Broadside News

Lauren Jost, Connect2Mason Staff Writer

Patriots looking for Express, the daily and free commuter newspaper once distributed at numerous locations across campus, are now out of luck. Due to budget cuts and downsizing at The Washington Post — which Express is a subsidiary of — all news boxes are being plucked from the George Mason University campus.

According to Express’ circulation department, Mason will no longer have dispensers because the paper’s circuit area has been drastically reduced; exact calculations of all Express cutbacks are still in the works.

“I liked . . . Express because it was free and you were given the opportunity to find out what’s going on [in] the news without having to go to the grocery store,” said senior government major Asia Odum, who read Express while en route to the Metro over the summer.

When asked whether other area universities were affected, the Express circulation department was unsure whether or not specific universities and associated news boxes were affected like Mason.

Express, best known for its bright yellow news boxes, was popular among Mason students for its short news articles, as well as for its area entertainment listings and puzzles.

“What happened to . . . Express?” questioned senior government and international politics major Billy Graessle. “I want it back. Mostly for Sudoku, though. I read most [of] my news on the Internet.”

Despite its absence at Mason, Express will still be available for free at the Vienna Metro station, as well as online.

However, now that Express has disappeared, Patriots have been noticing green news boxes containing the weekly satirical newspaper The Onion in its place. Some students are not too keen on real news being replaced by fake “info-tainment.”

“I like The Onion, but I think they should have kept . . . Express,” said senior communication major Chanel Dority. “I think both are appealing to college students — The Onion because it’s entertaining, and . . . Express because it provides news in shorter pieces.”

Students and faculty are still able to purchase the full edition of the daily Washington Post at on-campus dispensers for 75 cents a copy.

Visit Connect2Mason.com for more information regarding this story and other occurances at Mason.

Kevin Loker, Connect2Mason Executive Editor

Come fall of 2010, Ike’s will not be the only late-night munchies option on campus. When classes start on Monday, Aug. 30, students will also have the chance to eat in the wee hours of the morning at The Pilothouse, a 120-seat dining facility adjacent to Eastern Shore and the new Hampton Roads dormitories.
Named and decorated to fit the maritime feel of the Hampton Roads’ namesake, the facility will serve a similar selection of menu items as Ike’s, and do so until the same time of 4 a.m.

According to Regional District Manager of Sodexo Denise Ammaccapane, while the final menu is still being decided, one menu item is a for-sure bet because of suggestions students have made for Ike’s and the rest of Mason’s on-campus dining: true New York-style pizza.

“Some people like Chicago-style,” said Ammaccapane, “but I’m from New Jersey [and] I just can’t do it.”

The Pilothouse’s kitchen, separated from the glass window-lined dining room, will house state-of-the-art equipment to make the pizza, as well as a flexible menu, possible. This area will be gated off outside of operation hours, allowing students to use the dining space for studying, holding meetings or lounging around throughout the day.

“When the facility opens, it will just be great to sit inside the building and look out into the trees,” said Project Manager Nancy Pickens. The facility’s full-height windows look out onto the forested section of campus between Dominion and Eastern Shore.

Additional seating will be located on the patio, which will surround the dining room and offer the same view of campus.

Though the patio may mean a chilly dining experience at 3 a.m., students may still be able to sit outside and enjoy a comfortable meal. According to Ammaccapane, talks are in the works that may end in both The Pilothouse and Ike’s being open for dinner.

“It makes sense,” said freshman anthropology major Sarah Baumgarten, who lives in nearby Eastern Shore. “It would be more convenient to have food options closer to our dorm. It would save a lot of time, and probably be more practical for dining with how crowded Southside can be [at dinner].”

Two E-bite stations will also be available to ease lines and waits. Like the E-bite station outside La Patisserie in the Johnson Center, the electronic cashier will allow students with money on their Mason IDs to purchase their meal from the same menu featured inside.

Depending on its success and reception, The Pilothouse’s services in the future may extend to pizza pick-up and/or delivery.

“I’d rather start out smaller and increase [the facility’s services],” said Ammaccapane. “It’s easy to increase. It’s hard to decrease.”

Yasmin Tadjdeh, News Editor

Between exams, papers and assigned readings, the workings of third world countries often seem distant to college students, but for one group of graduate students, they have made the advancement of impoverished nations their priority.

The Inter-American Development Fund is a non-profit international development organization that aims to help build infrastructure in Latin America.

Led by a small group of George Mason University graduate students and alumni, the group helps to coordinate development in various Latin American countries such as Bolivia, El Salvador and Mexico.

