THE SPECTATORTHE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-EAU CLAIRE’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1923

VOL. 91, NO. 21 SPRING 2013Thursday, March 7

NEWS SPORTS CURRENTS OP / ED STUDENT LIFEPAGES 1-5 PAGES 8-9 PAGES 10-12 PAGES 13-15 PAGE 16

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GRAD RATE GOING UP CLIMATE DOC SCREENS FULL TRANSPARENCY THAT’S THE TICKETA CLEAN SWEEPEau Claire stacks up well

with other UW System schools

“Chasing Ice” combines breathtaking images,

troubling truths

Editor-in-Chief Chris Reinoos says readers need

completely honest newspapers

Students who issue cam-pus parking tickets tell you what’s it like on their side

The mens tennis team beat two opponents 9-0

last weekend

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ELIZABETH JACKSON / The Spectator DON’T BLINK: The Blugolds scored three goals in just over three minutes in the second period to defeat St. John’s (Minn.) in the first round of the NCAA Championship. Next up is a rematch with conference rival St. Norbert.

“We want revenge”First-round win sets up rematch with St. Norbert

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THE SPECTATOR

NEWSTHE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - EAU CLAIRE STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1923

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Chris ReinoosTaylor KuetherDavid HeilingAlex ZankAndy HildebrandMartha LandryEmily AlbrentMichelle EngerHaley ZblewskiSteve FruehaufCourtney KueppersZack KatzElizabeth JacksonTyler TronsonSara JessickKatie BastNate BeckDavid BurishBridget CookeNick EricksonRita FayNicole MillerRyan SpaightBrittni Straseske

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EDITORIAL STAFF

2NEWS EDITORS: David Heiling & Alex Zank

The Spectator is a 100 percent student-run university publication published under the authority granted to the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

CORRECTION POLICY:While The Spectator continually strives for excellence and accuracy, we resign the fact that we will occasion-ally make errors. When these errors are made, The Spectator will take responsibility for correcting the error and will maintain a high level of transparency to be sure all parties are confident that the incorrect information does not spread.

CORRECTIONS: —In “Culture shock at home” from the Feb. 21 issue, Judy Sims’ rank was misstated. She is a full professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism. —In “New dean search underway” from the Feb. 21 issue, the College of Arts and Sciences was misstated as a depart-ment; it is an academic college of the university.

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Thursday, March 7

The final two candidates in the running for the chancellor position at UW-Eau Claire came to campus during the early part of this week to state their case as to why they’re the best candidate for the job.

Provost for Ohio University Pam Benoit, the third chancellor candidate to visit Eau Claire, held her open forum from 2:30-4 p.m. Monday in Schofield Auditorium.

Like the other candidates, Benoit visited the campus for a span of three days, and during her visit toured the campus and held her open forum in front of stu-

dents, faculty and staff.

A main point Ben-oit focused on when she a d d r e s s e d the crowd was lead-ership. She said that in order to run an institu-tion like Eau

Claire, certain traits are essential to have in a leader.

“I would define a leader as someone who is able to mo-tivate and inspire others,” she said. “(Someone who) is inter-ested in the needs of others and can balance the needs of an organization.”

She also said she could think of over 50 traits that are essential to a great leader but narrowed them down to the most important, some of them being integrity, compassion, cu-riosity, strategic and communi-cation skills.

Communication starts with the way you talk to other peo-ple and connecting and sharing with those people around the university, she said.

“Being approachable, visible, open and empathic along with be-ing concerned with other people’s issues are a must,” Benoit said.

Jim Schmidt, the final can-didate to hold an open forum, first addressed the crowd by ask-ing the audience a question and praising his encounter with Eau Claire students before starting his presentation.

Not unlike Benoit, Schmidt also focused on ideals of leader-ship in response to the universi-ty’s question of maintaining Eau Claire as a distinctive premier

undergraduate comprehensive.He said his experience work-

ing cooperatively with bodies of legislature is a point of em-phasis that can be im-plemented at Eau Claire.

“For the last 30 years I have been active in St. Paul in the legislature,” Schmidt said. “I’m feisty, and we’re going to have those tough conversations.”

He said he has worked suc-cessfully with three different parties in the legislature, and open channels of communication between higher education and legislative bodies need to happen.

Schmidt also said he was very excited for the opportunity to have the Confluence Center come into fruition, and that if it does, it will bring a lot to the com-munity as a whole.

“The confluence project I’m really excited about,” Schmidt said. “It will transform the na-ture of the downtown and this campus. We’ll finally have a fa-

cility worthy of the amazing fine arts program at this institution and should be exactly the type of project the state of Wisconsin would endorse.”

In the end, to the victor re-ally do go the spoils, as the sal-ary of previous chancellors and the interim chancellor reach six digits.

Executive Director of Com-munications and External Rela-tions for the University of Wis-consin System David Giroux said current interim chancellor Gilles Bousquet has an annual salary of $220,000, and previous Chancel-lor Brian Levin-Stankevich had an annual salary of $197,949.

The four candidates remain-ing for the position, Benoit, Huot, Neely and Schmidt will undergo interviews with a special commit-tee of regents March 20.

The candidates will be con-sidered on the search and screen committee from Eau Claire, along with the special commit-tee and will formally recom-mend a candidate to UW System Kevin Reilly.

The full Board of Regents will appoint the new chancellor at the April Board of Regents meeting held at UW-La Crosse in early April.

Final two chancellor candidates visitBenoit, Schmidt visit, speak on campus; new chancellor to be appointed next month

David Heiling NEWS EDITOR

SCHMIDT

BENOIT

“I’m a grad student and I did my undergrad at Parkside. There was no minor requirement there and I thought it was fine. It definitely makes it easier to focus on your major.”

-Jeremiah Riedler, Graduate Student

“I don’t think it’s good. If you have two interests you should be able to do both. My minor gives me a lot of flexibility for when I’m looking for a job.”

-Alissa Anker, Freshman

“I think having a minor is a good thing because it gives you more options so you aren’t so specific in a major and it makes you more marketable.”

-Leah Ripp, Freshman

“I think the whole idea of a liberal arts education is to learn as much as you can and have as wide of a variety of education as possible and I think the minor makes that possible.”

-Adam Montee, Senior

Students speak out on eliminating minor requirement

Read more student opinions on spectatornews.com

NEWS3NEWS EDITORS: David Heiling & Alex Zank Thursday, March 7

CAMPUS CALENDAR

NOTABLE EVENTS HAPPENING BOTH ON AND OFF CAMPUS

IFS Film “Ip Man”

The film deals with a semi-biographical account of the first martial arts master to teach the Chinese martial art

of Wing Chun.

7 p.m. — Fri. - Sat.2 p.m. — Sat. - Sun.

Woodland Theater, Davies Center

Foster Gallery

THURSDAY, MARCH 7

FRIDAY, MARCH 8

SATURDAY, MARCH 9

SUNDAY, MARCH 10

MONDAY, MARCH 11

TUESDAY, MARCH 12

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13

“Masterworks from the Hillstrom Museum of Art”

Runs from Feb. 21 - March 1410 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. — Mon. - Fri.

1 - 4:30 p.m. — Sat. - Sun.Haas Fine Arts Center

• 6 - 8 p.m. — Meet the Candidates for Eau Claire School Board and City Council, Chippewa Valley Technical College

• 11:30 a.m. — Strange Names Performance, The Cabin, Davies Center

• 10 a.m. — Shamrock Shuffle, McPhee Physical Education Center

• 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. — Concert: Wind Symphony and Symphony Band, Gantner Concert Hall, Haas Fine Arts

• 7 - 9 p.m. — “The Invisible War” Film Showing, Woodland Theater, Davies Center

• 6:30 p.m. — Live Jazz Music, Playmakers Bar and Grill

• 12 - 1 p.m. — Big Brothers Big Sisters Volun-teer Info Session, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwestern Wisconsin, 424 Galloway Street

Senate allocates enough for print edition

Nate BeckSTAFF WRITER

Student Senate buys $18,000 in paper advertising in lieu of standard segregated fee funding

Student Senate voted 28-2 Monday to buy $18,000 worth of Spectator advertising — mon-ey that will keep The Spectator in print through next year.

The ad buy will allow The Spectator to stay in print through next year, although The Spectator is expected to continue to accumulate debt, Jennifer Homeyer, The Spectator business manager said.

Spectator staff and CJ department faculty met with student senators before the Organized Activities Budget passed, to work out a way that The Spectator could receive $18,000 next year.

Less than six hours prior to Monday’s meet-ing, Senate presented a plan to buy ad space. Eighteen thousand dollars will buy about a page and a half of print ads and an ad on spectatornews.com each week.

The ad plan passed after an amendment to fund an online-only version of The Spectator failed to pass with a 17-13 vote.

Information and Technology Commission Director Christian Paese proposed an amend-ment Monday to pull all funding for The Spec-tator in exchange for ITC’s help in revamping its website.

