THE BG NEWS
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ESTABLISHED 1920 | An independent student press serving the campus and surrounding community
Friday, March 15, 2013
VOLUME 92, ISSUE 77
ODOT works to prevent more wrong-way crashes
WWW.BGNEWS.COM
ST. PATRICK’S DAY WEEKEND
By Alex Alusheff City Editor
A little more than a year after WRONG-WAY a wrong-way crash claimed CRASHES IN 2013 the lives of three University students, both the Ohio WOOD COUNTY Head on: 1 Department of Transportation Fatal: 0 and Ohio Highway Patrol have taken measures to prevent OHIO: such tragedies from happen- Head on: 286 Fatal: 11 ing again. The local highway patrol has adopted proactive measures such as visiting driver education schools to discuss highway safety, including wrong way driving, in order to make the public more aware of those situations, said Lt. Jerrod Savidge, post commander for the Bowling Green Post of the Ohio Highway Patrol. ODOT spent $74,300 adding 245 signs and pavement markers along highways in Wood, Lucas, Henry, Ottawa and Sandusky counties in District 2, said Theresa Pollick, public information officer for ODOT District 2.
KATIE LOGSDON | THE BG NEWS
trashed
PICKING up trash on the side of Main Street is junior and TKE President Pedro Petribu and sophomore and TKE Community Service Chair Pat Gallagher. The two students are volunteering to help pick up trash after the weekend’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration downtown.
FINDING A DIFFERENT
See ODOT | Page 2
‘Sequester’ to impact student financial aid By Patrick Pfanner Reporter
The national budget crisis could WHAT’S AT STAKE? drain some grant and scholarship funds that hundreds of ■■ $71.2 million cut from grants students rely upon to help pay that are offered their tuition. nationally. On March 1, the government ■■ Grant programs enacted the sequester, which that almost 1,300 is a series of mandatory budUniversity students get cuts aimed at trimming the are involved in. nation’s deficit by more than $4 ■■ More than 80,000 Ohio students trillion. will be impacted The sequester is attempting by cuts to federal to cut $85 billion from areas like grants. education, border control and other discretionary programs, according to a White House press release. Students shouldn’t notice any immediate changes to benefits received by grants and scholarships for 2013, said
See SEQUESTER | Page 10
Students plan for weekend clean-up following St. Patrick’s Day celebrations
By Eric Lagatta Assistant Campus Editor
A
s some students are going to bed after a night of partying, others are waking up to pick up the mess. St. Patrick’s Day may only be one day of the year, but that won’t stop students from celebrating the holiday all weekend, which takes its toll on the downtown cleaning crew. Randy Hann, maintenance supervisor for downtown Bowling Green, an organization concerned with maintaining and improving downtown and attracting customers and residents to the area, is taking extra measures to prepare for the influx of inebriated students. The morning cleanup shift typically requires one person, but to counteract the surplus of litter, Hann will increase the downtown cleanup crew to four Thursday through Monday. While some of the additional hands will come from Downtown BG staff, most of the
DANCE, DANCE
help will come from volunteers, Hann said. The daily shift goes from 8 a.m. to noon. The extra volunteers will be tasked with keeping streets clean by clearing it of beer cans, cigarette butts, Irish beads and any other litter resulting from the holiday’s festivities. “We typically found with St. Patty’s Day, there’s a lot of additional problems because of people vomiting and throwing down their Irish trash,” Hann said. While trash and vomit may bother some students, it doesn’t bother Michael Oiler, who is volunteering to clean downtown with some of his fellow fraternity members of Tau Kappa Epsilon. “I’m not too worried about it,” Oiler, a junior, said. “We’ve done cleanup like this before.” Sophomore Pat Gallagher, the community service chair for TKE, gathered several other fraternity members, including Oiler, to
■■ What: Keeping downtown
clean and free of St. Patrick’s Day trash
■■ When: Friday-Monday 8
a.m.-12 p.m.
■■ Contact: Downtown BG ■■ Phone: Call 419-354-4332
2012 ST. PATRICK’S DAY BY THE NUMBERS ■■ 431 total incidents reported
to police
■■ 55 arrests were made ■■ 17 traffic accidents occured ■■ 9 people were cited for OVI
Two keynote speakers will highlight history of female empowerment Web Editor
KATIE LOGSDON | THE BG NEWS
ARCHITECTURE and Interior Design students gathered at Cla-Zel Thursday night for the Black and White Party. The American Institute of Architecture Students and the American Society of Interior Designers hosted the gathering to raise money to pay for students to travel to Chicago.
The women’s basketball team struggled to stay with Central Michigan, losing 81-48. This season marks the first in eight years that BG has failed to win either the MAC tournament or conference. | PAGE 5
See TRASH | Page 8
INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING?
University celebrates Women’s History Month By Kendra Clark
FALCONS FLOP IN TOURNAMENT
WAY OF GETTING
March signifies the start of spring, but also the start of Women’s History Month. It is a month that Mary Krueger, director of the Women’s Center, has been planning for quite a while. “It has been celebrated since the 19th century in BG,” Krueger said. “We have been working and planning for a couple months on the theme and events this year.” The theme for 2013 is called, “The Exceptional Woman: Hail Her or Fail Her?”. All of the events and speakers will be based around this main idea of the “exceptional woman.” “There are two sides to being an exceptional woman,” Krueger said. “One is she feels on top of the world and can do anything. The other is having the weight of the world on
her shoulders.” A group of faculty and graduate students from the Women’s Center and the Woman’s Studies Program got together to come up with the events and themes for Women’s History Month. Among the group was Lesa Lockford, director and graduate coordinator of the women, gender and sexuality studies program. “Women’s History Month is a great opportunity to pause and reflect,” Lockford said. “57 percent of the student body are women so we get to see the challenges that have faced women to where they are today.” Lockford believes that women still have tough roads ahead. “Women have made significant progress, we even have a woman for a president [at the University],” Lockford said. “But, statistics still
CARDINALS PICK A POPE
Francis I became the 266th pope this week. New columnist Debbie Alderman says the coverage surrounding the event was horrible, featuring inaccurate statistics about Catholicism | PAGE 4
show that women still earn significantly less than men in this country. There are still issues today facing women.” Women’s History Month shows there are more sides to history than what are told in the history books, Krueger said. “The United States history has always been defined by white men.” Krueger said. “This is an annual gentle reminder that women are a big part of history as well.” Amy Mauro, sophomore, agrees with Krueger. “Most of the history we learn is through a white male point of view,” Mauro said. “It is nice to see the women’s side of history and how they have progressed.” Jessica Arnovitz, a University freshman, is in a women studies
See HISTORY | Page 2
WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON ST. PATRICK’S DAY? “I’m canvassing the neighborhood in support of CASA.” Patrick Flanagan Freshman, Pre-Physical Therapy