Nov 18

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BROADSIDE AND CONNECT2MASON PRESENT

FOURTH ESTATE Nov. 18, 2013 | Volume 1 Issue 10 George Mason University’s official student news outlet

LEFT SOLO Lack of amnesty clause raises concerns about student health and safety | page 7

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In this issue

FOURTH ESTATE

Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

Cheerleaders work hard outside of basketball appearances | 17

COLLEEN WILSON EDITOR-IN-CHIEF gmufourthestate@gmail.com Of all the topics we’ve covered this semester, I think that the story on page 7 is one of the more interesting and important we’ve addressed and I hope our coverage is a kick-start for action. The story delves in to the topic of a Good Samaritan policy, a clause in the student conduct code that would allow students to call help for their peers who are sick or in trouble because of drugs or alcohol without fear of getting reprimanded themselves.

It’s a concept that certainly makes good sense to me and one that I’m disappointed Mason hasn’t adopted.

A few weeks ago, when I spoke with Brent Ericson, Assistant Director of Student Conduct, he told me that the university has done research on the issue and found “no demonstrated need” for a Good Samaritan policy.

The topic of our meeting wasn’t the Good Samartian story, so I didn’t press the issue, but I have a question to Ericson and other administrators who have brushed away the issue. What would constitute a demonstrated need? Does someone have to die? Do several people have to die?

Why wait for reactionary policy when we could prevent potentially dangerous and life-threatening situations from happening?

You can liken the issue to teaching

C-SPAN partnership born out of old friendship | 12

Faculty, students and administration show support for equal LGBTQ health benefits | 6

Board of Visitors and other university offices address need for increased endowment | 4-5

abstinence. It may be that the moral high ground is to preach that the best option is to decline temptation. But is it realistic?

Without condoning or encouraging binge or underage drinking, it is responsible to acknowledge that it happens.

In addition to instating a Good Samaritan policy at Mason, I’d like to see officials take a more proactive approach to teaching students how to handle themselves as safely as possible when they do decide to participate in illicit activities.

In this week’s article, Hortense Rascoe encourages students to reach out and contact the student conduct office if they’d like to start a conversation about establishing a Good Samaritan policy. I’d find that heartening if it were realistic. Reporters and editors at Fourth Estate have been working on the Good Samaritan story, and other stories about hard-hitting issues like sexual assault and drug policies, for months.

I understand that faculty and staff sources are busy with their own full time jobs while we start pestering them looking for quotes and interviews. I know that it isn’t every office’s first priority to speak to the student newspaper. But I worry when interviews are cancelled time and time again and emails go days and weeks without being answered and the only real response we get is “we encourage students to come talk to us.”

I am glad to hear that Student Government is interested in the issue and has plans to address it this year.

I’d encourage senators and executive members to move it to the top of the docket.

As important as spirit events and engagement are to the university community, this is an issue that could have a real and dramatic effect on student lives.

Why FOURTH ESTATE ?

Prior to Broadside, the student newspaper was called The Gunston Ledger.

It was changed in 1969 to better represent the politically out-spoken student body at the time.

A “broadside” was a pamphlet used during the American Revolutionary War to help spread information. While Broadside has become an important part of life at Mason, we believe it no longer represents the overarching goals of student-run news.

Though not specifically outlined like the three branches of government, the concept of a fourth estate referred to journalism and the media as an important tenet in upholding justice and liberty through establishing an informed public.

These historic roots coincide with the transforming industry of modern journalism.

gmufourthestate.com

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Online at

gmufourthestate.com Mason Gives Back helps with Typhoon relief efforts The campus service group has started taking donations to support relief efforts after Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines last week. http://www.gmufourthestate.com/ content/mason-gives-back-helpstyphoon-haiyan-relief-effort

VIDEO: Students voice opinions on Mason’s gun policy Students discuss self-defense, police protection and Second Amendment rights. http://www.gmufourthestate.com/ content/video-students-voiceopinions-masons-gun-policy

(JOHN IRWIN/FOURTH ESTATE)

Nov. 11 issue correction “Undocumented students at Mason” on pages 4-5 was written by News Editor Niki Papadogiannakis.

Photo of the Week: Victory over Iowa The men’s basketball team defeated Northern Iowa 76-70 on Nov. 16.

Q. What do you think of the Affordable Care Act?

“I’m not sure. I’m only a college student and I’m on my parents plan, so it doesn’t affect me.”

Scott Saundrous, freshman, undeclared

“I like Obamacare. I think it’s innovative.

Yes, the website needs a drastic change, but like any new invention, you have kinks and you have bugs. Once they work it out, Obamacare is going to be beneficial to millions of Americans across this nation.”

Obum Egolum, freshman, computer science

“I think it has good intentions but overall will not be the best for our society because it will force certain religious groups to go against their beliefs, particularly when it comes to contraception.”

“The only thing I really know about Obamacare is that everyone is required to get a plan and that it also cancels people’s existing plans.”

Ninoska Moratin, faculty staff with Catholic Christian Ministries

Justin Duvarney, senior, accounting

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QUICK FACTS What is endowment?

Endowment is a collection of financial assets used to support a college or university over the long-term.

How does endowment work?

Say someone donates $25,000 to the university. Mason manages that money and gets a return of about 4 percent that is used to fund different programs.

The goal is to never touch the original money with hopes that it will grow in time.

How does endowment fit into the university’s strategic plan?

“A lot of what Dr. Cabrera is looking at, things like executive education, is looking at different resources that could help fund different programs because we want to continue to grow and help solve some of the interesting problems that are facing the world today. But you need revenue to do that. It fits in because it’s all part of a strategy of how do we increase the different sources of revenue and resources that we can identify.”

-Jim Laychak, associate vice president of University Advancement

What percentage of alumni donate to the university?

About 5 percent.

“This alumni system can build and build. This is something worth investing in over the long term. We have an opportunity for growth in this university that few universities do.”

– Visitor Tom Davis

Information from NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY BUSINESS OFFICERS and Commonfund Institute

(WALTER MARTINEZ/FOURTH ESTATE)

Growing pains Mason’s endowment numbers lower than other comparable universities JANELLE GERMANOS NEWS EDITOR As part of the university’s new strategic plan, Mason officials are campaigning to increase endowments. Currently, Mason’s endowment is fairly small compared to other Virginia public universities.

Mason is on track to reach its goal of increasing endowment by 10 percent in the next year, but administrators and officials are looking even further into the future “It’s not just about this year, it’s about making sure that you do it year after year after year,” said Jim Laychak, the associate vice president of University Advancement.

According to President Cabrera, every fundraiser considers the balance of today’s needs versus the needs of future generations.

A decision must be made between how much money to endow and how much is unrestricted.

“The problem we have right now is that we are on an extreme of that continuum,” Cabrera said. “Our extreme is that our endowment is tiny. All of the money we get every year helps to satisfy the needs that we have that year. That is our reality.”

According to Laychak, Mason’s small endowment are due in part to the university’s young age.

“We’re a young school. We’re only 40 years old. If you look at places like UNC, William and Mary, U.Va., they’ve been around since the 1800s, so they have a larger pool. People have been giving for a longer period of time,” Laychak said. “Because we are a younger university, you don’t have people who have passed away and left their estate to George Mason that could then be rolled into the endowment.”

In addition, funding is typically used for current needs as opposed to future ones.

“Because of the changing in state funding, because of tighter budgets, people would say if you’re going to give me 25,000, I would rather just spend 5,000 a year for the next five years, because then I could make a bigger impact as opposed to waiting for the money to earn interest and then only spending $1,000 a year,” Laychak said.

Cabrera said that the university is now emphasizing endowment but recognizes that the university also has current needs. He used an example of a recent $3 million donation in which half of the donation was endowed and half would be used in the next three years.

University officials such as Cabrera and Janet Bingham, the vice president of University Advancement and Alumni Relations, recognize that in order to build Mason’s endowment, a broad base of donors and a culture of giving

must be established.

“When people donate, it’s part of getting engaged,” Cabrera said. “That whole expanding the base also means that those people, one day, if they have the right wealth, they may choose to do something big for Mason.”

According to Bingham, every gift given to Mason is important.

“It is imperative to pay close attention to both ends of the philanthropic spectrum-- expand the base of first time and repeat donors to the Annual Fund through creative, tailored appeals and simultaneously establish and cultivate long-term relationships with those who have the resources to make commitments at a higher level,” Bingham wrote in an email. “In addition, we will seek to engage the thousands who fall in the middle.”

According to Bingham, students who donate money to Mason are investing in the value of their diploma.

“Part of what tells the outside world that we are a winning team is that our people, our faculty, our students and outsiders want to ensure the future trajectory of this institution,” Bingham said.