The amendment was pulled before a vote. Paese said ITC can help The Spectator

make needed innovations online. “(The Spectator) needs to keep up with the

times,” Paese said. “(ITC) can help do whatever

we need to do to make sure The Spectator web-site is the best that it can be to attract readers.”

Eau Claire English Professor David Jones gets most of his national news online from sites like Washingtonpost.com. He said he gets his local news mainly in print.

Jones said although he gets most of his news online, an online-only issue of The Spec-tator wouldn’t give as much practical expe-rience to students as both a print and online edition would.

“There is more that can be done,” Jones said. “It’s a process of finding the most relevant professional experience for students.”

Spectatornews.com attracts 200-300 unique views per week. Advertisers want to see at least 5,000 views a week to commit to online ad space, Homeyer said.

The Spectator’s ad revenue has been de-creasing consistently each semester. The Spec-tator brought in $44,000 in ad revenue in the fall of 2009. At the end of February of this year, ad profits totaled just $27,900, Homeyer said.

She also said The Spectator is on track to add about $8,000 to its current $24,000 budget deficit.

Student Senate Chief of Staff Tyrel Zich said The Spectator did not try hard enough to find funds outside Student Senate. The Specta-tor should be funded with Blugold Commitment money, Zich said.

“Blugold Commitment should be ex-plored next fall, if (The Spectator doesn’t) they shouldn’t be given any money.”

Student Body Vice President Patrick Mar-tin said The Spectator should cut salaries to stay afloat.

“The Spectator is the only item that gen-erates more than we give them,” Martin said during open session. “Salaries are the only sticking point. When an organization is on the verge of complete financial collapse, salaries need to be cut.”

The Spectator functioned on ad revenue alone prior to the 2010 school year. Homeyer said ad revenue fell when the economy went into recession, and The Spectator has had to rely on segregated fees to fill in gaps.

In other senate news

Senate voted to reform the vacancies com-mittee, amend Senate bylaws and fund earth week events.

Senate appointed Sarah Tyrell as director of Student Services Commission after going into a closed session.

The Mascot Committee introduced a bill Monday requesting about $9,000 for two Blu-gold bird costumes. The costumes are estimated to last 4-5 years.

The costumes would be funded through a surplus in the Special Reserve account.

If the bill passes next week University Cen-ters will reimburse the cost of one of the cos-tumes. The cost to students would total around half of the request in the bill.

Other schools looking to implement as well, UW-Eau Claire not one of them

Coed living introduced at UW-La Crosse

As senior Asia Riel returned from the basement of her house with a load of laundry in one arm and closed her bedroom door, she said she remembers the idea of privacy played a factor in her decision to live off campus.

“Being off campus is nice in the fact that you have your own room, you have your own bath-room,” Riel said. “You know, normal things.”

But having the choice to live with three men in a house didn’t make her reluctant at all. In fact, she enjoys it.

“I get along with guys. But having guy roommates is not bad at all,” Riel said. “It depends on who you are as a person and on who they are too.”

Students living in residence halls at some UW campuses get to experience this type of living opportunity as well.

UW-La Crosse announced that they will allow males and

females to live together in apartment-style dorms starting next fall.

The new policy gives stu-dents the option to sign up for gender-neutral housing along with choosing roommates for the apartment.

Each apartment includes four individual bedrooms, a bath-room, a kitchen area and a living room. La Crosse Director of Res-idence Life Nick Nicklaus said that it is very similar to UW-Eau Claire’s Chancellors Hall.

Chancellors Hall has 81 apartments that hold approx-imately 324 students. Reuter Hall, the only apartment-style dorm on La Crosse’s campus, has 95 apartments that hold around 380 students. It is the only resi-dence hall that will have the gen-der-neutral policy in effect.

Other residence halls on La Crosse’s campus offer coed living environments for men and wom-en by cube, floor and room.

According to the Univer-sity of Wisconsin Board of

Regents policy, each chancellor can choose the number of coed living environments in residence halls that sufficiently cover students’ needs. Other excep-tions must be recommended to the Board of Regents by the chan-cellor and the president of the university system.

Eau Claire’s Towers North and South dorms have coed floors, located on the tenth floor in each building.

Nicklaus said many La Crosse students were in favor of having the choice of gender-neu-tral housing. This popular sup-port led the Residence Hall Association Council to pass the proposal with a 28-1-2 vote on December 8, 2011.

While the idea is a possibility in the future at Eau Claire, Di-rector of Housing and Residence Life Chuck Major said that no proposal of the kind has been brought up.

“The Student Hall Associ-ation hasn’t heard any sugges-tions about it from students,”

Major said.About 38 percent of the stu-

dent population at Eau Claire lives on campus compared to 31 percent at La Crosse.

Junior Nicole Leach, who lives in Chancellors Hall, said that there are many advantag-es of living in an on campus apartment.

“We have a lot more ameni-ties here than I have at home,” Leach said. “We have a dish-washer and a garbage disposal. I don’t even have that at home. So I’m living the dream.”

While gender neutral rooms would be nice, sophomore Alex Herrera said that it wasn’t pre-cisely at the top of her agenda.

“If people want the op-tion, I think they should have it,” Herrera said. “But it’s not a dealbreaker for me, for this university.”

It would take around a year for a gender neutral proposal like La Crosse’s to take effect at Eau Claire if it became reality.

Becky OlsonFREELANCER

4NEWS EDITORS: David Heiling & Alex Zank Thursday, March 7NEWSFour-year graduation rate shows improvementBlugold Commitment funding has played a key role; vice chancellor said ten-year plan calls for rate to be in mid-40s by 2019

As part of English Fest put on by the UW-Eau Claire English depart-ment, linguistics expert Dennis Pres-ton, professor and co-director of the Center for Oklahoma Studies at Okla-homa State University presented a lec-ture titled, “Boarders On the Land and in your Head,” at 7 p.m. March 5 in the Ojibwe Ballroom of the Davies Center.

At his presentation, Preston spoke talk primarily about the field of percep-tual dialectology. Perceptual dialectolo-gy, according to Preston, means people ignore what linguists technically know about dialect areas, and instead talk to real people, who have no background in linguistics, people who judge the words and the world around them by what they see and hear.

Preston said this translates into something called folk linguistics.

“A lot of people take folk to mean false; I don’t think that at all,” he said. “I assume that in some cases, folk lin-guistics and therefore the perception of dialect areas doesn’t overlap perfectly with what linguists know but in some other cases we actually feel that some-

times the way people respond to dia-lects, accents, gives us a clue to do even other kinds of scientific research that we maybe didn’t think of before.”

During his talk, Preston spoke about how people in the same state may have different ways of pronounc-ing words, or have different words for

the same kind of product, such as a tee-ter-totter and a see-saw.

Preston said stereotypes of the South are something he has thought a lot about. He said the stereotypes have changed throughout generations, such as if you asked an older generation, they might connect the South with the confederacy, education and slavery. In a younger generations, many may think of “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

He said linguistics shape our iden-tity, even unconsciously.

“Those things at first seem kind of cute, and anthropological and social sci-entific,” Preston said. “But linguists do it because we think they also put pres-sures on people to behave in a certain way or even more importantly not be-have in a certain way.”

An English 221 class taught by Associate Professor of linguistics Erica Benson had students in the class read an essay of Preston’s, and said because of that, the English department wanted to bring him to the university in order for students to learn directly from him in a more hands-on way.

“We thought it was important to bring someone who knows a little bit

about dialects and can talk to people about what people think about lan-guage,” Benson said.

After Preston’s presentation, Ben-son said she wants students to take away something new.

“I hope they will have a better un-derstanding of dialect areas of Amer-ican English from the linguist per-spective as well as from the average everyday person’s perspective and how those relate to each other and can talk to people about what people think about language,” Benson said.

Erin Stevens, a junior who is in En-glish 221, said she really enjoyed read-ing Preston’s work and also being able to see him present his material in a real life situation.

“I think (linguistics) is important because it’s interesting to see how language in the end all ties back to-gether and it doesn’t even matter which you speak, English, German, all the basic sounds and basic con-cepts of language are fundamentally the same,” Stevens said.

English Fest continues throughout the semester and Benson hopes students and the community keep showing an in-terest in the literary world.

The UW-Eau Claire Office of Institution-al Research’s 2012-2013 Factbook lists Eau Claire’s current four-year graduation rate at 29.3 percent. While that number may seem low, it has increased by more than eight percent in the last seven years.

Associate Vice Chancellor Mike Wick said while the university is pleased with the im-proved four-year rate, there is still much work to be done.

“I think with comparable institutions, we ought to be in the mid-40s, and so that’s what we’re going to try to seek to do,” Wick said.

As of 2010, Eau Claire ranked fourth out of the 13 UW System four-year universities in four-year graduation rate. UW-Madison held sizable leads over the other 12 schools in four-, five- and six-year rates, while UW-La Crosse also had a higher rate than Eau Claire in the three categories.

