TECHNICIAN
tuesday march
25 2014
Raleigh, North Carolina
technicianonline.com
SG bill to recognize LGBTQ students Josué Molina Managing Editor
Members of the Student Senate passed Resolution 98, the Inclusive Admissions Act, which calls for the University to include an option on admissions applications allowing prospective students to disclose their sexual orientation and gender identity. The senate passed the bill with ease Wednesday, and although its writer Alex Grindstaff, a senior in biological sciences and College of Sciences senator, said he was hoping for unanimous support, he still dubbed it a “land-slide victory,” and that it was. The bill passed with 34 votes in favor and five votes in opposition. Three student senators abstained and 13 student senators were absent during the vote. Grindstaff said the bill is an effort to make the University a more welcoming environment for members of the GLBT community. However, as indicated by the voting record, not everyone supported the bill. Some people argued against the bill on the grounds that it could potentially delay the admissions process or cause uncomfortable situations for members of the GLBT community, according to Grindstaff. However, the resolution stated that the question about sexual orientation should be optional. “Some people that were uncomfortable with the GLBT issue—any GLBT issue—were kind of using the excuse that [members of the GLBT community] may be uncomfortable, and they don’t want to be asked that question,” Grindstaff said. According to Grindstaff, it’s hard
VICTORIA CROCKER/TECHNICIAN
Justine Hollingshead, the director of the GLBT Center, addresses the student Senate, Wednesday. Hollingshead was promoting a bill to add gender identity and sexual orientation to N.C. State’s application.
to address the issues affecting the GLBT community because it’s difficult to know how many of these students there are on campus. Grindstaff said the best way to reach the GLBT community will be including these questions in the admissions application. “We can’t go in and ask these students ‘how do you feel?’ because we don’t know who they are,” Grindstaff said. “So volunteering this information allows them to get back to us and provide feedback. ‘Why are you uncomfortable? And what can campus do for you?’” Grindstaff said he worked with Justine Hollingshead, the director of the GLBT Center, to write the bill. He said Hollingshead helped him
with the language of the bill, and she also provided information about what resources are available for the members of the GLBT community. Hollingshead said she provided background information from schools across the country that have similar types of policies in place regarding collecting demographic data pertaing to sexual orientation and gender identity. According to Hollingshead, fewer than 10 schools in the country provide these questions on their applications. At the senate meeting, Hollingshead spoke about the GLBT Climate Survey, and she also said she answered questions some of the student senators asked during the debate of the bill.
According to the 2012-2013 GLBT Climate Survey, people in the GLBT community are considered an “invisible” minority because it’s difficult to gather basic demographic information about this community. The GLBT Climate Survey also said the campus environment could use improvement. “While participants reported having an overall positive experience at N.C. State, the responses to qualitative survey questions showed specific needs, which should be addressed on campus, including the presence of anti-GLBT people and groups on campus, the prevalence of anti-GLBT mindsets on campus and a lack of benefits for participants’ partners,” the Climate Survey said.
The next step, according to Hollingshead, will be talking to administrators about what this bill looks like from an “operational stand point.” Though Hollingshead said she doesn’t see the options appearing anytime soon, she said this is a productive way to start a conversation about making them happen. “When you are a member of a minority community it helps for you to feel like you are included,” Hollingshead said. “It’s just one component of who you are, but it can be critical to also send the message that everyone at N.C. State matters because we are capturing that information.”
NCSU lab creates large-scale destruction for safety’s sake Jake Moser News Editor
JOSEPH PHILLIPS/TECHNICIAN
Joe Klein, a Time Magazine reporter speaks at N.C. State.
Time columnist talks politics and citizenship Mona Bazzaz Staff Writer
Intense partisanship can result in government shutdowns and filibusters, but to one world-renowned journalist the problem doesn’t end there. It leads to a decreased sense of citizenship as well. Joe Klein, a Time magazine political columnist who has covered 10 presidential elections, spoke to students and other University affiliates Monday as a part of this year’s Harrelson Lecture Series. The harrelson lecture series has been active for almost fifty years, and Klein, the distinguished speaker for 2014, drew a crowd of more than 100 people. The topic of Klein’s lecture was “Politics Lost: The Search for Sanity in an Era of Political Consultants, Talk Radio, Cable News and the Blogosphere.” One of the topics he
covered was citizenship and how Americans are losing grasp of what that idea truly means. He described how the United States is becoming more divided as a nation and how the citizens can resolve this issue. One of these dividing issues, according to Klein, is the polarization of politics. “There are lots of moderates among the people, but no moderates among Congress,” Klein said. He spoke about how this representation is a huge factor for why the United States has lost some of its “connectedness” as a nation. Klein also found issue with the media and said “television has ruined everything.” “Television began inf luencing politics in 1960, when there were a series of debates between Nixon and
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N.C. State’s Constructed Facilities Laboratory can easily be missed among the huge buildings typical of Centennial Campus, but the research that has been generated and the objects that have been tested inside it and have turned the lab into a nationally-renowned workspace. The CFL, which was founded in 1995, is a graduate-research facility in the Department of civil-construction and environmental engineering, according to Lab Manager Greg Lucier who has worked at the lab for more than 10 years. The primary goal of the lab is to conduct experiments that support structures, materials and geotechnical research in the department, but the lab often sees third-party action as well. According to Lucier, the lab tested the wooden beams in RaleighDurham International airport’s new terminal, helicopter blades and the foundational steel bars for the World Trade Center’s replacement: the One World Trade Center in New York City. Though Lucier said similar labs can be found all around the world, there aren’t many of them that can compare to the CFL. Lucier estimated there are probably a dozen labs with capabilities equal to or greater than the CFL in the coun-
try and that only one other lab in the Southeast has similar capacities. “We have a unique set of capabilities here in terms of large-scale testing, the way we can interact with traditional research and industry and in terms of how we run and manage our work,” Lucier said. Lucier said he and other faculty members, researchers and students almost always test the steel, concrete and wooden objects “all the way to failure,” but it’s what happens to the objects up until that point that really matter. “Failure is very interesting because you learn from studying it, but in civil and structural engineering in particular, the goal of the design is to prevent a failure,” Lucier said. “We’re often looking at how things crack, deform and move well before they get to the point where they fail. We want to understand how a structure behaves during its service life under the loading it typically sees.” Lucier said third-party projects aren’t typical for the lab, but they are interesting. “We focus on traditional research and experiments where professors or principal investigators come to us in support of some broad research effort,” Lucier said. “The lab experiment could possibly be a large experiment but only a small part of the research.” However, the lab is also sought
insidetechnician Features NCSU researcher studies supernovae. See page 6.
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NC State’s success revitalizes fanbase.
Wolfpack takes down USL’s Eagles.
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after by “industrial clients,” which include engineering or architecture firms, construction companies, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation, Lucier said. The lab has even tested materials designed to repair nuclear power plants across the southern United States. “These clients might have a new product or a new system or need to figure something out about a problem they have in the field,” Lucier said. “Maybe they designed something, and it didn’t work out well. In that case, we would do a test, and we would report the results to that industrial client.” The lab usually works with traditional materials such as concrete, steel and wood, which are used for civil engineering projects, according to Lucier. However, CFL staff have also been increasingly their use of new materials, such as carbon fiber, glass fiber and different composites for repairing or improving civil infrastructure. “We’ve gotten into exotic tests like testing bullet-proof glass for mineresistant vehicles simply because of the large forces required to test 5-6 inch thick glass, and because we have the capability,” Lucier said. Lucier said he’s seen the CFL grow since his arrival and foresees more growth in the future.
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