The Daily Free Press
Year xli. Volume lxxxii. Issue xc.
BATTLE ROYALE $tarbucks, Dunkin’ cater to different people at BU, page 3
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Wednesday, April 25, 2012 The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University
BEANTOWN BREAKDOWN
Analysis of Boston’s strange weather, page 5
]
www.dailyfreepress.com
WACKY WEDNESDAY:
WEATHER
Softball hosts PC for weekday rare doubleheader, page 8
Today: Cloudy, High 59 Tonight: Cloudy, Low 41 Tomorrow: 63/45
Data Courtesy of weather.com
Murray aims to decrease underage drug, alcohol abuse Democrats’ ratings
increase among young Americans
By Sydney L. Shea Daily Free Press Staff
Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Tim Murray said on Tuesday underage prescription drug and alcohol abuse is an “epidemic” that youth and officials must collaborate to fix on a grassroots level. The call to action came during one of a series of 50 town hall meetings. The meetings, Murray said, will aim to reach out to community members and share stories of substance abuse with the objective of prevention. About 70 people gathered at the Great Hall in the Massachusetts State House Tuesday afternoon to hear Murray, along with other officials, speak on solutions for youth alcohol and prescription drug abuse. Murray told the audience the goal of the meetings is to not just hear about statistics on drug and alcohol abuse, although they are powerful, but to see a face and hear a first-account story. “We want to help those who are battling prescription drug abuse,” he said. “When you hear these young people, they tell you, if it weren’t for these programs, they’d be dead – and that’s chilling to hear from a teenager.” It is challenging to always reach those who need treatment, he said. Murray said that in 2010 one in four people using prescription drugs for the first time began to abuse them after prescriptions were no longer in effect. He said 71 percent of these people continued to obtain the drugs from friends and
By Sonia Su Daily Free Press Staff
BELEN CUSI/Daily Free Press Staff
Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Tim Murray addresses underage drinking and prescription drug abuse during the kick-off of the Massachusetts Town Hall Initiative at the State House on Tuesday.
relatives. The law itself, he said, is not the only way to diminish illegal substance abuse. “We all need to be doing things – taking actions and teaching others,” he said. Murray said drug abuse is not solely a court or civil justice problem that requires punishment, but “first and foremost” a public health issue. Commissioner John Auerbach, of the Mas-
sachusetts Department of Public Health, told audience members that officials need to work with youth to solve substance abuse on a grassroots level. “There’s no health issue that’s more serious than dealing with the substance abuse issue,” he said. He said drugs are so dangerous for young people because the majority of homicides are
Drugs, see page 2
Students unsure about job prospects despite reassurance By Amy Gorel Daily Free Press Staff
Though the Associated Press reported Monday that only one in two recent college graduates are finding jobs, Boston University officials and graduates said they are not concerned and think the market is slowly recovering. “We at the CCD, as well as our career colleagues across campus, have seen this [recovering job market] in the numbers of employers coming to campus and posting opportunities for BU students,” said Eleanor Cartelli, associate director for marketing and communications at the Center for Career Development. The National Association of Colleges and Employers reported job prospects are up 10.2 percent from last year for those graduating in 2012, she said. Half of recent graduates are jobless or underemployed, the AP reported. There are uneven job opportunities depending on the type of bachelor’s degree. The job market demands those specializing in science, education and
health, but those who studied the arts or humanities in school are having difficulty. Nevertheless, across all fields, median wages for those holding a bachelor’s degree are down since 2000 as mid-level jobs are eliminated, the study said. This may not be the case with College of Communication graduates, however, especially those with in career-specific majors such as advertising or public relations, said Joyce Rogers, the Director of COM Recruitment Office. “It’s not so much that there are less jobs today as there are different jobs,” she said. “Where you’re going to work may be different. Journalists may work online instead of at a newspaper office.” A number of recent BU graduates said recent graduates can still find jobs, though many find the need for additional education after graduation. Nikhil Shah, a University of Massachusetts medical student and a 2011 BU alumnus, said, “A bunch [of his peers] went to graduate school
and the rest found work within three months of graduation.” Ray Curran said the job market was in a pretty good place when he was looking for a job in healthcare information technology after graduating from BU in 2011. He applied in early May, interviewed on-site two days after graduation and started working 10 days later. “Overall, it was a pretty surreal process that didn’t involve too much effort on my part,” he said. Curran said many of his friends had trouble finding jobs in the arts, but that might be because they were not willing to settle for “a job they know won’t make them happy.” Miriam Levine, who graduated from BU with a sociology degree in 2011 and works for AmeriCorps at the Blind Children’s Learning Center, said she sought a specific job in the nonprofit sector, which was hit hard by budget cuts. “I think science degrees tend to be more