At the Oct. 2 Board of Visitors meeting, board members and administrators discussed whether the focus should be put on expanding the base of donors or going after the bigger

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(JOHN IRWIN/FOURTH ESTATE)

President Ángel Cabrera and other administration memebers have increased their initiatives to raise endowmnet funding by encouraging alumni to donate. donations.

Visitor Tom Davis said that the university needs to expand its base in order to reach a higher endowment.

“You may not be able to give a building or donate millions of dollars, but if you have thousands of people contributing 25 or 50 dollars, it builds a huge base of endowment over a period of time where the university is able to give more scholarships and decrease the cost of education for people in future years,” Davis said.

“You can’t do it just by selling naming rights to the Patriot Center. You’ve got to have a broad base participation. Not just for the short term, but over the long term, those smaller donations mean as much as the big donations.

According to Laychak , the university needs more alumni to give to the university and is focusing efforts on increasing alumni donations.

“We probably have anywhere from 5-6 percent of our alumni that give, which is low when you compare that to some of our peers,” Laychak said. “We also have a big pool of graduates that are graduating every year, so the pool gets bigger.”

Bingham said that the university is developing new methods of encouraging alumni donations, including an i-module website that she will demonstrate at the Board of Visitors meeting on Dec. 11. According to Bingham, the university only has about 60,000 alumni email addresses, and the i-module will help to increase that number.

“It’s a way to engage our alumni in a number of different ways,” Binham said. “You can give gifts, you can get information on your class activities, you can get your transcripts, you can also connect with Facebook, Twitter, Smugmug, Instagram, all of those things. It’s a very dynamic site. You can also make donations through this site.”

The university is also focusing on other methods to encourage alumni contribution, Laychak said. This includes sending letters, having alumni volunteers on advisory boards and bringing alumni back to Mason to look at changes that have been made.

“We need to do creative things to engage alumni, help them understand how their

contributions make a difference, that type of thing,” Laychak said. “There’s a lot of good things that are happening, and people should be proud of what we’re doing, in terms of our different rankings, in terms of our returns on investment, especially because students that graduate from Mason have higher average starting salaries than any other school in the commonwealth.”

According to Bingham, a 10 percent increase in endowment will have the biggest effect on students, faculty and programs that are affected by the new endowments.

“A 10 percent increase in the endowment adds $240,000 to the university’s annual resource base. That’s an important addition, but not a dramatic one in the context of a total operating budget of $900 million,” Bingham wrote.

Laychak said that it takes time to develop relationships with donors, and the university needs staff to get involved in order to raise money for Mason.

“You’re not just going to go to somebody and say, will you give me $100,000,” Laychak said. “Part of it is we need staff to go out and engage people, talk to alums, talk to people in the community, talk to corporations and foundations, talk to them about the great things that Mason is doing, get them excited about different types of programs and get them excited about where they may want to make an investment in George Mason.”

According to Laychak, new staff members support the infrastructure for when large gifts come into Mason.

“Budgets are tight across the university, so we have to figure out how we are going to pay for that staff, but everybody recognizes that if we want to continue growing, we need to figure out how to make an investment in additional development staff,” Laychak said.

According to Cabrera, giving to the university will contribute to Mason’s goal of becoming a 21st century model for education.

“This is everybody’s university,” Cabrera said.

“We need everybody to partner to make sure this university is an amazing example of higher education in the 21st century.”

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FOURTH ESTATE

Support to extend benefits to LGBTQ faculty, staff shown by adminstrators, students, staff COLLEEN WILSON EDITOR-IN-CHEIF In the months leading up to the November state elections, Mason’s faculty senate, president and student government spoke out about their desire to see health benefits extended fully to LGBTQ faculty and staff.

Under Virginia’s current constitution, Mason cannot extend health benefits to the partners and families of LGBTQ faculty and staff members because of how the commonwealth defines marriage.

State policies prohibit the university from using state money for practices that conflict with state law.

Currently, all faculty and staff are eligible for health insurance if they are a part-or full-time, salaried, classified employee or a regular, full- or part-time salaried faculty member.

Since university health insurance programs are provided by the state, Mason cannot legally extend benefits to the partners and families of LGBTQ faculty and staff without a change in Virginia’s constitution.

In order to offer LGBTQ faculty and staff health benefits for partners and families, the Virginia constitution would have to be amended.

An amendment may be proposed in the Senate or the House of Delegates. If the proposal were to receive a majority vote, it would continue on the General Assembly and finally onto the Virginia voters.

Alternatively, the General Assembly may call a convention to address the issue of a constitutional amendment. The proposed amendment will then be voted on by the citizens of Virginia.

Though the Mason Board of Visitors was one of the university entities to pass a non-discrimination policy against LGBTQ employees and students in 2010, the board has not taken a stance or gotten involved on the issue of extending health insurance benefits.

“In my view, even if it does comes before the board, it is not something the board should get involved with. It’s an administrative matter,” said Dan Clemente, Rector of the Board of Visitors. “The Board of Visitors is appointed by the governor.

We take an oath and we’re endorsed officials of the state. We’re bound by what the law is, we don’t make the law.”

Though the president, faculty and students have shown support for this measure, Clemente warns Mason to be cautious in pursuing the issue with state legislators.

“We have to be mindful at the university level - faculty, board and administration - that since we’re a state university, we depend on approval from the state,” Clemente said. “When you think about the fact that we have a number of very conservative members of the legislature, when you come up with issues like this you can turn certain legislators against you.”

Advocates for the extension argue that the proposed changes to the healthcare benefits keep Mason competitive in recruiting and retaining LGBTQ faculty and staff members, especially from rivals in D.C. and Maryland who offer full benefits to their staff.

The Faculty Senate, an elected board of faculty representatives, spoke to those same concerns when they unanimously passed a resolution in support of the extension of health insurance benefits on Oct. 9.

Suzanne Scott, a professor of integrative studies in the New Century College, authored the resolution with help from other

(AMY ROSE/FOURTH ESTATE)

Suzanne Scott, a professor in the New Century College, took the initiative in authoring the Faculty Senate resolution supporting equal health benefits for LGBTQ faculty and staff. Following the passing of the resolution, President Ángel Cabrera wrote a blog post encouraging politicians to take action on the issue and Student Government passed a resolution supporting the cause.

sympathetic faculty members.

“We want the best teachers and researchers in Virginia,” Scott said. “People are not thinking about us and assume that the commonwealth is retrogressive in that way. If we offer benefits, we may attract more LGBTQ faculty and staff.”

Scott, who is openly gay and has been with her partner for over 30 years, recognized the economic and competitive benefits a change in the health insurance plans would provide, but noted that the measure would hold a deeper meaning for many in the LGBTQ community.

“It’s really more of a moral thing,” Scott said. “A lot of us feel that not matter how kind Mason is, and Mason is a wonderful place for someone to be out as a gay or lesbian, the fact that we don’t receive all the same benefits does affect the morale of the community.”

President Ángel Cabrera spoke out in support of the Faculty Senate resolution on his blog, encouraging the incoming governor and 2014 session of Virginia’s General Assembly to address the issue of faculty and staff health benefits.

“The negative implications of this situation are perhaps greater for George Mason University than for other universities in Virginia given our proximity to Washington D.C. and Maryland, where same-sex married couples receive the same benefits as any other married couple,” Cabrera wrote in his

blog post.

A little more than a week after Cabrera’s post, Student Government voted to show their support on the same topic, passing a resolution with 21 voting in favor, four in opposition and five abstentions. “[The resolution passed by faculty senate] is an initiative of some faculty members who are trying to get this accomplished by providing President Cabrera with tools to advocate at his level,” said Aaron Yohai, the student senator who authored the resolution, which was modeled after the faculty senate version.

“Part of that effort is to have similar resolutions passed by the student senate and staff senate.”

The Student Government resolution will be shared with state legislators in January during the annual Mason Lobbies trip to Richmond, where students campaign for more funding and benefits for the university.

“This is definitely a huge issue that impacts not only the faculty and staff, but students and culture,” said Kevin Jackson, the Student Government undersecretary for state government affairs. “It impacts who wants to come to Mason as a public Virginia institution. It impacts the caliber of faculty and staff we are able to hire. It makes a more competitive institution if this is finally implemented.”

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Despite growing support for amnesty clause, student conduct policy remains unchanged

(ILLUSTRATION BY KATRYNA HENDERSON/FOURTH ESTATE)

ELLEN GLICKMAN BEAT REPORTER Across the nation, some 240 universities implement a version of the Good Samaritan policy.

Mason, however, does not.

A Good Samaritan policy states a person shall be immune from punishment if they call 911 for someone else while they are intoxicated or high on an illegal substance.

