number of more realistic avenues for limiting the harmful impact of smoking and encouraging personal responsibility already exist and could easily be enforced. Taking more of a middle road in promoting environmental stewardship and personal health—including stricter enforcement of existing smoking policies or relegating smoking to only select areas of the campus—could
“When I was a smoker, I always resented the selfrighteous fanatics who believed it was their personal responsibility to stop me from smoking.”
help alleviate the constant haze of secondhand smoke surrounding campus buildings and lessen the number of smoldering cigarettes on walkways without infringing on the choice to smoke. Greater promotion of smoking cessation programs or provision of discounted nicotine patches, gum or other over-the-counter treatment to any student who voluntarily commits to a smoking cessation program could provide encouragement for students to quit smoking. An education campaign on the health effects of smoking and of secondhand smoke could heighten awareness of the issue as well. Of course, a middle-of-the-road approach is precisely what President Kerwin favored during the last round of smoking ban debates in order to limit the effects of smoking on campus—and neither the cigarette litter nor the disregard of smoke-free zones provide evidence that the current policy works. Before lighting a blaze of controversy by hastily enacting a blanket ban, let’s hope a more serious discussion between smokers and nonsmokers about rights and responsibilities takes place and a reasonable solution emerges before the issue is left to smolder, fading in an unresolved haze. •
Taylor Kenkel is a junior studying print journalism.
WWW.AWOLAU.ORG » SPRING 2012
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FIELD REPORTS
In-depth examination of the issues that matter
A YEAR AFTER THE VAWA PROTEST
STUDENT ACTION LEADS TO CHANGE Words & Photos by Ashley Dejean // Illustration by Hannah Karl & Carolyn Becker
“I think with these sexual assault education programs, what we can prevent is a scared girl lying under someone and trying to convince him what he’s doing is illegal.” These words echoed through the megaphone and onto the American University quad as Nicole Wisler relived her experience as that scared girl. She and many others were protesting the university’s decision to pass up a grant application that could have provided $300,000 to address domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. Wisler's story illustrated the need for such programs. She explained that while the student who assaulted her understood the most basic definition of rape, “it’s rape if she doesn’t say yes,” he didn’t know the full meaning of the word or its implications. “He used all kinds of force and very coercive measures to try to convince me to say yes because he thought that this would equal consent, even if it was out of fear for my own safety,” Wisler said.
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After saying no and pushing back, she explained to him that if he had sex with her, it wouldn’t be consensual. If he had sex with her, she would take action against him. He continued to pursue her, but finally stopped. Wisler believes he realized she was being serious —it finally sunk in that his actions fell under the definition of sexual assault. Wisler’s story is only one of many. It’s estimated that about 1 in 4 college students are raped or are survivors of attempted rape. According to the 2008 Core Alcohol and Drug Survey, 6.8 percent of AU students—a number that rounds to about 400—experienced “forced sexual touching or fondling.” And 4.1 percent—roughly 200—experienced “unwanted sexual intercourse” in the previous year. The survey, administered to 37 classes, claims to represent the undergraduate student body in terms of “gender, racial and ethnic composition, and class status.” Next year, the survey will be conducted again. On that chilly March day last year, protesting students occupied
the quad before marching to confront Gail Hanson, Vice President of the Office of Campus Life. Hanson had refused to sign the application for the Campus Grant funded by the Office of Violence Against Women (OVA), a component of the Department of Justice. Without her signature, AU would not be considered for the funding. Hanson said that other university officials higher up than her, like University President Neil Kerwin, had concerns about the grant— namely that it would require mandatory sexual assault education and failure to take part in the education would result in a stop on the student’s account. Thus, the application students had been working on for months, keeping university officials like Hanson in the loop through the entire process, never made it to the Department of Justice. Campus Grants were eventually awarded to 26 universities, totaling $7,231,923. Many of these grants were given to universities with a significantly more conservative culture than AU, yet these university’s gave the necessary approval. As previously reported by AWOL, students provided Hanson with an alternative document to sign, asking for her to guarantee that the university would meet major goals outlined in the Campus Grant application with university funds. After editing it heftily, she signed the bottom fifth of the document. Hanson did not make any firm commitments; however, she did agree to meet with students in a forum “if possible.”
A RECENT HISTORY OF SEXUAL ASSAULT CONTROVERSY AT AU During the 2009-2010 school year, The Eagle received some fairly bad press for two contentious articles regarding sexual assault. These articles ignited a discussion about sexual assault on AU’s campus. A column entitled, “‘Sex’-perimentation defines Welcome Week” described The Eagle’s perspective of a drunken hook-up, but Women’s Initiative said the scenario “normalize[d] sexual assault” and Students for Choice said the article described “an explicit rape.” It’s three in the morning. You have it inside you right now. It kind of hurts. You’ve had one too many cups of jungle juice. You think his name is Andrew, but you’re not really sure. You thought you would never be that girl, but there you are, in your drunken haze. The rest of the article continued to explain that the girl should not consider this boy to be relationship material or feel guilty about her “drunken romp” because “everyone does it.” An editorial in response to the article's controversy described the outrage as “confusing.” Rob Hradsky, Dean of Students, then gave AU students a quick lesson on the university’s sexual assault policy in a Letter to the Editor. He explained that “sexual assault is a more accurate description of this scenario” than a “drunken hook-up.” Put simply, if someone is under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, as the article portrayed, they cannot give consent. If both parties can’t give consent, any sexual activity can be defined as sexual assault. Fast-forward to March 2010, almost exactly a year before the VAWA grant protest, when AU found itself in the national spotlight, thanks to Alex Knepper’s column in The Eagle. In “Dealing with AU’s anti-sex brigade.” Knepper described date rape “as an incoherent
The application students had been working on for months, keeping university officials like Hanson in the loop through the entire process, never made it to the Department of Justice. concept” and stated that if a girl gets drunk at a frat party and goes home with a guy, she’s asking for it. Let’s get this straight: any woman who heads to an EI party as an anonymous onlooker, drinks five cups of the jungle juice, and walks back to a boy’s room with him is indicating that she wants sex, OK? To cry “date rape” after you sober up the next morning and regret the incident is the equivalent of putting a gun to someone’s head and then later claiming that you didn’t ever actually intend to pull the trigger. The rest of the article's tone was equally antagonistic and provocative. The column sparked an outcry that received national attention, prompting The Eagle staff to apologize for publishing the article and to revise its editorial policies. Needless to say, the controversy surrounding both articles and the discussions they stirred revealed a lack of understanding in the campus community, suggesting a need for an increase in sexual assault and rape education.
