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The Daily
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2014
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editorial Responsibility for tackling sexual assault lies with community page 9 @lsureveille
Volume 119 · No. 39
thedailyreveille ACADEMICS
Database allows access to University research
BY deanna narveson dnarveson@lsureveille.com
THE BEE’S KNEES Students receive grants to fund agricultural research projects
BY rose velazquez rvelazquez@lsureveille.com From food science to entomology, undergraduate students are getting a head start on the road to research careers. Through the College of Agriculture’s Undergraduate Research Program, 13 undergraduate
students received grants for research in agricultural disciplines. The program is an initiative that provides more than $200,000 in funding to more than 150 research projects. The program is funded by the College of Agriculture and the LSU AgCenter. “[The research program] gives me practice before I get into
graduate school, so I can help balance my academic life with research,” said plant and soil systems sophomore and grant recipient Jean Pittman. “It’s just really good insight into what I’ll be doing over the next few years.” Pittman said she had never conducted a real research project coming out of high school.
Participating in the program has given her the opportunity to learn how a research team operates. Pittman works with entomology professors Kristen Healy and James Ottea for her research on the effects of pesticides on honey bees’ foraging behavior. Healy
At any given moment, there are about 2,000 research projects happening in different fields of expertise at the University. Now, they’re being compiled into a single database where researchers’ names and works can be viewed using a simple search bar. Ashley Arceneaux, University director of strategic communications, said the idea for the database began about two years ago as a way to connect University research projects to others in the world of academics. The chancellor’s office paid for the website’s construction. “The goal behind this is to help make it so people can see what goes on behind the gates of LSU, to open the doors of academia to the public,” Arceneaux said. The database’s home page is black and white with a search bar in the middle and a photo background. When a user types in a name, research topic or subject, a list of people conducting
see research, page 4
see database, page 11
photos by walter radam / The Daily Reveille
Plant and soil systems sophomore Jean Pittman researches bees Oct. 15 at the USDA Agricultural Research Center.
event
Ga. congressman rallies students to join ‘march’ for equality BY kaci cazenave kcazenave@lsureveille.com Georgia Rep. John Lewis’ march toward achieving nonviolence and racial integration in the 1960s did not stop in Montgomery, Alabama, or in Washington, D.C. — Lewis brought his equality efforts to the University on Tuesday night. He and Andrew Aydin — cowriter of his award-winning graphic novel, “March” — continued to promote peace by speaking to students and Baton Rouge community members in the Student Union Theater. Their presentation was part of the University College for Freshman Year’s celebration for its 30th year on campus.
Lewis said he isn’t weary or tired after more than 50 years advocating justice and spending 28 of those as a Georgia congressman. “It is nonviolence or nonexistence,” Lewis told audience members. “We have come such a distance to create a truly multiracial, multicultural society.” Lewis said the one thing his parents, grandparents and teachers told him while growing up was to stay out of trouble. However, in his adolescence, he faced physical beatings and arrests more than 40 times — both of which he deemed “necessary” trouble. “There is power in the way of peace, love and nonviolence,” Lewis said. He described recognizing this
power first when the public library in Troy, Alabama, which denied him a library card, invited him to host a book signing for his book “Walking with the Wind” in 1998, where he was extended a card. A similar situation proved the strength of ideals inspired by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. when a white man who beat Lewis visited his office in Washington, D.C., in February 2009 to ask for forgiveness. “It was then that we began to live as Dr. King thought we should,” Lewis said. “We called each other ‘brother,’ and we meant it.” Aydin said Lewis is the solution to teaching nonviolence to the
see lewis, page 11
SAM KARLIN / The Daily Reveille
Civil rights activist and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. shakes hands with a fan Tuesday at a book signing for ‘March’ at the LSU Bookstore.