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STUDENT LIFE
THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS SINCE 1878 VOLUME 129, NO. 14
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2007
No jump in crime since MetroLink expansion
Student research influences French politics BY STEVE HARDY CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
JOY WANG | STUDENT LIFE
Passengers wait to board an arriving train at the Skinker Metrolink station last week. The Metrolink runs from the Skinker and Big Bend stations on campus, taking students to suburbs like Clayton, Brentwood and Shrewsbury. BY PUNEET KOLLIPARA SENIOR STAFF REPORTER Despite the fact that last fall’s opening of the Metro extensions seemingly exposed the Washington University campus to the potential for an increase in crime, reported crimes have actually fallen over the past year. According to Don Strom, chief of the Washington University Police Department (WUPD), the number of reported on-campus crimes was higher in the period from Aug. 1, 2005 to Aug. 1, 2006 than in the period after the MetroLink extensions opened, Aug. 1, 2006 to Aug. 1 of this year. “So there is nothing that we can really point to and say there’s been an increase in crime as a result of the presence of the MetroLink,” said Strom. Strom said that roughly
255 crimes, mostly larcenies, occurred between Aug. 2005 and Aug. 2006. Roughly 177 crimes, again mostly larcenies, occurred between Aug. 2006 and Aug. 2007. However, Strom noted that these numbers are only “rough estimates” and have not been fi nalized yet. The MetroLink stations adjacent to the Danforth Campus link the campus to St. Louis and its suburbs, including Clayton, Richmond Heights, Shrewsbury, University City and Brentwood. In addition, the red, yellow and green lines are now fully serviced by Metro, making them a part of the St. Louis public transportation system. Strom attributed much of the decrease in campus crime to students exercising good safety tips. In particular, he stressed the importance of students not leaving their belongings unattended to pre-
vent larcenies, which Strom referred to “crimes of opportunity.” While on-campus crime has dropped, another issue is crime in and around the Metrolink stations. Most students, including Pierre Boncy, a freshman from Chicago, which is famous for its ‘L’ train system, said they felt safe at the stations and riding the trains. “I’d say that St. Louis MetroLink is probably ten times safer and ten times cleaner [than the ‘L’], so I feel pretty comfortable in the train,” said Boncy. Strom pointed out several safety features that St. Louis Metro has implemented. The MetroLink stations have security officials on patrol at all hours of operation, emergency telephones, passenger assistance buttons on the platforms and closed-circuit television cameras.
Some students, however, remain concerned about safety in and around Metro stations, especially senior Erin Beck, a frequent MetroLink user. “There is generally not a lot of security around, and if there is, they tend to come out of the station frequently,” said Beck. “They need to have additional security at night.” Sophomore Sechin Jain said he feels “perfectly safe” riding the MetroLink during the day but less comfortable at night time. “If I’m alone and at night by myself then it’s a little weird. And there are not security guards or anything a lot of the time,” said Jain. Beck recalled a time when a man pursued her while she was in a MetroLink station. “Fortunately other people were around so it did not per-
See METROLINK, page 2
The French national government is now referring to research senior Shannon Petry presented to them last year on the relationship between regions and the government in France. “I looked to see how representatives were chosen for the Committee of Regions, a forum for different areas of France to communicate with the EU, and how they were using their power,” said Petry. Last year, she interned with the European Union in Paris. Petry said that the research plan she presented to the French national government “called for ways to improve the relationship between the regions and the national government, including appointing representatives from within the government who would be responsible as go-betweens for the regions and the national government.” Washington University’s Undergraduate Honors Fellowship Program (UHF) has sponsored Petry’s research. The aim of the UHF is to give motivated students a chance to do research which they might not otherwise have a chance to pursue. Keya Kraft, the TA for the weekly UHF seminar, said that the fellows typically spend a semester studying abroad for their project and receive a $3000 stipend so they can devote more energy to their research. When these students return, they share their fi ndings with the other four or five fellows and work to publish their fi ndings. “The students are really good at challenging each other’s assumptions,” said Kraft. “Of course, if you’ve got an anthropologist taking a specific approach, a historian in the class might counter ‘well, you’re not taking into consideration all these other issues.’ I think the students really benefit from this work-shopping.” Some students, like Petry, choose to extrapolate on their fi ndings. She has expanded her scope to study all 27-member states of the EU by examining what is known as the “EuroBarometer,” a bi-annual survey that aims to discern
