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STUDENT LIFE
THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS SINCE 1878 VOLUME 128, NO. 71
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2007
IAS conference to examine environmental issues BY SCOTT FABRICANT CONTRIBUTING REPORTER This week, Washington University students will present their research projects on creating positive environmental change all around the world. The International and Area Studies (IAS) program will hold an environmental conference, where students will open their projects on environmental issues to faculty critiques and audience questions. The student conference is the capstone to the IAS program’s semester theme, “Energy, Environmental and Global Politics.” Topics will include climate change, developing nations, sustainable campuses and the politics of oil.
“We realize that students on this campus are doing incredible innovative research, and yet there are rarely opportunities for students to highlight their work or to see their peers as resources,” said International Events Coordinator Danielle Silber. “This conference’s objective is to bring together students from different fields of study so that they may share their research on common environmental themes, network with each other to improve their research and have access to faculty readers who can give them expert constructive feedback.” While most of the student panelists are Washington University undergraduate and graduate students, there are also representatives from University of Chicago, Meramec St. Louis
Community College and the Roosevelt Institution. “We have opened this conference up to interested faculty, students and staff from college campuses, high school campuses and related community organizations all around the St. Louis region,” said Silber. “Our hope is that this conference will become a nexus for people of all walks of life to learn from each other and collaborate on future global and local environmental initiatives.” Some of the students’ projects are based on their research or experiences abroad. Junior Jake Levitas will be giving a presentation on the possibility of building a cocoa plant in Ecuador as a more environmentally sustainable alternative
PREPARATIONS UNDERWAY FOR THURTENE CARNIVAL
to deforestation. Levitas and other students studying abroad in Ecuador developed the idea from their interactions with locals. “I’ll be discussing a project my friend Mason [Earles] and I started while we were in Ecuador last semester,” said Levitas. “We organized a group of five architecture [students] and one business student from Wash. U. to put together an architectural plan and business plan for a sustainable chocolate factory to be built in Ecuador for a cocoa cooperative we worked with during our time there. It would be an awesome project to put together and a great use for our education.” While not directly related, the student conference will be fol-
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JENNY SHAO | STUDENT LIFE
cussions will be two to five students presenting their project for ten minutes, followed by three minutes for audience questions. The faculty readers will then offer their critiques and feedback. As an open community discussion, both the organizers and panelists hope to involve students and the surrounding community in learning and asking questions. “As a panelist and environmental studies major, I would love to see students there, learning from their peers about such interesting issues,” said junior Emily Dangremond. “It is the first time that International Area Studies has done something like this, but they hope to continue it in the future if this year is a success.”
GRE changes cancelled BY ELIZABETH LEWIS
Fraternities and sororities are gathering in the Brookings parking lot to assemble their facades in preparation for Thurtene Carnival, which takes place next weekend. Lot Week officially begins on Monday, April 16.
lowed on Saturday by the Earth Day festival; this year’s theme will be climate change. IAS honorary members will participate in a community art project, and speakers at the festival will follow in the vein of the conference. “We felt that Earth Day would be a perfect culminating celebration for the conference and perhaps a chance for panelists to get together again to build a community around their common initiatives and interests,” said Silber. “We [are] also hoping that Earth Day would be a way to engage the St. Louis community in fun educational events, that avoid what can be an intimidating structure of a more formal conference.” The format of the panel dis-
The Educational Testing Services (ETS) suddenly cancelled planned test changes to the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) last Monday. The changes will be postponed to a later date, which has not yet been determined, according to ETS. The updated GRE had been scheduled for release this September. The revised test, which had already been delayed by a year, was originally slated to be released last October. Some of the changes to the new test included almost doubling the length from two-and-a-half to four hours and significantly decreasing the number of times the test is offered per year from six days per week per year to 35 days per year. Additional changes includecd revised content in all three sections of the test—Verbal, Analytical Writing and Quantitative—and changing the scale of the test from 200-800 points to 110-150 points. Why are the changes being cancelled? Jung Lee, the GRE program manager of Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, explained that the answer is simple. ETS
was not able to guarantee enough seats for the revised test to its roughly half-a-million annual test takers. “The number of administrations [of the test] was being revised to a new 35 times a year and [ETS] needed to come up with computers almost ten times as [many as they had available]. They couldn’t guarantee that all students would find a seat,” he said. Lee sees the cancellation as a positive development for students. Fortunately, many students have not yet begun to prepare for the new GRE. “Students were facing a longer and more challenging [test]. With the test change, they could not take it in August of this year. Now, they can,” said Lee. According to the ETS Web site, although the overhauled test has been cancelled, ETS is still looking for ways to incorporate the changes that the new test would have offered as long as these changes do not interfere with testing access. Lee said that these new test changes should not deter students from taking the test in its current form. “As this announcement has
shown, there is no certainty to every test change. ETS is looking for ways to incorporate test changes in the future. I recommend that students take the test in its current form. The scores are good for five years. Stick with the timeline originally planned,” said Lee. Though the announcement of the new test being cancelled has pleased many students, senior Katherine DeGuire saw some of the potential changes as positive. She thinks that the new exam would test higher reasoning skills, which would give more students a fair chance. “Higher reasoning seems like a good thing to test because it plays to ability and not how good of a school you went to. Standardized tests should test natural ability,” she said. But she disagrees with the scoring scale that the new test would have proposed, saying that it was not very wide and allowed for less of a variation in scores. DeGuire thinks that the incorporation of the new changes would have caused people to complain but would have eventually been accepted. “Change is annoying, but it’s better in the long run,” added DeGuire.
