I n d e p e n d e nt
Issue no.
S tu d e nt
V o ic e
o f
B o is e
S tat e
S inc e
1933
59
April
22
2013
Volume 25
Boise, Idaho
Top Stories
Senior day
Powwow w w w.arbiteronline.com
First issue free
Seven Arrows Annual Powwow shook the floor of the Jordan Ballroom
Danielle Davidson Staff Writer
page
6
Feeling safe?
Campus security and police have policies in place for emergencies.
page
3
SUPS
The SUPS performance moves indoors and out of the rain.
page
4
Weather Today
People wearing colorful regalia stepped into the middle of the floor, listening to the call of the drum and following its beat. In a circle they danced with bells decorating their regalia and ankles. The floor shook with their feet and the Seven Arrows 20th Annual Powwow began. The Powwow was held in the Jordan Ballroom of the Student Union Building, and people of Native American descent from many states were in attendance. A prayer was said over the center of the room, and everyone, young and old, joined in the dancing. “It’s really just to celebrate life, and enjoy (ourselves), hit the drums, sing, dance, see friends, it’s just like any other social gathering,” said Phill Allen, the arena director at the Seven Arrows 20th Annual Powwow. “Just like anything, people have a culture, like the Hispanics have theirs, African’s have theirs (and) Europeans have theirs. It’s just part of the culture. It takes a lot of work, (and) the outfits take a lot of time to put together.” There were five drums at the powwow and each drum was encircled by a number of drummers and singers. Some of the drums were played collaboratively by family members and they held one drumstick and drummed together while singing. The teams took turns playing and the drums didn’t stop beating for hours. “It takes time to learn, because there’s no lesson books,
Staff Writer
58º high
0%
chance of precipitation
Tomorrow
Partly Cloudy
60º high
0%
chance of precipitation
Wednesday
no song books,” Allen said. “Everything is done by memory, so everyone kind of gets in unison together, and really it’s the heartbeat of the whole powwow system. You really can’t have a powwow without drums.” The powwow also worked to bring awareness to people of non-Native American descent,
“
and some people come each year to watch the proceedings. “We come almost every year, it’s kind of tradition I guess, and we decided to come today,” said Michelle Barilleaux, a junior at Borah High School. “I love watching all the dances, especially the traditional, because it seems like they’re really getting in touch with
It’s really just to celebrate life, and enjoy (ourselves), hit the drums, sing, dance, see friends. —Phill Allen
their roots.” Even though there were many people in attendance and many dancers, individuals said the numbers were significantly less than previous years. “Back in the 90s we had huge powwows in this area. We would have 10-20 times the dancers. We’d have between 800 and 1,000 sometimes 1,500 dancers,” said John Stockton, a singer and dancer at the event. “We could do that again in this valley, because it’s so central to all the reservations in Idaho. If we got more people involved, we could have
a bigger event for everybody in Boise.” The Seven Arrows Annual Powwow has happened at Boise State for many years, and even though attendance has dwindled some over the years, the audience and dancers seemed to enjoy the event. They clapped after each song and stood up out of respect when the elders made their way onto the floor. The powwow reminded the Native Americans of their roots, and introduced non-Native Americans to the world drums, regalia and spirited native dancing.
develop.idaho 2013 Mckenzie Perkins
Sunny
Patrick Sweeney/THE ARBITER
Powwow participants fill the SUB’s Jordan Ballroom with song, dance and culture.
“
Men’s tennis dominates UNLV Wolfpack 5-7 at home.
Out of a crowd of nearly 400 people, 40 raised their hands when Martin Hambalek asked, “For the people that are here in the room, whose companies are hiring?” “Getting a job in Idaho is not the issue. The issue is that we don’t have enough students to fill the jobs,” said Hambalek, vice chair of the IT Software Alliance and Chair of the Events Committee for the Idaho Technology Council (ITC). Hambalek was an organizer of the event on Friday, April 19, when Boise State hosted the third annual develop.idaho conference in the Stueckle Sky Center. The purpose of the annual conference is to promote the technology community of Boise and grow student awareness regarding the availability of jobs in the Boise area. According to Hambalek, Boise State only has about 25 computer science graduates each year. “From what I’ve heard, nearly every junior computer
science major has an internship, and by the end of their junior year they’ve been offered a job after they graduate,” Hambalek said. “By the time they’re seniors, they get a job. According to Hambalek, the few students who do graduate with computer science degrees from Boise State are offered between $55,000 and $60,000 per year right out of college. Still, many students start college majoring in computer science but end up changing degrees.