STUDENT EFFORTS AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT Student efforts to address issues surrounding consensual sex and sexual assault started long before last year's protest. In fact, since 2004, AU students have participated in Take Back the Night, an international event aimed at ending sexual violence. Last year, Anna Sebastian was so moved by the event she became one of the planners. “I attended Take Back the Night last year as a freshman and was incredibly moved by the experience,” Sebastian wrote in an email. “I found solace in the community created within that space and I can honestly say it was a life-changing event for me. I looked into get more involved with it almost immediately afterward.” The event, held on April 9, was among several others in observance of Sexual Assault Awareness month. Another effort students have been working on is the Clothesline Project. For this, statistics, testimonials and moving messages are written on t-shirts and displayed around campus. Carmen Rios, the current director of Women's Initiative, created the (con)sensual campaign in 2009, which “works to create safe spaces for dialogue on consent, educate college students about consent and their sexual rights, and encourage young people to integrate consent into their sexual practices.”
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I AM
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STOP THE
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LOVE SHOULD NOT HURT
University officials have been working towards including a Sexual Assault Education component in next year's orientation. Exactly what that will look like is unclear. “I can say that in terms of more, we absolutely intend for sexual assault to have its own piece of orientation,” Rappaport said. “We’re still looking around to try to make what we feel is the best choice for right now and doing the best that we can under the circumstances, but it’s not going to be a five minutes sort of deal. It’ll be it’s own piece of orientation. I’d like for it to be an hour.” AlcoholEdu has included a br ief section dealing with sexual assault for the past three years.
Nefertiti Abeja is directing the campaign this year and is currently working on making it more relevant and applicable to AU's student population. She’s also been working to make the campaign more inclusive.
Rappaport fairly notes that, “considering it being the circumstance of an online education piece, it was pretty good for what it was worth. Do I think that that is all of the education students should receive coming in? Absolutely not.”
“We’ve been focusing on queering consensual because when it first started, this was never intentional, but it always tended to take this very heteronormative spin,” Abeja said. “You know, girl at a party, possible male attacker, and so it’s kind of addressing consent in queer relationships.”
Gail Hanson is also on board and agrees that educating students in their first year is important. She has concerns, however, about guaran-
SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION & RESOURCES FOR SURVIVORS AT AU Although AU still is not applying for the Campus Grant this year, the protest did not fall on deaf ears. The university has made significant progress in addressing sexual assault issues. Before the end of the semester of the protest, the part-time sexual assault health educator position became a full-time position renamed Sexual Assault Prevention Coordinator. On November 1, Daniel Rappaport, AU’s Sexual Assault Prevention Coordinator, and Courtney Brooks, coordinator of the Women’s Resource Center, became victim advocates for students. In this position, they are not required to report instances of sexual assault. Students who seek their support have complete confidentiality. “Our responsibility is to meet with [students] as many times as they want, as frequently as they want," Brooks said. "We can accompany them through the legal and judicial process, we can go with them to get off campus resources. The whole point of having a confidential advocate is so they don’t have to go through the process alone, they don’t have to have these conversations alone, they don’t have to figure out where to go. Our job is not to put them in one direction, but to present options and support them through that no matter what.” Even statistics reporting how many students approach them with instances of sexual assault are confidential. Anna Sebastian, codirector of Women’s Initiative Stopping Violence Against Women, says this is a step forward for the community. “The university has definitely made progress regarding their sexual assault policies since last year,” Sebastian explained. “It appears that a sexual assault education component will be included in the new student programming for the upcoming class. This is a wonderful step forward, but, at the same time, to think that we did not have this before is a humbling factor to this victory.”
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teeing the program's effectiveness and students' information retention. “When you get to the last session, I say it’s like drinking out of a firehose,” she said. “You’re blown back from all the stuff. Imagine tucking into that thirty minutes, an hour on sexual assault that focuses on what defines sexual assault, what constitutes consent and maybe something on bystander information. That’s in a day and a half of hourly information briefings.” Despite Hanson’s concerns about overloading students with information, she understands the need for education about sexual assault to begin at orientation.
"The whole point of having a confidential advocate is so [students] don’t have to go through the process alone, they don’t have to have these conversations alone, they don’t have to figure out where to go."
“Everyone says ‘Orientation, it has to be at orientation.’ Well it does, but what it has to be is effective,” she said. One student shared her own story during orientation because she thought it was important to give incoming students exposure to the issue of sexual assault. The forum Hanson agreed to attend “if possible” occurred in September. During this forum, the student who shared her story spoke out because she was offended it was listed under the university's progress, but she made the decision to share due to the university’s lack of progress. While the university isn’t quite ready to check orientation education off its list, it is likely that next year’s incoming class will receive at least some level of sexual assault education—whether it’s adequate remains to be seen.
