NEWS
9December 3, 2009
3
CORNELIUS
Keystone brews can of controversy by RACHEL ALEXANDER Staff Reporter Somewhere on the Whitman campus tonight, a group of students will get together to have a few beers. More likely than not, they will drink Keystone, popular among students for its affordability. What Whitman students may not know is that Keystone is owned and produced by the Coors Brewing Company, which has a history of labor practices and political affiliations that might surprise some students. The Adolph Coors Foundation has historically funded right-wing think tanks with profits from the Coors Brewing Company, including a $250,000 grant to start the Heritage Foundation. A $36.5 million endowment to the Castle Rock Foundation in 1993 enabled Castle Rock to fund right-wing think tanks, abstinenceonly education and groups that focus on traditional family values. First-year Will Bender said he respects the company’s right to spend money how it wants, but disagrees with Coors’ political positions. He said, if given a choice at a keg, he would prefer another type of beer. “If you have two kegs at a party and they both cost the same, why wouldn’t you pick the one that doesn’t donate to crazy things?” Bender said. In 1977, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations began a 10-year boycott of Coors, protesting perceived attempts by the company to break up unionized Coors employees. Unhappy about a Coors policy to force prospective employees to take a polygraph about their sexuality, gay rights groups joined the boycott. In 1978, Coors addressed gay rights concerns by removing questions of sexual orientation from the hiring process. Coors began providing benefits for same-sex couples in 1995 and hired Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, as a “corporate relations
manager for the gay and lesbian market” in 1998. Coors has also been accused of polluting Clear Creek—located near its Colorado brewery—with carcinogens and other hazardous chemicals. In 1990, Coors pled guilty to two counts of water pollution and paid a $650,000 fine. The company also had two beer spills in the 1990s, which resulted in the death of thousands of fish in the stream. Senior environmental politics major Kati Kallins feels that a company’s environmental record should factor into a consumer’s decision about whether to buy its products. “I definitely believe in environmental consumerism as an important tool for showcasing one’s opinion of certain business practices,” she said. Coors made a public effort to reduce its pollution after the spills, participating in voluntary audits of both carbon emissions and water pollution and donating $30,000 to the Clear Creek Watershed. In 1992, Coors began research on its volatile organic chemical emissions. When the company found them to be 17 times above the legal limit, the state of Colorado fined Coors $1 million for the violation. Senior Lisa Curtis thinks it’s important to keep a company’s political and environmental views in mind when buying their products. She said that she and her housemates drink New Belgium Beer because they approve of the causes it supports. New Belgium is a co-op which is wind powered, uses cogeneration to heat their plant and has an 85 percent waste-stream diversion rate. “It’s the best beer ever,” she said. However, Keystone is one of the cheapest beers available. While Whitman students might care about Coors’ political past, for many, the bottom line will still be cost. “If I’m paying to do something, I don’t have lots of money,” said Bender. “It’s cheap. We’re in college. It’s going to happen.”
GLASS: City seeks
new plans for reuse , page 1 that sorting glass at the curbside can be difficult and cause excessive wear to machinery, which makes it expensive. He added that, to his knowledge, the Walla Walla Recycling Company always collected colored glass when it handled curbside recycling. “There’s always been a market for glass,” he said. However, that market has fizzled of late. Glass brought in for recycling is crushed and used as road bed material in Walla Walla’s landfill, because it can’t be economically recycled anywhere else. All other materials recycled in Walla Walla are shipped to Portland, but glass is too heavy to make this economically feasible. China, the final destination of much of Walla Walla’s recycling after Portland, recently stopped accepting glass shipments. “There really is not a re-purchase market for glass right now,” said Warner. “We’re looking at some other ideas for how to use it locally.”
Regardless of what the city does with their recycled glass, Whitman students can recycle all types of glass in dorms. Outhouse RA junior Hannah LaCroix said that they collect all colors of glass, which is picked up with their other recycling and taken to the Walla Walla Recycling Company. She was unsure why so many students are confused about whether or not colored glass can be recycled, and said the Outhouse sends out guidelines for recycling at the beginning of the semester to all RAs. Word that Walla Walla recycles colored glass had not reached Adams’ off-campus apartment. “As an upper-class student, I haven’t felt like [the Outhouse] has given any advertisement of what’s recyclable in town,” he said. Although the current glass recycling system might be difficult for some residents, it is unlikely to change in the near future because of economic concerns. “If you’re a recycler, [the bin system] is not a good thing,” Gehrke said. “If you’re a businessperson, then it is.”
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BULLION Emily Lorente ‘11, who developed the College Coaches program set to begin spring semester at Whitman, poses in Penrose Library.
