Recycling style
Students go green with costumes this Halloween, page 13
Thursday
Octobe r 2 9 , 2 0 0 9
opinion College must address labor issues, page 10 sports Students train for triathlons in class, page 23 photo finish Men’s Soccer beats Brockport, page 28
The Ithacan
Bill could increase funding for study abroad programs By Lauren Barber staff writer
As many as a million American students could be studying abroad by 2020 if a bill designed to offer $80 million in grants to students, colleges and nongovernmental institutions is approved by the Senate. The Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act is part of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011. A similar bill was approved by the House in 2007 but failed to win Sen- Saunders said ate approval. If passed she hopes the by the Senate, the college will new program will receive funding. have to be approved separately through the appropriations process in order to gain funding. Ursula Oaks, director of media relations at the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers, an organization that promotes international education, said the legislation will be an educational opportunity for American students. “When you think about college, you don’t necessarily think globally,” she said. “But this gives American students the opportunity to understand the world.” Oaks said, if passed, the bill will increase students studying abroad from 200,000 a year to one million in 10 years. Tanya Saunders, dean of the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies, said she hopes the college will receive additional funds. “If it’s funded, I’m hoping Ithaca College will be in a position to request funds to support study abroad for our students,” she said. Oaks said since the bill has not received funding yet, which institutions will receive funding, and how much they will receive, is unknown. While the college does not set aside money specifically for study abroad programs, students are able to carry over their personal financial aid package to the affiliated programs of their choice, Saunders said. This helps lift the financial barrier that may otherwise prevent students from traveling abroad. Sophomore Sarah Stapperfenne said she is planning to study abroad next fall. The cost is her largest concern, especially with the exchange rate of the euro. “I’m sure I would save money if I didn’t go abroad for a semester,” she said. “If the money from the bill were to come to Ithaca and if I were to receive any of it, that would definitely be really helpful because studying abroad will end up adding to my debt.” Rachel Cullenen, director of study abroad programs, said it should not cost much more for students to study abroad for a semester than to spend a semester at the college, es-
See abroad, page 4
A new
start
Transfer students save money but miss social scene
Junior Kevin Johns stands yesterday at the Peggy Ryan Williams Center. Johns transferred to the college from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte last year. Andrew Buraczenski/The Ithacan
I t h a c a , N . Y. Volum e 7 7 , I s s u e 9
By Ashley MAy
Assistant News Editor
W
hen Kevin Johns showed up to club soccer tryouts last year, he felt like he was the only player who was not socializing, joking around and making plans for after tryouts. Johns was a sophomore, but he didn’t know anyone. Johns transferred to Ithaca College from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte last fall. For Johns, who said he saved about $25,000 by going to the state school first, the hardest part of transferring to the college wasn’t paying more — it was trying to fit into cliques that had already formed. “It felt like freshman year all over again,” Johns said. “I didn’t know anybody.” Johns said he feels like he made the right decision by taking a financial leap, but he said he would not transfer again because of the social disadvantages. “I don’t want to have to go to a whole other school again and do the ‘I’m new here, I don’t know anybody’ thing,” Johns said. The cost of college is at times the main factor in students’ decision to transfer. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2008 that two-year institutions’ net tuition, excluding room and board, has decreased from an average of $180 in 2004 to $100 in 2009. Costs at private four-year institutions like Ithaca College have risen. The study said in 2003-04, the average national four-year private institution tuition was $13,000 and rose to $14,930 in 2008-09. But the 2008 study by the National Survey of Student Engagement, which gathers data each year from four-year institutions, said transfer students often feel less engaged with their peers than other students. The study found that seniors who had transferred were on par with their peers in academics, but they were less socially involved on campus. This fall, the college received 169 deposits from transfer students — about half were students transferring from a community college. Of the 130 deposits from transfer students last fall, 46 percent were from students
See college, page 4
Kearney to appeal dismissal of case against district By Lindsey Hollenbaugh Editor in Chief
Four years after Ithaca resident Amelia Kearney’s daughter, Epiphany, was allegedly spit on, hit and threatened with violence and racial epithets while riding the bus to Dewitt Middle School, the court battle between Kearney and the Ithaca City School District has yet to be resolved. At a press conference held Oct. 14, Kearney, a former student at Ithaca College, and her lawyer, Ray Schlather, announced they would be appealing a decision by a Tompkins County judge that dismissed the case and denied the New York State Division of Human Rights jurisdiction in public schools. In spring 2008, the division recommended the school district pay Kearney $1 million because they said it did not do enough to protect Kearney’s daughter from racial threats. The district then appealed to the county’s supreme court. In the decision that dismissed Kearney’s case Oct. 9, Tompkins County Supreme Court Judge
Robert C. Mulvey said the state’s human rights law did not apply because the division does not have jurisdiction over “educational municipalities” and other municipal corporations. Public school districts had previously been defined as “education corporations,” which are distinct from municipalities because they are tax exempt and nonsectarian. According to the state’s Human Rights Division’s Web site, the law affords every citizen “an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive life.” The law prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, credit, places of public accommodations and nonsectarian educational institutions. In his decision, Mulvey wrote the initial issue presented to the court was whether the division had the authority to hear and determine complaints against the petitioner, a public school district. Mulvey stated in his decision that “the court finds that [the human rights division] did not have such authority.” Mulvey also denied jurisdiction
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From left, Ithaca City School District Board of Education President Robert Ainslie and member Eldred Harris speak at a press conference Oct. 19 at the school district’s Administration Building. Kayla Klein/The Ithacan
to the division in two other local cases involving the Newfield Central School District and the East Meadow Union Free School District. The Newfield case, in which two boys filed discrimination charges after being punished for hitting a school
bus driver, is awaiting a decision in the Third Appellate Court. The East Meadow Union Free School District case — restricting the use of guide dogs — was the precedent Mulvey
See rights, page 4