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THE DIAMONDBACK | THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2008

ROXANA HADADI

THE DIAMONDBACK

Opinion

EDITOR IN CHIEF

YOUR INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK PHONE: (301) 314-8200 | FAX: (301) 314-8358 3150 SOUTH CAMPUS DINING HALL | COLLEGE PARK, MD 20742 NEWSDESK@DBK .UMD.EDU

NICOLE VAN BERKUM MANAGING EDITOR

JEFF AMOROS

ADAM FRIED

OPINION EDITOR

OPINION EDITOR

Laura Moore

Staff Editorial

Joel Cohen

A look back

“The noblest exercise of the mind within doors, and most befitting a person of quality, is study.”

- Sir William Ramsay

The world (not) according to Facebook

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ow that my second term as president of the Graduate Student Government has ended, I wanted to reflect on the last year and the work of the GSG. It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve as the advocate and voice for my community over the past two years. I’m tremendously optimistic about the future because the GSG is now in the excellent hands of new GSG President Anupama Kothari and her dream team of executives.

Last year, much of the work of the GSG was devoted to raising the profile of the graduate student community both on and off the campus. Many of our issues stem from a simple lack of awareness of our most pressing concerns. We expanded the role of graduate student leaders and the GSG in the larger university community, taking active leadership roles on policy issues affecting broader populations. I sincerely hope this new tradition of high profiles and meaningful leadership will remain for many years to come.

One of the principle issues this past year was the fight to give graduate student employees the right to collective bargaining — a right currently denied them under Maryland law.

Many graduate student employees at world-class public universities across the country enjoy this right, and in most cases, those who are unionized enjoy higher stipends, better workplace protections and superior living conditions to students here.

It has been the position of the GSG for almost two years now that university graduate students should have the right to choose whether collective bargaining is the best course of action.

This year, we pursued legislation in the Maryland General Assembly to make that possible. Although the legislation was defeated in a back room maneuver by a member of a subcommittee, I promise, next year, the fight will continue. Pursuing the legislation served as an opportunity to raise the visibility of graduate students at the university and even to state leaders at the highest levels of government.

We fully recognize the efforts being made by the university to improve our situation, and collective bargaining is not a tool to extract concessions; it is a way of creating a contract that guarantees the delivery of tough promises.

Another major policy debate this year was over the best alignment for the Purple Line on our campus. The pages of The Diamondback have been filled with the debate over Campus Drive versus the various alternatives for months, so I won’t rehash the details. I’m immensely proud of the GSG Assembly for being the first advocacy group on the campus to support the Campus Drive alignment. As Campus Drive looks increasingly like the best option, I hope graduate student leaders in years to come will remember this example of how a well-reasoned position and persistent advocacy can make us leaders in the broader campus community.

We have fought in Annapolis for controls on the prices of textbooks, for increased higher education funding and broader recognition of the unique concerns of our community. On the campus, we have advocated better disability access, tolerance after last year’s regrettable noose incident, greater transparency from our university leaders and partner benefits.

For the second year in a row, the GSG has continued the revived Graduate Research Interaction Day conference with the generous support of many donors. This year, over 160 graduate students presented their research and competed for more than $16,000 in prize money. And we haven’t forgotten that sometimes graduate students just need a little down time: We’ve continued to put on Grad Pub, the ever-popular kickball tournament, dive-in movies and other free events for graduate students. We have been on hand to address a variety of constituent issues including problems facing international graduate students, graduate students’ parents and those just lost in the maze of university bureaucracy.

This job has been harder and more rewarding than I ever expected, and I could not have accomplished any of it without the dedication of the many GSG members and other leaders who worked with me over the past two years. I hope we have set an example for our successors, and graduate students at this great university will continue to be able to depend on their GSG for world-class advocacy and leadership in the years to come.

Laura Moore is a former president of the GSG and now works in the office of County Councilman Tom Dernoga.She can be reached at laura@lauramoore.com.

Searching for quiet

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ith the availability of community lounges mended. Offering a wide array of top-notch journals already evaporating due to the campus helps professors in their research, and it surely aids housing crunch, the university seems the university in its pursuit of prestigious faculty. poised to make a decision that would Likewise, the journal subscriptions give students an extra avenue to exploit in writing deprive students of a quiet place to and researching papers. study, a vitally important resource.

But the addition of materials Cutting the late-night study service shouldn’t come at the cost of study — always popular among students time for students. Late-night study cramming for exams, rushing through term papers or just looking The expansion of library gives students the ability to leave the noise of the dorm room behind and for a quiet place to read — would resources, while hit the books in earnest. The service leave students in the dorms with admirable, should not means there is always a quiet place scant few areas to study and work come at the cost of study to go on the campus to review notes after the sun goes down. and read textbooks, which is no While Interim Dean of Libraries time for students. small thing considering the occaDesider Vikor told The Diamondback sional frayed nerves and conflicting today “that no final decision has been made,” the e-mail sent to the students who staffed the study schedules among students in dorms.

Before ending the program for good, the univerlate-night study program leaves little doubt the service will at least be cut back. The quick student sity should explore all other possible avenues, response — such as the more than 600 member “Save including scaling back the number of journal subMcKeldin Library’s Late Night Study” group on Face- scriptions. As the next semester approaches, the university should take every step possible to avoid book — shows how highly students value the service.

The goal of bolstering and improving the resources ending a service vital to the academic success of stuavailable through the library system should be com- dents.

