The student voice of Midwestern State University
The Wichitan page 5 Singing onscreen
page 7 Disappointing end
Musician Kate Voegele gains renown with role on TV show.
Womens basketball team drops final game to Eastern NM 75-56
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Group identification leads to self-segregation Karmen Simmons For the Wichitan
Pay attention to the social surroundings at MSU when you enter a classroom, the dining hall or a common area. In the Clark Student Center computer lab Monday night, the black students occupying the lab sat close to the back. The few Hispanic students sat to the right of the room. Foreign students sat among the groups. In the Mesquite Dining Hall
Monday a similar seating arrangement played out. This brings about an observation that only few detect or pay attention to. People of the same race split themselves from the social interaction with either races, even in classrooms. Many do not notice, but people tend to sit or socialize with whom they identify the most with, especially those of the same race or ethnicity. Even though there are exceptions to every rule, a look around campus will validate that discovery.
Radiology major Ashley Griffin said that she did not notice that people of the same race seemed to separate themselves from other races in social settings until it was brought to her attention. “I don’t really pay attention to it, but it doesn’t bother me. I just try to sit close to the front of the classroom or by friends,” she said. Mass communications major AnTuan Jeffery said that he did notice it. He also said he had friends who purposely sit by their own ethnic group.
“I think it has something to do with being comfortable. People don’t realize they do it, but then some do it knowingly,” he said. Dr. Larry Williams, director of international education and professor of sociology, said the division among racial groups is a combination of unintentional and intentional behaviors. People look for other people who have possible shared the same life experiences. “We look for something we can identify with in another person,” Williams said.
He also added that social distance and personal distance may be two factors involved and it is hard to distinguish between the two. “Social distance is the physical or psychological distance that people maintain from themselves and others. Personal distance is the distance between ourselves and others, and personal preference plays a part, too,” he said. Williams also noted that racial separation may not have anything to do with race at all. “It is easy to blame race as a
Dressing to Impress
Professor to give presentation on drag fashion Chris Collins Managing Editor Clothing will be optional during Elizabeth Lewandowski’s Faculty Forum presentation on drag fashion in Clark Student Center March 11. Lewandowski, who has given about 24 presentations nationwide on drag, is fascinated by the alternative fashion. “It’s breaking a societal norm to cross dress,” said Lewandowski, professor of theatre and costume designer. “I’ve always been fascinated by drag.” Dressing in “drag” means wearing the clothing generally associated with the opposite sex, usually for theatrical reasons, Lewandowski said. Cross dressing is distinct in that many cross
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dressers are homosexual. “I hope people will learn what’s happening. The people who do this do it seriously. Hopefully people don’t come to laugh,” Lewandowski said. Many students are interested in what’s outside the norm, according to Lewandowski. She warns students who plan to attend the presentation to “leave their judgments at the door.” Lewandowski said it seemed natural that she be interested in drag, given her background in theatre. She will give another drag presentation March 19 during the 48th annual USITT Conference and Stage Expo in Houston. The presentation will include a drag show. The conference will be attended by 4,000 people from 50 countries.
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It’s breaking a societal norm to cross dress. I’ve always been fascinated by drag.
Photo illustration by Patrick Johnston The Wichitan Chris Shoemake poses in his street clothes as well as his costume for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”
primary factor for obvious reasons, but it may be deeper than that,” Williams said. “Personal preference could be based not only upon racial markers, but also social class, where the person lives, where they worship or even where they shop.” The reason racial groups tend to sit off to themselves in unclear. Although unnoticeable to a degree, it is prevalent on the MSU campus. Apparently, people are more comfortable with whom they perceive are like them or share some commonality.
Clinton wins tight Texas race Brittany Norman Editor In Chief
It was a down-to-the-wire fight for the delegates in the March 4 Texas primary, but by early Wednesday morning Senator Hillary Clinton had won by a nose. With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton had clinched 51 percent of the democratic vote. Senator Barack Obama wasn’t far behind with 47 percent. With 34 percent of the Democratic caucus votes counted, Obama held the majority at 55 percent. On the Republican side, Senator John McCain took 51 percent of the votes with 93 percent of precincts reporting. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee was a distant second with 38 percent, and Ron Paul trailed with five percent. Approximately 2.6 million Democrats voted in the primary election. Only 1.26 Republican voters showed up at the polls. Clinton and McCain also collected victories in Ohio and Rhode Island. McCain and Obama won in Vermont. With these victories, McCain has secured the Republican Party nomination.
Sluggish Internet connection among campus computer issues Zachary Shipp For The Wichitan
As MSU updates its network management and security, both students and faculty continue to struggle with poor online performance. MSU’s four-year network upgrade project, known as Great Advancements in Technology and Banner or G.A.I.T., began in April 2006. Banner is a suite of network tools produced by Sungard Higher Education that ties academic, financial aid, registration, finance, human resources, and other university network functions together on one universal database. The student registration portion of Banner is set to go live
in the time for Fall 2008 registration. Jim Hall, PC/Network Services manager, said Banner is more network-oriented than the system it is replacing, known as PLUS. This network-side emphasis allows MSU staff easier control of the network’s inner workings and more uniform access to data. The G.A.I.T. project also allows Information Systems to tighten network security as Banner is brought online. Not all of the network has been improving. MSU has been increasingly limited by bandwidth, or the speed of the university’s connection to the Internet. According to Hall, the cam-
pus network operates on a 25 mbps connection. This means that the campus can download 25 million bits from the Internet every second. This network is separate from the one that connects oncampus housing to the Internet. Housing’s connection is only 10 mbps. This small connection is strained by the large number of students accessing the Internet from dorms and campus housing. Sophomore, Zach Eskridge, said Internet speed at oncampus housing is very slow. Streaming video sites like YouTube take a long time to load, and video will pause at times to continue loading content. With the recent popularity of
streaming videos on YouTube and streaming music on Myspace, housing bandwidth has been increasingly overworked. Eskridge said Internet access is much speedier in the Clark Student Center and on other campus computers. “It’s about ten times faster, at least.” The student center, like other campus computing locations, is connected to the faster 25 mbps connection. Mass communication professor Liz Minden also said that the network is suffering from bandwidth problems. Information Systems send an email to Minden and other faculty late last year asking that faculty ease up on extraneous Internet use, such as audio and video,
as well as peripherals. MSU has been working hard at increasing its housing capacity to deal with overflow, but Internet bandwidth has not been upgraded at the same pace. Hall said that if the housing network doesn’t get a connection with higher bandwidth, students could experience speeds as slow as dial-up. While Internet access is not generally monitored, Hall said that information Systems does examine network traffic for high volumes of illegal, dangerous, or problematic traffic. Web site access is not restricted due to potentially offensive content. “I am not your conscience,”
Hall said. The only sites that are blocked are those that contain known spy ware and proxy web sites. Hall said that MSU recently added multiple layers of virus protection to the campus network. Since this multi-layered protection was added, virus attacks have been reduced. Information Systems keeps the details of their firewall and virus protection confidential in order to prevent malicious users from pinpointing any possible weakness. No major virus problems have occurred since the multilayered protection has been installed, but Hall “won’t say it won’t happen. That tends to make fools our of people.”