“Amnesty policies can mean different things for many schools,” said Dr. David Anderson, director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Health at the university. “[But] a lot of campuses spend time developing this...The point is to avoid injury.”

In 2011, Dr. David Anderson and WAVES director Mary Ann Sprouse published a report on the findings of a task force established to create an overview of current issues regarding drugs and alcohol and provide suggestions on how to fix these problems.

One of the report’s recommendations included the development of a Good Samaritan policy.

“Mason hasn’t addressed it,” Anderson said.

Mason Police Chief Eric Heath said that, while Mason may be lacking an amnesty policy, students in an emergency situation should not be worried about possible punishment and should always call for help.

Student Government Attorney General Rachel Grimesey believes lack of student

voice might play a part in the current state of the policy.

“Student Government’s really been trying to shift our focus to things that people come to us about, partially because people didn’t come to us before,” Grimesey said. “We’re trying to bring people forward to vocalize more what they want from us, and that’s mostly what happened with the drug policy last year because we had so many people bringing it to the forefront of their issues we were able to do something about it.”

Soon, however, Student Government may have more fuel for legislative action.

Sophomore David Gibrael recently founded a chapter for Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

SSDP is an international campaign that seeks to eliminate drug policies they find ineffective or harmful.

“Without a policy like that in place and especially without an open policy - as in every student should know about that policy - it discourages people from seeking medical attention in the case of an overdose,” Gibrael said. “It’s very counter-productive even by their own agenda. It discourages people from trying to seek medical attention because they’re worried about repercussions.”

The SSDP chapter is still establishing itself as an organization, but Girbrael said he sees the group advocating for a policy change in the future.

Hortense Rascoe, the associate director of the Office of Student Conduct, said her office

is receptive to any student voice on matters of policy.

“Students play a salient role in the conduct process at Mason, from serving as board members and making decisions to providing suggestions to the director of Student Conduct about the Code of Student Conduct,” Rascoe wrote in an email. “We always welcome discussions and input from students.”

Discussion is less effective when Student Government only has a few opinions to bring to administration offices, and, when it comes to the alcohol policy, Student Government hears very few complaints, Grimesey said.

Despite this lack of feedback, Student Government has previously advocated for a Good Samaritan addition.

“Good Samaritan is something that has been going [in SG] since my freshman year,” Grimesey said. “My name is on a bill from three years ago advocating it on campus.”

No changes were made to the Student Code of Conduct, so Grimesey plans on incorporating a Good Samaritan amendment to the Student Bill of Rights.

“That’s probably going to be something that’s going to come up this year with the Bill of Rights,” Grimesey said. “It’s on the radar. It’s on the list of things that we’re looking at.”

Anderson believes administrative offices should also be considering an amnesty policy.

“I think it should be looked at,” Anderson said. “I think every campus should address the issue. Does that mean they should

definitely have a policy - you might have some reason where you don’t want to give someone amnesty. I would like to have a policy because when in doubt, don’t take a chance with someone’s life.”

Heath said safety of all persons involved is the department’s number one priority, and they would never want a student to not call 911 because they fear punishment.

“It is my expectation that our department handle situations, when applicable, in a manner that fosters further communication rather than impeding communication simply for fear that the caller and/or ‘Good Samaritan’ will be held accountable,” Heath said. “It is important for our department to be involved when the safety and well-being of an individual or the community is at risk, no matter the circumstances.”

Anderson said he doesn’t think the lack of policy has necessarily had a negative impact, but rather the absence is an empty space the university can fill by encouraging a more supportive community.

“I think we have a lot of lost opportunities,” Anderson said. “I would want to build a caring environment so if you see someone who has behavior [that could cause] harm to themselves or others - whether that’s suicide, homophobia, overdosing - you say something about it. That doesn’t mean report to police.

That means stand up...We have a mindset, we have a culture where we take care of each other.”

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(JOHN IRWIN/FOURTH ESTATE)

The associate director of public projects for the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, Sheila Brennan, wil be amoung the members leading the institute.

Digital humanities institute receives art historians grant ANGELA WOOLSEY STAFF WRITER The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media has received a grant to organize and host a digital humanities institute for art historians on the Fairfax campus in summer 2014.

Sheila Brennan, the associate director of Public Projects for the center, will be among the Mason staff members leading the institute. Her division within the center works with cultural institutions like museums, libraries and archives to create various websites for history resources, online collections and crowdsourcing, which encourages collaboration between different organizations.

Before joining the center, Brennan worked in museums and as a historian. She specialized in U.S. history but also has a background in material culture and museum studies.

Dr. Sharon Leon, the director of Public Projects for the Rosenzweig Center, and several historians from Mason’s history and art history departments will also serve as instructors for the institute.

The institute will focus on research related to American art history, fueled by the Mason department’s expertise in this subject and resources in the Washington, D.C. area.

However, Brennan emphasizes that the research will not be

limited to that subject.

Founded in 1994, the Center for History and New Media uses digital media and technology to present history online.

According to its website at chnm.gmu.edu, the center seeks to “democratize history—to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past.”

The center’s many project websites receive around 20 million visitors each year. They have become valuable tools for teaching historians and conducting research.

The Getty Foundation, which supports the understanding and preservation of the visual arts, gave the center the grant for the institute as part of a pilot program for digital humanities training.

“They recognize… a big need for art historians to learn some digital methodologies and tools that they can incorporate into their research and teaching,” Brennan says.

The Center for History and New Media had been invited into a limited pool of applicants for grants from the foundation.

The only other school to receive a grant was the University of California – Los Angeles.

Art historians and art history professors will be the chief participants in the institute. Brennan said they are looking for a well-balanced, diverse group of people who will be enthusiastic in learning and implementing the skills they learn over

those two weeks. Candidates for the 20 available spots will be chosen by a committee made up of Rosenzweig Center staff members and faculty from the Mason art history department.

Although applications are not open at this time, the center plans to start them early next year, likely around February 2014.

An additional goal of the institute is to train participants to teach the same skills to others.

“We want them to pass on that knowledge to their colleagues but also to their students,” Brennan said.

The institute may be intended for professors and faculty rather than for students, but it will still provide some benefits for the Mason community at large.

According to Brennan, the institute will allow for those who have never been to Mason to see what the university has to offer.

The event is a marker of how high Mason’s profile as a major national university has risen over the past several years.

Brennan hopes the center will be able to host another institute if this first one proves to be a success. They depend on grants for funding, and whether this particular program gets renewed depends on if the Getty Foundation sees it as worthwhile. Brennan said that there is a real need for this kind of teaching program.

“You hear a lot from historians and art historians how they really need this kind of training,” Brennan said.

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(PHOTO COURTESY OF OFFICE OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS/GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY)

Songdo, Korea campus set to open spring 2014 ELLEN GLICKMAN BEAT REPORTER In the four months before Mason opens its new campus in Songdo, South Korea, administrative offices are focusing on recruiting faculty and students to ensure the campus is ready for an ideal and on-time opening.

“We will need to have faculty hired soon,” said Matthew Zingraff, Interim President and Provost of the Songdo campus. “Orientation will happen in middle of January.

We want faculty out here in February because classes start March third.”

Currently, three tenured faculty members have been hired to teach for at least the first year. The professors will be teaching general education courses such as anthropology, sociology and mathematics. The search continues for professors in English, economics and English language support.

“We plan to have six faculty here at minimum for the first year,” Zingraff said.

Besides hiring faculty, administrators are also focused on attracting students.

“Priority is certainly recruitment,” Zingraff said. “Mason in the United States is helping. We have a number of recruiting events here in Korea over the next two months.

We are actively fielding phone calls from students and parents of students, [giving] campus tours...We need to let people know why we’re here, what we have to offer and get them enrolled.”

Anne Schiller, the Vice President of Global and International Studies, said the vitality of Korean culture will push more students to apply.

“Korea’s technology, education, fashion, music - it’s just a really exciting place, a very dynamic place to be,” Schiller said. “We want our Mason students to have the opportunity to experience that vibrant culture and to learn on our campus.”

Freshman Lisa Salas, who has long been a fan of

Korean and other Asian cultures, is very excited about the opportunity.

“Experiencing a different culture is one of the most interesting and eye opening [experiences] of how different people can be and how different traditions and ways people live are,” Salas said. “Overall I’m interested in that culture, and it’s always been something that I want to experience in the future.”

Schiller said that despite locations roughly 7,000 miles apart, the Songdo campus will retain a Mason identity.

“It’s a seamless kind of experience abroad,” Schiller said. “We call it a ‘trans-campus experience’ because your teachers are Mason teachers, your credit is Mason credit.”

Schiller also mentioned the pronounced diversity that will be present on the Songdo campus, a hallmark Mason characteristic.