Another effort called Green Dot, a bystander intervention awareness program, is gaining traction. “The basic premise is green dots are good, red dots are bad,” Rappaport said. “A red dot is anything that contributes to violence or culture of violence, any action, behavior, conversation that promotes violence. Whereas green dot is the opposite. Any action, behavior, word, discussion that shows intolerance for violence and promotes a culture of safety.” These dots are a symbolic way of mentally visualizing actions, words and other behaviors that create either a safe or more hostile environment. The program is about awareness and empowering observers to take action when they see a potentially harmful situation. “Everyone has obstacles to intervening. We’ve all seen situations where ‘Do we act? Should I act? What should I do? I don’t know.’ And then the situation will go on or something’s happened and we tell ourselves whatever we need and for the next five days we’re like ‘Oh, I should’ve done this, I should’ve done that.’” Rappaport says a “reactive green dot” or a response to a potentially negative situation can either be directly confronting someone, encouraging someone else to confront them or simply distracting them from the situation. Examples of distractions he lists are asking where the bathroom is, saying you thought you saw the police or spilling your drink on the person. “So it’s not changing the world, but the idea of green dot is to change the culture by these small, tiny incidences,” Rappaport said. All RAs have gone through bystander intervention and Green Dot training. “We partnered with housing and dining programs in January and they set aside an entire day of the RA training program to put the RAs through the bystander intervention training,” said Michelle Espinosa, Associate Dean of Students. “It’s a seven hour workshop that they go through. It actually teaches them the skills of when you are intervening as a bystander, what you can do and how you can do that.” Espinosa says a training session with some of Greek Life is planned during Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April. Brooks and Rappaport were also the driving force behind an educational event geared towards Greek Life and athletics, which occurred earlier in April. “We’re bringing in Don McPherson, he’s a former NFL player and college football hall of fame member and he works directly with men on the prevention of relationship violence,” Brooks said. “For all students, but particularly he good at working with athletics and Greek Life because that was his experience, so he can speak to that experience from his time as a student all the way into adulthood.” Greek Life and AU athletes were required to attend this event, which Brooks hopes helps facilitate conversation and build bridges with these communities. “I wasn’t in Greek life in college,” Brooks said. “I went to an institution that did not have Greek life. And so I don’t necessarily understand that language. [McPherson] does, and it’s important to have someone here who can address that. So we’re really hoping that will craft a new conversation on campus and really open the door to have a dialogue because I think a lot of time these particular groups are stereotyped and marginalized for either being perpetrators or creating
FROM TOP Students march around the quad before visiting Gail Hanson’s office.
Sophomore Nicole Wisler says she believes mandatory sexual assault education could have prevented her own sexual assault experience. She compares her story with the consequences of an account stop from a library fee: “Sacrificing the discomfort of a few students who might not complete [the mandatory education] in time versus the safety of 400 students seems ludicrous to me.” Hanson responds to Wisler, saying “I know you know your equation doesn’t work” and that it’s an “emotional thing.”
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a culture of silence, and I think a lot of time people feel isolated because of that and feel like they can’t be part of a conversation. We want to change that and break down those walls.” To further facilitate education and discussion, the Wellness Center has peer educators who work closely with Rappaport. Members of this group, Peer Educators for the Elimination of Relationship and Sexual Violence (PEERS), have received 40 hours of training based on the curriculum that’s used for student advocates at the University of Maryland and conducted 15 workshops for various groups on campus. Rappaport also works with the Men of Strength (MOST) group on campus. “It’s a place where we look at men, masculinity, violence, sexual violence, and things like that,” he said. “It’s as informal as it sounds. That’s a great way to allow men who are at different points not only to learn more, but get involved in terms of dating violence.” Public Safety officers also received basic first responder training from Rappaport over spring break. “He did some basic baseline training in terms of first responder,” Espinosa said. “For more of a customer service slash advocate role. And the Public Safety officers are in an interesting situation in that respect because they want to be an advocate, they want to support the victim who might be reporting. They also need to be very cognizant of the criminal aspect that might be in play there. So they have to kind of walk that thin line. Daniel did some training with them to talk about the language that we use when we’re working with a victim who’s just responding and just reporting something in." Faculty and staff will also be required to take an online sexual harassment training program starting fall 2012. While many steps have been made, Rappaport notes an obstacle that still needs to be addressed: getting to a hospital that has a Sexual As-
“Our responsibility is to never to be satisfied. We always want to keep pushing it to the next level because the individual’s experience of being supported and feeling advocated for in the process is so critical. It can really impact how they heal from the process.” sault Nurse Examiner, or SANE program, which specially trains nurses in examining and collecting evidence in instances of sexual assault. “We definitely can improve on transportation to Washington Hospital Center in addition to discount vouchers,” Rappaport said. “Public safety is more than happy to drive students there, but obviously that creates other obstacles, and that’s something we constantly are working on improving.” Brooks noted there’s always room for improvement. “Even if we think we’re doing it well, we want to go in and we want to look at it and figure out how can we make it better," Brooks said. "Our responsibility is to never to be satisfied. We always want to keep pushing it to the next level because the individual’s experience of being supported and feeling advocated for in the process is so critical. It can really impact how they heal from the process.”
PROVOKING CHANGE While some of these changes would have come about with or without the protest, and there’s still progress to be made, last year’s loud call for improved resources and education made an impact. Hanson said the university has been conscientious of the protesters' agenda. “I certainly understood what their priorities are,” Hanson said. “I think we’ve done a good job of marching along that priority list and paying attention to most of those things and doing them on our own resources.” But Hanson says they’re still seeking student input for ways to improve. “We’ll probably have another open meeting this spring,” Hanson said. “Probably during Sexual Assault Awareness [month] and we’ll see what students think of what’s in place and where we have opportunities to do better, but I think we’re doing reasonably well.” Despite public backlash against the protests last year and other more recent disruptive, non-violent action, the university’s response to the protest displays the effectiveness of these democratic, timetested tools. Some argued these voices were disrespectful, but using these tactics appropriately can prove a successful method to initiate change, inform the public, and bring about much-needed discussion. While the university didn’t sign the grant and may not be addressing the grievances brought up during the protest as quickly as some would like, student voices were taken into account, and their agenda is moving forward. •
Ashley Dejean is a junior studying international development.