Jobs, see page 2
President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress are sparking a reconnection with 18- to 29-year-old voters despite low approval ratings in the fall, according to a Harvard University poll released Tuesday. Although a Harvard University Institute of Politics poll showed the college-aged group gave low approval ratings for Obama about four months ago, the new IOP poll suggested increased approval ratings for Obama and other Democrats in Congress. This marks a 6 percent increase from the 11-point lead Obama held in the late November IOP polling, said John Della Volpe, director of polling at the IOP, in a phone conference at the State House on Tuesday. Obama leads projected general election opponent Mitt Romney by a 17-point margin, according to the poll’s executive summary. “A significant driver of the job-approval increase that President Obama has [received] has been driven by the Hispanic vote,” Della Volpe said, adding that there has been a statistically significant 14 percent increase among Latinos in the last four months. The IOP’s Survey of Young Americans’ Attitudes toward Politics and Public Service began in 2000 as a national survey of 18- to 24-year-old college undergraduates and now analyzes 18- to 29-year-olds on various current issues, according to the executive summary. In November, more than half of young Americans said the country was headed in the wrong direction, according to the executive summary. That number decreased from 52 percent to 43 percent, Della Volpe said. The poll’s release coincided with Obama’s visits to the University of North Carolina of Chapel Hill and the University of Colorado at Boulder Tuesday. Della Volpe said the most important issues facing America are jobs and the economy. But some of the intense pressure related to the economy since November is starting to decrease, with 58 percent of people citing jobs and the economy as their top national concern, a 16 percent decrease since the 2011 survey, according to the executive summary. Eva Guidarini, a Harvard College freshman on the Harvard Public Opinion Project, said
Politics, see page 4
Be Unleashed wins Union election despite less than 10 percent voter turnout By Jen Janiak Daily Free Press Staff
Fewer students voted in this year’s Student Union elections than last year as the winning slate Be Unleashed ran unopposed in an under-publicized election, students said. “Be Unleashed publicized well, but that’s it,” said Kandyce Graber, a School of Management freshman. “I didn’t hear anything else about [the election]. Maybe each group could [have done] some sort of campus event, like each group try to get more individual publicity.” Each Be Unleashed candidate earned about 1,300 votes, and about 200 students voted for “other” candidates in each position. Less than 10 percent of undergraduates voted. Last year’s winning slate, Build BU, received about 2,200 votes for each candidate compared to the competing slate, Rhettvolution, whose candidates received about 1,500 votes, according to an April 26, 2011 Daily Free Press article.
Emily Townsend, a College of Arts and Sciences freshman, said she did not really pay attention to any of the Student Elections Commission’s efforts to publicize the election. “I’ve seen posters and things up, but I’m afraid to say I didn’t pay attention to it really,” Townsend said. “I think emails would’ve gotten my attention. There were lots of posters for various things, ‘Vote this’ and ‘Vote that,’ but I would say emails [would have helped].” SMG sophomore Aditya Rudra, vice president-elect, said reaching students in all the campus communities was a concern for his group, though he said this is not an impossible task. “Campaigning was a great experience,” Rudra said. “You know, trying to get the message out there, first of all, we were chalking boards in CAS every morning and tabling at the [George Sherman Union] everyday.” Be Unleashed tried to have one representative from each BU community on its cam-
paign to reach out to all groups, Rudra said. Sarah Jasper, a School of Education freshman, said she did not vote in the election and, before she became a Student Union representative, was at a loss for what the group actually did. “I knew there was a general body and everything, but I didn’t really know what they did for us,” Jasper said. “They’re supposed to represent the school and get us interested as well, not just get the representatives interested.” Jasper said BU as a whole has trouble when trying to publicize events to the student body. “I feel like there just needs to be more advertisements about Student Union and everything [about] what it does,” Jasper said. Jasper said it was not clear why it was important to vote in the election. “I felt like, ‘Oh, why am I voting?’” she said. “I don’t know who these people are, I don’t know what they do, which is silly to say, but it’s the truth. I just didn’t feel attached to it at all.”
HILLARY LARSON/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
College of Arts and Sciences senior Amanda Peterson announces election result to the hopeful candidates.