“You can’t be an international campus if you don’t have people from different countries and Mason Korea is by definition going to be an international campus,” Schiller said. “We are recruiting students from all over the world to be regularly enrolled students there. Mason prides itself on diversity, and if we’re going to be Mason we need to be diverse wherever we’re based.”

Zingraff also stressed the strong connection between campuses.

“We don’t want to have two universities,” Zingraff said. “[Just] lots of opportunities for crossing the ocean.”

Salas said she thinks it is incredible that Mason is spreading to a campus on the other side of the world.

“I’ve always wanted to go to the other half of the world, so this is an opportunity I could take advantage of and have a chance to go to Korea,” Salas said.

Schiller urged any interested student to take part in this global expansion.

“It’s an exciting opportunity for any domestic student to go there because you have the opportunity to help Mason chart a brand new course in Asia,” Schiller said.

(WALTER MARTINEZ/FOURTH ESTATE)

(Left) A rending of the Songdo, Korea campus. (Above) The university hosted multiple information sessions on the Songdo Campus to encourage students to keep the South Korean campus an academic option.

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10

Nov. 18, 2013

News

FOURTH ESTATE

Partnership with INTO may double international student population, increase investment money

(JOHN IRWIN/FOURTH ESTATE)

SUHAIB KHAN STAFF WRITER Mason’s international student population may soon double thanks to a new partnership with INTO University Partnerships.

The for-profit, British organization assists universities in boosting the number of international students they enroll, as well as working to improve the quality of education for international students. Currently, INTO has partnerships with five universities in the United States.

“We’re negotiating very hard with INTO, and we hope to have a contract to present to the board by Dec. 11,” said Provost Peter Stearns. “Our hope is that the board will vote to approve that contract, but until that happens, we’re talking probability, not certainty.”

According to Stearns, Mason has the potential of welcoming a higher number of international students.

“We’re currently at 4.5 percent, and we’re proud of our international students and how many we have from how many different countries, but it’s not a very high percentage,” Stearns said. “We would like to raise it, both for purposes of further globalizing the campus and because there are revenue implications that would be favorable to the university.”

INTO boasts the combination of their own resources along with the resources provided by the university to give students a personalized education that only their university can provide.

“INTO has an outstanding network of recruiting agents around the world,” Stearns said. “There’s no way we can replicate that.

They have capacity that there’s just no way we can develop.”

Stearns said that INTO would partner with Mason in what is known as a “joint-venture” to organize a transition program for students to give them further work in English and some experience in academic courses for a year or so before they are matriculated into the Mason community.

The current proposal to establish a partnership with INTO is not the first. INTO approached Mason once before in 2008, but at the time, Mason officials refused a partnership.

“We were a little hesitant because they didn’t have an American track record,” Stearns said. The only American school INTO had a partnership with at the time was Oregon State University.

In addition to increased campus globalization and financial revenue for the university, Stearns indicated that an increased number

of international students will further understanding between the participating nations.

“One hopes that international students have a good experience in this country, and when they go back to their home countries, one has built some bridges that are beneficial to smooth international relations,” Stearns said.

If the partnership with INTO is approved by the board, Mason will retain many responsibilities for its international students program, including independent recruitment of students.

“We’ll continue our own recruitment,” Stearns said. “We regularly go to South Korea, China, Vietnam, and we have a very good connection with Saudi Arabia.”

The main benefit of Mason’s potential partnership with INTO will be increased numbers, according to Stearns. INTO will provide some investment money to the university, but ultimately financial assistance is not the predominant method of aid that the company will provide.

Stearns is also convinced of the quality of the program itself due to positive reviews from the other American institutions that currently have partnerships with the company.

“We have sent site visits during the summer to Oregon State and the University of South Florida,” Stearns said. “They have had a few

“INTO has an outstanding network of recruiting agents around the world.

There’s no way we can replicate that.

They have capacity that there’s just no way we can develop.”

-Peter Stearns, Provost

issues, but in the main, they are uniformly enthusiastic about the numbers, the quality of the students and the impact on campus.”

Stearns also dismissed the notion that this partnership would negatively impact professors at Mason.

“This means that we will be hiring more faculty,” Stearns said. “Oregon State has hired 75-100 additional tenure-track faculty over the strength on the expansion of international students.”

FOURTH ESTATE

News

Nov. 18, 2013

11

(PHOTO COURTESY OF COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES)

The new facility will be in the Academic VII, wich will begin construction in late 2014 next to University Hall . The building is to host classrooms, research and an open clinic.

New integrative research facility to house college of health, human services NIKI PAPADOGIANNAKIS NEWS EDITOR The College of Health and Human Services will soon be housed in a new comprehensive building. The building, whose construction is set to begin in September 2014 on the Fairfax campus, will provide the foundations for a new health research facility that will contain classrooms, research labs and a community clinic.

“Not only are we training more nurses in this region than anybody else and also training masters in public health and other programs like that, but now we are also going to have a facility where we can offer some services to the community,” said President Ángel Cabrera. “Our students can practice. It’s great for their learning, and, at the same time, we are providing a service to the community.”

The new facility, tentatively titled Health and Human Services, will create a multidisciplinary learning environment for students in the college, according to Thomas Prohaska, the dean of CHHS. Undergraduate and graduate students, as well as instructional and research faculty, will be able to use classrooms, research labs and the clinic and will coexist with each other.

“The purpose is to have all three interchangeable,” Prohaska said. “Students will be learning in clinic settings and will be collaborating on research, and academic curriculum will be informed by clinic practice and research findings. So it’s a little bit more integrated than you might think. And it’s designed for that very purpose: to provide the full array of competencies in practice, research and academic competencies that are required of people in the health sciences. “ The building, which has been authorized by the university and is currently in concept phase, will unify CHHS, according to facilities administration’s website. Currently, CHHS’ central offices and classrooms are located in Robinson, but the departments are located in seven different buildings on the Fairfax campus, Prohaska said.

“We are spread out,” Prohaska said. “This will be the first time that we’ll be all together.”

The new building will replace what is currently the faculty lot next to University Hall.

“It’s on the edge of the campus and close proximity to downtown,” Prohaska said.

“Which is important because the clinic is open to a broader group of patients and participants than just what you normally would think.”

The combination of classrooms, research

and clinic allows for a more real-world approach to learning in CHHS, Prohaska said.

“We have six different departments or schools and two centers and within this we have disciplines that run the full gamut of health,” Prohaska said. “And with that, each one of them needs to be aware of their role in the healthcare arena and be able to coordinate the care. So one of the things that is new is that many of the kinds of training opportunities for students and faculty alike will be multidisciplinary in nature.”

With this multidisciplinary system, students will become better rounded. For example, a student with a nursing degree may also have a public health degree.

“We have purposefully tried to do more integration of some of the particular content areas and disciplines rather than be separated from each other,” Prohaska said.

The clinic will allow for an increase in community involvement and working with other industries, according to the facilities management website. Patients can be treated on multiple aspects of health because of the multidisciplinary approach, Prohaska said.

The clinic will provide clinical trials, wellness checkups, flu shots and services lacking in the community to provide a holistic view of

health.

“It’s a multidisciplinary, multifactorial kind of clinic where all things could happen,” Prohaska said.

According to Prohaska, on-site research is a necessary element of training people in CHHS because of the advancements in research in the health profession.

“If we were a health profession college without research, we would teach you exactly what we know now,” Prohaska said. “The life of your degree would be very much short as a function of that. We train you not only on what’s going on now, but we teach you how to be consumers of new advances in the field and the latest in that field to where you stay competitive for quite a while.”

The research aspect of the facility will allow for more research activity on campus, which matches the university’s strategic plan goal to have “very-high research activity” according to the Carnegie classification.

The current budget for the new building is $3,488,126, according to the facilities management website. Prohaska noted that private donations will aid the completion of the facility as well as determine the official name of the building.

12

Nov. 18, 2013

Lifestyle

FOURTH ESTATE

(JOHN IRWIN/FOURTH ESTATE)

Longstanding friendship fosters C-SPAN collaboration DENISHA HEDGEBETH STAFF WRITER Former Mason President Alan Merten first met Brian Lamb of C-SPAN as a White House military aide during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. They worked along with Ed Mathias, who became a managing editor of The Carlyle Group, and Chuck Robb, who served as a U.S. senator for Virginia from 1989 to 2001.

“We were all 23 or 24, and we worked in the White House. So that’s how I first met Brian,” Merten said. “We were both military aides to the President. So when I became president of George Mason in 1996, we got together again and subsequently become close friends.”

That friendship formed the foundation for the eventual partnership between Mason and C-SPAN. C-SPAN, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, was launched in 1979 to provide live, unedited footage of Congress. It televises U.S. political events, such as live coverage of federal government proceedings, along with other types of political programming.