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BEHIND THE COUNTER
STORIES FROM IMMIGRANT WORKERS By Jimmy Hoover // Illustration by Hannah Karl
His name is Serbelio. He abstains from revealing his last name in order to avoid attention. Sporting a sleek black vest over a shirt and tie, Serbelio stands behind the bar, wide-eyed and assured, telling the story of how he came to be a server in a French restaurant in Adams Morgan.
two days a week for a couple of years. Non-native English speakers are especially vulnerable to the whims of a sputtering economy, and lots of small businesses, including restaurants, are tightening their purse strings. Serbelio describes how to land a job: “You apply and apply and finally… you get lucky,” he said.
Seven years ago Serbelio worked 12 to 14 hours a day in a frutería,
Petits Plats, the restaurant where he now works, is quiet. The lunch crowd has left and the bussers are breaking down the din-
a home appliances store, in El Salvador. He only earned around six dollars each day, less than a dollar an hour. Decent jobs were hard to come by in such an unstable economic environment, and to make matters worse, the cost of living was near that of western industrialized countries. “A pound of beans could be as much as $1.50,” he says in a small and humble voice. The wages at the frutería proved too meager, so he looked for new opportunities in the United States to resolve his family’s financial struggles. Northwest Washington DC became his home. Upon arriving, he struggled to overcome the same barriers many Hispanic immigrants seeking to prosper in America confront: learning the language, finding a job and finding a place to live. These problems were interlaced, as businesses weren’t hiring those who didn’t speak English. “Wherever you go, whatever you want to do, they ask you how much English you know,” he says frankly. To overcome the “obstáculo” of language, as he calls it, Serbelio studied English at a local church
“Wherever you go, whatever you want to do, they ask you how much English you know. You apply and apply and finally... you get lucky.”
ing area. Outside, Connecticut Avenue bustles and the sun gleams down on the arched roof of the metro tunnel. He does not have any children or a partner, but his face turns solemn as he says his mother was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Every month for the better part of a decade, Serbelio has sent around 60 percent of his wages to his family back home. Until
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recently, this was more than adequate, but the medical bill for his mother’s cancer was over $4,000 dollars last month alone. He admits the dificultad in providing for a family so many miles away, but he's still grateful for the work opportunities this country has provided him. Serbelio is conscious of the countless other Salvadoreans back home who didn’t have such an opportunity. If Serbelio was not in the US, but still at home sweating away his days at the frutería “she would die because no one is going to pay for that,” he says quietly. The community at Petit Plats is a tight one. The kitchen staff is very cordial and more than willing to offer insights into the life of immigrant workers. In the restaurant’s back entrance, a shy employee lingers alone, not confident enough in his English to participate in the conversation. Through the encouragement of his fellow workers, the man agrees to share a little bit about himself, for the sake of this article. Adán is a dishwasher. This is his fifth month in the United States. A nd he insists on remaining anonymous. Adán, a 29-year-old Salvadorean, is still acclimating himself to the culture of Washington, DC. He is no stranger to restaurant work, as he's had had several jobs in restaurants in his homeland of San Miguel. But the work here is different. “In El Salvador, the waiters had to do everything,” he says. “They take the orders, bring the food out, and bus the tables.” He doesn’t see the need to divide the positions so narrowly between food runners, waiters, and dishwashers. It isn’t indignation in his voice, but frustration at being reduced to a menial laborer. In El Salvador, Adán began working part-time at the age of 12, hoping to one day be able to afford an education. His family is from the campo, or the rural areas, an underrepresented population in modern El Salvador. An education is a luxury out of reach for Salvadoreans with Adán’s socio-economic background. However, Adán was fortunate, and at 18 years old, he matriculated to the Universidad del Salvador where he studied the Spanish language and literature. This lasted only a short while because his family needed him to return back to work. He had a variety of occupations and worked steadily, applying for scholarships and grants to attend school again—then the 2007 global economic crisis hit. Adán’s father lost his job along with many of his assets because of weak consumer spending. When asked to explain what had happened, he puts it simply, “nobody was buying our products.” By products, he means maíz, or corn. It was time for Adán to begin a new life, and the United States provided that opportunity. With an understanding smile, he says, “Cuando vienen las personas de otros países, es debido de las obligaciónes que tienen que emprender.” (When people come here from other countries, it is because of greater obligations that need to be upheld.) Five months separated from the only country he’s ever known and Adán is beginning to feel a profound distance from his old life, “When you leave, the years in the country you left tend to fall behind,” he says slowly. Serbelio’s tale, as well as Adán’s, is unique. However, both represent something greater than just themselves: a generation of young men, toiling day after day in the hope that their families, living in
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It was time for Adán to begin a new life, and the United States provided that opportunity. With an understanding smile, he says, “Cuando vienen las personas de otros paises, es debido de las obligaciones que tienen que emprender.” (When people come here from other countries, it is because of greater obligations that need to be upheld.) distant worlds, will be able to prosper. Despite the fact that Hispanics make up only nine percent of the District’s total population, according to the US Census Bureau, it is important to remember workers, more often than not, are commuting from residences and living quarters throughout the metropolitan area. In Montgomer y County, Latin Americans comprise around 17 percent of the population, and the majority originate from Central American countries such as El Salvador. This is the result of the Salvadorean Civil War that began in 1980 and lasted over a decade. It was the second longest civil war in Latin America, after the Guatamalen Civil War. During the war, thousands of civilians were killed at the hands of military death squads, the most notorious instance is the El Mozote Massacre, which took place in 1981. The violence drove wealthy landowners and agrarian workers alike to cities in the United States. Since then, a network of chain migration has continued to DC, either through familial ties or the awareness of a large Salvadorian population already based in the area. Whatever the exact reason, DC area hosts over 100,000 people from this small country wedged on the Pacific coast between Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The kitchen crew prepares for the next shift, and a few local foodies twirl their forks around the last few morsels of pan-seared salmon and wine sauce. Today, the civil war of El Salvador is decades removed. Adán speaks of his future, and what is in store for him. Serbelio, who at this point has been standing in his declared territory behind the bar, listening to our conversation, interjects, “Oh, he’ll go back after he’s saved a couple hundred thousand dollars… won’t you, Adán?” •
Jimmy Hoover is a sophomore studying Spanish and print journalism.
