HEATIN’ UP The South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, is sure to bring some fire this spring SCENE page 5
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NEWS CAPITOL AMBITION AU grad student to run in congressional primary page 4
EDITORIAL PHI SIG KAP SPEAKS PSK brothers comment on IFC judgment and AU greek life page 3
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SG pursues student McDowell discount for Metro pipe bursts, By NICOLE GLASS Eagle Staff Writer The AU Student Government hopes to provide a Metro discount for AU students by creating SmarTrip-compatible AU IDs to get data on student ridership that will ultimately lead to a discount, according to SG President Andy MacCracken. MacCracken also said a D.C.wide student discount will not be implemented because of the varying distances that students travel depending on the school they attend. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority made a few student Metro discount proposals last year, but none of these turned into discounts because there is no accurate data on AU student ridership, according to MacCracken. “Metro thinks students ride the Metro more regularly than they actually do,” he said. “These inflated numbers make them predict higher costs to cover.” The SG has been working on getting a student discount for years, but MacCracken thinks the process is slow because the WMATA has more pressing issues to deal with. SmarTrip-compatible AU IDs
will give the WMATA the data on student ridership needed to estimate the cost of the discount, according to MacCracken. One of the WMATA’s proposals is to charge students $296 for a semester’s worth of usage, but that would only be worth it for students who go downtown and back in rush hour every weekday, MacCracken said. “I’d venture to say 95 percent of us don’t do that, which means the cost is inflated,” MacCracken said. “If we can properly show that our ridership is lower, that $296 would drop quickly.” Even if the WMATA can estimate how often students use public transportation, they cannot predict how far students are traveling. In D.C., the distance a student travels on the Metro determines the price of their trip. All D.C. colleges are in different locations and have students travel at different distances, a blanket program for all schools cannot be created, MacCracken said. If a student discount is established, it would probably be subsidized by AU or the D.C. government, according to MacCracken. “If I had enough money, I would
subsidize it myself,” he said. “So if you have a really rich uncle who really likes helping students travel, let me know.” Liron Bruck, a junior in the School of Public Affairs, grew up in Israel where students get a discount on public transportation. It is especially important for students who have unpaid internships to get a transportation discount, since they should not be paying as much to go to work, she said. “Almost every country in the world has a discount in transportation for students,” she said. “Students use the Metro a lot as a way to go to their unpaid internships.” Kirsten Neus, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs, said SmarTrip-compatible AU IDs would be convenient for students who do not have money but have EagleBucks. “It would be convenient for students to be able to use their AU IDs as a SmarTrip if they could use their EagleBucks to swipe into the Metro,” she said. “But it would be even better if there was a discount too.” You can reach this staff writer at nglass@theeagleonline.com.
Commentary
floods rooms By JULIA RYAN
Eagle Staff Writer A pipe burst on the sixth floor of McDowell Hall around 2 p.m. yesterday, causing all rooms ending in 19 and 21 to receive varying degrees of damage, according to residents of McDowell Hall. Residents of the sixth floor of McDowell reported the leak at 1:20 p.m., according to Chris Moody, the executive director of Housing and Dining Programs. Residence staff and Facilities Management staff immediately
“It sounded like rain was hitting the window, then water was pouring down the sides of my wall.” – Lauren Linhard McDowell Hall resident
LET’S GET LOST The Scene tries to find the right path to the finale of “LOST”
responded to the situation and assessed the damage. The staff of Facilities Management then turned off the water supply to the affected heating units and pipes. Water had also leaked down to rooms on the third, fourth and fifth floors. Aramark staff members ar-
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SPORTS AU men clinch Patriot League Tournament home game page 8 MARISA KENDALL / THE EAGLE
Women’s basketball claims share of Patriot League regular season title page 8
TODAY’S WEATHER
HI 49° LO 29° Mostly sunny and breezy TUESDAY HI 43° n LO 31°
WEDNESDAY HI 38° n LO 31°
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rived on the scene and began drying up the wet carpets. Lauren Linhard, a junior in the School of Communication and a contributing writer for The Eagle, was in her room on the sixth floor when the hot-water pipe burst. “It sounded like rain was hitting the window, then water was pouring down the sides of my wall and a few of my ceiling tiles fell,” Linhard said. Linhard’s roommate, Rachel Goldy, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, went down to the front desk and notified the resident assistant on duty, who then notified Leonard Hall Resident Director Julie Eller and the Facilities Management staff. Goldy was pleased with the quick response time and open communication from Housing and Dining. “People from Housing and Dining and the residence staff have been checking up on me and my roommate and helping us move our furniture,” Goldy said. Matt Wolkoff, a sophomore in CAS, lives in a room on the third floor of McDowell that was affected by water damage from the pipe burst. Wolkoff was sitting in his room when water suddenly started rushing from the ceiling tiles down his wall and his window. “What started out as a steady drip of water soon became a downpour,” Wolkoff said. Wolkoff ’s carpet sustained damage and one of his posters was ruined. n
see FLOOD on page 2
Phi Sigma Kappa does not appeal its IFC sanctions
A SLAM DUNK
FLYING HIGH
MARCH 1, 2010 VOLUME 84 n ISSUE 38
DAMAGES — The epicenter of the earthquake in Chile on Saturday was 200 miles south of Santiago, where some AU students are studying. Each student in AU’s program there have been accounted for and are safe. The earthquake had an 8.8-magnitude.
