The Beacon - Oct 10 - Issue 7

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Vol. 115, Issue 7 October 10, 2013

The BEacon

Every Thursday

The Student Voice of the University of Portland Since 1935

RISE campaign enters final stage

See more photos and videos from the fall dance

What are 2013 grads up to?

News, p. 2-3

upbeacon.com/multimedia

Living, p. 8-9

Shutdown hits home for ROTC Government shutdown stops stipends for Army ROTC cadets Rebekah Markillie Staff Writer markilli17@up.edu The U.S. government shutdown that has frozen funding to “nonessential” government services is having a direct financial impact on University of Portland students in the Army ROTC program. On Monday, Army cadets learned in an email sent out by Col. Matthew Little that they would not receive their stipends because of the shutdown. “There is not authorized funding for their stipends,” Little told The Beacon. Normally, the cadets receive a bimonthly stipend that gradually increases the longer the cadet is in the ROTC program. As of now,

they don’t know if the cadets will receive back pay. According to senior Cadet Blaine Bradburn, the absent stipend isn’t the only source of stress. The shutdown is also affecting the Portland Battalion’s transportation to training and recruitment events. “(The) stipend which is really a small part of how (the shutdown has) affected ROTC,” Bradburn said. “One of the bigger ways is how it’s affected some of our training.” The U.S. government provides vans for the cadets to get to training sites. Difficulties arise when the cadets try to coordinate transportation because a few of the cadets attend Portland State University. Because of the shutdown, they are not allowed to

Air Force and Army ROTC cadets stand for the Veteran’s Day ceremony in 2011. use the vans. “So now we have to coordinate with just personal vehicles and getting people from different classes, different sides of campus, different campuses altogether, all at the same time,” Bradburn said. “It becomes a logistical nightmare, especially in this situation when we don’t have that much time to plan ahead.” During the weekend of Nov. 15, Army ROTC has a field training planned at Camp Rilea on the Oregon coast. Without a congressional budget agreement, they have no way of getting the cadets there. “The freshman cadets and the sophomore cadets would miss out on a huge opportunity and just

learning about a bunch of stuff we do,” Bradburn said. The junior cadets, also called MS3s, use the training at Camp Rilea to help them do well at the Leader Development and Assessment Course (LDAC). The LDAC is an evaluation that can determine what kind of job a cadet can get after graduation. “If (cadets) miss out on training now, it will affect them then because they won’t have as much hands-on experience,” Bradburn said. It’s not just the cadets who are being affected by lack of transportation. “We have some vehicles we use to get around recruiting events. We are not able to use those vehicles. It has limited our

Jackie Jeffers | THE BEACON

operations,” Little said. In addition to transportation and cadet stipends, the funds for ROTC scholarships have ended. This doesn’t affect cadets who already have their scholarships, but it does affect cadets who are still waiting for their scholarships or who could qualify. “We are unable to commit more money,” Little said. The government shutdown may also affect UP students in Air Force ROTC Detachment 695. “We have heard from our headquarters that the stipend may be delayed for some of our cadets due to the government shutdown,” Maj. Stephan Cummings said in an email Wednesday night.

Silent disco has low attendance, high ratings Sarah Hansell News Editor hansell14@up.edu Last Saturday, the fall dance, Nautical Nonsense, saw a lower turnout than fall dances in years past, with almost 450 students in attendance in comparison with around 700 students at last year’s fall dance, according to Campus Program Board (CPB). With about 150 tickets sold by Friday night according to Late Night Programming Director Eric Luke, CPB made the decision to give away the remaining tickets for free, and refund those they had already sold. “They thought that it would be most fair to make sure that if a lot of people were getting free tickets, those who had already paid would be refunded,” Luke said. The dance was the first silent disco CPB has hosted and its first event at Jeld-Wen Field. “Though the dance was a little rocky because it was our first try at it, it was a really cool venue

and there were a lot of positives to the event,” Assistant Director of Dances senior Joel Lara said. “You got to see such a positive vibe from students who were there and who really embraced a new concept and were open to something new.” Luke thinks the lack of advertising could have also played a role in the attendance. “I think word could go out earlier,” he said. However, CPB says the students who did attend had a great time. “I think the most successful thing for us is hearing that great feedback, just that positive, ‘Oh I really had a good time,’ especially from the people who were like, ‘I wasn’t sure about it, and I came and I really liked it,’” CPB Director senior Evan Castro said. Luke agrees. “I do think there were some initial hesitations, but once people had headphones on and got the hang of it that they were having a good time,” he said.

Becca Tabor | THE BEACON

Students dance to the music coming through their headphones at the fall dance, Nautical Nonsense. It was CPB’s first silent disco, which is a dance where the DJ plays the music straight through to listeners’ wireless headphones. There were also minimal problems with alcohol, which has been an issue at dances in the past, particularly at Dance of

the Decades. Two students were denied entrance due to alcohol but no other problems involving alcohol arose.

The venue also proved to be a success.

See DANCE, page 5


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