PHOTO ESSAY:
LOOKING AT LIFE IN LHASA Photos by Shaina Lipsy & Aaron Berkovich // Words by Shaina Lipsy In Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, the Potala Palace stands as a monument to Tibetan Buddhist practices, despite the current Chinese occupation and suppression of traditional religion and culture. Between frequent checkpoints, army patrols and surveillance, people go about their daily routines. Shaina Lipsy and Aaron Berkovich visited the city for a few days and got a glimpse of the everyday life.
The Potala Palace is the center of religious and social life. It houses thousands of ancient Buddhist scriptures and the remains of former Dalai Lamas. Before his exile, the palace served as the 14th Dalai Lama’s residence. Currently, the Chinese
government allows a limited number of monks to study and work at the palace. Every year, the palace is visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from China, Tibet and other countries.
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A child visits the Potala Palace with his father. Although they both wear western clothing, the boy observes traditional Tibetan practices by wearing his hair in a single ponytail, wrapped in bright red string.
Despite the heavy military presence, Tibetans continue everyday activities. Outside one of the many shops near the palace, men wait to sell yak butter and flowers to pilgrims on their way to worship. Yak butter is used as oil for candles in the palace, and each pilgrim is expected to bring their own butter to light.
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The mixture of traditional Tibetan and western clothing in this street scene speaks to the Tibetan people’s continued observance of their history and culture while embracing modern styles. Though many young people purchase their clothing at Lhasa Department Store, the main retailer of western clothing, small traditional clothing shops still line the city streets.
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An alleyway stands deserted during a lunar eclipse. Its residents have all gone to the temple for the night’s festival.
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In the background of this market scene, a People’s Liberation Army security camera records the bustle, watching for signs of unrest or possible protest. Due to governmental censorship of all information leaving Tibet, the exact number of such protests, including self-immolation, is unknown. At least 32 self-immolations in protest of the Chinese occupation and human rights abuses have been confirmed since mid-March 2011.
A woman outside the post office sells preserved honey from a wicker basket. Blocks of honey are added to traditional Tibetan yak butter tea. Yak products including meat, milk, and butter, comprise a significant portion of the Tibetan economy.
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JABS AND JEST
Innovation, wit and cogent wisdom
Photo by Lori McCue
the next about climate change in India, the next about education reform in Egypt. So the range of issues and countries was fantastic, and I loved every minute of it. The higher up you go up the professional ladder, the more responsibilities you have. So sometimes I felt I was doing nothing but management: personnel issues and budget issues and so on. The people working for me were having all the fun developing the education and agriculture and economic programs, etcetera. But I absolutely loved it. During that time I spent a lot of time in the Middle East, I was practically commuting to Egypt. I spent a fair amount of time in Russia, as well. I’ve been blessed to have had a fair amount of wonderful jobs that I’ve learned from. I always encourage students not to take a job that’s going to be easy, find the job that’s going to be hard. Look for the job that’s just a little bit beyond your grasp, because that will stretch you intellectually. Most of us are happier when we’re learning and growing intellectually.
And then you worked with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development?
PROFESSOR PROFILE
SALLY SHELTON-COLBY By Ashley Dejean & Lori McCue
Photo by Lori McCue
Sally Shelton-Colby, former diplomat, has worked all over the world—literally. After her Fulbright in Paris, she worked for the US Senate and then for the Department of State as a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Latin America. Shelton-Colby moved back to Paris to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, then moved to Mexico to work with President Vicente Fox’s anti-corruption program. She returned to Washington to teach in the School of International Service. AWOL’s Ashley Dejean sat down with the world traveler to discuss international relations and vodka.
Can you talk about your work with the Bureau for Global Programs? One of my assistants told me my middle name has got to be “I never met an issue I didn’t like.” He was right about that, because there’s nothing I’m not interested in. All of the technical expertise in AID who worked for me: the economists, the doctors, the egronomists, the environmental scientists, the human rights experts—we all provided this technical assistance to the 84 aid missions around the world. So one minute I’d be worried about HIV/AIDS in Russia,
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The organization that oversaw the Marshall Plan after World War II subsequently morphed into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It’s composed of 33 of the most industrialized countries in the world, and there’s a staff of about 2,500 economists and other sets of skills that try to coordinate the economic and social policies of the 33 members. It develops best practices and norms for the member countries, and any non-member countries that want to adopt those practices. For example, it works on a broad range of issues: fiscal policy, monetary policy, economic policy, agriculture, governance, education, health, and so on. I was Deputy Secretary General, and I was responsible for the development portfolio, governance and regulatory reform. Again, it was a huge amount of management.
You said you were frustrated when you worked with Mexican President Vicente Fox on anti-corruption. What do you mean by that? I got very frustrated because the Mexican legal system is badly in need of reform. So we would discover evidence of corruption, it would go into the judicial system, and judges would do nothing because they were in the pockets of the politicians. So the constraints of an inadequate legal system got to me, and I finally decided to give it up. One day I was being driven to work and my driver was really irritated because he had been listening to the news while he was waiting for me. The radio broadcasted a story on the cabinet’s salaries. He was just irritated that they were getting paid so much. Some enterprising journalist had requested, under the Freedom of Information Act that we had helped get passed, and here was my driver irritated about this news. He said, “I’m not voting for that party next time, I’ll vote for the opposition.” And I thought, this is democracy at work. This is one small example of something we were doing. Here was someone who had never voted who was now energized to take a part in the process because of a law that we helped get passed.