Chile earthquake shakes AU students abroad; all safe By MARISA KENDALL Eagle Staff Writer SANTIAGO, Chile — At first I thought it was just the loud music of the club, or that I had possibly had too much to drink. My second thought was that the vibrating dance floor was some sort of cool Chilean special effect. Within a few seconds however, the shaking picked up and it was obvious that something was wrong. The dance floor was pitching up and down and people started screaming and clutching their friends for dear life. I grabbed onto the edge of the bar just to keep from falling over. After about a minute, the shaking stopped and everyone rushed down the stairs and out of the club. The street outside was complete chaos, with people screaming and running in all directions. I was separated from my friends, so I started pushing my way through the crowd trying to find them. At one point, I tripped over someone’s foot and had to be helped up by a couple of Chileans. Then I heard someone calling my name and looked over to see
Nacha, my host sister, and Roman, her boyfriend. They grabbed my hands, obviously more worried about my safety than I had been. “Hubo un terremoto,” Roman said. Translation: there was an earthquake. As Nacha drove us back to her house, we passed a few buildings that seemed to be sagging slightly into the piles of rubble at their bases. A crash scene on one area of the highway was blocked off with several ambulances that surrounded a twisted and destroyed car. The rest of my host family was waiting up for us when we got home, somewhere around 4 or 4:30 a.m. Power across the city had gone out, so we sat drinking juice around the kitchen table in the glow of a flashlight. Laughing, my host father told us how the cat had screamed when the ground started shaking and that his first reaction had been to grab the plasma TV and make sure it didn’t break. I did not realize until I saw news coverage the next morning just how bad the earthquake had been. Santiago, where I am staying, is about 200 miles from the quake’s epicenter in Southern Chile. Dam-
age in the city was nothing compared to the images from further south I saw shown all day on every TV station. All the students on AU’s Santiago study abroad program have been accounted for, according to an e-mail Study Abroad Adviser Brita Doyle sent to students and parents of students in the program. While there was not extensive damage to Santiago, there were still several fatalities in the city. While it sounds bad to say, however, when everything started shaking at around 3:30 a.m., I was more confused and kind of excited than scared. It did not occur to me until later that I should have been scared. Nacha and Roman even made fun of me later for being so relaxed about the whole thing. After reading all the news, however, I realize now the AU students here are all very lucky nothing happened to us or even to any of our houses. Not everyone was so lucky, and those in Southern Chile need all the help they can get. You can reach this staff writer at mkendall@theeagleonline.com.
Prez agrees punishment is fair, fitting By SARAH RUDNICK Eagle Staff Writer AU fraternity Phi Sigma Kappa has decided not to appeal the sanctions the Inter-Fraternity Council has levied on it, according to IFC Public Relations Chair Adam Tager. The fraternity decided not to appeal the judgment because it admitted to the charges and therefore accepted the sanctions, PSK President Mike Kaufman said. The fraternity had seven business days after the trial to appeal the decision, The Eagle previously reported. “We chose not to appeal because we felt they were fair given the seriousness of our charges,” he said. Kaufman said he believes other social organizations — not just PSK — will be inadvertently affected by the events surrounding the fraternity and the IFC. “We cannot comment directly on the operations of other greek organizations on campus, we do believe that all social organizations at AU will face new challenges in light of the increased involvement that the Office of Greek Life and the IFC are taking in the recruitment process,” Kaufman said.
The sanctions consist of a one-year social probation, no open or closed recruitment for the fall of 2010, chapter participation in AU Campus Beautification Day with an additional five hours per member through AU’s Community Service Office and funding and planning a professional speaker on responsible drinking for the spring of 2011, The Eagle previously reported. The sanctions were effective immediately upon the fraternity’s positive acknowledgment of them, according to Kaufman. Michael R. Radlick, AU fraternity Delta Chi’s president, said he thinks the sanctions will have a large impact on PSK’s prosperity. “The members of Delta Chi understand the intricacies on both sides of the issue, and we respect the decision made by the IFC,” Radlick said. “However, as the president of a fraternity who has had size problems in the past, I also know that the rush restriction placed on [PSK] for the coming fall could be very detrimental to their success.” PSK has not felt rebuked by the greek life collective as a result of the events, according to Kaufman. “[PSK] in general feels a great deal of support from the greek community at American University that we continue to be a proud part of,” Kaufman said. You can reach this staff writer at srudnick@theeagleonline.com.