The symbiotic partnership began in 1981, but the relationship goes back much further.

“Mason was new to this area in the last 40 or 50 years, and the established universities like Georgetown, George Washington, the University of Maryland and some of the other universities got all the attention,” Lamb said.

“We like the fact that during our association with George Mason, Mason has gotten more and more attention for the kinds of things

they’re doing, and it was fun to grow with them, because we were rather insignificant when we started.”

Throughout the years, Mason and C-SPAN have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship, including Mason professors appearing on C-SPAN and Mason students joining a C-SPAN Teleconference class developed and taught by Steve Scully, a senior executive producer for the network.

In 2011, C-SPAN donated the “Booknotes” collection to Mason’s libraries. Hosted by Lamb, “Booknotes” was a program televised from 1989 to 2004 and featured one-on-one interviews with nonfiction authors to discuss their latest writings. Notable guests include Hillary Clinton, David Crosby and Richard Nixon. C-SPAN donated over 800 books, all filled with marginal notes made by Lamb at the time, and a $25,000 grant from the C-SPAN Education Foundation allowed Mason’s Special Collections and Archives to catalogue and preserve the collection.

“I was a frequent viewer of the [Booknotes] program,” said John Zenelis, university librarian at Mason. “So when Brian Lamb said on-air that the program was coming to an end, I made a mental note that I would pursue the collection. I shared the idea with President Merten and asked him if his office could make the connection, and they did.”.

Zenelis said that Mason’s libraries will also receive C-SPAN’s organizational records and historical archives from its founding days.

He adds that both the “Booknotes”

collection and the organizational records will not just be sitting in the libraries. Rather, they will be utilized for teaching purposes and add to Mason building a research-level library.

While Mason has benefitted through these donations and through gaining a national visibility, and C-SPAN has benefitted from its ability to broadcast to the Washington D.C. area, Merten, Kelley, Zenelis and Lamb all attribute the strength of the partnership to the strong friendship behind-the-scenes.

“This has been kind of a dream relationship where we’ve always gotten along. A lot of that is due to the personalities of the people involved. They’re not trying to hog the spotlight or try to get more than they give,” said Brian Lamb, founder of C-SPAN. “It’s been an equal relationship back and forth.

You hear it all the time: It’s just a relationship based on trust. Trust and friendship. You can’t beat that.”

Dr. Mike Kelley, a Distinguished Service professor, founded GMU-TV’s “The Capitol Connection” through the GMU Instructional Foundation after realizing that there was no cable television service in Washington D.C., meaning the President of the United States and all of the federal government agencies were unable to see the House of Representatives in action.

“When C-SPAN was first formed, they could get into every large city in the country except for one: Washington D.C.,” Merten said. “And so Mason’s satellite and Mason’s Capitol Connection becomes the early way in which

C-SPAN gets to, as Brian puts it, the most powerful eyeballs in the world.”

The Capitol Connection is a subscription television service that transmits C-SPAN to the White House and other Washington government business offices.

“I called Brian Lamb because I knew him and I said ‘I’ve got an idea of how to solve this Congress and the television station problem.

George Mason could put C-SPAN on its own TV station and make it available around the city,’” Kelley said. “Lamb checked with the Board of Directors and sure enough, they voted in favor of us getting the signal. This was in the summer of 1981.”

As a member of the Board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kelley was one of the guests on C-SPAN’s first ever call-in show, which is how he got to know Lamb. Later, the service added CNN, C-SPAN2, and C-SPAN3, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg Television. Revenues from the Capitol Connection service directly benefit Mason.

Dr. Mike Kelley, a Distinguished Service professor who founded GMU-TV’s “The Capitol Connection”, died on , Nov. 11. Scan the QR Code to read the Mason Newsdesk article about his life.

13 Lifestyle WAVES, American Cancer Society team up against smoking Fourth estate

SAVANNAH NORTON STAFF WRITER Outside nearly every building on Mason’s campus, students can be found smoking a cigarette before class.

Smokers often have a difficult time figuring out how to kick their habit. On Nov. 21, Wellness Alcohol and Violence Services is sponsoring The Great American Smokeout to give the student smokers a place to start breaking their addiction. The event will be held from 11-2 p.m. in the Patriot Lounge located in SUB I. The American Cancer Society hosts The Great American Smokeout to bring students together to come up with a plan to stop their smoking addiction or to stop right on the spot.

Held each year on the third Thursday of November, the goal of the day is to encourage smokers to make a plan to quit or quit in anticipation of the event.

WAVES will be providing free “quit kits” for students in attendance. The quit kits include distraction tools, like silly putty and lolipops, quitting tips and much more. The Great American Smokeout will have information tables, games and activities for students, like the Smoking Relationship Status.

“We are going to see what type of relationship they have with tobacco whether it be

Nov. 18, 2013

a fling or a bromance,” said Kathryn Walker, the coordinator for Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Education.

Students can also receive a free t-shirt if they stop at any three of the nine information tables.

“The event has a bunch of great elements,” Walker said. “We discuss the five stages of quitting, so we have pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance.

But I think the biggest element that we want to tell students is that it is for non-smokers and smokers.”

This event aims to help people going through any stage of quitting and to help nonsmokers learn how to support the smokers in their life.

“If you are a smoker or not a smoker, there is going to be information at this event to apply to yourself or to apply to a loved one,” Walker said.

This event will teach students not only about ways to quit smoking but also the environmental impact of cigarettes and the effects of secondhand smoke.

“Cigarette butts are actually non-biodegradable,” Walker said. “We want to make sure that they know when they are throwing those out that they are not good for the environment and that it’s adding toxins to our environment.”

Tobacco is the single largest preventable

(JOHN IRWIN/FOURTH ESTATE)

cause of disease and premature death in the United States. About 43.8 million Americans still smoke cigarettes — nearly one in every five adults.

With the help and information provided by the upcoming WAVES event, smokers can get a jump-start toward reaching their goal of quitting.

Wellness by Mason is also going to be in attendanceand will have a table set up to

discuss available resources on campus.

“I want students to understand that there is an empathy and that there is support and not judgment. We want to help them on the path that they’re interested in taking,” Walker said. “Be a quitter. Quitting usually has that idea that you’re losing or something bad, but we want to help you quit. We are all trying to quit something that’s not working in our lives.”

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14

Lifestyle

Nov. 18, 2013

Fourth estate

Caffeine drinks boost students through semester

(WALTER MARTINEZ/FOURTH ESTATE)

(JOHN IRWIN/FOURTH ESTATE)

SAVANNAH NORTON STAFF WRITER Coffee, tea, energy drinks, energy shots, soda, and even smoothies from the Johnson Center with energy boosters are all common ways students get their energy supplements to make it through the busy life of a college student.

Coffee clearly took the lead in the poll, which explains the popularity of Starbucks on campus. Starbucks is the most popular place to buy coffee on campus and the Mason location is the most popular Starbucks in the Fairfax area. Alpha Bah, manager of Mason’s Starbucks, said that there is about 9,100 coffee drinks sold daily. On average 60 percent of Starbucks sales are espresso, but at Mason 90 percent of the sales are espresso products.

“I like coffee because it’s healthier than energy drinks and stronger than tea. I usually drink one to two cups a day,” said Sophomore Michael Gasvoda Caffeine may be highly consumed on campus, but some students don’t actually know what it is about caffeine that keeps them going throughout the day. Caffeine fuels the

central nervous system, lessens fatigue and improves alertness, concentration and focus.

“I consume caffeine mostly in the afternoons to keep me awake while I’m doing my homework, usually tea,” said sophomore Jessica Weindling.

According to the popular news website, Global Post, they found that moderate coffee consumption does help your test scores.

“In the October 21, 2007, issue of ‘The Nutrition Journal,’ a study was published in which 51 percent of 496 college students regularly resorted to coffee and other caffeinated beverages to help them in test preparation. John Wiley and Sons in “Human Psychopharmacology” concluded that caffeine gave an advantage,” the article read. “The study indicated that higher levels of the stimulant in coffee showed increased levels of alertness and improved cognitive responses.”

Sophomore Natasha Warcholak said that she drinks a variety of caffeinated beverages.

“Monsters are good for studying, but for regular times of the day I just drink Coke, and coffee if it’s cold outside,” Warcholak said. “It’s mostly for taste, water is boring to me, I don’t do it for

In a poll of 145 students on gmufourthestate.com, the majority of students indicated that they prefer coffee as their daily dose of caffeine. the energy unless it’s for studying.”

“I drink caffeine definitely daily. I would say usually once or twice a day. I’m not a big soda person, but I’ll usually get coffee or a latte at Starbucks or make a cup of hot tea in my dorm,” said junior Kasi Bumgarner.