Office of Institutional Research Director Andy Nelson said Eau Claire’s five- and six-year rates are in line with national averages. Nel-son said the six-year rate is the most common measure of completion in national studies.

“What’s been more useful to us, at least in certain contexts, is looking at that four-year grad rate,” Nelson said. “We’re doing a decent job of getting them out in six years, but boy we’d sure

like more of them to graduate in four years.”The four-year graduation rate is further

broken down into a time-to-degree figure as well. Time-to-degree numbers do not take into account students who do not finish school, whereas the regular four-year rate lumps together an entire freshman class and determines what percent of them finished in four years.

Eau Claire’s current time-to-degree rate is 4.64 years, or a little more than nine semesters.

Wick said the infusion of Blugold Commit-ment money in 2010 allowed for several chang-es aimed at increasing the four-year rate. The changes included establishing advising plans for students to map out their path to a four-year graduation; addressing course availability issues; and supplemental instruction for class-es that have proven more difficult than most, among others.

Fifth-year senior and graphic design major Jenna Wiedmeyer said course availability was very limited when she came to Eau Claire in 2008. She said the university was set up heavily in favor of upperclassmen at that time. Despite things improving since then, she said the cur-rent curriculum makes it difficult to graduate in four years.

“I think it has to do with funding, availability of classrooms, the facility itself and all of those factors tying all together create a very limited amount of spaces per class that you can take,” Wiedmeyer said.

Wick said the vast majority of students are responsible for doing what they can to graduate in four years, including seeing their advisers and reviewing their degree audits. Director of Advising and New Student Initiatives Debbie Gough said she would support a plan to have students see their advisers before registering for classes beyond their sophomore year.

Currently, College of Business students are the only ones who must get a personal advising code after the first two years.

“We did a survey a while ago and most stu-dents actually agreed they should see advis-ers all four years, so I would be in favor of it,” Gough said.

Fifth-year senior Andrew Cook is an inter-national business and human resources double major. Both programs fall under the College of Business, so Cook has had to get a PAC code before registering each semester. He said the increased advising time has been both a help and a hindrance.

“It’s nice to meet with your adviser just to touch base, but it’s really been a burden the last couple of years,” said Cook, who has worked be-tween 30-40 hours a week at Ashley Furniture the past two semesters and has found it hard to schedule times to get his PAC code.

Gough said while four-year graduation rates need to improve, it should not be the goal for ev-ery student at the university. Whether students have a double major, are in a program such as accounting or education that naturally takes longer, or need to work long hours each week to pay for school, Gough said four years is simply unrealistic for some students.

Wick also said each student should evalu-ate their individual situation and not feel com-pelled to graduate in four years if it doesn’t

make sense. He said some barriers, including decreased state funding for college, have made four-year gradua-tion more difficult.

Students should not let staying a few semesters lon-ger deter them from finding their passion during college, Gough said.

“If you get to be a senior, or more a junior, and you re-ally don’t like the major you’re

in, you’re better off switching,” Gough said. “I certainly wouldn’t want people to stick with a major just to graduate in four years.”

The numbers show Eau Claire has made notable improvement in its four-year rate. But officials like Wick and Gough said further im-provements are necessary to allow students like Wiedmeyer and Cook a better chance to gradu-ate in four years.

GOUGH

WIEDMEYER

Chris Reinoos & Bridget Cooke EDITOR IN CHIEF & STAFF WRITER

Emily AlbrentOP/ ED EDITOR

Linguistics expert speaks as part of English FestProfessor addressed how speech patterns shape people’s identities and worldviews; Southern stereotypes a main part of presentation

EMILY ALBRENT / The Spectator WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE: Dennis Preston speaks Tuesday in the Ojibwe Ballroom. Preston, a linguistics expert, addressed issues such as perception and stereotypes as they relate to language.

5NEWS EDITORS: David Heiling & Alex Zank Thursday, March 7

NEWS

David HeilingNEWS EDITOR

Presentations highlight Aldo Leopold banquetResearch, land ethics and conservatism among ideals discussed

Amongst Aldo Leopold’s many achieve-ments, the 1949 publication of his book, A Sand County Almanac, may be his greatest.

Or it could be that he developed the first comprehensive management plan for the Grand Canyon in 1924, or possibly the announcement that Leopold would be named UW-Madison’s first ever professor of wildlife management in 1933.

Throughout the course of his life, Leopold was a scientist, ecologist, conservationist, pro-fessor and author. His excursions in Wiscon-sin included buying 80 acres of barren land while putting his conservationist theories to work in the field. The home he lived in is now recognized as an official landmark in the city of Madison.

UW-Eau Claire has recognized Leopold for the last few years and held their seventh annual Aldo Leopold Banquet Feb. 28 at the Eau Claire Rod and Gun club.

Assistant Director of Programs for the Envi-ronmental Adventure Center Dan Langlois said the banquet is an event to recognize Leopold’s work and promote conservatism and land ethic to the next generation.

“Its a sort of a passing of the torch,” Langlois said. “Whenever you can expose students to Leo-pold and professors that know the land ethic is valuable when you go out into your profession.”

Throughout his lifetime, Leopold was known for his involvement of the outdoors. Se-nior history education major Joe Rupslauskas is one of those students who also appreciates the outdoors and presented his research of “Trig-ger Itch: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of a Sportsman Ethic” at the banquet.

Rupslauskas said he thinks in the area of being an outdoorsman and conservatism, we can learn a great deal with Leopold’s findings, as well as learn from how he overcame his diffi-culties throughout his life.

“He learned from past experiences and then he was able to become someone who was able to make a serious impact,” he said. “There is an idea that each of us can look around in our lives and see various ways that we can get active in this and make a difference like he did.”

He also said his presentation focused on advancement with Leopold’s ideals that were generally received favorably.

“I talked more about this idea of change and evolution over time,” Rupslauskas said. “Given the state of politics in this state in regards to the sand frac mining. Those are big issues right now we could be more informed about.”

The banquet also featured other researched works by Eau Claire English professor Debra Barker and Concerned Chippewa Citizens rep-resentative Patricia Popple, along with a pre-sentation by Kenny Salwey.

Salwey is known as “The Last River Rat.” He has written two published books and starred in the Emmy-award-winning film, “Mississippi: Tales of the Last River Rat.”

Semi-illiterate, Salwey said he has read all of Leopold’s works with the help of a Mir-

iam-Webster dictionary, and has taken to heart what are in the depths of his writing.

He said he spoke from the heart when he talked about

certain topics that Leopold was a pioneer for at the banquet.

“What I talked about at the banquet was the land,” Salwey said. “The land, Aldo Leopold once said, does not belong to us. We belong to the land. We cannot own the snowflakes, the rays of sun, the raindrops, the moonbeams that come down on it or the wind that blows across it.”

He said he has been living in shacks and near-poverty for as long as he can remember and now lives six miles north of Alma, Wis. near the river.

In regards to the ideal of land ethics pre-sented throughout the banquet amongst oth-er presentations, Salwey’s approach may be simpler, but he said that he has lived this life on the land, being a part of it, and feels he knows much.

The goal of the banquet was to discuss the “passing of the torch” to the next gener-ation and Salwey said he thinks he has done just that.

“I have lived the circle of life on the land,” Salwey said. “When we purchase the land, we purchase a privilege. We become stewards of the land and then we turn it over to somebody else, hopefully in better shape than what we found it.”

“ ... The land, Aldo Leopold once said, does not belong to us. We

belong to the land.”KENNY SALWEY

The Last River Rat

Students prepare to present research projects first week of MayNew name and events, same showcase

Brittni StraseskeSTAFF WRITER

The 21st Student Research Day, now dubbed the Celebration of Excel-lence in Research and Creative Activ-ity, will be held in the Davies Center this year, instead of Zorn Arena.

Students wanting to participate in research presentation are to sub-mit an abstract of their research to the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs by March 7. The CERCA event will take place May 1 and 2.

The event is meant to give stu-

dents the chance to present their find-ings after their hard work, instead of simply handing in a written report, said Karen Havholm, the director of the center of excellence for faculty and undergraduate student research collaboration.

The event will have some chang-es this year, she said. For the past 20 years, students participating in the event created a poster to put on display. This year, the event is ex-panding to include oral presenta-tions, exhibits and performances, Havholm said.

“Posters are really good for presenting some kinds of research, if there’s a lot of imag-es,”she said. “But … sometimes an oral presentation might be better or might be more appropriate for the discipline.”

A d d i t i o n a l -ly, this is the first year the event will be called CERCA, instead of simply Student Research Day. The name change was meant to reflect the broad scope of research stu-dents participate in, Havholm said. A committee was formed to survey fac-ulty members and students and come up with a new name.

“They really liked to think of it as a celebration, so they thought celebration was an important word,” Havholm said. “And they also want-ed to signal it wasn’t just about, say, scientific research by adding the cre-ative activity to the title.”