What about your famous Reagan story? It was when the National Endowment for Democracy was established during the Reagan administration. Since I was the youngest person
on the board, and a woman, I was pushed to the front of the receiving line at the White House to shake hands with the President at the launch. So President Reagan walked in, and I was at the front of the line, so we both put our hands out, and he was talking to me. Then what seemed like hours passed, and he kept holding my hand and talking to me. After a while the Congressman behind me began to giggle quietly and the Senator standing behind him started to giggle, and I could vaguely hear the head of the AFL/CIO standing behind him start to sort of make some noise. I tried to relax my grip, but he didn’t relax his. So I retightened my grip and he kept talking. I think even the audience was tittering at that point. This must have gone on for four or five minutes—a long time, particularly when it’s the president of the United States. To this day I do not know what he said; I was too focused on the handholding. How do you extricate yourself from the grip of the president of the United States? To this day that Senator still teases me about it.
Can you tell me about your work with human rights in the Panama Canal? The chairman of the House Committee on the Merchant Marine called me into his office. I had been testifying about the need for political change in Nicaragua, and we had been putting pressure on the Nicaraguan government to open up a very closed, controlled system. I was also involved with the selling of the Panama Canal. I strongly believed if we wanted access to the Panama Canal, we better return it to the Panamanians. This Congressman said, “The Panama Canal Treaty is up for approval in the Senate, and it needs approval legislation, which has to go through both chambers of Congress. So you need to take this message back to the administration, you need to
And I thought, this is democracy at work. This is one small example of something we were doing. Here was someone who had never voted who was now energized to take a part in the process because of a law that we helped get passed. make a choice: you keep beating up on my friend, President Somoza of Nicaragua, and you don’t get any legislation for the Panama Canal Treaty or you stop beating up on him, and you get the implementing legislation. So I took the decision back, and it went all the way to the White House. The decision was to put the priority on the Panama Canal Treaty. We then softened our pressure on Somoza, and the rest is history. The center in Nicaragua threw its lot in with the Sandanistas, and war resulted. These are the kinds of really tough decisions you constantly make in government. You have to always keep in mind, what is in the US national interest. All these years later I wonder if we made the right decision. I think we did.
Looking back, what things do you see differently? I feel conflicted about humanitarian assistance. I now am feeling that I should not have argued for suspending humanitarian assistance to a “bad guy” government, because people should not pay the price for the sins of their government. So I think as one gets more experience in life and thinks about these issues, one’s opinions often evolve. Looking back, are there things that I think the US should have done differently? Yes, Egypt is a big example: we should have leaned much harder on Mubarak. We should have threatened to reduce military assistance, even though that was the price US paid for Camp David, the peace between the US and Israel. But I wish I had pushed harder.
Tell me about your late husband, former director of the CIA during the Nixon administration. I have this story: We went to the Soviet Union for our first trip. He sent a note ahead to the KGB to say he was coming, as a courtesy. We flew into Leningrad, this was at a time when food was very scarce. We’d skipped lunch, and we were going to the ballet that night. Afterwards, we had a midnight train to Moscow. We ran to the station after the ballet, thinking we could get a sandwich at the station. But there was no food for miles. So we got into our couchette and we hear a knock on the door. There at our door was a six foot tall Russian grinning from ear to ear, holding in his hands two bottles of vodka. Turns out he was our KGB handler, who heard we were thirsty. We had a very nice evening. • TOP Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Shelton-Colby in 1998 at a meeting on democratization in the Middle East. BOTTOM Shelton-Colby in 1980 while an ambassador in St. Kitts-Nevis.
Ashley Dejean is a junior studying international development. Lori McCue is a sophomore studying print journalism.
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JABS AND JEST
MARCH 2012
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AWOL NEWSWIRE
E X TR A S Y O J N G E MUSIN H) R O T I ED N T ( IS E R R ON CU VENTS E
ACTIVITY BEATS ANXIETY
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recent study in the Psychosomatic Medicine Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, followed participants for 20 years in an attempt to discover if physical activity had an effect on young adults with financial stress’s proclivity towards developing “impaired fasting glucose” (a pre-diabetic stage). They discovered that there was in fact a positive correlation. Young adults with financial stress who are physically active have a reduced risk for pre-diabetic symptoms up to 13 years later. College students are both young adults and financially stressed. In conjunction with our limited—and not always healthy—food choices, this makes us the target audience for the study. So next time you find yourself waiting for the elevator, take the stairs and reduce your future risk of type 2 diabetes. -Meridian Ganz-Ratzat
Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave. Scientists uncovered evidence of controlled use of fire that dates back almost a million years. This is the earliest sign of humans harnessing fire we have discovered so far; the second oldest site is located in northern China, which date back almost 400,000 years. But doubts about the findings abound. According to scientists who do this kind of work (it’s unclear what their titles are), determining whether the fire was controlled for practical use or not is nail-bitingly difficult. The charred remnants of burn sites—where fire is used repeatedly—are by no means ample evidence to substantiate the claim that humans were using the fire to cook. Large piles of bat poop can also become hot enough to ignite. Moreover, researchers found no stone hearths surrounding the sites—a sign that clearly signals human efforts to control the flames. So what are we to conclude? Not much at all. -Alex Burchfield
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rometheus stole fire from the gods earlier than we thought, according to an international team of researchers working in South
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own experience—in other words, lying. The New York Times and other news outlets did several reports on Foxconn and other Apple factories shortly after the episode aired, but they still stand by their reporting. Despite the controversy, DC’s Wooly Mammoth Theatre will still be bringing Daisey for an encore performance this summer and hosted a public forum on their decision in March. They might still be bringing Daisey, but they’re willing to refund tickets bought before the scandal broke out. -Ashley Dejean
HERE THERE BE HUMANS
GRAPPLING WITH THE TRUTH
THE FIRST FIRE
ISSUE 011