Masterminded by Rudy Mareno, a public administration graduate student, the idea for creating the non-profit group came after visiting Latin America.

“Through traveling around the region I was able to talk to and interview mayors and senators,” said Mareno. “I got to see the whole experience of Latin America . . . [and] I knew I could do more for Latin America . . . There is an urgent need for infrastructure there. There are small communities where they ask their governments for schools and don’t get them.”

Mareno cites government inefficiency, lack of funds and lack of political will as factors as to why essential infrastructure has not been created.

“They just need an extra hand,” said Mareno. “Someone who can help them.”

According to their website, the mission of the Inter-American Development Fund is “to build and improve the infrastructure of schools, health establishments, libraries, sports installations, cultural centers, parks and other works that stimulate a more uniform development of Latin American society, an improvement in the quality of life and the cultural enrichment of all.”

So far, the Inter-American Development Fund has coordinated the building of parks in Agua Prieta, Mexico and Cochabamba, Bolivia and also a beach soccer arena in Cochabamba.

The coordination of the Parque Ver con el Corazon, or the See With Your Heart Playground, in Cochabamba, Bolivia was a project that meant a great deal to Mareno.

The project gave children in a local blind child center a place to play, whereas before, the children would have to travel a few blocks through roads to the nearest playground, according to Mareno.

“The kids in the center had no place to play,” said Mareno. “[So we said] ‘Let’s bring them a park.’ It was a very simple but important thing, the first thing.” The park included swings, seesaws and slides, among other things.

The Inter-American Development Fund’s largest project to date has been the beach soccer arena in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

The project, which cost $40,000, was an initiative to keep local children out of gangs. According to Mareno, children there had very little options when it came to places to play and spend time. The beach soccer arena gave children a safe option.

“We had a lot of help from the community, especially the parents [of local children] ,” said Mareno.
“The moms cooked for a party, where people could buy food . . . [We also] partnered with a modeling agency and a summer clothing company and had a fashion show to raise money.”

The beach soccer arena has since become the home of the official Bolivian Beach Soccer team. One of the most important aspects of the Inter-American Development Fund is integrating the community in their development projects.

“If you are an outsider and say, ‘We are going to build a library,’[the community] will take the gift ,” said Mareno. “But if you invite the community, they feel empowered and they protect it.”

Because of this sense of ownership, communities will not only protect the buildings, but feel empowered to create other projects in their community.

“[We are] starting small, but starting strong,” said Valerie Rosas, a government and international politics Mason alumni and committee member of the Inter-American Development Fund.

The Inter-American Development Fund, which is affiliated with the Latinos on the Move group, hopes to create more infrastructures throughout Latin America through fundraising and corporate sponsors.

Jenny Pan, Broadside Correspondent

Female students interested in singing a Capella, students fascinated by cutting-edge technology, enthusiasts of Spanish heritage, music students looking for volunteer opportunities and students who have roots in Nepal all have something in common this semester.

Five new student organizations have been officially recognized this semester at George Mason University, with each accommodating their diverse interests. Noteworthy, a women’s a Capella group and Sigma Alpha Iota, a women’s music fraternity, may attract musically inclined female students.

Belting melodies ranging from barbershop songs to pop music, Noteworthy will perform for the university and surrounding areas without the aid of synthesizers or musical instruments.

The founders of Noteworthy, sophomore communication major Amanda Liverpool-Cummins and freshman nursing major Chelsea Bateman, created their group after having similar organizations in their high schools.
Students who wish to join Noteworthy must audition. While auditions usually occur at the beginning of the year, Noteworthy is currently welcoming auditions and encouraging interested singers to attend rehearsal. Noteworthy meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Fine Arts Building.

While there are many student groups dedicated to diverse areas of music, it is often difficult for music students to find volunteer opportunities.

“Between rehearsals, practicing and classes, music students don’t get much time to themselves, let alone to think about community service,” said sophomore graphic design and music double major Courtney Leonard.
Leonard created Sigma Alpha Iota, a women’s music sorority. Sigma Alpha Iota focuses on volunteerism and is currently working with the elderly and disabled through music therapy. Future plans include fundraisers and a recital with the male music fraternities on campus, Phi Mu Alpha and Rho Omicron Chapter.

Requirements to join include a minimum GPA of 2.5 and the successful completion of at least one music course. Meetings are every other Sunday at 7 p.m.