Caffeinated drinks can rejuvenate a person but it is also helpful to know what it does to your body when you consume it.

Two to four cups of brewed coffee are not harmful for a wake up in the mornings but once a student’s intake surpasses that amount, there could be serious consequences and effects.

According to Mayo Clinic, effects can include insomnia, nervousness, restlessness, irritability, an upset stomach, a fast heartbeat and muscle tremors. Everyone reacts to caffeine a bit differently.

Cutting back on caffeine can be tough, causing a person to have withdrawal symptoms like headaches, fatigue, irritability,and nervousness. It is not necessary to stop drinking caffeine all together; however, it would be more beneficial to keep tabs on how much is consumed and limit the weekly consumption.

FOURTH ESTATE Colleen Wilson Editor-In-Chief gmufourthestate@gmail.com

Opinion

Managing Editor

Niki Papadogiannakis Janelle Germanos News Editor

Mary Oakey Asst. Lifestyle Editor

Will Rose Opinion Editor

Hau Chu Sports Editor

Daniel Gregory Asst. Sports Editor

John Irwin

Photography Editor

Walter Martinez Design Editor

Jill Carter Copy Chief

Katryna Henderson Illustrator

Kathryn Mangus Faculty Advisor

David Carroll Associate Director Fourth Estate operates as a publication of Broadside.

Fourth Estate is printed each Monday for George Mason University and its surrounding Fairfax Community. The editors of Fourth Estate have exclusive authority over the content that is published.

MICHAEL GRYBOSKI COLUMNIST It is a strange thing to behold a given interest group actively supporting a cause that goes contrary to its own interests. However, this strange phenomenon happens more often in ideological conflict.

Consider the union members who voted for anti-union Republican candidate Barry Goldwater back in 1964 or modern-day millionaires like Warren Buffet who support having their taxes raised. Are these examples too distant for the typical Mason student? If so, a more relatable case in point may be found with an event held on campus last week.

Known as “Pink-washing and Queer Tourism,” the event was jointly sponsored by Mason’s Pride Alliance and Students Against Israeli Apartheid. For those unfamiliar, “pink-washing” is a term used to describe what Pro-Palestinian outfits often argue Israel engages in by being the most gay-friendly nation in the Middle East. The theory goes that by being so adamantly pro-gay, Israel is making appeals to Western powers to give the impression that they are a free society, all the while directing western eyes away from their treatment of the Palestinians.

This is where things get strange: Pride Alliance seeks to create a world where gay and transgender rights are the norm. Israel is

Mail Fourth Estate George Mason University Mail stop 2C5 4400 University Drive Fairfax, Va. 22030 Phone 703-993-2950

known for being the most pro-gay country in the Holy Land. SAIA seeks a “one state solution” and believes Israel should be heavily punished for its allegedly apartheid policies.

Taken together, Pride Alliance is sponsoring an event whose goals are meant to attack and punish the most gay-friendly nation in the Middle East.

This is not a peculiar conclusion reached by the author alone. On the Facebook event description, one person posted a link to an editorial stressing this point and made the following comment: “Fun Fact: Israel is the ONLY country in the Middle East that fully supports gay rights. What message are you sending by boycotting their goods/discouraging tourism?”

A representative for Pride Alliance attempted to defend the event by saying it was “taking a non-partisan stance on the issue” and was partnering up with SAIA “to help become informed of these issues.”

These statements are both extremely bizarre given a couple points of fact. For one, no campus Jewish groups like Hillel or the Israeli Student Association were listed as being part of this event, which means that for a “non-partisan” event the one noted cosponsor is a very partisan student group.

Furthermore, anyone who looks at the efforts and information of the SAIA should know that they will not learn much outside of the Pro-Palestinian ideological viewpoint.

SAIA’s Facebook page showcases their blatant favoritism, as they rely all but exclusively on Pro-Palestinian sources with little-to-no effort at anything resembling factual balance or presentation of other firsthand experiences.

They would also likely disregard the opinions of Kevin Naff of the Washington Blade, who went to Israel along with other LGBT leaders and recently wrote a column speaking highly of his experiences.

“I’m not convinced,” wrote Naff regarding the “pink-washing” allegation, adding that “we have to accept imperfect solutions or motives in the interest of securing protections for people in need.”

In general, the whole talk appears so absurdly conspiratorial. Would Israel really undergo rapid pervasive social change on sexuality issues exclusively to win American favor? Especially when some of the most avid Israel supporters in the United States tend to view homosexuality in a negative light?

The talk about distraction, of course, comes from the side representing a polity known for treating its LGBT community so horribly that many of them flee to Israel for sanctuary.

Every so often, people will support an entity even though said entity is working against their interests. By entertaining the perpetual anti-Zionist message of the SAIA, Pride Alliance is promoting the punishment and possibly dissolution of the Middle Eastern nation most in tune with their social views and goals.

It all seems especially curious when contrasted with October 2007, when Pride Alliance held an event called “Twice Blessed” in cooperation with Mason’s Hillel chapter.

The event focused on the dual identity of being Jewish and queer.

Pride Alliance should note that when pondering future collaborations with a group working against their interests.

Student conduct policies are archaic, dangerous

There are no outside parties that play a role in the newspaper’s content, and should there be a question or complaint regarding this policy, the Editor-in-Chief should be notified at the email listed above.

Fourth Estate is a free publication, limit one copy per person. Additional copies are 25 cents payable to the Office of Student Media.

15

Working against their own interests

Andrew Stevenson News Editor

Nov. 18, 2013

ANDREW STEVENSON MANAGING EDITOR It is a real shame when a university that prides itself on innovative thinking refuses to follow policy recommendations that can and will save student lives. As you can read in Ellen Glickman’s article on page 7, Mason’s own expert on public

health has recommended that the university adopt a Good Samaritan policy.

This policy, also called a medical amnesty policy, would allow students to be free from punishment from the school if they call for medical assistance for someone who became ill from alcohol or drugs. As it applies to student conduct, Mason’s administration seems to be a few steps behind their counterparts at other universities.

Both William & Mary and the University of Virginia have Good Samaritan policies in place, and Virginia Tech says those who call

for medical assistance will likely receive a lesser punishment for their actions.

Mason’s policies don’t even address the issue. Office of Student Conduct Director Brent Ericson and his staff have routinely avoided the topic and address calls for change with vague suggestions of “continuing the conversation” about the policy. While we continue this conversation, students continue to binge drink and their friends continue to “help” by giving them a glass of water and sending them off to bed.

Students are less likely to seek

medical assistance for a friend when they know it will eventually lead to a punishment from Student Conduct.

The real tragedy will be when a Mason student dies. Nearly 2,000 students die every year from alcohol poisoning and with Brent and Co.’s mindless ignorance, Mason’s due up in the next couple of years.

It is a morbid thought on a morbid reality, but it will happen.

In the mean time, Student Conduct’s punishment-first policy will continue to be one of the biggest liabilities to students on campus.

16

Opinion

Nov. 18, 2013

Fourth estate

Election investment: where your vote really counts BILLY BORMAN COLUMNIST Now that the gubernatorial election has come and gone, the political frenzy has ended and every Youtube video is not prefaced with some tiresome and bitter attack against one of our beloved state-level political contenders, I think some reflection is in order.

I do not claim, to any extent, to be able to adequately treat the subject. I only hope to offer some prompts for that reflection or provoke in some small manner a reconsideration of the present situation.

Regardless of the election’s outcome, roughly half of the voting population, and perhaps a greater number of the total population, would be dissatisfied. In the case of a Sarvis victory, that number would be, at least in the immediate sense, much higher.

There are people who get what they want and people who do not get what the want in all elections. The two-party system somewhat

lowers these stakes, though it does this by simultaneously limiting the options.

To put it more bluntly, every democratic election produces winners and losers. The more people affected by the election, the more winners and losers there are, and often the emotions that come with winning and losing are more intense.

People feel that elections are more important because they affect more people; thus, there were all-night celebrations on presidential election night 2008/2012, but such festivities were unfortunately absent from the last balloting of the county board of supervisors.

At first glance, this might seem justified - the President is, in some aspects, a slightly more powerful government official than the county sanitation commissioner.

However, if we consider the oft-forgotten half of representative government, I mean that of being representative, we might come to a very different conclusion.

The governor of Virginia is not a terribly representative person of the people he governs. He has, after all, 8.186 million people to govern, and to really know and represent such a large population is a super-human task.

In their favor, the losing candidates are native Virginians, and have at least grown up among the people they hoped to govern.

Cartoon Corner

The winner, as it is, has no such luck. Further, we have reached a point where we do not even hope that he will be representative of us.