As a former faculty member who mentored students in the research process, Havholm thinks student involvement in research and pre-

senting that research is important to the overall college experience, she said. It makes the distinction be-tween simply learning about an area of study, and actually practicing it, she said.

“When you’re doing research, you’re actually creating knowledge for the discipline,” Havholm said. “In-stead of learning about science you’re a scientist. Instead of learning about art, you’re an artist.”

Behavior analysis major, Ashley Niebauer, is currently doing research for the psychology department and plans on participating in CERCA. Her research involves the teaching pref-erences of children with autism, she said. She said the student research has gone beyond what is taught in classes.

“Conducting research has not only allowed me to learn a tremen-dous amount about my topic, but has also lead me to develop professional-ly,” Niebauer said. “I have presented research at several conferences, and the research that I have on my curric-ulum vitae has greatly enhanced my applications to graduate school.”

She has been working on her current project for about a year, but

was involved in other research for the past three years. She said she per-sonally believes that presenting the findings of the research is essential to the process.

“It is not only important for pro-fessional development reasons, but also for personal reasons,” Niebauer said. “Showing the final product of all your hard work is rewarding.”

Asia Riel, a researcher for the chemistry department, has been working on one project for two and a half years. She said it is import-ant for all students to make an ef-fort to attend CERCA, not just those presenting research findings.

It is an easy way for underclass-men to see what research is being done in the field they hope to enter and what professors they might want to collabo-rate with, she said. Further, showcas-ing a project is a great way to commu-nicate new or expanded knowledge, she said.

“This is a way of showing the world, or in our case, the Eau Claire commu-nity, what you are doing and why,” Riel said. “I am huge on scientific commu-nication in the fact that your research is useless if you cannot communicate it to others.”

“When you’re doing research, you’re actu-ally creating knowledge for the discipline.

Instead of learning about science, you’re a scientist. Instead of

learning about art, you’re an artist.”KAREN HAVHOLM

The Director of the Center of Excellence for Faculty and Undergraduate Student Research Collaboration

HAVHOLM

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SPORTSSPORTS EDITOR: Andy Hildebrand Thursday, March 7 8

Eau Claire gymnasts come up shortFreshmen excel in close loss; Lady Blugolds advance to regional meet

The UW-Eau Claire womens gymnastics team concluded their regular season Feb. 28 when they competed at Winona State University (Minn.). The Blugolds fell short to the Warriors with a final score of 185.300-181.600.

Despite trailing Winona State overall, the Blugolds won the floor and all around competi-tion. The team also had high finishes on the un-even bars and vault.

Freshman Elizabeth Stubbs took first in the floor competition with a career best score of 9.725 points. “I had a great vault so

I was pumped coming off of that,” Stubbs said. “I went out there and did what I usu-ally do and ended up with a nice score.”

Senior Danielle Schulz-entenberg’s score of 35.000 points won the all-around competition where she was the lone competitor. Shul-zentenberg also took third

place on the balance beam with a score of 9.150 points.

“For me personally I started out really rough,” Shulzentenberg said. “I fell three times on bars

but once that was over I had to get that out of my mind. I had more events to do and I just focused on hitting those events and it worked out.”

On vault, senior Molly Senske took fourth scoring 9.225 points, and teammate Karla Ha-gen, a junior, finished in fifth place on the uneven bars with a career high score of 9.275 points. On the bars, Hagen was followed by junior Olivia Aschenbrenner in sixth place with 9.250 points and freshman Kellie Dougherty who took seventh with her 9.200 points.

“Bars is probably my best event so that was my personal high point of the meet,”

Dougherty said.Even with some standout individual perfor-

mances the gymnasts knew this was going to be a challenge.

“We knew it was going to be a good meet,” Shulzentenberg said. “Winona is known to be a good team. We were feeling pretty good going into the meet- we had a good week at practice.”

Although this was the last meet for the Blu-golds before moving on to regionals on March 9, it was the first time they faced Winona State this year.

“It’s getting towards the end of the season and we hadn’t gone against Winona in conference yet so we were a little nervous,” Stubbs said. “We’d seen their scores from past meets and they’ve been doing pretty well.”

Shulzentenberg said it was weird to not face Winona State until this point in the season, but she was glad to see them before regionals. Though she felt there was a certain something the team was lack-ing that hurt them in their last regular season competition: team unity.

“It felt like we were a bunch of individuals competing, so the big focus is to find that team unity again,”

Shulzentenberg said.Dougherty said to have kept up with Winona

State the Blugolds would have needed to improve their performance on the balance beam.

“We had a rough meet on beam that was our last event,” Dougherty said. “It was disappointing, definitely not our best performance. We should have kept up more with Winona. It should have been a closer meet.”

Even though the Blugold gymnasts had a less than desirable finish to their regular season, Stubbs said they are ready to move into regionals and be competitive there.

“I don’t think it was necessarily a good [meet] to end on — it wasn’t our best but I think it will give us a lot of motivation to move into regionals,” Stubbs said. “I think we just need to maintain our focus and get a lot of energy in the gym and we’ll be ready to go.”

Shulzentenberg said she’s confident if the team restores their unity they can excel in region-als and onto nationals.

“We’re trying to cheer a lot more and be sup-portive of one another and what they’re doing,” Shulzentenberg said. “We do best when we have fun so we’re trying to find the fun in this sport as we head into regionals.”

The WIAC Championship/NCGA Region-al meet will start at 5:30 p.m. on March 9 at UW- Oshkosh.

Courtney Kueppers COPY EDITOR

STUBBS DOUGHERTY

“It felt like we were a bunch of individuals com-peting, so the big focus is

to find that team unity again.”

DANIELLE SCHULZENTENBERGSenior gymnast

The UW-Eau Claire mens tennis team shut out both of its opponents this last weekend in Moline, Iowa. The Blugolds first played St. Ambrose (Iowa) on Friday followed by Loras College (Iowa) on Saturday. They beat both teams 9-0 overall.

Eau Claire proved victorious in all singles competition Friday against St. Ambrose.

Juniors Jon Meier and Brayden Parman were the best statistically, only losing one of the 12 games they played in. Junior no. 1 singles play-er Ryan Vande Linde won his match 6-0, 6-4.

Vande Linde said the team’s success was mainly

due to week-long determination.

“Last week we had a disappoint-ing loss,” he said. “So this weekend we wanted to get out to a good start and

kind of redeem ourselves a little bit. I think we really had a lot of focus going into our first match up Friday.”

It was the same story for dou-bles competition on Friday. Of those to compete, senior Flo Marco and fresh-man Kyle Hoffman were the sole pair to drop just one game of their eight played that day. Eau Claire performed even bet-ter during Satur-day’s competition against Loras.

Meier shaved the sole loss from Friday off during the following day’s bout, ending his singles match with a perfect 6-0, 6-0 victory. Vande Linde also performed better against Loras, only losing one game in his no. 1 singles match.

Altogether, the Blugolds singles players only lost seven games overall.

The doubles competition held up their end of the bargain.

Collectively, they only lost four games. Of those to perform, Par-man and senior David Stingely stole the show.

They won their no. 3 doubles match 8-1. Meier said although the scores may not show it, Loras was a good team overall.

“The doubles were a little bit closer Saturday, at least the doubles for me and (Vande Linde),” Meier said. “Even though the scores didn’t say it was close, the guys were definitely better than the guys we played on Friday. Ba-sically, everyone stayed playing their game and we didn’t let up on anyone.”

After this weekend’s play, the team now sits at 6-4 on the season. St. Ambrose fell to 2-7 on the year while Loras is still without a victory at 0-6.

The Blugolds play again March 17 in Hilton Head Island, S.C. as part of their spring break trip. They will play five matches there.

Head Coach Tom Gillman said the team will be well-prepared for competi-tion when the time comes to leave.

“Getting the guys to really be up tempo every day in practice and just working really hard on a day by day basis is a big thing for us,” Gillman said. “I think it’s easy to push yourself in matches when you push yourself all week long. It needs to come from them and if they see it that way, they’ll be successful.”

.500 no more after Iowa trip

Steve Fruehauf COPY EDITOR

UW-Eau Claire mens tennis team’s sweep weekend series

MEIER

VANDE LINDE

Box score: UW-Eau Claire vs St. Ambrose

Box score: UW-Eau Claire vs. Loras College

SPORTS9SPORTS EDITOR: Andy Hildebrand Thursday, March 7

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Quarterfinals boundUW-Eau Claire mens hockey team advances past

St. John’s (Minn.), will meet St. Norbert nextHaley Zblewski CHIEF COPY EDITOR

ELIZABETH JACKSON / The Spectator CRUNCH TIME: Sophomore Ross Andersen tries to push the puck past St. John’s freshman goalie Saxton Soley as he falls to the ice.

It was the Blugold mens hockey team’s first National Collegiate Athlet-ics Association bid since 1989 and their first time hosting a tournament game at Hobbs Ice Center, and they were down by one against Saint John’s Col-lege (Minn.) in the first round game.

