Sports
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Opinion
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After a breakthrough season ending with Criticism of individual food choices ignores the DI Ultimate Championships, Whitman’s systemic problems with our food system Sweets rise to new level of competition that leave many without healthy options
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Pio blogger Sam Chapman offers a look into Whitman’s new bike share program at www.whitmanpioneer.com/opinion
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ISSUE 5 | February 23, 2012 | Whitman news since 1896
PHOTO BY BERGMAN
by SHELLY LE News Editor
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cholastic pressure at Whitman can be tremendous, especially as midterms approach and the end of the semester looms ahead. Some students turn to using Adderall without a prescription to help them manage their heavy workload. “I didn’t feel compelled to take it, but I did have an all-nighter in front of me, and other people who I was in a study room with were already planning to take it so it was a ‘sure why not’ sort of thing where it was available to me and I was interested in whatever would help me get through the huge chunk of work that you get during finals week,”
said sophomore Owen Maynard.* Adderall is a brand name amphetamine-based medication prescribed for patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy. The drug works to increase dopamine flow in an individual’s frontal cortex, countering the effects of ADHD. According to an article published by NPR in 2009, as many as 25 percent of students on some college campuses have used a form of Adderall or Ritalin to complete essays and study for exams. “Adderall is actually very popular at Whitman,” said senior Jake Gale*, who has sold the drug to students in the past. In a Pioneer survey of 252 students, 22 percent of respondents had used prescription drugs
without a prescription before. Of those, 63 percent had used Adderall. The majority of the respondents who admitted to using prescription drugs without a prescription used them for recreational and study enhancement reasons. “It’s a fairly common pattern among Whitman students to take more on your plate than you can actually deal with,” Maynard said. “Generally when finals week comes around, I don’t have enough time to properly lay out a plan of action for all my different assignments and pursue them in a reasonable manner.” Amphetamine-based drugs are addictive by nature, and can pose dangers for prescribed and non-prescribed users if used on a regular basis. Side effects
of the drug include increased heart rate, insomnia, seizures, mood swings and severe paranoia. If mixed with other prescription drugs, such as Oxycodone or large amounts of alcohol, Adderall can prove fatal. Adderall creates a hyper-focused state that motivates the user to focus on one task without feeling the need to submit to distractions such as socializing with friends or feeling the need to sleep. Gale said that Adderall is usually looked for around midterms and finals at Whitman. “Adderall makes you very good at whatever it is that you choose to do, but you still have to choose to do sort of what it is that you need to get done,” Maynard said, observing that Ad-
derall can sometimes make users who have not built up a tolerance for the drug become so hyper-focused that they can get stuck in a one-track mindset. “I was being pulled along by the drug in such a way that my productivity or the pace of work that I had artificially boosted myself to had outpaced my capacity for careful, reasonable thought necessary when you’re writing. So in a sense, it was a conflict of interest, but I wanted to work faster than I could effectively work, so it was a weird situation,” he said. Sophomore Alice Sampson* said she took Adderall once for study-enhancement purposes when she had to write a six-page essay in one night last semester.