Students who enjoy heated discussions about the newest gadgets and the future of technology will prefer the Information Society Movement (ISM), which also made its official debut this semester. ISM unites students who are interested in technology’s role in society and provides them with connections to other academic institutions, businesses, the government and the community.

The organization provides a resource for students to discuss their ideas both during meetings and at any other time through the club’s online forum. It seeks to apply information learned within the classroom to real-world situations. Students who are interested in the ISM should join the announcement list at GMUISM@gmail.com.

The Nepalese Student Association and the Spanish & Heritage Education Association were also recognized as official Mason student organizations this semester.

According to Assistant Director for Student Organizations Sara Morrisroe, about 20 student organizations request recognition each semester. Out of the 20, about 17 are officially recognized. “We would like to see as many new student organizations get started at Mason [as possible],” said Morrisroe, “as it is a nice way for many students to find a community to belong to.”

Rules state that an organization must have at least eight Mason students who have a minimum GPA of 2.0. A university faculty or staff member adviser must be held accountable for the club as well. Furthermore, organizations are prohibited from duplicating an existing or inactive club.

Emily Sharrer, Editor-in-Chief

The Mason students that survived the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, say that for them, luck and coincidences only went so far in returning their group home safely—and then came God.

“We prayed on this trip,” said group leader Mark Cruz, a sophomore conflict analysis and resolution major. “We were just like ‘we want to experience God on this trip’ and I can’t even begin to tell you how much I experienced God firsthand throughout the whole week.”

The eight students were three days into a mission trip with McLean Bible Church’s college ministry called The Gathering when the earthquake hit, severely damaging the control tower at the Port-au-Prince airport and leaving the nation in ruin.

A McLean Bible Church staff member, a Fairfax resident and Thony Querrette, the Haitian World Hope coordinator, also accompanied the students during their trip.

The group had been working with World Hope International, a non-profit organization based in Alexandria, Va., building latrines and running Bible classes for children in the town of Petit-Goave – about 30 miles west of the capital Port-au-Prince and about 15 miles from the epicenter of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake.
The Associated Press currently estimates the death toll at over 150,000.

THEIR STORY
Jan. 12 began as a normal day for junior biology major Margalit De Gosztonyi, sophomore New Century College member Diana McGeough and senior finance major Maria Arvik. As the boys played soccer at a field outside the church, De Gosztonyi and Arvik headed to the house they were staying at on a former U.N. compound to get a band-aid for a little girl that had cut her finger.

“When Margalit and I first got [to the house] it was kind of crazy because I saw all these lizards running around…so they kind of sensed what was going to happen,” remembers McGeough.

“I turned around to walk back out the door and that’s when it hit,” said De Gosztonyi. “It was shaking just a little bit [at first]. It wasn’t that bad…I thought it was just a truck passing by.”

And then, the shaking intensified. The three girls grabbed onto nearby doorways for support and began to pray out loud.

“I just kept praying and being like ‘God I don’t know what’s happening, if this is an earthquake just save us just please keep us all safe…and if this is a lesson you’re trying to teach us, Lord I pray that we just learn it quick,’” said De Gosztonyi.

“It was weird, because I felt like I was almost on one of those carnival rides that just goes back and forth,” said Arvik of the quake.

After walking out of the house, the girls saw the foot-wide wall surrounding the compound on the ground.
“It felt bad, but not as bad as it actually was,” said De Gosztonyi.

De Gosztonyi and Arvik ran towards the children who were still outside, ushering them to a nearby field away from the buildings in case they collapsed.

“They were all just screaming and crying…there was this 3-year-old just standing there by herself just with her arms up in the air just hysterical, just screaming,” said De Gosztonyi.

“I remember sitting there with the little girls and they kept crying and then after a certain point one of them got up and said ‘let’s go find mom and dad’…She pulled the 3-year-old out of my arms and they all sprinted off and then the aftershock hit. It was just scary to know that they were on their way home. We actually haven’t seen them after that,” said De Gosztonyi.

The group experienced a restless night outside in the field with other community members as the quaking continued and buildings continued to collapse.

“A couple big ones would come and we would hear things just go ‘thud’ and we knew that was a building collapsing,” said Cruz. “We could hear screams all night from outside the compound of people getting freaked out or getting crushed by stuff. It was just a really hard night knowing that we were in a safe compound but the rest of the town right around us was getting completely destroyed. It looked like it got bombed, like a war torn city.”

On Jan. 14, the group planned to pack up and head to Port-Au-Prince to get a flight out of the country, unaware of the magnitude of destruction in the country’s capital city.

