120412 Chicago Maroon

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TUESDAY • DECEMBER 4, 2012

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

ISSUE 17 • VOLUME 124

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

INVESTIGATIVE SERIES

Part VI: Prevention and campus climate Joy Crane Associate News Editor & Hannah Nyhart Special Contributor This is the fifth installment of a quarterlong series on sexual assault, the fourth of which was published on November 20. It can be found at chicagomaroon.com. New student initiatives and ongoing administration efforts have established a solid base of sexual assault education and prevention at UChicago. However, citing problems both unique to the UChicago community and systemic to societal rape culture, a diverse array of community members have emphasized that there remains room for growth. O-Week Initiatives Fourth-year Linxi Chang basks in the sun during Monday’s unseasonably warm weather. JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON

by Resources for Sexual Violence Prevention (RSVP) and Student Counseling Services (SCS), informs students about the importance, appearance, and function of consent during Orientation Week. Following the event, students attend a Chicago Life Meeting, “Uchoose,” led by a student Orientation leader and one of their Resident Assistants to discuss the issues posed by the presentation. Attendance is compulsory for all incoming students. First-year Zoe Kauder Nalebuff said she felt that the meeting did not afford enough time to the issue. “The tone of the discussions felt very rushed; the RAs and orientation leader had far too much information to go through in a very short period of time,” she said. “There was one peer response prompt that...claims something like, ‘he didn’t

Sex Signals, a performance presented

ASSAULT continued on page 4

UChicago and the fiscal cliff AEPi lands great latke debate Linda Qiu News Editor The University could be hit with as much as an eight percent average reduction in its annual $1.5 billion of federal funding for national labs Argonne and Fermi and research grants for graduate students and faculty, should the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) go into effect on January 2. This depends on how quickly and effectively the newly elected 113th Congress will come to an agreement about the impending “fiscal cliff,” if at all, when over 1,000 government programs will experience automatic cuts under the BCA. “If the sequester occurs, defense and non-defense discretionary spending will be hit the hardest. And what falls under that non-defense discretionary spending is higher education, student loans, research,” said Mark Hansen, a professor of political science and the department’s former chair.

Neither Hansen nor Matthew Greenwald, the University’s deputy director for federal relations, believe that the sequester will actually take effect. Hansen predicts an agreement in the “11th hour” and a postponement period of three months. Nonetheless, negotiations for other deficit reductions do not prioritize higher education and could have lasting impacts, according to Hansen. Argonne and Fermi receive a total of around $1 billion of federal funding annually, while other research on campus receives about half a billion from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, NASA, the Defense Department, and others. Hansen emphasized that the eight percent “worst case scenario” in cuts is an average across research projects. Smaller projects are especially likely to experience difficulty in securing funding. “Some super researchers may still be really sucBUDGET continued on page 3

Argonne launches alt. energy hub Jennifer Standish Associate News Editor Argonne National Laboratory was awarded $120 million by the U.S. Department of Energ y (DOE) to launch the Joint Center for Energ y Storage Research ( JCESR) “batteries and energ y storage hub,” Secretary of Energ y Steven Chu, Governor Pat Quinn, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and University President Robert Zimmer announced in a joint press conference last Friday. The new center in Lemont, a suburb 27 miles southwest of Chicago, will establish Chicago and Illinois as the new epicenter for advanced battery technolog y.

JCESR will link energ y storage research and production and manufacturing, streamlining the production of alternative energ y, according to Argonne Director Eric Isaacs. “We’re taking on very large-scale, wellcoordinated, mission-driven programs here that will lead to breakthroughs in energ y science and also at the same time train and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,” Isaacs said. In the press conference, Isaacs outlined what he calls the 5:5:5 plan for the program. “We’re going to develop batteries that are five times more powerful, five times cheaper, in five years. That’s a very ARGONNE continued on page 5

Usually held in November, the annual Latke-Hamentash Debate was rescheduled to February this year. DARREN LEOW| THE CHICAGO MAROON

Benjamin Pokross Associate News Editor Editor’s note: Eric Wessan is a former Maroon columnist. The Latke-Hamantash Debate will be student-run for the first time this year, as a group from Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), a Jewish fraternity, has stepped in to organize the event. This year’s debate will take place in Mandel Hall, with a post-debate nosh in Hutch Commons, around the time of Purim, the Jewish holiday when hamantashen are eaten, in midFebruary. Third-year AEPi members Eric Wessan and Jacob Rabinowitz approached the Newberger Hillel at the University of Chicago, traditionally the organizer of the event, in

mid-October to express their interest in organizing the debate. They plan to reach out to other groups, Jewish and secular, and will also hold an open forum in the first week of winter quarter to assemble a team of student organizers for the AEPi-sponsored event. While specific plans have not been made, Wessan said that they plan to maintain the current format of the debate, including the presence of moderator Ted Cohen, a professor of philosophy who has hosted the event for over 30 years. The only change will be the addition of a philanthropic element. “We’re not sure exactly how we’re going to make this outreach, but we want to turn this event into a chance to raise money,” Wessan said. The exact charity has not been determined, although Wessan suggested that it LATKE continued on page 5

IN VIEWPOINTS

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

Sexual assault disciplinary policy needs reform » Page 6

Top Five of 2012 » Page 9

Pyping hot: Second-year stars in victory over Kalamazoo » Back Page

‘Dialogue’ stands in way of justice in Palestine » Page 7

Winter Cocktails » Page 12

Student-athletes set example, find match in local elementary school » Page 15


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