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Charger Bulletin The official student newspaper of the University of New Haven since 1938. Volume 94, Issue 13 | December 12, 2012
Is asking to kiss someone totally awkward to ask on a date? Staff writer Elissa Sanci reports on the Can I Kiss You? event that sparked such intense and eye-opening discussion. SEE PAGE x Students, faculty and staff celebrate holidays from around the world at the Holiday Fest Celebration. Learn more about the various holidays celebrated by students on the UNH campus. SEE PAGE x
SPORTS Men’s and Women’s Track and Field placed third and second, respectively, at the Elm City Challenge hosted by Southern Connecticut State University. SEE PAGE x
ENTERTAINMENT Tis the season to watch a movie. Cameron Hines delivers his top 5 movies for the holidays. Did your favorite flick make the list? Find out!
Heritage Showcase
CAMPUS
Second UNH Poet Wins Prestigious NEA Fellowship
PHOTO PROVIDED BY UNH TODAY
By KAREN GRAVA
DIRECTOR OF MEDIA RELATIONS
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By LESHA DALEY STAFF WRITER
–––––––––––––––––––––––––– This year, the Caribbean Student Association (CSA) hosted its second annual Heritage Showcase at Dodds Theatre on Friday, Dec. 8, 2012. Countries represented included Guyana, Jamaica, Haiti, The Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and America. The Heritage Showcase is one of many activities sponsored by the CSA throughout the academic year. Although Caribbean culture is the platform for events, all countries are welcome and encouraged to participate. The Caribbean Student Association’s mission includes promoting the culture of the Caribbean Islands to UNH and to bring togetherness with different countries. This year’s contest was composed of four segments including talent, beachwear, cultural wear
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and a formal wear segment where contestants answered trivia questions about their country. Contestants broadcasted their creative abilities during the talent segment of the competition with poetry, singing, dancing and instrument playing. Each participant showcased talent that was inspired by the country they represented including dancing to dancehall music, bachata dancing and playing the Congo drums. In rounds two and three, participants showed off their best ethnic wear in the swimsuit and cultural wear portion of the showcase. Members of CSA’s dance group, Monsoon, hyped up crowd members during the intermission with a choreographed hip-hop dance routine. In the final round, contenders showed off their best formal wear in a last attempt to gain favor
from judges and audience members. Participants also demonstrated their knowledge about their countries during the question and answer portion of the showcase. The winners were selected by a panel of UNH judges from various backgrounds, Mr. Heritage 2011, as well as audience votes. The winners of this year’s Heritage Showcase included Kyle (Mr. Jamaica) and Thasha (Miss Haiti). Contest winners received accolades for their new title as the new Mr. and Miss Heritage, as well as cash prizes. Participation awards were given to all contestants to applaud their involvement in making the event a success. Other nationalities are encouraged to enter next year to represent their heritage as a part of UNH’s diversified student body.
SEE PAGE x
OPINION Got Peter Pan Syndrome? Contributing writer Olivia Tangney explores the benefits of channeling one’s inner child from time to time. SEE PAGE x
Is a word like “retarded” acceptable language in today’s world? Check out the Opinion section to hear what a student had to say on the issue. SEE PAGE 9
Text message your news tips and comments to The Charger Bulletin! 1 (270) UNH-NEWS
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New UNH Residents Hall Building in the Making By KERRI ZBODULA
ing. The first floor of the building will be for residents and the other –––––––––––––––––––––––––– parts are where the dining facility and classrooms will be. It is also planned to have an outdoor green The University of New Haven space and outdoor sitting space. has new dormitory plans that will James McCoy, the Vice President be ready and finished in fall 2014. for enrollment management said, With plans to house 350 to 400 “The University of New Haven students, this hall will be located has become a resident campus and on the southwest corner of UNH’s needs to provide quality housmain campus near the Soundview ing for our students. This new Residence Hall and Kayo field. residence hall is designed to house “We know our students want to more students on campus. This live on the main campus and that it’s important to them. So we want has been a desire of ours for some time and we look forward to the to meet the needs of students and ground breaking for the project. the population. We want a new As any student who is interested in state of the art residence hall. This housing on campus knows we have is important. Food, housing and a lottery system for the availability safety are the things that students of rooms and at times everyone think about when looking at a who wishes to live on campus school,” stated Rebecca Johnson, can’t get a room. This new hall Dean of Students. we will help more students achieve This hall is going to be a suite their desire to live on campus for style building, designed so livinglearning communities can function their time at the university.” When asked if students would successfully. Some classrooms, ever want to live in this new resia dining facility, practice rooms dence hall, responses were posiand student activity space are also tive. Sophomore Dana Suffolk, a being incorporated in the buildcommunications major, said, “Yes STAFF WRITER
I would love to live in the new building, but unfortunately by the time it will be finished, I will be starting my senior year, so I would probably want to live off campus. But I really like the idea of the outdoor green sitting space. The campus definitely needs more of that.” It seems that the outdoor sitting space is a huge factor in attracting students to this new hall. Regarding all the residence halls that are already on campus, none of them have attractive greenery surrounding them. This will add a nice touch to campus, and will definitely attract more students. The groundbreaking ceremony is planned for spring 2013. The goal is that there will be small communities within the larger communities, since it will be such a big hall. The University of New Haven is going for living-learning communities so the students can function successfully and prosper.
John Murillo, an award-winning poet and an adjunct professor of English, has been awarded a $25,000 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Murillo is the second member of the English department to receive the prestigious award. Randall Horton, assistant professor of English and an acclaimed poet, received a fellowship nearly two years ago. Murillo is nationally recognized for his poetry. He is a two-time Larry Neal Writers’ Award winner, a New York Times Poetry Fellow at New York University and a member of Cave Canem, an exclusive poetry society. His poetry has appeared in such publications as Ploughshares, Ninth Letter, Lumina and the anthology DC Poets Against the War. A former instructor with D.C. Writers Corps and coach of Washington, D.C.’s National Teen Poetry Slam Teams in 2001 and 2005, Murillo has performed his own work in a wide array of venues, from the Kennedy Center to the Bowery Poetry Club. The NEA award, Murillo said, will provide him time to write a book of poetry. “It was a nice affirmation that someone out there appreciates my work,” he said. Murrillo said his works are poems of witness that explore love, politics and the human experience. “Most of them are based on my own experiences or the experiences of people around me,” he said. Murillo, who grew up in south central Los Angeles in a black and Latino neighborhood, often focuses on the gang violence, police brutality and struggles he saw there. “My neighbors were impoverished and there was a lot of fodder for emotion and political commentary,” he said. A high school basketball player, he did not play sports at Howard University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, because he cared more about poetry than the money-making potential of sports. “Poetry is one of the most prized fields within the arts,” he said. “But it is the least compensated.” Murillo also has completed a residency as a Creative Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work