But the Blugolds certainly came back with a vengeance, scoring three goals in just a little over three minutes in the second period.

The Blugolds won 4-2, and with neither team scoring in the third peri-od, the team’s three-minute reign and some successful saves from Blugolds senior goalie Brandon Stephenson secured the win.

Senior forward Andrew McCabe, who had one assist on the night, said the Blugolds are trying to go back to

what defined them all season.“We got to run through all of our

systems tonight and I think everything was effective when we played hard,” McCabe said. “And that was the big-gest thing; just getting back to playing hard and getting dirty goals. We talked about that earlier in the week, and all year that’s what’s made us successful.”

The teams came out of the first period tied 1-1, but at eleven minutes into the second period, the Johnnies scored again.

Just under a minute later, Devin Mantha kicked off the three-score streak, and Isaiah Bennis followed up with another goal less than two minutes later.

Scoring goals right in front of the other teams’ goalies is something that the Blugolds have made a pattern, McCabe said.

And they certainly pulled that off a few times against Saint John’s.

The team’s fourth goal, netted by senior forward Kurt Weston just a touch more than a minute after Ben-nis’s goal, soared straight over the heads of a couple of Saint John’s play-ers who were trying their best to keep the net covered.

Weston, who also scored the team’s first goal of the night, said winning the game was a bit of a relief after falling to St. Norbert (Wis.) in the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association finals game last Saturday.

“It just goes to show how electric we can be when we start working hard and doing all the little things right and play-ing blue-collar kind of hockey, where we can get those goals where they’re not pretty, but they’re going in the net,” Weston said. “So, we don’t ask ‘How?’

we actually just ask ‘How many?’”With the win in the first round

of the NCAA Championship, the Blu-golds now advance to the quarterfi-nals, and will face off against St. Nor-bert on Saturday, after losing to them only a week before.

If the men can make sure they keep playing this way in the quarterfi-nals, McCabe said, they have a chance to go all the way.

“We’ve learned throughout the year that it’s important to not be too high or too low,” McCabe said. “Hock-ey’s a game of mistakes. The good teams respond to those mistakes in a positive way instead of a negative way and that was what made us successful tonight.”

Head Coach Matt Loen said he thinks the team will bring their best for the quarterfinals game.

“I don’t think we played our best

game, so hopefully we’re saving it for Saturday,” he said. “In the third, we were kind of complacent, but we’ll be forced to play better on Saturday.”

But getting better is something the team succeeds at, McCabe said.

“We’ve worked really hard the past four years to build this program up,” McCabe said. “With the coaching staff (and the team), and it’s been a joint ef-fort. I mean with all the work we put in preseason, during

the summer, we like to say it’s a 52-week season. We’ve had that mentality the last three years, and it’s been real-ly fun this year for it to pay off.”

This Saturday will be the fifth

time the Blugolds face off against St. Norbert this season, with their cur-rent record against the Green Knights standing at 2-1-1.

Stephenson said one of the benefits of playing St. Norbert so soon after los-ing to them in the finals is that they know what to expect from them.

“What we’ve learned, especially last Saturday, is you can’t take a shift off and you can’t make too many little mistakes,” Stephenson said. “We’re go-ing to give up goals next time, that’s just how it is, but it’s how we bounce back and how we respond to it.”

Weston said getting the chance to play St. Norbert is “huge” for the team in more ways than one.

“We kind of look at it this way, that it was almost nice to lose to them Saturday, — because now we’ve got that sour taste in our mouths and we want revenge.”

“We’re going to give up goals next time, that’s just how it is, but it’s how we bounce back and how we respond

to it.”BRANDON STEPHENSON

Senior goalie

MCCABE

CURRENTS10CURRENTS EDITOR: Martha Landry Thursday, March 7

Social media may be a necessary part of our socialization, but in the Arab world it is a necessary part of their mobilization. Women and young people have taken to Twitter and Facebook to bring about political and social change in their countries of unrest, Sahar Khamis, an expert in Middle Eastern media, said.

Khamis is an assistant professor of communication and affiliate faculty of women’s studies at the University of Maryland. She hopes her lecture will spark interest in UW-Eau Claire students.

The important role of social media in recent Arab Spring uprisings is a main topic in Khamis’s lecture “Youth and Women’s Leadership, New Me-dia and the Arab Spring: Prospects for Political Change and Intercultur-al Dialogue” taking place at 5:30 on March 8 in Hibbard Humanities Hall, room 102.

For the last two-and-a-half years, various uprisings in the Middle East have taken place with the purpose of bring-ing about positive change and democra-cy. These demonstra-tions and protests have collectively be-come known as the Arab Spring.

“I think it’s very important for young people to hear about and to learn how these young people were able to turn the use of social media into very ef-fective weapons or tools of mass-mo-bilization and political and social activism,” Khamis said.

Steven Fink, UW-Eau Claire as-sistant professor of philosophy and religious studies and head of Middle East studies minor, invited Khamis to speak as part of Eau Claire’s year-ly Arab World Lecture. He hopes stu-dents will recognize the importance of the Middle East and realize how interesting the topic is.

“The Middle East is such an in-credibly crucial region of the world,

I’d say especially in the 21st cen-tury, but it has been longer than that,” Fink said. “With events like the Arab Spring and a lot of politi-cal instability affecting not only the Middle East itself, but we’re directly affected in the United States and so there’s a tremendous importance in the region.”

The lecture will focus on the con-nection among youth, political mo-bilization and social media. Khamis said she is interested in learning how to use this triangle effectively to bring about positive change. This is just one lesson we’ve been learning from the Arab Spring: Young peo-ple using social media can make a real difference.

Another important shift that’s been taking place in the Arab Spring is the role of women. In addition to the role of youth, women have also taken on greater responsibility as far as political and social activism.

This is one area Fink is most interested in.

“I’ve heard a lot about the actual events of the Arab Spring,” Fink said, “but this angle of women’s involve-ment and the use of media is one I haven’t looked into too much ... for me, it’s an unexplored yet significant

angle to this major world issue.”

Theresa Kemp, academic program director of wom-en’s studies, is also enthusiastic about this topic.

“Her topic is im-portant,” Kemp said, “and we’re grateful that they’re bringing her here.”

Those who are unfamiliar with spe-cific details about the Arab Spring shouldn’t

shy away from attending this event. Khamis is aware many people may have limited knowledge on the topic and provides all necessary key terms and concepts within the context of her lecture, she said.

Fink hopes the lecture will spark a greater desire for students to learn more about the Middle East. Khamis said she’s usually met with posi-tive reactions from her audiences, as well as questions and curiosity.

Tweeting for change in the Arab world

Visiting professor to speak about social media and women’s roles in political mobilization

Katie Bast STAFF WRITER

KHAMIS

In a daring balance of art and science, world-re-nowned photographer, James Balog, took audi-ences on a dangerous and breathtakingly beautiful ad-venture across the glaciers of Greenland, Alaska, Mon-tana and Canada to watch the glaciers disappear.

Climate change has been a highly disputed top-ic for the past decade, but “Chasing Ice,” directed by Jeff Orlowski, provides visual, “indisputable evi-dence” on the issue. Balog set up cameras all over gla-ciers in the northern hemi-sphere to record, through photography, the glaciers diminishing for nearly a

three-year period.Originally debuted

in Nov. 2012, this docu-mentary premiered on the UW-Eau Claire campus on March 4, sponsored by the Student Office of Sustainability.

The film begins with Balog’s love of photography and science and finding a way to bridge the two. After photographing glaciers for a National Geographic article, Balog became invested in climate change and the ef-fect it is having on glaciers. Using time-lapse photogra-phy, he is able to show the audience tangible affects climate change is having on glaciers.

The film has received 23 awards from festivals around the world including

Excellence in Cinematog-raphy Award: US Docu-mentary at Sundance Film Festival, according to the “Chasing Ice” website.

Senior biology major Casey Gabrhel attended the movie to see the evidence of climate change for himself.

In classes, Gabrhel learned 97 percent of the scientific community be-lieve climate change is a fact. Professor of econom-ics Eric Jamelske stated during the discussion after the film,that his research has suggested 50 percent of college students believe there is a disagreement within the science commu-nity about whether or not climate change exists.

Senior Justin Gonyer, a chemistry major, said this misinformation is exactly why students and commu-nity members need to see the film. Gabrhel said it is frustrating to see three per-cent of scientists have such an effect.

“The important thing is getting the public to see what goes into the research behind it and why it mat-ters and how in depth it is,” Gabrhel said.

The documentary showed the glaciers reced-ing at an incredible rate and how there is no way that it is a purely natural occur-rence.

Balancing the topics of rising temperature, his-torical and present day carbon dioxide emissions and glacier melting, Balog creates a convincing argu-ment for why the time is now to take action against climate change.

Gonyer said he came

to see the film for personal interests as well as encour-agement from chemistry professor James Boulter.