Prominent speakers
The 2013 event was largest develop.idaho event to date. In addition to the nearly 400 guest reserved tickets, nine speakers, including a few from out of state, shared their presentations. “It’s great to see the excitement in our community and bring so many industry leaders together for a day of training. It’s not very often that we get to have speakers of the caliber that we brought in today,” said Malcolm Hong, an event coordinator of develop.idaho in previous years.
The keynote speaker was Mikkel Svane, the CEO of Zendesk. Based in the Silicon Valley, Zendesk provides customer service and support software and is affiliated with more than 20,000 global organizations. In one round of funding, Zendesk raised $60 million, according to Hambalek. “They are one of the hottest, fastest-growing start-ups— certainly in the Bay area— but probably in the world,” Hambalek said. Subsequent speakers included individuals who had worked for prominent technology and software companies. “We wanted to get the best of, what I call the best of breed companies that can talk about how they did it,” Hambalek said. The speaker biographies are featured on www.developdaho.org. With the exception of Svane, each speaker will have his or her presentation available to view on the develop. idaho site in the coming weeks. The presentations were broken up by periodic breaks giv-
JAKE ESSMAN/THE ARBITER
Students mingle with professionals at the mixer. ing students the opportunity to mingle with presenters and other attendees.
Post-Conference Mixer
The formal conference ended at 5:30 p.m. and Tech Cocktail hosted an aged-21+ mixer at 6 p.m. Tech Cocktail, a partner with the ITC, is a national program founded to promote start-up technology companies. “Each Tech Cocktail event is a chance for start-ups in the local community to come out to demo their products and meet people in a casual environment,” Hong said. Tech Cocktail featured 12 successful start-up companies at this particular event, all of which originated in the
Boise area. “It’s kind of eye-opening to see how many businesses are in Boise that are technology businesses that do well,” said Josh Valencia, a senior political science major at Boise State. In addition to examples of successful businesses, students had the chance to hear from people who built their business from the ground up. “Eventually, I want to start my own company. I keep reading stuff online, but it’s kind of interesting to hear from a person who actually did it,” said Surya Mahesh Tatapudi, a graduate student studying Computer Science who will graduate from Boise State in May.
Sunny
66º high
0%
chance of precipitation
What’s Inside News Briefs
page
News
page
Feature
page
Sports
page
The Arbiter
2 3 5 6
Camus’ ‘The Misunderstanding’ hits the stage Zoe Colburn Staff Writer
The theater is small, painted black, ceiling to floor. The stage, really just the floor, is backlit. Trees line the back of the stage. In front
of them, four large windows stand—two smaller on the left and right of the stage, two larger in the middle center. In the open space where glass would be, there is lace stretched in the frame. Each window notes a new room.
Unsettling and hauntingly beautiful music plays as the audience filters in. The lights dim, the music gets louder. When the lights come up again, there are five people standing on the stage. The music continues.
The play begins. Boise State’s theater department put on Albert Camus’ “The Misunderstanding” as a part of the 2013 Colloquium on Albert Camus. The show will run again April 24 to April 27 at 7:30 p.m. and April 28 at 2:00 p.m. “The Misunderstanding” tells the story of a daughter, Martha, and her mother who run a motel with the help of an old man, and
make a living by murdering their guests and stealing their money. A man arrives at their hotel, Jan, the brother of the daughter, son of the mother, who has returned after being gone 20 years, but refuses to tell them, insisting he be recognized without a prompt. “The prodigal son,” he calls himself several times throughout the play.
See Camus I page 4 arbiteronline.com