After receiving instructions from a contact with World Hope, the group left Jan. 15 by boat to travel to Ile de la Gonave, an island to the northwest of Port-au-Prince in the Gulf of Gonave. Jan. 17, the group departed for Cap Haitien, on the northern edge of Haiti. To get there, the group traveled for over nine hours with over 20 other missionaries.

“We rode in the back of a box truck. We made wooden benches and paint buckets to sit on. It was the most uncomfortable ride ever with 30 plus people,” said Cruz. “We had to ditch most of our luggage back at La Gonave ‘cause we just didn’t have room.”

“It was a diesel truck and all you smelled was gasoline the entire time… It’s all dust too so everybody had their bandanas completely covering their mouth…by the end of it everybody was sick,” added De Gosztonyi.

From Cap Haitien, nearly a week after the earthquake, the group took a flight with three stopovers before arriving to meet family members at Reagan National Airport.

After four days of traveling and sleeping outside on nothing but bed sheets, the four students say they can’t help feeling a culture shock being back in the United States.

“Now we feel spoiled just sitting on couches,” said De Gosztonyi.

READY TO GO BACK
Despite the widespread devastation in Haiti, Arvik, McGeough, Cruz and De Gosztonyi say they can’t get back to help the people of Haiti soon enough.

“Still today I want to run back to Haiti. Honestly, I feel like Haiti’s home for me at this point,” said De Gosztonyi.

The students remember their friends in Haiti as non-materialistic and always excited and happy about the simpler joys in life.

“It’s a happy that you don’t experience here in America,” said Cruz. “Just raw happiness not based off a toy or anything, they’re just happy to be alive.”

“I can’t help but feel like we kind of abandoned them. We were able to leave knowing we would come home to our families and we would have food for the next couple days…we still don’t know what happened to the rest of [the Haitians we knew] or if they were okay.”

Members of the group are looking into a spring break or summer trip to Haiti.

RELIEF EFFORTS
In an e-mail sent to the Mason community, Vice President of University Life Sandy Scherrens acknowledged the Mason students who survived the earthquake and talked about the devastation in Haiti.

“The loss of life, injuries and destruction as a result of the earthquake in Haiti saddens all of us,” Scherrens wrote.

Scherrens encouraged students looking to help in the relief efforts to make contributions to the Red Cross or look for more information online.

“Get money over there, don’t ignore it,” said De Gosztonyi. “If you walk away, it’s affecting people whether or not you like it. Just because you chose not to be affected doesn’t mean there’s not a Haitian child not receiving a meal because you chose to walk away.”

For Cruz and De Gosztonyi, telling their story isn’t easy, but it’s something that must be done to raise awareness for Haiti.

“We have to keep talking about it, we have to keep telling our story, we have to make the Haitian people famous in that sense—tell the world about them so they can get the help they need,” said De Gosztonyi.

“In a couple of months remember these people…because it’s easy to care right now for the next 2 weeks, 3 weeks, but we can’t forget,” added Arvik.

John Powell, Asst. Sports Editor

There is always construction on George Mason University’s campuses, but a donation of 37 acres of land from Van Metre companies in Loudoun County, Va. gives students a reason to expect even more changes.

“The Van Metre Family . . . has had a long relationship with Mason and the Northern Virginia community, and they were looking for a way to honor [the late] Mr. Van Metre,” said Jerry Coughter, the executive officer for the Loudoun site administration. “They’ve owned the land in Loudoun for years and are looking to help the community and higher education.”

This land created a win-win situation for the Van Metre family and Mason. The Van Metre family receives a tax break by donating its land, along with the sense of pride that comes from helping the community, while Mason receives a no-strings-attached donation that allows the university to take its time building and developing the land.

“The wonderful thing about the gift,” said the Assistant Vice President for Regional Campuses Kathleen Johnson, “is that it gives us an opportunity to start building the relationships with the businesses and corporations in that area, that may lead to possibilities for the campus as we go forward.”

This is in stark contrast to a 123-acre plot of land that was almost used by Mason in 2005. Previous plans to receive and build on the land were blocked, as the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors rejected the proposal in 2006 for the campus to have basic construction completed in fall 2009. The rejection was due to the nature of the land exchange: the donor wanted more leeway from Loudoun County for other developments in exchange for donating land to a university.

“Now,” said Coughter, “there is no chance of the development not happening, because it’s there.”

Having the land donated allows for many more possible uses of the land, contrary to the 123-acre plot. Instead of having strict regulation on the use of the land and a strict timeline, as was proposed with the previous possibility, the university now has much more flexibility in both areas.