see ADDERALL, page 3
Student helps discover ‘supergiant’ amphipod by EMILY LIN-JONES Staff Reporter
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Mackenzie Gerringer ‘12 was a part of a team that discovered an amphipod off of the coast of New Zealand. She was sent by Professor of Biology and Carl E. Peterson Endowed Chair of Scineces Paul Yancey to collect data for research. Photo contributed by Gerringer
Vagina Monologues aim for empowerment, discourse by MALLORY MARTIN Staff Reporter
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tarting this Friday, Feb. 24, Feminists Advocating Change and Empowerment and the Voices of Planned Parenthood will bring V-Day, an event of global activism, to campus. V-Day is a campaign and organization that fights for an end to violence against women and girls that was started in 1988 by Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues.” Every year from February through April, Ensler offers groups from around the world the opportunity to produce her play. All proceeds from these events go to local shelters and rape crisis centers. According to the organization’s official website, V-Day has raised over $85 million since its start, with over 5,800 benefits performed last year. For students unfamiliar with “The Vagina Monologues,” the play is a collection of individual and group dialogues based off interviews Ensler took with women around the globe. It discusses topics of rape, abuse, sex-
uality, body confidence and birth. Whitman has been participating in the movement for several years. Each monologue in the production is individually directed and performed by students from the college. Ten percent of all earnings go to the V-Day campaign to support their international efforts; the rest of the profits will be donated to Walla Walla Planned Parenthood, the Walla Walla YWCA and the STEP Women’s shelter. FACE President and this year’s V-Day Director senior Ellie Newell expressed her conviction that the performance is something very relevant and personal to all students. “Most of us have come into contact some way or another with domestic violence and sexual assault. As a rape survivor myself, the show has particular importance for me,” said Newell. “The show also has a heavy ‘love your vagina’ empowerment message, which is really important because I think female sexuality is a very touchy and taboo subject, even in 2012.” see MONOLOGUES, page 4
hen researchers on the Karahoa fished up a previously undiscovered “supergiant” amphipod off the coast of New Zealand last fall, senior Mackenzie Gerringer was on board to witness the momentous occasion. The trip was a part of a research project being undertaken by an international group of scientists that includes Whitman’s own Professor of Biology and Carl E. Peterson Endowed Chair of Sciences Paul Yancey. Yancey sent Gerringer, who is working on her biology thesis in his lab, to collect data in his stead. “Professor Yancey was originally supposed to go collect the samples,” she said. “He was unable to make the trip, so I got a really amazing opportunity,” she said. The expedition, which took place in late November and early December of last year, focused on gathering specimens from the Kermadec Trench in the waters north of New Zealand. At over 30,000 feet in depth, the trench is one of the deepest spots
on Earth. Yancey and his colleagues are aiming to understand more about how life is able to survive in these extreme conditions. “The deep sea is kind of an enigma,” said Yancey. “We don’t know much about what happens to everything down there. In my lab we’re trying to analyze the tissues to see what [the animals are] made out of, we’re trying to see how they survive pressure. The other people I’m working with are studying ecology and how animals interact with each other and what they’re eating. It’s a big project.” At 11 inches long, the newly discovered amphipod completely dwarfs typical one-inch specimens of its kind. According to Yancey, the amphipod illustrates an unexplained phenomenon called deep-sea gigantism, which is common in deep-sea creatures. “There’s this phenomenon where things in the deep sea often get huge, like the giant squid. We didn’t know that [the amphipod] lived down there, but that’s the biggest of that kind of animal ever found. And we don’t know why that is,” he said. see AMPHIPOD, page 2
High graduation rates win Wa-Hi statewide recognition by RACHEL ALEXANDER Senior Reporter
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alla Walla High School was one of 48 schools in the state to receive a 2011 Achievement Award for having a high extended graduation rate. Achievement Awards are given by the Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and they honor schools which perform well in each category of the state’s High School Proficiency Exam (HSPE), as well as those with accomplishments in other areas. This is the second year that Wa-Hi has been honored; last year, they were recognized for closing the achievement gap. “I was very excited for our staff and students to be honored with this award,” said Wa-Hi Principal Pete Peterson in an email. Wa-Hi’s extended graduation rate is 97 percent, which is significantly higher than the state average of 82.7 percent. It is also higher than neighboring 4A
schools such as Richland, Pasco and Yakima High Schools, which have extended graduation rates of 88 percent, 79 percent and 89 percent, respectively. These numbers are no accident. They represent a districtwide effort to provide academic support and career and college guidance for students. Rather than simply making sure that students finish high school, WaHi works to ensure that students have post-graduation plans. “Across our system, staff are delivering the message that when you get through high school, you will leave career or college ready,” said Peterson. As part of this, seniors are required to give a senior presentation highlighting their post-high school goals and the steps they’ve taken towards realizing them. Wa-Hi also allows student to take classes in a variety of technical fields, such as veterinary medicine, computer-aided drafting and business law. Claircy Boggess, the
career information specialist at WaHi, said that the variety of practical courses offered by the school help expose students to possible careers. “There’s a wealth of skill exploration they can do,” she said. Complementing the job skills offered in class, are a number of educational programs which help keep students on track academically and prepare them to attend college. Among these is Response to Intervention (RTI), a program targeting students who are performing below grade level in core skills, such as reading. RTI students don’t meet the criteria for special education, but also need more help than regular classes can provide. “[RTI] becomes a more targeted type of instruction that helps that in-between student,” said Superintendent Mick Miller. By allowing students to receive more individualized attention with specially trained staff, RTI helps keep students on track who might otherwise slip through the cracks. see WA-HI, page 2