“The visuals are just amazing,” Gonyer said. “When you start putting that in perspective, how far (the glaciers) are actually receding and you actually see that happen over a pe-riod of time, it really hits home better than just say-ing ‘ice is melting a hundred inches, a hundred feet.’”

Gonyer said the science of climate change can be-come hard to understand so having real, visual evidence for the decline of glaciers makes the issue more diffi-cult to ignore.

Boulter led the discus-sion about climate change after the film. He was thrilled with the over-capac-ity turnout for the film view-ing and the participation of audience members in the discussion.

“I think this film drives that home in a way that is different than what we have seen before,” Boulter said. “The visual element, I think, is very potent in be-ing able to communicate the scale of what is going on and the immediacy of what is going on.”

SUBMITTED PHOTO TAKING THE RISK: National Geographic photographer James Balog traveled for years with the Extreme Ice Survey, capturing the disappearance of glaciers around the Northern Hemisphere.

Chilling images

bring fresh fight against

climate change

“Chasing Ice” displays astonishing visuals of glacial decline around

the world

Martha Landry CURRENTS EDITOR

GRAPHIC BY TYLER TRONSON / The Spectator

The SOS is hoping to show the movie again

on campus.

More information will be available on

spectatornews.com as soon as it is known.

“ I think it’s very important for young people to hear about and to learn about

how these young people were able to turn social media into ... tools of mass-mobilization ...”

SAHAR KHAMISMiddle Eastern media expert

Check spectatornews.com for an update following Friday’s lecture

CURRENTS11CURRENTS EDITOR: Martha Landry Thursday, March 7

When it comes to getting dressed each day, the matter of fashion ethics probably doesn’t cross our minds. But should fashion ethics — i.e. working conditions for those who make the clothes, sustainability, the use of fur and leather — be on our minds all the time?

Labor, when it comes to the fash-ion industry, is big. While we all know the story of outsourcing, what do we know about the working conditions for laborers who make garments?

The Not For Sale campaign focus-es on ending human trafficking around the world and released an “Apparel Industry Trends: From Farm to Facto-ry,” a report that ranks apparel com-panies on their efforts to end child and forced labor.

The “Apparel Industry Trends” re-port evaluates the worker rights asso-ciated with these companies, which is based on whether or not workers make a living wage among other things. Companies like Forever 21 and La-coste received an “F” from the report under the worker rights category. The full report is available at free2work.org.trends/apparel.

Another aspect of fashion ethics that is on the minds of many people is the

sustainability and eco-friendliness of clothing. Sustainable fashion is created with the potential environmental and social impact taken into consideration.

Greenpeace launched the Detox Fashion Manifesto to help stop the use of hazardous chemicals in the production of clothing. It points out eleven specific chemicals that should be eliminated from clothing produc-tion, including chlorinated solvents that can be ozone-depleting, and Azo dyes, which break down and may cause cancer.

And speaking of dyes, according to treehugger.com’s article “25 Shocking Fashion Industry Statistics,” “A single mill in China can use 200 tons of wa-ter for each ton of fabric it dyes; many rivers run with the colors of the season as the untreated toxic dyes wash off from mills.”

Just think about the long term im-pact that has on the environment.

Another major part of sustain-able fashion revolves around the use of sustainable materials. Sustain-able fabrics include organic cotton, which doesn’t use the high amount of insecticides used in growing non-organic cotton.

The use of organic cotton has grown, according to treehugger.com “The world market for textiles made from organically grown cotton was worth over $5 billion in 2010.” But sus-tainable materials don’t just stop at or-ganic cotton, but includes wool, which is totally renewable.

It’s important to note there are companies that do strive to be sustain-able. Patagonia, the outdoor apparel company, is involved in environmental initiatives and offers a map of where their products come from.

A more fashion-y brand, Stella Mc-Cartney, has sustainability as a fore-front of their company statement: “We are responsible for the resources that we use and the impact that we have. We are always exploring new and innovative ways to become more sustainable.”

When it comes to wanting to be ethically conscious and purchase clothing that is ethical, your best bet is to buy small. Etsy is a great place to look for unique clothing that is created by artists.

This way you know your clothing didn’t come from a sweatshop. Another easy way to be fashionably ethical is to take a “make do and mend” approach and fix up old clothes and possibly make them into something new. That way they’ll stay out of landfills.

Elizabeth Jackson PHOTO EDITOR

The act of experiencing diversity in culture is part of everyday life.

From dining out at ethnically unique restaurants, to admiring new clothing trends or turning on the radio and listening to broadcasted music, di-versity in culture surrounds you on a day-to-day basis.

Have you ever wondered what the world would look like without culture?

International Culture Night will revolve around this question with the theme, “A World with No Culture.” The event presents students with the opportunity to better understand in-ternational diversity. Put on solely by international students, it will take place at 7 p.m. on March 7 in Schofield Auditorium.

Kristine Rivall, the publicity man-ager, said planning for the event began last fall. A play will follow two students into the future where due to technolo-gy and globalization there is one single culture.

“We follow them as they stumble on a time machine and go back into time and different countries, witness-ing different expressions of culture and coming to appreciate it,” Rivall said.

In addition to the play, the event will also include folk songs and dances, a global fashion show featuring inter-national students modeling pieces that represent their homelands, and food, according to a press release.

Senior Elina Lane, a liberal stud-ies student majoring in society and advocacy, attended the event last year and plans on attending again this year.

“I am attending to be reminded that there is a bigger world beyond UW-Eau Claire and to commend the bravery of those who dare to travel beyond their homelands and cultures and to validate our diverse and shared humanity,” Lane said.

Countries represented this year include: India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Chile, Malaysia, Ireland, Mexico, Afri-ca, Serbia and China. The Hmong Stu-dent Association will also be present and will sing a piece.

Recipes were submitted by inter-national students and several different types of Asian and South American cui-sine is to be expected, Rivall said.

“The aroma of spices, some being familiar, makes one want to never leave the hallway,” Lane said.

The event is sponsored by the Ma-laysian Abroad Diversified student organization, the Residence Hall Asso-ciation, and Blugold Dining, as well as Eau Claire businesses Egg Roll Plus, Long Chang Market, China Buffet, Pad Thai and Just Local Food.

Rivall said last year about 320 people attended and around the same amount are expected this year.

Nicole Miller STAFF WRITER

Building bridges between cultures International Culture Night to acknowledge pluralism of humanity

Check spectatornews.com for an update on the event!

“Sustainable fashion

is created with the

potential environ-

mental and social

impact taken into

consideration.”

CURRENTS12CURRENTS EDITOR: Martha Landry Thursday, March 7

Before heading off to the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas next week, Brook-lynite Liam Benzvi and Minneapolis native Fran-cis Jimenez, together mak-ing up Strange Names, will play at 11:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. March 7-8 at UW-Eau Claire’s Cabin.

As part of the Universi-ty Affairs Committee, Cab-in Committee’s free per-formance series, Strange Names will be bringing their electronic-pop sound

to campus for their first- ever Wisconsin show. Ac-companied by live per-formers Andre Borka and Fletcher Aleckson, the two play a mix of keyboards, guitar and percussion.

The band’s manager, Chris Heidman, said the band’s funk-driven sound comes with a lot to offer.

“They have an in-credible sort of range ... I hear everything from Passion Pit to the Yard-birds to Stereolab in their songs,” he said. “Liam and Francis have this amazing indie sensibility and yet they write these

massive pop songs.”Benzvi and Jimenez

said they’re excited to see what Eau Claire holds in store for them, given their initial impressions of the city.

“We heard through the grapevine that Eau Claire is quite the oasis of musical talent and appreciation, we’re really stoked to come visit,” said Benzvi.

Look out for Strange Names this weekend at The Cabin, as well as the release of their new 7”, MINOR TIMES/ONCE AN OCEAN on White Iris Records.

Strange Names performing in Davies Duo make their Wisconsin debut at The Cabin

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Zack Katz COPY EDITOR

Check spectatornews.com

for a review of Strange Names’

shows!

11:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. March 7-8The Cabin

OPINION / EDITORIAL13OP / ED EDITOR: Emily Albrent Thursday, March 7

As a journalism student, the cornerstones of my education have been accuracy and transpar-ency. Not only do journalists have to get the story right, but we have to been completely honest and forthright about how we gather our information.

This is not an unreasonable demand to place on journalists. It is how we must conduct ourselves if there is to be any trust between the reader and the writer.

For years, the Student Senate and The Spec-tator have gone back and forth on the nature of their relationship. Senate has voiced displeasure at continually funding the paper through segre-gated fees, while The Spectator has been unable to achieve its goal of financial independence from the senate.

In the past year, the situation has reached a critical point. Because of the senate’s desire to change the funding plan for the paper and the paper’s dire financial situation, a new plan was reached. Beginning this fall, the Student Senate will purchase $18,000 worth of advertising space in The Spectator.

This plan will allow The Spectator to keep a print version while continuing to build a better website and increase its online presence. It will also give Student Senate some return on its in-vestment, a new model conceived as a last-ditch effort for both sides.