While classes are already held in a 20,000-sq. ft. office space in Sterling, Va., the university hopes to move out of that space and into the new campus.

According to Mason officials, for the short term, plans focus on hosting specific graduate classes on the campus. For the long term, the possibilities are almost endless. The campus could host a wide range of graduate classes and more undergraduate classes, with almost no limit for expansion. The construction of Metrorail’s new Silver Line would put a Metrorail stop within walking distance – approximately half of a mile – of the new campus. The ease of transportation allows for a much more accessible campus than the one currently in Loudoun County.

A Loudoun campus is still years in the future, though, with dates yet to be set for breaking ground, finishing contruction or moving in. Because of this long timeline, the construction will undoubtedly move at a slow pace.

In addition, the economic problems that have hit the Northern Virginia area have also hit the university and its funding.

“It’s a tough time in the budget cycle,” said the vice president of facilities, Thomas Calhoun.

Delaying these dates even more are the building projects that are still underway on the other campuses, most importantly the construction for the College of Health and Human Services and the Biomedical Research Laboratory on the Prince William County campus.

It is reasonable to expect a new campus in the Loudoun County area, but these plans and ideas may not be completely realized even within the next five years.

“There is no time frame yet,” said Calhoun in regards to the prospective date of completion.

One thing is sure: the university will move slowly on the Fairfax campus to allow sufficient funds to finish other building projects, and also to ensure that the buildings are as well-built as possible.

“There is no such thing as ‘finished.’ We’re always growing,” said Calhoun of the constant construction around Mason’s campuses.

John Powell, Asst. Sports Editor

Masses of people lined the streets at The Mall in Washington, DC, shouting, chanting, singing and praying last Friday to participate in the annual March for Life.

On the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling, which ruled that most laws against abortion violated a constitutional right to privacy, thousands of people found their way to the District of Columbia to support the pro-life movement.

The March for Life, which has been held annually since 1974, gives people who support pro-life laws a means to come from all over America to express their feelings and sentiments towards the laws and lawmakers that currently support abortion.

According to Examiner.com, more than 300,000 people descended on the Capitol, with some informal estimates ranging from 250,000 to 400,000 people.

The event began at noon, as participants gathered for a rally on the Washington Mall until 2 p.m., after which the group marched along Constitution Avenue, to the side of the Capitol building, then along 1st Street NE to the Supreme Court building, where they finally gathered again.

Many diverse groups participated – the old and the young, men and women, people from the district itself to people from thousands of miles away. Both the religious and the non-religious came together to bring attention to their cause. All those involved were optimistic of change.

“Absolutely [abortion] will come to be outlawed in the United States eventually,” said Trisha Lester, a participant in the rally. “I think that the country will come to see that it really is a life.”

“People are so focused on this ‘so-called’ choice that they blind themselves to what is really going on,” said Kayla Gerry, another participant in the rally.

Throughout the rally, participants reminded the crowd that there have been more than 50 million abortions since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973.

“It’s a big business,” said rally participant Jared Smythe.

According to Examiner.com, no opposition towards the March for Life was in sight at the rally, as there have been before. In the past, there have been pro-choice rallies or group functions on the same day as the March for Life, however there were none on Friday.

Sonya Hudson, Managing Editor

Virginia Commonwealth, Old Dominion University
and James Madison University each have 21 less Public Anthropology Award winners than George Mason University, specifically Professor Susan Trencher’s Anthropology 114 class, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology.

Students from Trencher’s class participated in the Public Anthropology Community Action Website Project, in which students from different universities write professional-style op-ed pieces that are published on the web for other students to peer-review. All are anonymous. Students from participating universities judge the best work.

The purpose of the project, according to the Public Anthropology Community Action Website, is to get students actively engaged in discussions with students from other universities with different life-experiences about “ethical issues that lie at the interface of anthropology and the contemporary world.”
One of the 21 Mason award winners, Masoud Sultan, found the project to be rewarding.

“The Community Action Project was a thoughtful experience that really opened my eyes that there are issues around the world that go unnoticed,” said Sultan, a sophomore majoring in information technology.

The project not only enlightened the students on issues beyond their own backyard, but also helped to improve their writing skills.

For award winner Sarah DiGiovine, a sophomore majoring in government and international politics, the project gave her the tools to write effective opinion pieces.

“I also learned that strong op-ed pieces can persuade others to take up a cause or decide to act in order to make a change in our world,” said DiGiovine.