The Emory Wheel
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Emory Events Calendar, Page 2
Police Record, Page 2
Staff Editorial, Page 6
Student Life, Page 9
Crossword Puzzle, Page 8
Sports, Page 11
Since 1919
The Independent Student Newspaper of Emory University www.emorywheel.com
Friday, January 16, 2015
University Reduces Energy Consumption
Emory now uses 25 percent less energy, meeting part of a strategic plan set in 2005 one year earlier than anticipated. Energy use is one of the University’s largest expenses, as the campus used nearly 300,000,000 kilo-watt hours of electricity every year and spent $24.8 million on utilities alone in 2005, according to a Dec. 4 press release. That same year, Emory vowed to reduce energy use from 217 thousand British thermal units (kBtu) to 162.7 kBtu over the next 10 years, according to the Emory Sustainability Initiative. Emory still needs to meet other parts of its strategic plan, such as goals on reducing water usage and using more local and sustainable food, by 2015. “The[se] are the accomplishments of the Emory community as a whole,” Ciannat Howett, director of Sustainability Initiatives, said. “Every person who made a more sustainable choice, to recycle waste or take the shuttle instead of a car, contributed to Emory achieving the exciting list of sustainability highlights for 2014.” Along with this energy reduction, this year the initiative has led to a total of 25 LEED certified buildings on campus, grass-fed beef and humanely raised eggs in the dining halls and the elimination of Styrofoam products from the dining halls. Additionally, Emory joined the Atlanta Better Building Challenge, which works to reduce energy and water usage in buildings across Atlanta. As the largest participant in the program, the University committed 6.5 million square feet of enrolled buildings to reduce energy and water by 20 percent by 2020, according to Howett. Emory’s effort to promote commuter alternatives such as using the
Cliff shuttles, carpooling, walking, biking or using MARTA buses, has reduced the petroleum usage from 10 percent since 2005. Also, now, 50 percent of community members park on campus as more Emory Healthcare members, faculty and students use alternative forms of transportation. In its final year, the initiative will continue work on its many other goals such as reducing water usage by 20 percent and recycling 65 percent of waste on campus, but also providing more courses on sustainability, according to initiative. However, some goals seem more difficult to meet than others, including a goal to have 75 percent local and sustainable food, according to Howett. “We will likely be at about 24 percent in our 2014 annual report numbers — this falls short of our goal, but it is still an improvement since 2005 and near the 25 percent goal of the national Real Food Challenge,” Howett said. The 2005 University-wide strategic plan aimed to improve Emory’s “quality, distinction, the financial strength and resource stewardship,” President James W. Wagner wrote in his 2011 “Message From the President.” Wagner deemed sustainability a fundamental part of the mission to improve the “environmental, economic and social future of Emory,” according to Emory’s Sustainability Vision. College senior Sally Yan, a former volunteer for the Emory Sustainability Initiative, said she chose Emory partly because of its focus on sustainability. “I am excited and proud, but not at all surprised, that Emory was able to reach its goal ahead of schedule.” The initiative is currently in the middle of a strategic planning process to set goals for beyond 2015.
— Contact Sarah Husain at shusai5@emory.edu
Every Tuesday and Friday
T
Hagar Elsayed/Photo Editor
he University made a series of recent structural changes around campus, digging to repair leaks at the Callaway Center, removing and replacing a dying oak tree on the Quadrangle, a new login system for Robert E. Woodruff Library resources and a new system of reserving group study rooms at Woodruff Library and the Cox Hall Computing Center (see Page 3 for more).
health care
Emory Healthcare CEO Moves to Detroit Hospital By Emily Lim Staff Writer
John T. Fox, who has worked with Emory Healthcare since 1999, announced his decision to resign as CEO and president of the organization. He will take up a new position as president and CEO at Beaumont Health, which is located around Detroit, Michigan on March 25 this spring. In an email to the Wheel, Fox described his decision to leave Emory Healthcare as a “very difficult” one. Fox explained that he found
the new position attractive because Beaumont Health has a major commitment to teaching and has similarities to an academic medical center, with approximately 700 residents and fellows being trained throughout their hospitals. Formed in Sept. 2014, Beaumont Health was created through an affiliation involving the Beaumont Health System, Oakwood Healthcare and Botsford Health Care. A new CEO and president of Emory Healthcare has yet to be appointed. Until then, Emory Healthcare’s executive leadership team will report to Wright Caughman, CEO of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center,
campus life
Nursing school
By Annie McGrew Asst. News Editor
Left: Thomas Han/Photo Editor; Right: Hagar Elsayed/Photo Editor
Employed students will patrol areas where the Tobacco-Free Environment policy is frequently violated, starting this spring, according to the Office of Health Promotion.
Smoking Ban Enforcement Enhanced By Lydia O’Neal Asst. News Editor
Smokers beware: this semester, the University will beef up its enforcement of the Tobacco-Free Environment Policy, which bans the sale or use of tobacco products on University property, according to the Office of Health Promotion. Four student monitors, employed by Campus Life, will patrol areas reportedly popular among smokers, according to Director of the Office of Health Promotion Heather Zesiger. The student monitors, who could not be reached by press time, will walk in pairs through an area
News Callaway floods,
tree is removed from
& more ...