There have been meetings between leader-ship from the two organizations about this situ-ation for most of this academic year. I sat in on some of these discussions last semester as a news editor and have taken on a much larger role this semester as editor-in-chief.

You have not read about these meetings in this newspaper. After Monday night’s marathon Senate meeting, when a discussion of The Specta-tor took up much of the night, I realized this was an editorial mistake on our end.

As I said, it is vitally important for newspa-pers to be fully transparent. We are entrusted to provide the public with the information they need to make informed decisions. We are in place to hold public officials responsible for their actions. We are the eyes, ears and voice of a public that often is not provided one.

This is a role we at The Spectator take very seriously. We understand our responsibility to

this campus and its students. We cannot right-fully hold individuals and other groups to a stan-dard which we are not meeting ourselves.

The profession of journalism is based on the unquestioned and implicit trust the reader has in what they are reading. By being forward with the reader, organizations hope this trust will not be broken. Without this trust from the reader, all the newspaper’s information loses its meaning. How can a reader be sure there aren’t untold sto-ries behind the words they read or selfish motives at work?

Right now, our responsibility is to inform you of our own dealings with Student Senate.

During the Monday meeting, Intergovern-mental Affairs Director Jason Rector brought up the idea that The Spectator would likely have covered these sorts of financial meetings and discussions if they were had by Student Senate and another campus organization. He is ab-solutely right. So now I want to bring to your attention what The Spectator has been working toward this year.

We have had these meetings with Student Senate because we are fighting for the future of our organization. We also believe we are fighting

for the students of this university. The Specta-tor is a crucial resource for this campus and we have been working to avoid losing it in its current form.

Our initial 2013-2014 allocation from Stu-dent Senate was $11,000, a number which we did not believe could sustain us in a print version. After weeks of discussions, different plans and attempted compromises, both sides arrived at the $18,000 advertising plan.

We have never meant to keep this informa-tion from the student body. We have spoken in open forum during Student Senate meetings. But we have not done all we could to alert the stu-dents to the situation. In this way, we have failed to do as thorough a reporting job as we strive for.

I applaud Director Rector for bringing forth this idea during the senate discussion. I hope this has provided students the information they need in regards to our complex and challenging deal-ings with the Student Senate.

After all, that is our job.

Reinoos is a senior journalism major and Editor in Chief of The Spectator.

Chris Reinoos EDITOR IN CHIEF

Transparency in journalism is necessary

The Spectator needs to continue to be forward in thinking and writing when involved in topics such as the Student Senate

There has been much time devot-ed at UW-Eau Claire to look for a way to reform what classes we take as stu-dents. This has been happening as far back as I can remember since starting to attend Eau Claire. A more recent issue on this topic is the possibility of eliminating the minor requirement.

Although I am not critiquing this policy specifically, I would rather like to bring to attention something I have observed for a while. There seems to be a recurring sentiment from many stu-dents I’ve encountered (and I’m sure many more that I have not) that gener-al education requirements are a waste of time and money.

All of us are students attending a

four-year university pursuing degrees. Many of us are pursing degrees in lib-eral arts, so the idea that the classes in our major are enough to make our liberal arts degree “liberal arts” deeply concerns me.

Taking classes outside your main areas of study, and being required to do so whether it be through minor re-quirements, general education require-ments or even cultural diversity re-quirements, are paramount to earning both a competitive four-year degree as well as getting a meaningful education at this university.

If you do a quick Google search of “average starting salary by lev-el of education” or another variation of the phrase you will instantly find plenty of statistics showing the value of a Bachelor’s degree. For example, earnmydegree.com shows data from

the U.S. Census that a bachelor’s de-gree holder on average earns $14,000 more a year than someone with an Associates degree.

There are several reasons this is the case, but a key factor is the fact that someone earning a bachelor’s degree has more emphasis in taking classes from a variety of disciplines — that’s one reason why it takes longer to earn one.

I still remember from orientation a professor telling my group the benefits of pursuing a four-year degree. He said many employers are looking for people that know more about the world than just the basics in their field.

For a quick example of what he was talking about, with my eco-nomics minor if I’m interviewing a policymaker about a bill dealing with fiscal policy, I’m going to know a lot

more than a person similar in educa-tion to me minus the background in economics and I will be able to ask more informed and harder questions. And I like that about what I’m do-ing here because I know it’s going to help me.

The benefits don’t end there. If I need to write a story about a natural disaster, the two geography classes I’ve taken here will undoubtedly be useful in that case. Or if I’m required to interview someone who primarily speaks Spanish, my foreign language competency requirement will be worth it.

Imagine if I studied nothing but journalism. I would know all there is to know about triangulating stories, the inverted pyramid and Search Engine Optimization, but beyond that I can’t say I would know much else. What

kind of journalist would I be? Probably not as good of one as I know I can be now with a great education.

I know most of the columns I write typically look at a specific policy or controversial issue and I offer a cri-tique, but here I am simply asking the student body of Eau Claire to rethink what you’re getting out of your educa-tion and to better realize what you are doing here.

Taking these extra classes are not a waste of your time; in fact, paying attention in these classes and hav-ing a genuine curiosity will be doing the opposite.

Zank is a senior journalism and po-litical science major and News Editor of The Spectator.

Alex Zank NEWS EDITOR

It’s called “liberal arts” for a reasonStudents and officials need to revisit what it means to earn four-year degree

OPINION / EDITORIAL14OP/ED EDITOR: Emily Albrent Thursday, March 7

According to a Pew Re-search study, the percent-age of viewers of The Daily Show that are under 30 is 39 percent. And some young people say it is their only news source.

“The Daily Show” is a late night satirical news show on Comedy Central that makes social, cultural and political commentary.

Unfortunately, watch-ing Jon Stewart make a joke out of journalism, politics and the media isn’t helpful to themselves or their audi-ence, even if what they say is true.

The problem isn’t that the show is not being funny. The show is funny because the commentary made about our culture, politics and me-dia is often times based in reality and truth.

Stewart has said him-self the show is meant to be funny and does not consider himself a journalist.

What I find humorous is that a very intelligent man can poke fun at the problems but do little to improve them.

The show informs peo-ple of the news but only if the news can fit into its humor agenda. The stories

that make it into the show are major headlines or sto-ries with a novelty aspect. Otherwise, all other news stories go unnoticed.

If this show is the only source of news for people they are missing out on many important stories not mentioned.

The show also lets peo-ple believe they need to do little to improve the dam-aging situations happen-ing in the United States. Stewart allows his viewers to watch politicians and journalists make mistake after mistake.

Mistakes that are hurt-ing our nation and makes it into a joke — a punch-line that has no solution. The 30 minute comedy pro-gram can be turned off and we can go back to thinking that nothing can be done to solve problems hurting our nation.

The worst part of it is Stewart could make a difference in our society. In some small cases he already has.

But, with few excep-tions, he instead uses his in-telligence, wit and acute ob-servation skills to poke fun and make judgment calls.

When those politicians come on his show as guests he seems to become less up-set about the mistakes those

people have made. He does not consider himself to be a journalist but that does not mean he can’t have a discussion about what he is passionate about.

If he is so angry with how politics are running then he should be asking critical and difficult ques-tions of the politicians that come on his show.

“The Daily Show” should be watched with the caveat that other action needs to be taken to solve problems. This show can be a good source of entertainment but beyond that it shouldn’t be taken as serious journal-ism and it shouldn’t be the only means of information for people.

Sometimes Stewart can

make it feel like everything is wrong with this world and nothing can be done and all we can do is make jokes and laugh at our troubles.

It’s nice to take a break from all the serious polit-ical talk but I also think Stewart needs to go beyond just making people laugh and inform his audience of action steps that can be taken.

I consider Stewart to be very intelligent and quite wise and unfortunately, he’s just not living up to his full potential.

Read more online! Dennis Rodman takes a trip to North Korea

Editorial Board talks about UW-Eau Claire Confessions

Agnosticism is given too much criticism

Fay is a senior English major and Staff Writer for The Spectator.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Rita Fay STAFF WRITER

“The Daily Show” is not real news

Jon Stewart’s news program should be watched in addition to other news sources

Cut out and look through eye holes for

instant sneakiness

Life is More fun With The Spectator

OPINION/EDITORIAL15OP / ED EDITOR: Emily Albrent Thursday, March 7

Back in elementary school, your teachers didn’t send let-ters home to give to your par-ents too often. That was mostly reserved for when you need-ed permission to go on a field trip, or maybe when you did something naughty, like said a swear word on the playground just to prove you could.

But now schools in North Andover, Mass. have started sending home letters with kids to let their parents know they are overweight, thanks to the Department of Public Health.

According to CNN, children as young as three years old worry about being overweight and recognize “skinny” as being good, and “fat” as bad.

So imagine when a ten-year-old brings home a let-ter from school that says they’re fat.