Edmund Burke, many years ago and very much more wisely than I can, wrote that “it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence and the most unreserved communication with his constituents.

Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention.”

The present climate we occupy contains very little of this. We do not want our representatives to be representative. We do not expect their close correspondence, nor do we want it.

We do not want their attention, or at any rate, do not get it.

Why, then, do we care so deeply about such lofty superiors? I somewhat doubt any great number of my readers has a personal relationship with our newly-elected governor, and I would be surprised if more than a few have ever spoken with him personally.

Why should we place such great personal trust in a man who does not know us, our interests, our lives, our passions, our fears, our pasts, our loves or even our names? Why do we expect the most important changes in our lives to come from the highest office in the

by Leilani Romero

state?

It is tempting, of course, to think in this way.

Such great power develops some mythical aspects and exaggerations about it, but it can never live up to them.

Real radical change can never come from far away, but from very close. Sir Thomas Brown, in 1642, wrote, “Charity begins at home, [and] is the voice of the world.” Real change comes from real representatives, and real representatives come not from wealthy families and prestigious universities, but from next-door and from down the road.

I do not mean to deny that the office of the governor is important. I only mean to say that it is not, as many seem to think, all-important.

The most direct government is the local government, and it is also the most accurate.

Hopefully, now that the election season is over and all the lofty political hysteria is on hiatus, we can look to our towns, counties, communities and neighborhoods, where we will find the most effective and most fulfilling government.

Hopefully we can begin to invest in those closest to us, that we start to rebuild our great state from its foundation.

The old proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child. Hopefully we each can now set ourselves about the task of becoming that village.

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FOURTH ESTATE

Sports

Nov. 18, 2013

17

Cheerleading work extends beyond the court

(AMY ROSE/FOURTH ESTATE)

Cheerleading team warms up the crowd at women’s basketball home opener against Utah Valley on Nov. 14.

AMY ROSE STAFF WRTIER As the new basketball season gets into full swing, another group of student-athletes is working hard on and off the court to make men’s basketball games a worthwhile experience for all in attendance.

The Mason cheerleading team trains year-round with summer training camps and extensive practices during the school year.

“The biggest responsibility is making sure that we’ve planned out everything we need for the basketball games and making sure that we’re prepared and committed to doing the things we need to do,” said head coach Ryan Smith.

At the opening of the school year, the team drills even harder in practice in order to get the team ready and in-shape for season. In addition to the normal tumbling, stunts and pyramids, cheerleaders run miles before every practice and do morning weight workouts.

“We lift during morning workouts,” said senior Barrie Monroe. “There’s arm day and there’s leg day because most of the power in cheerleading comes from our legs, so we

really want to make sure we’re working on that. We also want to make sure we’re working on our strength in our arms as well.”

Mason’s cheerleading team splits its obligations two ways. The squad consists of the Green Team and the Gold Team. The Green Team includes both men and women, and can be seen performing at men’s basketball games. The Gold Team has only female cheerleaders, and their responsibility is cheering at the women’s basketball games.

Performing at basketball games is the most important task for Mason cheerleaders.

On game day, team members are required to show up at the Patriot Center an hour and a half before the game starts to stretch and warm up their stunts.

“Game days are really exciting,” said senior Alisa Robinson. “I never thought I’d get to cheer at a college basketball game so it’s just really exciting and I love it.”

Smith goes over with the team what Green Machine will play at the game and which cheers they should run during timeouts.

Although basketball games are the main focus for the team, cheerleaders are also responsible for making appearances at

different university events.

“Our responsibilities include making sure that we’re spirit raising and community raising,” Smith said. “We try to make sure we’re giving back to the Mason community as well as the Fairfax community.”

The hard work in practice and performance does not come without benefit.

“I cheerlead because it’s fun,” Robinson said. “It’s my escape from everything. If I’m having a horrible day, I get to cheer practice and it just helps me to forget about everything. I’ve found something that I like to do.

It’s always a challenge and it gives me something to work for.”

In addition to making sure they are ready for game days, Mason’s cheerleading team is preparing for the annual Universal Cheerleaders Association National College Cheerleading Championship in January held at Walt Disney World.

“One of the things that we are geared toward right now for the Green Team is in preparation for our national championship,” Smith said. “We have started some preparations toward that but our main focus is really the games at the moment.”

The team is building on their Mason Madness performance in order to get ready for competition.

“We keep adding on the level of difficulty and we really try to stay focused on our technique, our movements and our skills,” Monroe said. “We have to do everything right because if you mark it wrong, you’re going to do it wrong in competition.”

A majority of preparation for the national championship takes place over winter break.

“We hold our own performances over winter break,” said senior Rycki Robertson.

“We go to local high schools for practice performances and perform there at their half time. We also have a friends and family performance just before we leave for competition.”

A look behind the scenes of Mason’s cheer squad reveals the dedication and determination that the men and women of the team put into their work every day.

“One thing my coach always says is, ’If it were easy, everyone would do it,’” Monroe said.

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Nov. 18, 2013

Sports

Fourth estate

(JOHNI RWIN/FOURTH ESTATE)

Academic support keeps student athletes on track DANIEL GREGORY ASST. SPORTS EDITOR Last week, the men’s basketball team embarked on a 1,300 mile road trip to play Lamar in Beaumont, Texas.

After a dominant victory over Lamar, the team celebrated by boarding their bus for an hour and a half ride back to Houston.

Instead of spending the night in Houston, the basketball team caught a flight back to Dulles, arriving around 3 a.m.

“Could you imagine missing two days of classes then arriving back at 3 a.m. only to wake up for an exam at 9 a.m.?” said Michael Ouellette, the coordinator of the athletic tutoring program.

Ouellette experienced this taxing trip to Beaumont first hand. As the academic coordinator for men’s basketball and women’s soccer, Ouellette serves as a member of the Mason athletic department’s academic support services team.

The department monitors athletes, ensuring their academic performance is consistent with NCAA rules and Mason expectations of student athlete performance in the classroom.

“Our expectations [of student-athletes] are higher [than the NCAA],” said Debbie Wilson, the associate athletic director for academic services. “There are so many pieces to this. Our formula is actually easier. It’s higher and it’s easier.”

The NCAA requires student-athletes be in good academic standing and earn at least six credit hours toward fulfilling a degree requirement in a full academic semester. For a full year, the NCAA expects athletes to earn 24 credit hours that fulfill graduation requirements, or 20 percent of a degree.

At Mason, the school expects athletes to complete 30 hours per year that fulfill a degree requirement. That equates to 25

percent of a degree at Mason. By maintaining these standards, student athletes track to graduate in four years, and student athletes are less likely to be deemed ineligible by the NCAA for academics.

“We are quite aggressive about [ensuring academic success].

We run grade checks,” Wilson said. “Obviously, we target those student athletes we are more concerned about academically.”

Student athletes who under-perform academically automatically enter the academic priority program that brings the students into the student athlete academic services building for a minimum of ten hours per week study time. Furthermore the program requires transferring student athletes, incoming freshman and any athlete with a cumulative GPA below 2.6 to attend regular study halls.

In addition to making sure student athletes perform academically in congruence with Mason academic policies, the academic services team also calculates the Academic Progress Rates for each athletic program at Mason.

Wilson took her position in 2002 at Mason to help the athletic department stay in regulation with the new APR reports that began the same year. The APR measures academic performance of scholarship athletes in specific sports within an institution. Before the APR, the NCAA had less authority over academics.

“That’s why they went to the APR. Before it was really just individual eligibility,” Wilson said. “There were really no penalties for programs not being allowed to go on to NCAA play or lose scholarships.”

For the APR, each scholarship athlete can earn two points: one point for staying in school or graduating, which is assessed at the end of a semester, and one for being academically

eligible, which is calculated upon entering a semester. The points earned are divided by total possible points to form a percentage. Should the four-year average fall below 930 or 93%, the NCAA could sanction a team.

At Mason, no teams fall below the 93% four-year average, but academic services closely monitors a team’s APR, GPA and graduation rate to gauge the academic health of individual sports teams as well as the success of the academic support services provided to student-athletes.

There are perks to being a student-athlete, like scholarships and priority registration, but there are also burdens associated with their responsibilities. For one, an athlete’s commitment to their sports consumes a large amount of time that can conflict with a normal school schedule. This contributes to athletes falling behind academically.

“Missing class is the biggest Achilles heel for any student-athlete anywhere,” Ouellette said. “Instead of hearing what the teacher has to say the day of a lecture, they have to come back and get notes from a classmate or go online and print power point slides. So not being in class because of traveling puts [student athletes] at a disadvantage for sure.”

For students who do fall behind or need help, Ouellette and the rest of the athletic academic supports services team employ a team of over 20 tutors who provide over 150 hours of individual attention for athletes on a wide variety of subjects.

