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Senior News Editor / Mandy Silver / news@studlife.com
STUDENT LIFE
dismissed at one time, bringing the total number of St. Louis priests that were demoted to eight. Over the past decade, the St. Louis archdiocese paid over $5.8 million to abuse victims. The four men are prohibited from representing themselves or acting as priests, and are henceforth returned to the status of laymen. The priests were dismissed without pension or long-term fi nancial assistance.
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AD CHALLENGE n FROM PAGE 1 “We had cameras stuffed in our faces,” said Goltz. “It was surreal.” Cheung echoed his teammate’s view when he recalled what would happen if the TV crew heard something they liked, but didn’t get on tape. “They would say to us, ‘Oh wait, that was good, but there was background noise, so start over again,’” said Cheung. “It was very unnatural.” As of now, the group has no plans for further collaboration. Friends and family of the team members and the public will have to wait until the Super Bowl to see the group’s hard work.
MONDAY | NOVEMBER 6, 2006
NATIONAL Hussein sentenced to death Saddam Hussein and two other defendants were sentenced to death by hanging for their role in the 1982 crackdown in the Shiite town of Dujail. Another defendant was sentenced to life in prison, and three others received 15-year sentences. President Bush called the verdict a “milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of tyranny with the rule of law.” The decision will now be automatically sent to the appellate chamber of the Iraqi High Tribunal. The appeals process will likely take three to four weeks from that point. Iraqis, not the coalition, would carry out the executions.
LOCAL Four area priests defrocked for sexual abuse On Friday, the Vatican approved the dismissal of four St. Louis archdiocesan priests for sexually abusing minors. This marks the largest number of priests
Chocolate beer newest brew from Anheuser-Busch Not recommended for a keg stand, this after-dinner drink is the third holiday product created by Anheuser-Busch brewing company, after Michelob Celebrate Vanilla Oak and Budweiser Brew Masters’ Private Reserve. The beer is brewed with caramel, roasted malts, and cocoa beans and contains 8.5 percent alcohol per volume. The combination of beer and chocolate has been available for over 15 years, but Anheuser-Busch, the nation’s largest brewery, has joined the bandwagon with this seasonal offering.
Teen sentenced to life for killing classmate Alexander Stirlen, 18, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after brutally killing his classmate, Lindbergh High School junior Erin Mace, in September of last year. Stirlen pleaded guilty to fi rst-degree murder, rape, sodomy and setting fi re to a car, among other charges. Stirlen drove Mace to a levee where he
proceeded to bash her head with a baseball bat, and then raped and murdered her. Stirlen was not found to be eligible for an insanity plea.
UNIVERSITY Sam Fox slated to become Belgian ambassador Tom Korologos, White House aide during the Nixon and Ford administrations, is stepping down from his post as ambassador to Belgium. Sam Fox, for whom the School of Design and Visual Arts is named, is rumored to replace him. Fox is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and a major developer of St. Louis area businesses. Fox did not comment on these rumors.
White receives NCURA award The National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) awarded Cynthia White, director of the research office at Washington University, the 2006 Distinguished Service Award. The NCURA began giving the award in 2001 to nationwide members who have made remarkable contributions to the group. White has served as faculty in the “Fundamentals of Sponsored Project Administration” and as a member of the NCURA Board of Directors. She also has served on the 46th Annual Meeting Program Committee, chaired the Council’s Southeastern Region and continues to contribute to their newsletter. White will receive her award today at the 48th Annual NCURA meeting.
Special majors offer new twist on curriculum BY ELIZABETH LEWIS STAFF REPORTER What do innovative Washington University students do when it is time to declare a major, but they do not see any major of interest when they pore through all of the course listings? Make their own, of course. The special major option for students provides a lot of options for students not interested in currently offered majors. Sean McWilliams, the assistant dean and academic coordinator in the College of Arts & Sciences, is in charge of the special majors program, and says that he allows the students a lot of freedom in their choices. “The basic requirements for a special major are very flexible, and [we are] very encouraging,” he said. But there are certain requirements associated with the major that must be met prior to approval. Among the requirements are submitting a proposal, getting two faculty members from different departments to endorse the idea (one of whom
will become the major advisor) and completing a total of 24 upper-level units from each department. During senior year, the student must also complete a capstone project that synthesizes what has been learned during the course of the major. “I begin conversation with the students sophomore year [about the capstone project]. It is a challenge to do a big project, but it is very rewarding,” said McWilliams. The special majors program is small, with only a handful of students choosing this path. But the individual attention helps the students to choose broad, diverse majors ranging from Computational Linguistics to Swahili Studies. Ian Schatzberg is a senior who chose to major in Visual Theoretical Studies. This gave him the opportunity to thoroughly examine how facets of pop culture, such as photography, video and film relate to the way that people see themselves. For his major, he takes classes from the Film and Media Studies and Comparative
Literature departments. “There was not a major [at the University] that was interested in mapping different relationships between media. It is a relatively new field,” said Schatzberg. The idea was born during Schatzberg’s sophomore year during conversations with his major advisor, Lutz Koepnick, professor of German. “The two of us created it. I did an individual project with him sophomore year on a book that the Frankfurt School [a school of philosophy and social theory] had written about mass media,” said Schatzberg. “I spent the summer thinking about the project and how I could turn the book into a major.” After searching the Internet and finding that Brown University offered a similar type of major, he e-mailed the link along with his idea to see if it could be turned into a special major. Senior Geneva Brundage is another student who discovered her passion sophomore year for her future major in Ethics and Value Theory.