his American Life retracted one of the show’s most popular episodes, “Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory,” which aired in January. Turns out Mike Daisey’s story about the horrible things happening at the Apple factory didn’t check out. Marketplace reporter Rob Schmitz tracked down Daisey’s translator, who had a much different account of many of the events including some of the most poignant points in the monologue. Daisey admits he wrote his story for theater, interweaving fact and fiction, taking things he heard and read and presenting them as his
ames Cameron, director of Pandora and perhaps more relevantly, Titanic, has released footage from his 3-hour journey to the deepest point on earth, the Challenger’s Deep in the Mariana Trench. NationalGeographic. com is quick to point out that, though Cameron is not the first to plunge the 35,576 feet (an exploration originally completed in 1960 by Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard). He is the first to complete the dive solo. Besides, compared to the 12 American astronauts alone who have visited the moon’s surface, Cameron’s initiation as the third man to experience unexplored territory is nothing to sneeze at. The 1,240,800,000 feet of atmosphere and space between the Earth and the moon only numerically dwarfs the 35,576 feet of sunless and silent water Cameron braved to reach his destination. Enclosed in The Deepsea Challenger, cut off from
MARCH 2012
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humanity, Cameron commented that, “it’s very lunar, very isolated. I felt as if, in the space of one day, I’d gone to another planet and come back.” Humans may have collected decades of samples from space, but the “vast frontier down there …is going to take us a while to understand”. Although the film (unfortunately) does not reveal any massive beasts or ancient monsters, you can watch via the convenience of YouTube as mankind expands its understanding of Earth as never before. The very planet we live on remains a mystery to us in many ways, but Cameron is working on filling in the gaps and redefining the edges of the map. -Claire Dapkiewicz
confidence might be a solid bet. Prodigious pitcher Stephen Strasburg started opening day, complementing a pitching rotation that includes Jordan Zimmermann and John Lannen, both considered among the division’s best. In addition, Jason Werth and Ian Desmond have impressively compensated the absence of Michael Morse and Adam LaRoche, who usually make up the meat of the Nats’ rotation. Assuming Morse and LaRoche are able to bounce back, the Nats’ combination of pitching talent and offensive power might give them an advantage in a tough division. It seems, then, that DC students attending Nationals games might get more than simply a bargain ballgame. -Zac Deibel
DC’S NUCLEAR FORECAST TAKE ME OUT TO THE NATS GAME
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uring the spring, summer, and early autumn months, baseball games at Nationals Park offer a fun, cheap excursion for DC residents, especially city-savvy students like those at AU. For a discounted 5-dollar fee, students can enjoy America’s pastime with friends and family in a leisurely environment. This year, however, baseball fans might get more than simply an American aesthetic at the ballpark—the Nationals may be “for real” this season. Sports Illustrated columnist Joe Lemire ranked the Nats as the 12th most “powerful” team in baseball, a bold prediction for a team that finished 80-81 last year. However, Lemire’s
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s if metro delays weren’t enough, DCist reports FEMA released a study last November detailing the probable effects of a nuclear detonation in DC. Should a detonation take place near the White House, everything within a half-mile radius would be destroyed and rescue operations would be impossible. But past one mile out, it would be little more than broken glass from shattered windows. Not too bad, right? Turns out that even if the city escapes mostly unscathed, DC residents have a tougher fight. The flash from a five-mile tall nuclear explosion could temporarily blind people up to 12 miles away. At least four nearby hospitals would be annihilated immediately, not to mention the four others that would suffer radiation damage. In other news, North Korean leaders plan to test-fire the country’s longrange missiles soon. -Lori McCue
ISSUE 011
OBAMA'S DRONE CAPABILITIES EXPAND
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t has recently been reported that it is completely legal for President Obama to call in drone strikes on US citizens in foreign countries, adding one more controversy to the laundry list of issues being debated in the upcoming presidential election. A recent defense by the Attorney General has raised more arguments than it has settled, as he attempted to make a case for the lack of due process in drone strikes. In its first three years, the Obama administration approved and carried out over 200 drone strikes, mainly in the Middle East. This number is expected to rise dramatically as more troops are pulled out, and the military uses covert operations, often including drone strikes, to carry out missions of national interest. Drone strikes as a presidential power were originally authorized by Congress in 2001, when the president was given the right to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines” were responsible or implicit in the 9/11 attacks. It seems that Americans are just now realizing the implications buried in that line; any and all force against any and all people as long as they are outside of the United States. The main check on the president’s power to authorize drone strikes is judicial review—which, of course, occurs after the target has already been killed. -Shaina Lipsy
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Innovation, wit and cogent wisdom
"MUSEUM CITY'S" LESS POPULAR ATTRACTIONS
A SURVEY OF NONSMITHSONIAN SITES By Ean Marshall // Illustration by Carolyn Becker
The Smithsonian Institution is the standard to which all museums are set. The dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum, the steam engines in the National Museum of History, the Spirit of St. Louis in the Air and Space Museum and the paintings at the National Gallery of Art have drawn tourists to DC for decades. But tourists or students looking to go beyond the Smithsonians don’t need to look very far for the niche museums tucked in DC’s corners.
If you like the Avenue of the Americas… Located on R Street NW in a two floor apartment building, Fondo del Sol is an artist-run community museum dedicated to exhibiting the works of both Hispanic and African artists from Cuba, Chile, Ethiopia and Haiti, among other nations. Some artists’ work on display includes that of Juan Boza, a prominent Afro-Cuban artist, Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta, Georgian artist Vladimir Kandelaski, and Lopez Marin, another Georgian painter. It is a museum that displays art found nowhere else in the DC area. The museum operates from 12:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday, where student admission is only one dollar and music is played while you view the unique exhibits.
If you enjoy the Smithsonian art galleries… Check out the Phillips Collection on 21st and Q Street, which displays a great collection of modern art. The museum’s exhibits include works by Impressionists Claude Monet, Paul Gaugin, Edward Degas and Pierre Auguste Renoir. Several Van Gogh paintings are on display, as are works by Henry Matisse, Picasso, the abstract shapes of Wassily Kandisky and the color walls of Mark Rothko. Museum hours are Tuesday–Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Sundays from
11 a.m.–6 p.m., and extended hours on Thursday from 5 p.m.–8:30 p.m. The museum charges an admission fee on weekends, but offers student discounts. It is an easy metro ride and a great way to see some world-renowned art.