While the athletic academic support services team helps student athletes succeed through tutoring, the department also maintains academic integrity consistent with Mason.

“One of our biggest concerns is academic integrity. We certainly are very concerned about privacy issues and other ethical issues,” Wilson said. “We want to make sure that we are

Sports

Fourth estate

Nov. 18, 2013

19

Check your athlete privilege HAU CHU SPORTS EDITOR

(JOHNI RWIN/FOURTH ESTATE)

Student athletes using the tutoring services and study space of the Alumni and Advancement Relations office. above any suspicion that we are doing anything that would not be congruent with university policies.”

In order to maintain academic integrity, the office of athletic academic support services instituted several safeguards to stay above suspicion.

“We don’t allow coaches to have direct contact with the tutors, and we don’t allow them to have any direct contact with any professor who is teaching one of their student athletes,” Wilson said. “If we are concerned about a student athlete academically, it’s the academic coordinators who contact the professors, so we have a buffer.”

Part of being the buffer allows the program to maintain integrity, but also helps the academic coordinators build relationships.

The department requires incoming freshman to attend mandatory study halls.

“The transition is so different from high school, we don’t want to have academic casualties right away,” Wilson said. “The other thing is we want to get to know them. When this service requires study hall hours, at least four of them have to be in [the athletic academic support services] building during the hours of 9-5 Monday through Friday. So they’re up here. We’re getting to know them. They’re getting to know us.”

Both Wilson and Ouellette studied counseling, which aids in their interaction with students. In particular, both studied sports psychology, which further allows Wilson and Ouellette to understand and help student-athletes academically.

“The most important part for student-athletes to realize is that the skills they have used and have made them successful on the field or in the pool or on the court can have the same affect on their academics,” Ouellette said. “ They know how to set a goal and work towards it and achieve it. They know how to work hard. They know how to overcome obstacles when they are tired or sore. Those same kinds of things can make them successful in the classroom.”

While the department chiefly aims to graduate athletes, the academic athletic services team also looks at the variety of majors taken by athletes and the number of academically high achieving student athletes. These factors give a better indication of the academic health of the athletic department.

It’s time to talk about the double standard that is athlete privilege.

This privilege can be seen in an example at Mason in the men’s basketball team where in September 2011, then-senior guard Andre Cornelius was charged with credit card larceny and fraud of less than $200.

The felony larceny charge was dropped in the final proceeding, but Cornelius did plead guilty to the fraud charge, a misdemeanor. Cornelius, from an unnamed source to the Washington Post in a Sept. 19, 2011 article, “found a credit card on campus in July, used it to purchase food and gasoline valued at about $60 and then threw away the card.”

In a Sept. 24, 2011 Connect2Mason article, the Mason police blotter said the theft allegedly occurred in the Eastern Shore residency hall. I say allegedly, because Mason police closed the case and never released public records. Cornelius was suspended for ten games by the team, and that was the end of the story.

Cornelius would go on to play the season and did not face any, known, academic suspension. Hey, at least we knew what it was, just on-campus theft and credit card fraud, and not a ‘violation of athletic department policy,’ the umbrella term that is used for athletic suspensions.

I completely understand respecting everyone’s privacy and we don’t really know the extent of any academic suspensions, if any, but it’s an endemic problem to college athletics as a whole that we see suspensions of ‘team violations’ and the like. We need to hold student athletes to the same standards as students. If tuition and student fees are the financial engine of college athletics, schools need to be more transparent with the conduct of their athletes.

Where athlete privilege begins to send more troubling messages is in the professional world. Professional athletes are seen as role models and, sometimes, above the law.

An athlete caught driving under the influence is treated as commonplace

and only dealt with through fines, slaps on the wrist or the delay of punishments until it’s convenient for the team.

It’s defeating to think that something that happens off the field that doesn’t affect performance in a game should be dealt with only by law enforcement.

Teams and leagues need to take it upon themselves to make sure that players are held up to a strict standard when it comes to drinking and driving.

Look to the Feb. 16, 2011 arrest of the Detroit Tigers’ third baseman and current two-time reigning American League MVP, Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera was arrested in Florida on DUI and reckless driving charges.

Witnesses on the road interviewed at the time stated that Cabrera’s reckless driving forced a tractor-trailer and an oncoming car off the road.

While Cabrera was never subject to a breathalyzer to confirm his state of inebriation, when police arrived to the scene, he smelled of alcohol and had an open bottle of scotch in the vehicle — that he took a swig of in front of the responding officer. When asked by the officer to get into his vehicle, Cabrera made his status known. “[Expletive] you, do you know who I am? You don’t know anything about my problems,” the police reported Cabrera as saying.

Cabrera faced no repercussions from his team or MLB. Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski was asked if the arrest would hinder Cabrera’s attendance at spring training.

“Oh, yeah, he’ll be here,” Dombrowski said. “We fully support him on trying to get help in this situation.”

Nearly a year later, Cabrera was shown the full wrath of the legal system.

A $500 fine, license suspension for six months and one year of probation.

The NFL is trying to take a harder stance on its alcohol policy, as there is pressure from the league to push for harsher alcohol policies. As the leaguewide policy stands, the first DUI violation is excused from suspension and fined two game checks, up to $50,000.

It is on second offense that a player draws a four game suspension.

There is even an NFL Players Association-provided confidential program available to players that provides transportation services, 24 hours a day.

While there is a league-wide standard to which players are held and teams like to pride themselves for being tough on team rules, the standard

almost goes out the window when convenient to have a player participate in an upcoming game.

Take San Francisco 49ers All-Pro linebacker Aldon Smith earlier this season. Smith was first arrested in 2012 on a DUI charge that was later worked down to reckless driving. Smith was again arrested on suspicion of DUI — with a blood alcohol content of 0.151, nearly double the legal limit — and possession of marijuana on Friday morning, Sept. 20 of this year, two days before the 49ers game against the Colts.

While there are no publicly available team policies in regards to drug policy, it could be expected that the 49ers would take swift action against a high-profile player to make an example of him.

“I expect Aldon to be back at work and play on Sunday,” said 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh in the team’s Sept.

20 afternoon press conference.

Smith played and the 49ers lost 27-7.

In a statement after the game, 49ers CEO Jed York defended the decision to play the game.

“Our opinion was, sitting somebody down and paying them to sit down when they’re going to seek treatment in the future, that didn’t seem like an appropriate punishment,” York said.

York felt it was best for Smith to, “face the media, face his teammates and take full responsibility for what he’s doing.” York defended the decision as what was best for Smith, the team and the community.

Indeed, a great lesson for the community that a role model that is propped up on a pedestal 16 Sundays a year can get behind the wheel of a nearly two ton piece of heavy machinery with no faculty of mind to operate it correctly and face no immediate punishment from their employer.

But wait, Smith did face punishment. He was sent to rehab and took an indefinite leave of absence. This rehab stint was mandated, oh, the day after the game.

“I think this was the best thing for Aldon,” York said. “Again, there’s no right answer here. We’re very fortunate that nobody got hurt, Aldon included and anybody else. And we want to make sure that Aldon is never in a position like this again.”

But there was a ‘right’ answer — suspend him and make him check into rehab immediately— you just picked the ‘best for everyone’ answer.

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Nov. 18, 2013

Workout of the week BOSU ball

DANIEL GREGORY ASST. SPORTS EDITOR The BOSU ball is a versatile tool that can be used in numerous ways.

BOSU is an acronym for “Both Sides Utilized” or “Both Sides Up,” referring to how both sides of the tool can be used for a number of different exercises and purposes.

The BOSU ball has one rounded side like an exercise ball, and the other side is a flat rubber base.

The BOSU ball helps improve balance and targets multiple muscle groups during exercises. With the round side of the BOSU ball facing up, try performing any number of traditional exercises.

For example, try performing squats on the

ball. While traditional squats target legs and glutes, the BOSU ball can help engage the core more while also improving balance.

Remember the ball can also serve the same purpose as a traditional exercise ball and can be used in similar exercises.

Try using the BOSU ball to chest press or perform sit ups. Like with an exercise ball, the round surface makes the exercises more difficult by engaging more muscles.

For balance and focus training, flip the BOSU ball and use the rubber platform as a base with the rounded surface on the floor.

This position provides an unstable surface for improving balance while also performing tradition exercises.

To get comfortable with this, try performing a pushup with your hands firmly grasping the rubber platform. This pushup works the shoulders triceps, chest and core.

Because the BOSU ball is so versatile, try creating a 30-minute circuit workout utilizing the tool. By only using the BOSU ball, you can get in an out-of-gym if pressed for time.

(HANNAH KREIDER/FOURTH ESTATE)

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