Pilot program will coach Wa-Hi students for college by RACHEL ALEXANDER Staff Reporter Already this year, Whitman students have adopted grandparents, become storytellers and mentored local elementary school kids. Now, thanks to junior Emily Lorente, they’ll also have the opportunity to be college coaches at Walla Walla High School. “[The students] have a lot of potential to seek higher education but some need support,” Lorente said. Lorente became interested in starting the College Coaches program after being an RA with the Whitman Institute for Summer Enrichment, a program which reaches out to local middle school students and helps them begin to prepare for college. She had a great experience, but also saw that the summer enrichment program lacked the resources to follow up with students during their time in high school after the program ended. “It was kind of like, ‘Have a good four years!’” she said. College Coaches aims to offer that missing support by working directly with Walla Walla High students in a group mentoring capacity. The program will start as a pilot during spring semester and will work with the existing Achievement Via Individual Determination program at the school. Each Whitman volunteer will be assigned three students to mentor. Lina Menard, the community service coordinator, has been working with Lorente on getting the program started, and says if it’s successful in its first semester, it
could be incorporated into the community service office next fall. “I think it’s really neat that we’re working to develop a connection between Walla Walla High School students and Whitman students that is academically focused,” said Menard. Both Menard and Lorente feel the program will allow Whitman students to work with a new group in the Walla Walla community. “It was something I felt was kind of lacking at Whitman,” said Lorente. “There are [programs with] little kids and there are [programs with] old people, but there’s nothing with high school-aged kids.” Mentoring college-bound students has already proven effective in other schools which have similar programs. The Seattle School District’s College Access Now program pairs parents and AmeriCorps volunteers with low-income, first-generation, college-bound juniors and seniors at three high schools. The volunteers help students look at schools, edit essays and apply for scholarships. Walla Walla High School senior Denali Molitor said she believes the program will have a positive impact on the school. “It’s good to see people who are in college—it makes it more visible,” she said. Molitor is enrolled in two Whitman classes—calculus and Spanish—and is preparing to apply to several colleges this winter. She says that her school has a large achievement gap. “You usually don’t have classes with people of lower economic status,” she
said. “It feels completely different when you’re in an AP class or a regular class.” Molitor estimates that out of last year’s graduating class, about 100 students went to Walla Walla Community College, about 200 went to four-year schools, and about 100 found a job or joined the military. Although life for many Walla Walla students is different than what most Whitman students grew up with, Molitor feels that College Coaches will foster an important connection between the two groups. “I think any help is good help,” she said. “If [the schools] stay separate, it doesn’t help anything.” Associate Professor of Education Kay Fenimore-Smith has agreed to help Lorente with training for the program. She agrees that the divide between the experiences of Whitman students and Walla Walla students can be bridged. “If you’re aware of stepping back, understanding that you’re there to mentor and learn and that you don’t have all the answers, that makes your approach very different.” she said. Lorente hopes the program will inspire Walla Walla High School students by showing them that going to college is a possibility. She encourages interested Whitman students to come talk to her about getting involved. “We’re looking for anyone who wants to be involved in the community and have a good relationship with high school kids,” Lorente said.
CRASH: Students miss Whitman, anticipate recovery, return , page 1 recovery, plans to return to Whitman for spring semester. “I stopped physical therapy when I was released from the hospital last Thursday and just keep up with all of the exercises they taught me,” she said in an e-mail. “The scar from my clavicle surgery is healing and I will be able to use my left arm in late December . . . and I am allowed to walk on Feb. 3rd! That’s 63 days from now, but who’s counting?” And while Radosevic remains upbeat and even decked her wheelchair in Christmas lights, she misses Whitman.
“I felt pretty settled and Whitman was my home away from home, and I get homesick easily,” she said. “But with all the cards and e-mails that have been flooding my lap, I might as well have everyone here.” Still, Radosevic says that the hardest part of her recovery is mental. “I’m very anxious for the day that we all step on campus to begin a new semester together,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing Maggie and Khoa as soon as I return to campus. My thoughts and wishes are also with Lindy and her family as she progresses through her very long recovery.”
Maggie Allen Allen had two permanent screws surgically implanted into her shoulder, which was broken in the crash. She returned to classes yesterday. “I’m just glad that things are getting back to normal,” she said. “I keep hoping that the other two girls will be okay and they can soon come back to school.” She hopes to be fully recovered from her injuries in a few months. “The physical therapy I’m doing on my own is paying off,” she said. “[Recovery] can take up to a year, but it’s probably only going to take three to four months for me if I continue physical therapy.”