If you want to experience a moving memorial for victims of injustice… Get informed about the violation of human rights in China at the Laogai Museum. The Laogai Museum opened in 2008 and documents the human rights violations through the suffering of millions of Chinese citizens in the laogai prison labor camps. The museum begins with Mao’s dictatorship in 1949, continues with the upheaval and jailing of political dissidents during the Cultural Revolution, and proceeds through the laogai (a slogan for the criminal justice system that translates to “reform through labor”) instituted during the reign of Deng Xiaopeng and his successors. Photographs of prison executions and profiles of prisoners, both deceased and currently imprisoned, illustrate the forced torture, beatings and humiliation Chinese prisoners have suffered under the laogai system. There are sections of the museum devoted to the oppression of religious figures like Catholic Chinese bishops, and members of ethnic minorities like Rebiya Khadeer, whose videotaped accounts of prison life comprise a portion of the display. The most moving portion of the museum is the model of a six-foot-tall, three-footwide solitary confinement cell, a replica of those still used today in the Laogai prison labor camps. The museum is open Monday–Friday from 10 a.m.–6 p.m., and on Saturday from 10 a.m.–5 p.m. It is free of charge (though donations are suggested) and is located on the corner of 20th and S Street.
If you’re interested in Jewish history, visit… The National Museum of American Jewish Military History on R Street memorializes American Jewish veterans and their contributions to the defense of freedom. The museum’s exhibits profile the contributions of Jewish women as soldiers and nurses along with the leadership of Major General Julius Klein, who served in both World Wars. It also includes a hall of Jewish military heroes stretching back to the Civil War and a memorial for Jewish US citizens killed during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. The museum is free and open Monday–Friday from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. and on Sundays by appointment.
If you’re interested in unique stories in economic and trade history… Take a trip to the Textile Museum. At first look, textiles might seem like a boring subject for a museum. However, textiles can reveal a culture’s history, legends and way of life. The museum’s current exhibit, “Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of the Deep,” runs until January 2013. It looks at the role of dragons in various Asian cultures from the Miao people of southern China to the Georgians of the Caucus Mountains. The intricate cloth designs tell visitors about the historical legacy and cultural expression of these people. The museum is located on S Street, and admission is free. It is open Tuesday–Saturday from 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m.–5 p.m.
Ean Marshall is a freshman studying film and media arts.
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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE
By Claire Dapkiewicz & Zac Deibel // Illustration by Hannah Karl
Just got back from study abroad? Struggling to express your transcendental experience with words? Need a great closer for your travel blog? Consider AWOL’s handy, travel-sized abroad experience template to deflect the onslaught of nosy inquiries from friends and family. Just follow the steps below and let AWOL provide the informative, detailed, and sometimes condescending description for you! First, pick the location that best describes where you went (if it’s someplace too obscure, don’t worry—it’ll fit somewhere): European city
Middle Eastern country
China/India
Failing state
Africa
Next, just circle whichever option in the narrative fits your unique experience the best: “Hey! So I just got back from being abroad! My trip was so [rewarding amazing • life-changing] and gave me so many important [perspectives • lifelessons • new experiences]. It’s tough to describe because it’ll be hard for you to [understand • relate to • sit through the story of] the fantastic trip I had. Life was so different there.
•
In the United States, our lives are stressed and hectic, but there they focused on the important things like [culture • overthrowing governments • staying alive]. I wasn’t anxious about my schoolwork like I am at home because there, learning isn’t about grades or papers. It’s about the experience. I studied so many new subjects like [art • Marxism • Molotov cocktail hurling]. I spent my nights roaming the [cities • dorm halls • pastures] instead of the AU Library. My fellow Eagles and I reflected on our encounters with culture over local favorites served from [Pierre • Ahmed • Comrade Igor], the friendly server at the [pub • hookah bar • Starbucks café] nearby. There we could even drink alcohol, because to them, our maturity isn’t reflected by the age on our [license • passport • fake ID]. We took so many amazing [weekend excursions • safaris • pub crawls] throughout the area, something we aren’t able to do in the United States because Americans don’t care about [public transportation • culture • young people]. Here, all we needed to do was hop on a [train • bus • Sherpa], and we could be encountering a totally different culture and meeting new people. Try experiencing that in the United States! I spent most of my free time doing my best to immerse myself in the culture. I often admired the [magnificent cathedrals • exotic mosques •
quaint grass huts] from [the top decks of tour busses • the backs of alpacas • my computer’s GoogleEarth application]. It was difficult to adapt to many different things, especially [the language barrier • the scarcity of snacks • mosquito nets]. I always got the feeling that people there were so much happier with their [democratically elected government • socialist regime • tyrant] than we are because they love parades! Sometimes people get so excited that the [street cleaners • police • national army] have to [clean up big messes • push the crowd back • shoot off fireworks]! I spent a lot of time shopping for [authentic • hand-made • mass-produced] souvenirs of national significance like [scarves • tapestries • key chains]. Everyone there was so interesting, and it’s amazing how they [speak English all the time • get by without English • arrest me every time I speak English]. I know the opinion is that people there are really [elitist • lazy • impoverished], but I know now that they are really [intellectual • cheery • oppressed]. Even though I lived in [a dorm with other Americans • an apartment complex for students • a hostel], whenever we ventured outside, we were always really [outgoing • engaging • obnoxious] and willing to meet new people. I feel like I’ll never be the same until I walk those [cobblestone streets • venues of the local bazaar • cowpaths] again, where the people just seem to understand me better and the culture is so much [richer • poorer]. My experience was so [original • extraordinary • personal] and life-changing, that if you go, I’m sure you’ll have the same great experience.”
Claire Dapkiewicz is a sophomore studying history and literature. Zac Deibel is a sophomore studying history.
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