The Daily Free Press
Year xliv. Volume lxxxvi. Issue VIII
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Wednesday, January 29, 2014 The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University
BUILDING FUTURE New architectural studies program grows at BU, page 5.
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Patrick gives final State of Commonwealth address Obama promises
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAYLOR HARTZ/GOVERNOR’S OFFICE
In his final State of the Commonwealth address Tuesday night, Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick reflected on his successes in office and emphasized the need for continuing improvement despite the progress already made. By Kelsey Newell Daily Free Press Staff
Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick gave his final State of the Commonwealth speech Tuesday, focusing on keeping issues like education, raising minimum wage and job growth at the forefront of the administration’s agenda in the upcoming year. Patrick started his speech by reflecting on all hardships through which the state has
persevered during his term and emphasized the unity the people of Massachusetts have shown. “I expected to face economic challenges, but not a global economic collapse,” he said. “I expected to find a sub-par transportation system, but not a bankrupt and dysfunctional one. I expected to face public safety challenges, but not the failure of a key water supply, a tornado or a terrorist attack. We have faced
up to these challenges, and many others, together. And it has made a difference.” Patrick spent most of the speech reflecting on past successes and how well Massachusetts citizens had come together in times of tragedy, as well as motivating the Commonwealth to work together for more progress in the future. “One of the biggest challenges for Patrick in this address is convincing the legislature and the public that he’s still relevant,” said John Carroll, Boston University mass communication professor and political strategist. “Patrick is very vocal about how he’s not going to fritter away his final year, so he wants to devote this year to assembling some sort of legacy that he’ll leave behind.” Carroll said he is critical of multiple aspects of Patrick’s legacy, and said the final State of the Commonwealth address was an opportunity for him to redeem himself. “To some degree he’s been a bit of an absentee governor,” he said. “You have a number of things where he’s come in after the fact and tried to do damage control … he’ll try to paint a picture of having achieved good things for the state and having the opportunity to do more good things for the state before he leaves.” In his address, Patrick said his term is marked with much success, including educational progress, innovation and infrastructure. He also praised the Commonwealth’s strate-
‘year of action’ in State of Union By Felicia Gans Daily Free Press Staff
In a room full of Congress members and other guests, including 2013 Boston Marathon bombings survivor Jeff Bauman and his rescuer Carlos Arredondo, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday night, pledging to make this a “year of action.” “That’s what most Americans want — for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations,” he said. “And what I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all — the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.” Obama said he was committed to creating a Washington, D.C., that serves as an efficient medium for his goals and establishing a strengthened sense of trust between the government and its constituents. As gun violence numbers spike in Boston, Obama spoke about the issue, vowing to stop the gun-related tragedies that have taken nine lives in Boston since the beginning of January, a number drastically higher Commonwealth, see page 2 than it has been in past years. “Citizenship means standing up for the lives that gun violence steals from us each day,” he said. “I have seen the courage of parents, students, pastors and police offidropout rate fell from 6.4 percent to 4.5 per- cers all over this country who say ‘we are cent from 2012 to 2013. Unlike DESE, BPS not afraid,’ and I intend to keep trying, with began recording these figures in 1977, and or without Congress, to help stop more since then, this is the lowest dropout rate tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters, shopping malls or BPS has seen. “Graduating from high school is funda- schools like Sandy Hook.” Thomas Whalen, professor of social scimental to closing the achievement gap and starting to bridge the economic divide,” said ence at Boston University, said the issue of Boston Mayor Martin Walsh in a Monday violence prevention is an important topic for release. “While I applaud BPS’s progress, Obama, especially in the wake of the 2013 we cannot rest until all students, across all Marathon bombings. “He just wants to relay the fact that we neighborhoods, are graduating BPS prepared live in a very dangerous world,” he said. for college and career success.” Ruth Shane, director of Boston Public “That’s why the controversial NSA program Schools Collaboration at Boston University, needs to be upheld. A lot of people are upsaid this decrease in dropout rate and in- set about phone calls being catalogued, but I crease in graduation rate is due to creating a have to say that, given the circumstances of more nurturing environment in the schools. the modern world, it’s necessary to maintain Shane said faculty members are paying more national security. It’s just an unfortunate reattention to the non-academic needs of the ality.”
High school dropout rate at all-time low in Massachusetts By Kelsey Newell Daily Free Press Staff
Massachusetts reached the lowest high school dropout rate in decades and the highest four-year graduation rate ever, according to statistics released Monday by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. JC Considine, spokesman for DESE, said this success could be attributed to the educators and officials within districts who work personally with the students and have launched programs to connect even more. “The credit really belongs to the districts because they’re using their own strategies to identify and bring back students,” he said. “They’re starting a lot of opportunities and programs to keep students engaged and keep them on a pathway to graduation. It’s really about providing a more personalized approach to a lot of these at-risk students with positive behavioral support.”
Considine said the state was at its high water mark when the dropout rate peaked at 3.8 percent in 2006. Massachusetts’s statewide dropout rate then dove to 2.2 percent from 2012 to 2013. Additionally, the fouryear graduation rate reached an all-time high of 85 percent during the same time. DESE began collecting this data in 2006, Considine said. “We’re beginning to identify the strategies that are successful,” he said. “Many of those include providing alternate pathways for these students, and providing credit recovery and credit acceleration because some of them are older students or [those who] have been disengaged for awhile. It’s important to give them the confidence that they can pursue the end goal which is not only graduation, but preparation for the next step and success at the next step.” Additionally, the Boston Public Schools
Dropout, see page 2
Union, see page 2
BU Dining Services, Club GiiVE co-sponsor composting in dining halls By Taryn Ottaunick Daily Free Press Staff
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE DESOCIO/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
College of General Studies sophomore Sarah Moran hands out stickers saying “I cleaned my plate” to students at the West Campus dining hall Tuesday evening as a part of Club GiiVE’s compost event that emphasizes reducing food waste.
Boston University Dining Services teamed up with Club Get Involved in Volunteer Experiences to hold an environmental awareness campaign in dining halls across the Charles River Campus Tuesday. “Composting Comes Out” encouraged students to become aware of the dining halls’ food disposal process by giving them the choice to either clean their plate or scrape their unused food and napkins into a compost barrel, said Club GiiVE Secretary Alanna Raskin . “Through composting and sustainability, we’re showing students what happens behind the scenes, because most students don’t realize that everything gets composted,” Raskin said. “They also don’t understand that when they eat half of their meal and put it on the dish belt, they’re wasting that much food.” Members of Club GiiVE were stationed at the dish belts with compost barrels. Students who cleaned their plates, thereby wasting nothing, were rewarded with stickers and asked to
tweet pictures of their empty plates with the hashtag #BUCleanPlate. “We’re hoping to get people excited,” Raskin, a College of General Studies sophomore, said. “That’s why we’re doing the competition with the pictures and Twitter. We want students to understand, and we think they’ll respond well. We’re hoping this will reduce waste in the dining hall.” BU Dining Services reached out to Club GiiVE to hold the campaign after students expressed concern for the disposal of their food waste in the Fall Dining Survey, said BU Dining Services Sustainability Coordinator Sabrina Pashtan. “This is an exercise, both in awareness of our composting efforts everyday behind the scenes and a campaign to advocate for the reduction of post-consumer food waste,” Pashtan said. “When students were asked in the Dining Fall Survey 2013 what kinds of sustainability initiatives were most important to them, the re-
Compost, see page 2