how content Europeans are with the EU. Specifically, Petry studies what she calls, “the questionorder effect,” or the effect of the order of questions on the outcome of a survey. More importantly, Petry uses this information from recent surveys to see what particular actions of the EU elicit higher overall contentment with the Union among Europeans. “I think that when the survey precedes questions about the overall impression of the EU with questions about culture, which the EU is good about preserving and protecting, the responses will be much more favorable than if the same question is preceded by one about immigration, which is a very hot-button issue in many countries right now,” she said. Petry also noted that, if people’s opinions about the EU can be changed dramatically through this suggestive power of question order, then perhaps they do not strongly identify with it. She contrasts the relationship with party identification in the U.S., where question order is unlikely to change someone’s support of their political party. Petry seems particularly interested in seeing which regions support the EU more steadfastly. While she hasn’t found conclusive data to suggest that one region is especially anti-EU, she intimates that some regions with historical confl ict with the national government, such as Catalonia in Spain, might identify more with the EU as a higher governing body. Petry is interested in watching these areas to see if they begin to shift from working with the national government to going straight to the EU, giving them more autonomy. Right now, Petry is working on narrowing her focus within all of this data so she can write her honors thesis. She is also looking to cognitive psychology to help explain the science behind the question order effect. Perhaps some day, the Wash. U. student who affected French national politics will help steer the entire continent.
Kemper art museum selects new curators BY JESSICA KATZENSTEIN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum recently appointed two new curators. Lutz Koepnick, currently a professor of German and film and media studies at Washington University, accepted an additional position of curator of new media in July. Meredith Malone was promoted from curatorial fellow to assistant curator at about the same time. Sabine Eckmann, director and chief curator at the museum, who was responsible for Koepnick’s appointment, said it made official what he
had already been doing for four years. “I thought it would be necessary to formalize his activities and his work for the museum,” she said. Koepnick, who will retain his full teaching position at Wash. U, said his new position as curator feeds back into his own research interests. “It allows me to pursue certain questions that I would pursue in my academic work more theoretically. At the museum, I can do it in a more tangible dimension,” he said. Koepnick says he will try to build links from the museum to the School of Arts & Sciences, as well as from the
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art school to Arts & Sciences. He says he will work with students on media issues and translate those issues into exhibits. His history with the museum includes curating for the Ellen Cohen exhibit, a smaller photo exhibit in 2003. Last year, he also started co-curating an ongoing series called Screen Arts and New Media Aesthetics; that project will continue for several years. “I have strong interests in how technology informs changes, structures and the way we experience the world, and how that often translates into certain kinds of artistic productions,” he said. “The
questions in my own academic interests very much lie in that field.” Malone had also been involved with the museum in the past in the position of curatorial fellow. “I was very impressed by [Malone’s] scholarship and her activities for the museum,” said Eckmann. “She did a terrific job [as fellow].” Malone grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, majored in art history at George Washington University and went to the University of Pennsylvania for graduate school. She moved to St. Louis about a year ago for her job. “This is what I’ve wanted
Maximize your TV time Cadenza has gone through this fall’s TV line-up with a fine tooth comb so that you don’t waste any valuable tube time. Cadenza, Page 6
to do for a long time,” she said. Koepnick’s new responsibilities and activities as curator include putting shows together, helping the Kemper build its video collection, participating in monthly curator meetings, bringing artists and scholars to campus and helping to build critical discourse on art. He also hopes to build and participate in a series of workshops and discussions on new media art. “My workload is very challenging but also very productive,” he said. Malone said the museum
See KEMPER, page 2
INSIDE: Forum.................4 Cadenza.....................6 S p o r ts....................... 8 Classifieds.......................9 S u d o k u ................... 9
DAVID HARTSTEIN | STUDENT LIFE
Meredith Malone
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