These letters are not only harmful to children’s self es-teem, but are just wrong.

The biggest trouble with these letters is that kids’ health is being determined based on the Body Mass Index scale.

Truly, the BMI scale is just not good for determining how healthy you are, or even if you are overweight.

First of all, the BMI scale

does not take muscle mass into consideration.

The BMI scale is broken into four parts: underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity. The category you fit into is based upon your weight and height.

This can be problematic and lead to inaccurate results. An athlete, for example, might be labeled as ‘obese’ or ‘over-weight’ because their muscle makes them weigh more.

Cam Watson, a ten-year-old who brought home one of those letters in North Ando-ver, is an athlete who plays several different sports and is clearly very athletic. He and his parents told local news sta-tion WHDH that they’re upset about the letters.

Secondly, though more im-portantly, the BMI scale does not measure the size of one’s waist, which is problematic be-cause excess abdominal fat is what many experts, including the CDC agree, is the biggest predictor for obesity related health problems.

Sending home a letter with parents saying “Hey, your kid is overweight or obese” isn’t going to do anything at all to improve their health, even if a more correct way of measuring fat was used.

Here’s the thing. Most

parents don’t know anything about nutrition.

I used to work at a daycare, and the size of some of the kids’ lunches was astounding.

One mom with two kids at the daycare, one a two-and-a-half-year-old, the other about four years old, sent the same size lunch with them every day.

A typical lunch included a thermos full of leftover spaghet-ti and meatballs, a bag of chips, a dish of sliced strawberries or an applesauce, a granola bar, a bottle of Gatorade, fruit snacks and some sort of chocolate.

For a two-and-a-half- year old.

Parents don’t under-stand portion sizes. Nobody really does these days. And overeating, especially with-out enough exercise, leads to abdominal fat.

Sending home such let-ters might even be harmful for children.

Sure, some parents might be oblivious and think there’s nothing wrong with their child.

But, if you grew up in a house like mine, weight was a huge issue. I’ve never been thin, and the rest of my im-mediate family was. If I went clothes shopping with my mom and sister (oh, could anything be worse?), they would pick up clothes in sizes I fit in and laugh

at how big they were. Incentive to lose weight, you know.

Growing up, I knew a girl whose foster parents kept a lock on the fridge because they didn’t want her eating ‘their’ food.

Can you imagine sending a letter that says “your child is obese” to a home like that? That could be a potentially danger-ous situation for a child, be it emotionally or physically.

Because here’s the thing. Schools can’t know what mea-sures parents will take when

they are told their child is “wrong,” as though being over-weight is some sort of naughty behavior.

Instead, why not send out a general letter that says “obesity is on the rise, here’s what you can do about it.” Why not hire a nutritionist to talk with parents?

There’s two ways to ad-dress childhood obesity and not make kids feel guilty about be-ing fat at the same time.

Cam Watson told WHDH that while he knows he’s not

really overweight, he’s worried about the letters because some of his friends’ feelings have been hurt by them.

Because telling a kid they’re fat when all they know about the word fat is that it’s negative is not OK.

Haley Zblewski CHIEF COPY EDITOR

“Fat letters” based on BMI is not the best way to fight childhood obesity

A weighty issue

Zblewski is a senior journalism and politics major and Chief Copy Editor at The Spectator.

SUBMITTED WEIGH IT IN: The Body Mass Index scale measures a persons weight and height to determine if they are at a healthy weight

STUDENT LIFE16STUDENT LIFE EDITOR: Rita Fay Thursday, March 7

Most students on campus has ex-perienced it. Class is over and it’s now time to drive home. But on the walk to the parking lot, a little, yellow enve-lope stuck under the windshield wip-er is spotted from 10 feet away. It’s a parking ticket. They are given to peo-ple for not having a permit, parking in a handicap spot or running out of time on the meter.

The fee isn’t much. It’s usually between $10-$30, but getting a park-ing ticket can ruin a person’s day. It’s not uncommon to hear mumbles and grumbles from students about the parking ticket they have just gotten.

For other students, issuing park-ing tickets is a part-time job. UW- Eau Claire students work for the parking office writing tickets for illegally parked cars on campus.

Senior human resource manage-ment major Liz Quinn has worked at the parking office for three semes-ters and said she doesn’t feel bad for writing tickets.

“I mean at first, when you first start, you kind of feel bad,” Quinn said. I think most people usually get over it. If people aren’t parking correctly it’s not my fault, so why should I feel bad that they aren’t parked correctly?”

All parking lots on campus re-quire either a parking permit or a paid parking meter to legally park in a space. Quinn, along with about 25-30 other student workers, monitor the lots on campus looking for cars that are illegally parked.

Alex Plaetzer, a graduate student working on his masters in military history, is a former employee of the parking office. He said writing tickets isn’t the only duty the workers have.

The employees have three main jobs. Writing tickets is only one of those. Working at the visitor’s center, located across from Schneider Social Sciences building, is another job. Stu-dents welcome visitors and issue per-

mits for them to park on campus.The other job is driving the con-

veyance van for temporarily or per-manently injured students and faculty.

The training for the job is pretty simple and similar to any part-time college job. They have a manual they read before starting the job. They have student supervisors that accom-pany them for the first few days on the job to show them around and answer any questions.

Plaetzer said out of all three jobs, driving the van is his favorite because he gets to meet new people. He was less enthusiastic about issuing park-ing tickets but agreed with Quinn that it is the driver’s responsibility to park correctly.

“I don’t know how to say this,” Plaetzer said. “I don’t feel bad about giving tickets out because people [who are] responsible for their parking won’t get a ticket. I haven’t actually had any incidences where someone comes and starts going off on me for giving them a ticket, which is kind of surprising. But basically if people pay attention to the signs they’re not going to get a ticket.”

Quinn also said she has never got-ten into a confrontation with a person while writing a ticket.

Plaetzer heard a story of a man who came into the visitors center last semester and yelled at the employee about a ticket he had received. The man was redirected to the parking of-fice where he made a big commotion. They had to call a police officer in to restrain the man. Plaetzer was not in-volved in the incident himself.

Quinn said people will walk to their car right after they have re-ceived a ticket and ask if she can take the ticket back.

“[We say] no, because we already ripped the ticket out of the ticket book so we have to give it to them be-cause that’s just what the policy is,” Quinn said.

Overall, she said students are pretty nice about receiving parking tickets.

Senior accounting major Shaley Muska said she probably gets a park-ing ticket every week.

“I allocate myself $10 every week because I know I’m going to get at least one parking ticket,” Muska said.

She said she is usually forced to park in a meter because there is no where else to park and she has to get to class on time.

The meters in Davies get some of the most parking tickets be-cause the 20 minute parking meters expire quickly.

“It also depends on the time of day,” Quinn said. “Different areas have different time frames where people can or can’t park. I know a lot of times in the Hibbard lot we have a row of G parking spots you can’t park

in until after six. A lot of people think they can park there at three like the rest of the lot.”

Plaetzer said that most tickets given out are for expired meters and cars with no displayed permit. The most expensive ticket a person can get is $95 and that’s if somebody uses a fake permit or sells their permit to somebody else. He said it’s very easy for them to spot a fake permit.

Both say it’s a nice part-time job to have. The schedule is flexible, most shifts are during the day and they work around school schedules. It’s also nice to get outside and walk around when the weather is nice. The only complaint either of them have is that it is not fun ticketing outside in the winter when the weather is bad.

Muska said she wouldn’t mind having the job of issuing tickets on campus.

“And actually I’d probably feel re-ally satisfied,” Muska said. “I’d prob-ably write up a lot more people than they do. Because there’s a lot of times where I see people parking and I’ll

think ‘What are they doing?’”Not all students feel that way.

Senior business administration ma-jor Nick Jennings said he would nev-er want that job and would feel bad giving out tickets.

“Honestly, I’m a student that’s broke and has three parking tickets,” Jennings said. “I pay enough to go here, I don’t need to pay for parking tickets as well.”

As of this week Plaetzer no longer works at the parking office but Quinn does. She is in school for one more year and plans on staying employed at the parking office.

“I don’t really mind ticketing,” Quinn said. “It’s kind of boring, but I don’t mind it. They all have their good things and bad things that I like or dislike about them which is like any other job I’ve had.”

A little envelope is placed under a person’s windshield wiper as a con-sequnce of bad parking. For students like Quinn and Plaetzer, a parking ticket is a part-time job and a way to pay rent.

Rita Fay STAFF WRITER

UW- Eau Claire students explain why they don’t mind handing out parking tickets to their fellow classmates and professors

RITA FAY / The Spectator PERMIT OR TICKET: Quinn and Plaetzer said other than Davies, the Hibbard park-ing lot is one of the most common lots that people park in illegally. As a result, they issue a lot of tickets there.

RITA FAY / The Spectator YOU’VE GOT A GOLDEN TICKET: Faculty permits are placed in the left of the front window. Cars without a permit are issued a $20 parking ticket.