Fraternities fill Web site aims to provide answers to space, Beta faces common questions difficulties BY JACQUELINE BRIXEY CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Washington University students can now access College Wikis, a Web site which enables students to track down information and connect to other students. The Web site looks to provide a central database for students to ask and answer questions. It offers information ranging from local restaurant choices to classes on campus; the site also offers the ability to create mailing lists whose archives will be stored publicly. “You would go on to Facebook to fi nd information about people; our goal is to be the ultimate information source for college students,” said Joe DiPasquale, one of the founders of CollegeWikis, who is a graduate student at Stanford. “My aim is to be a source for
the information that I needed while I was in college, things like the best pizza place, the best place to get a haircut.” The Wiki boasts that it has already been implemented at 21 colleges, including Stanford, Yale and the University of Chicago. In order to join, users must enter an .edu e-mail address. Members have the ability to view the site’s discussion boards as well as create entries and e-mail lists relating to the University. Members can also post questions to their peers who use the site. “I believe that we are a community-based resource. The only information is there because someone in the community wanted it there,” stated DiPasquale. “One of the things that makes us different from other Wikis is that
See WIKI, page 3
Connections in Cadenza Learn about the intricate connections of Conor Oberst in the music industy. This artist has been involved in many musical ventures. Cadenza, Page 8
BY PUNEET KOLLIPARA SENIOR STAFF REPORTER Although in past years fraternities at Washington University have encountered problems filling their houses, this year fraternity houses have generally seen greater occupancy. At the same time, this year Beta Theta Pi is having difficulties filling its house. At 38 spaces, Beta has the largest house to fill. Other fraternity houses range from 18 slots, in Theta Xi, to 33 spots, in Sigma Alpha Mu. According to Assistant Vice Chancellor Jill Carnaghi, this year, two of the fraternities are at over 100 percent of space filled and four are at 100 percent capacity. “This is by far the best year we have ever had. Members of chapters have set clear expectations in their by-laws,” said Carnaghi. According to the Greek Life
Office (GLO), Beta did not reach its minimum housing quota this year by March 27, the deadline for submitting fraternity housing contracts. GLO policies require that by that deadline, a fraternity house must be filled to 93 percent capacity. According to Jessica Gendron, coordinator for Greek housing programs, GLO sets policies for housing occupancy but does not force students to live in Greek housing and it is the fraternity’s responsibility to fill the house. Marius Johnson, vice president of operations of Beta, said that in the past more fraternity members chose to live in the fraternity house, but in recent years there has been a trend of members choosing to live elsewhere. “I really think it is more of a cultural shift in terms of Wash.
See BETA, page 2
Wash. U. loves tennis Men’s tennis has another slammin’ weekend. Check out the play-by-play and box scores from the team’s most recent games. Sports, Page 6
LIONEL SOBEHART | STUDENT LIFE
Beta Theta Pi is having problems meeting the minimum occupancy quota for its house next year, which could result in fines or sanctions for the fraternity.
INSIDE: Forum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Cadenza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Sudoku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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