Two years ago, as she was flipping through the course book with the deadline for declaring a major looming, she made a discovery. “Everything was interesting, but nothing stood out. I did not feel like I fit into any of the boxes. I pay so much to go here, [and] I wanted to study what I wanted to study,” said Brundage. When Brundage was a freshman, she had taken a freshman seminar called “The Search for Values.” The class and its late professor, David Hadas, had a profound effect on her. “He was very passionate about teaching, and it was a powerful experience to be in his class as a freshman,” said Brundage. “He had big picture ideas, and he inspired me to do [my major].” While she has appreciated being able to map out her own curriculum, she noted that it makes applying to law school a little more difficult because there is no “neat box” for her major on the application. Another disadvantage is that she must always explain her
program to other students with the risk that they will not understand what she is doing. “[My major] sounds cool to me, but when I go through a couple of sentences of explanation, I know that they probably will not understand. It is not as recognizable as Psychology or Spanish,” she said. Schatzberg also found new complications with his unique choice. “I do not have a community of people in a department to ask about immediate issues of subject matter,” said Schatzberg. “At times, it is a little frustrating because you are relying on faculty to answer questions that, if you had a student body in the major, you could ask them.” But both students agree that there are several advantages in doing a special major and encourage others to explore the option. “A lot can be had from combining elements from different departments,” said Brundage. “[You] can really find your passion, and you owe it to yourself to seek it out.”
cause birth control itself still requires a prescription. Talent and McCaskill both agree that pharmacists should have the right to refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions. However, McCaskill, like Wood, believes that the pharmacies should have “at least one employee on staff who can fill out a prescription without delay.” “Pharmacists have right to raise their objections,” said junior Jessica Codr, president of Students for Life. “I am not explicitly in favor of government intervention to force pharmacists to fi ll prescriptions.” Codr is not opposed to the sale of Plan B over-the-counter because the medication acts to prevent the sperm from fertilizing the egg, which she believes does not constitute abortion. Dave Shapiro, vice president of Students for Choice, believes that legislation protecting the pharmacists will inconvenience women who need the prescrip-
tion fi lled immediately. Plan B is most effective within the fi rst 72 hours of having unprotected intercourse. A delay in the access to the drug could allow enough time for the sperm to fertilize the egg, thereby creating an unwanted pregnancy. “I feel that pharmacists should not be allowed to use their own moral judgments when doctors, scientists and other health professionals have approved the use of emergency contraception. It makes it very hard for poorer people, for example, to obtain emergency contraception when the pharmacist does not fi ll it and there are not many pharmacies close by,” said Shapiro. Junior Stacey Goodwin, president of College Republicans, agreed. With regard to Plan B becoming available overthe-counter, Goodwin said, “I don’t have a problem with Plan B because it prevents the need for women to have abortions.”
PLAN B n FROM PAGE 1 to a lack of commitment to the scientific process.” Wood believes that ignorance of facts also plays a role in a majority of the legislation that protects the rights of pharmacists to decline filling emergency contraception prescriptions on moral grounds. “Much of the legislation does not take into account the rights of patients and doctors to have a prescription fi lled, regardless of whether it is emergency contraception or anything else,” said Wood. Wood suggested that legislation should also mandate that pharmacists alert the pharmacy of their moral objection. The pharmacy would then respond by ensuring that a pharmacist who would fi ll the prescription is always on duty alongside the objecting pharmacist. Thus, the pharmacist could refuse to fi ll the prescription without causing a woman any delay in obtaining Plan B.
“Any legislation should have provisions for women to get access to medications in a direct and timely fashion, and most of the legislation that has been proposed does not,” said Wood. “The moral issue must be balanced with the rights of patients.” Missouri does not have a law in place to protect the rights of pharmacists from dispensing Plan B or birth control, so companies are able to form their own policies. The local Walgreens allows their employees to refuse to dispense Plan B, but it does not have the policy that another pharmacist be present within the store to fi ll the medication, as Wood suggested. Walgreens, however, does require that the objecting pharmacist refer the patient to another pharmacist, who does not necessarily have to work within the Walgreens Company. Schnucks has a similar
policy. Paul Simon, senior communications specialist of Schnucks, said that their pharmacy usually only has one pharmacist on duty at a time. If pharmacists refuse to fi ll a prescription, they are obligated to refer the patient to an alternative pharmacist. “Although we respect our pharmacists’ personal objections, our first obligation is to our customers,” said Simon. Plan B is also available at Student Health Services.
Political Positions Claire McCaskill and Jim Talent disagree on the sale of Plan B and the issue of pharmacists’ rights. McCaskill supports the decision to make Plan B overthe-counter for adult women. Talent believes that Plan B is an “extremely high dosage of birth control,” and he opposes the over-the counter sale be-
Washington University School of Medicine: Family Therapy for Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa
ARE YOU AN ADOLESCENT WHO IS UNDERWEIGHT OR CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR PREOCCUPATION WITH FOOD OR WEIGHT?
• If so, your family may be eligible to take part in a 6-month treatment study at Washington University funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. • Therapy is free, and involves no study medication. • The Washington University team is directed by Dr. Denise Wilfley, Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Washington University and an internationally recognized expert in the treatment of eating disorders. • There is no fee for participating. The program will take place through the Weight Management and Eating Disorder Program at Washington University. For more information, call (314) 286-0076. Study Director: Denise E. Wilfley, Ph.D. Washington University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry 660 South Euclid St. Louis, MO 63110