Quad PAGE 2
Sciences Center website, Fox and his Emory Healthcare leadership team expanded elements on the system’s culture such as increasing transparency and cultural diversity in order to achieve better clinical outcomes and improve patient safety and service. “It has helped shape me professionally and has been incredibly rewarding personally,” Fox wrote. “I think we have evolved into an outstanding and focused culture that really gives us clarity around the reason we exist, which is to care for the patient with all our heart and energy.”
— Contact Emily Lim at emily.lim@emory.edu
Students Investigate Civil Rights Cold Cases
By Lydia O’Neal Asst. News Editor
See nurse, Page 3
and to Michael Mandl, chairman of the Emory Healthcare Board. For Fox, one of his most lasting memories was Emory Healthcare’s decision to accept Ebola patients. “We had to make that decision rapidly, and it was not risk free,” Fox recalled. “However, within the culture of Emory Healthcare, I think we have a strong moral compass so we knew what to do and had no regrets about the direction we took whatever the outcome was going to be.” Fox worked at Emory Healthcare for longer than any other organization in his career. According to his biography on the Woodruff Health
academics
Liberian Nurse Enrolls At Emory When the father of Fatu Kekula, a 22-year-old Liberian nursing student, contracted the Ebola virus in August, she rushed him to the hospital. Every hospital she could find refused to accept him, so she brought him home, where he infected three other family members, according to a CNN article. Kekula spent two grueling weeks treating her father, mother, sister and cousin, and managed to save three of them. Now, she’s ready to finish her degree at Emory’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. Kekula has enrolled at Emory for the spring semester and will complete her Associate of Arts in Nursing degree by the end of the fall 2015 semester. She previously studied at Cuttington University in Suakoko, Liberia, which shut down during the epidemic. (Kekula has already completed three years at Cuttington. An associate degree requires four years of schooling in Liberia, unlike in the U.S., according to the Nursing School.) The Nursing School’s Associate Dean for Enrollment Management
26
new year, new campus
Sustainability
By Sarah Husain Contributing Writer
Volume 96, Issue
between the Robert W. Woodruff Library and Henry L. Bowden Hall, near Dooley’s Den and outside of Starbucks on Oxford Road. “The students are encouraged to work as many hours as they can during the times when there are more violations, to stop people before they start,” Zesiger said. She added that the student monitors would warn a potential policy violator as he or she pulls a cigarette or a lighter from a purse or pocket, a better response than expensive cameras with face-recognition technology that would only serve a punitive purpose. Still, Zesiger said, “if they’re bel-
OP-EDs The American
media’s whitewashing problem
...
PAGE 7
ligerent, [the students] are going to ask for I.D.s, and there will be disciplinary action.” Zesiger selected the three areas based on anonymous reports submitted through the Tobacco-Free Emory site’s enforcement page. She has been keeping track of the reports since October, after Human Resources employee John Kosky left Emory last summer, and said she has received seven to 10 reports per week since. The perpetrators, according to Zesiger, are not entirely students. “There are people in uniform, visitors, parents,” she said. “A lot of
See students, Page 3
Student Life
Senior follows ‘Shark Tank’ success with ‘ZipTank’ ... PAGE 9
James Brazier, a black man in Terrell County, Ga., had just bought a new Chevy Impala in 1958. Soon after, he was arrested, jailed and murdered. Emory’s Civil Rights Cold Cases Project investigates, attempting to understand why Brazier and others were murdered during the modern civil rights era through analyzing primary sources and the cultural climate of the time. The Emory Civil Rights Cold Cases Project began as a class taught by James M. Cox, Jr. Professor of Journalism Hank Klibanoff and Associate Professor in the History and African American Studies departments Brett Gadsden and has since developed into a larger project with a website launched last week. While working with civil rights organizations in a national Cold Case project in states such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, Klibanoff realized that no one in the organization was looking at Georgia cases. Soon after, Klibanoff and Gadsden met to discuss the possibilities of investigating Georgia civil rights cold cases and ultimately decided that their idea would best be implemented
in a classroom setting. “We felt a great sort of synergy about bringing the rigors of history and journalism into the classroom in this investigation,” Klibanoff said. As part of their research, students comb through FBI records, browse newspaper archives, visit state and local records and file Freedom of Information Act requests, according to Mary Claire Kelly (‘14C), a former student in the class. The class soon began to grow larger than the two professors had expected and evolved into a larger project. “It became quite clear that there was so much to do, so we should try to go beyond the class,” Klibanoff said. The project recently launched a comprehensive website that details the cases studied so far, including Brazier’s, and showcases student work. Some of the other cases include a 32-year-old woman who died from a bomb that exploded under her house, a man who was shot after being pulled over for a traffic violation and a preacher who was fatally beaten by two police officers. Emory’s program differs from programs at other universities such as
See cold, Page 4
Editors’ Note
The Wheel ’s website was hacked by malware this week and has been unavailable since Tuesday. We apologize for this inconvenience and expect to have it back up early next week. In the meantime, keep up with Emory news through our Facebook and Twitter feeds, and please direct any questions or concerns to emorywheelexec@gmail.com. Our next issue is Friday, Jan. 23. Thank you for reading!
Sports Athletic Director Tim Downes resigns ... Page 11
Next Issue
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Events ... Friday