Our View

Editorial Cartoon: Mike O’Brien

Air Your Views The Diamondback welcomes your comments.

Address your letters or guest columns to the Opinion Desk at opinion@dbk.umd.edu. All letters and guest columns must be signed. Include your full name, year, major and day- and night-time phone numbers. Please limit letters to 300 words. Please

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POLICY: The signed letters, columns and cartoon represent only the opinions of the authors. The staff editorial represents the opinion of The Diamondback’s editorial board and is the responsibility of the editor in chief.

Best of the Web isted below are a variety of comments posted on our website, www.diamondbackonline.com, regarding articles printed in last week’s edition.

To comment, visit the website.

L

Staff Editorial: “Disconnected DOTS” Ashlee

“Here’s an “Parking meters, garages raise idea: Take the rates” bus, then you Student POSTED 7/14/08 @ 2:21 PM EST won’t have to I am now convinced DOTS is a money-making buy a permit, machine for somebody. Transportation fees, parking fees, excessively high ticket prices, pay an hawk-like parking enforcement that has driven my dad to never leave his vehicle unatattendant or tended on the campus even when he is allowed to park at the location (whole new story on its own). All this would have been feed the meter. acceptable if the parking system on the camVoila!” pus was revamped, but times have changed as

POSTED 7/10/08 @ 9:57 AM EST Welcome to the real world, Diamondback! The economy is in a slump, and gas prices are increasing the cost of everything. Owning a car is a luxury, and the cost will only increase — that includes the costs for DOTS, and it is only logical that those costs will be spread out among the various services they provide.

Here’s an idea: Take the bus, then you won’t have to buy a permit, pay an attendant, or feed the meter. Voila!

It’s getting pretty tiring finding nothing but complaining from the editors of this “news” source; try thinking of solutions instead of negativity-mongering.

Zack POSTED 7/11/08 @ 6:00 PM EST

well as the student-faculty dynamic. It’s time In response to Ashlee’s comments: Please –Ashlee The Diamondback changed, too. Whoever the back up the fact that a slumping economy valCOMMENTER director is needs to step up to his job descripidates a University-funded agency raising tion and make the parking system more effiparking fees on students! I am sure they need cient. I am tired of getting tickets while being to raise more revenue to keep their employthe only person in a parking lot in the summer ees’ fat salaries and pensions intact the easiest because it’s a faculty parking lot. We all know way — “Let’s screw the students!” A smart those spaces could be provided to students for better organization would try to cut expenses elsewhere access. (maybe laying off unneeded workers) before screwing the people who pay their bills (our tuition). But not DOTS.

I

lost access to my Facebook account for five days recently, and I thought it might be the end of the world. What would I do after checking my Gmail account? I was at a loss. But an amazing thing happened: absolutely nothing.

People still pick up The Diamondback solely for the Sudoku and crossword puzzles, the McDonald’s in the Stamp Student Union still serves Pepsi, and our basketball team is still, well, our basketball team. Gas prices did increase, though, but I’m told that’s because I was unable to join the 5,243 new “Join this group to lower gas prices” Facebook groups that popped up during my absence. (I checked one of those groups once, and it read “Gas Saving Tip No. 1: Don’t Drive.”)

Facebook’s popularity is reaching new heights, and not just with college students anymore. In fact, according to a ComScore study, Facebook recently surpassed MySpace to become the most popular social networking site in the world, with an astonishing 123.9 million unique visitors in May. With Facebook now open to everyone, instead of only to college students as it was originally, people are running into such thorny issues as whether to accept that friend request from a parent.

Sure, Facebook has become more popular, but my time without the “social utility that connects you with the people around you” made me realize what it has done to me and the rest of our generation. The advent of new technology such as cell phones and the Internet was supposed to connect us and bring us closer together, and in a way, it has.

People are now one phone call or message away. But in reality, these technological advances have pushed us farther apart, voiding the need for genuine, face-to-face interaction.

Instead of calling up a friend to make plans, you post on that friend’s Facebook wall. Instead of confronting your friend about what he said to you, you write a nasty Facebook message to him. Facebook picks up where e-mail leaves off in encouraging passive online communication.

Instead of having a reunion after a trip, you just post pictures on Facebook for all to see. On that note, it will be interesting to see if our generation will still hold high school reunions. After all, who cares what your arch nemesis in high school is doing in five years when you can find out what he is doing right now.

There is no denying Facebook can be useful, such as when you need a friend’s number –Joel Cohen or when you want COLUMNIST to reconnect with an old classmate.

But Facebook has allowed our generation to take it too far. I have heard people say they aren’t officially friends until they are friends on Facebook. But is this really a joke? What is the first thing you, and most other college students, do after meeting a fellow college student?

While previous generations read The Washington Post to get their news, our generation reads their Facebook news feed to get their breaking news alerts. Instead of caring about issues — say, housing — we are too busy finding out who broke up with whom. Is this really what we want?

I am just as guilty as the next person of the aforementioned condition. Sure, my time away from Facebook made me miss the fact that “9 of [my] friends received gifts,” but it also made me realize that none of those people are actually my real-life friends.

In an even more telling twist, there is no way to speak to a human at Facebook. All inquiries must be submitted online. Thanks to Alyssa and Rufus from Facebook’s not-so-friendly and not-soquick-responding “User Operations Team,” I now have my Facebook account back. But do I really want it?

“I now have my Facebook account back.

But do I really want it?”

Joel Cohen is a junior government and politics major. He can be reached at jcohendbk@gmail.com.