editors - Indiana Daily Student

CAMPUS EDITORS
Nathan Miller
nm2@indiana.edu
I N D I A N A D A I L Y S T U D E N T | F R I D A Y , M A R C H 1 1 , 2 0 1 1
John Seasly
jseasly@indiana.edu
Senior in fi nals for award
BY CLAIRE ARONSON
cearonso@indiana.edu
Senior Caitlin Ryan was selected
as one of 15 national fi -
nalists for the Students in Service
Awards . Ryan, an Indiana Daily
Student employee , is representing
IU in the competition. The winner
will be announced March 18.
“It is really exciting,” she said.
“It is exciting to be the only person
from Indiana to have made it
this far.”
Ryan’s service project is called
Books & Beyond , a service learning
project that connects college
students at IU with TEAM school
students in Newark, N.J. The writing
partners work together to write
children’s stories centered on a
general topic during the course
of the year. Rwandan students at
Kabwende Primary School are
also writing stories. The stories are
all compiled into an anthology and
delivered to Rwanda, Ryan said.
“The core value of the project
is that everyone in this world has a
story to tell so everyone’s story is
important,” she said.
Ryan, along with four other
students and fi ve teachers, traveled
to Rwanda during summer
2009 to deliver 2,000 books .
“It was amazing,” she said.
“It was my fi rst time in Africa. It
was a cultural experience for sure,
but it was also really cool to see
the project go full circle because
when we were building it up, we
were thinking about that this is
benefi ting three different groups
of students in two countries, and
fi nally we got to see the part outside
the U.S.”
The Students in Service Award
winner receives a $5,000 scholarship
, $2,500 for his or her nonprofit
project and $2,500 for the community
organization with which
he or she is partnered. Ryan, however,
applied for the award because
of the potential benefi t to the
project as a whole.
“I mean getting the scholarship
would be nice, but I mainly did it
because I saw it as an opportunity
for us to get a grant and support
our project,” she said. “This
is the fi rst year they did this particular
competition, and I didn’t realize
how big of a deal it would be
and how many people would enter.
You can see what all the students
are doing around the country,
and it is really amazing.”
Ryan, who is planning on traveling
to Rwanda again this summer
to deliver more books, said
Books & Beyond has made her
college experience.
“I mean I love the academic
things IU has to offer and I have
learned a ton in the classroom, but
I have learned almost more outside
the classroom through my
involvement in this project,” she
said.
Ryan said she sees the project
continuing to be successful after
she graduates.
“In my fi rst and second year, it
was like, ‘I am investing myself in
this because this is a good thing to
do,’ and this year it has been more
like, ‘this is awesome and I want
other students to have this opportunity
in the future,’” she said. “I
think it is going to go really well.”
New research in brain mapping
BY BRIANA BARGER
bcbarger@indiana.edu
In the game “Six Degrees of
Kevin Bacon,” the theory is that
any actor, no matter how well or
little known, is somehow connected
to the actor Kevin Bacon
through other actors in movies.
It is the player’s job to fi nd that
connection.
The same concept is used in a
new study about brain networks.
Dr. Olaf Sporns , IU neuroscientist
and author of the recent book
“Networks of the Brain ,” gave insight
to his research and how it applies
to everyday life.
Sporns said the book includes
research that puts together two
separate fi elds of work that had
never been pieced together before:
the workings of the brain and
networking .
Hallie Robbins
hlrobbin@indiana.edu
Greek houses prepare for spring break trips
BY VICTORIA SUMMERS
vsummers@indiana.edu
For many greek houses, it’s
tradition to go on spring break
trips together, and this year is
no different, said Josh Vollmer ,
vice president of communications
for Interfraternity Council .
For Kappa Delta sorority, it
has been a long-standing tradition
for its sophomore pledge
class to go on a spring break trip
together, said sophomore member
Rachel Rapp .
This year, 22 of the 40 women
in her pledge class are going
to Daytona Beach , Fla. , she said.
“It’s a tradition within the
house for your sophomore year
to go with your pledge class
somewhere for spring break,”
Rapp said. “It’s like a good time
after midterms to just relax, especially
as one of our last big
things with our pledge class this
year.”
Vollmer said in previous
years, many houses went to Acapulco,
Mexico , because there
was a company that worked
closely with IU to get greek
“There are many networks —
networks of cells, proteins, people,”
Sporns said.
By applying the concept of networking
to the brain, research has
shown a new way to look at and
map the brain.
“This will help us understand
how the human brain functions
work,” Sporns said. “That is my
hope. We are beginning to get a
much clearer picture of the wiring
diagram and what that looks like.”
Professor of psychological and
brain sciences Aina Puce said this
can change the way researchers
study the brain.
“I think that it’s a change in the
way that we think,” Puce said. “We
do think (of) the brain more as a
whole, and it allows us to study the
brain in ways that we haven’t been
able to before.”
Puce is also the director of the
students party package deals.
But this year, many students
have changed their plans because
of the travel advisory in
Mexico, Vollmer said.
“This year is unusual, and the
majority of people seem to be
going to Ft. Lauderdale as one
collective group,” Vollmer said.
“This probably has a lot to do
with the violence in Mexico.”
Delta Zeta is one of the houses
going to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.,
for spring break. Junior member
Meagan King said 12 women
from her pledge class are going
on the trip together.
While the destination varies
each year, King said it’s a tradition
for women in the same
pledge class to go on spring
break trips together.
“Every year they pick a
place. Last year they went to
Acapulco, and the juniors last
year in our house went to Ft.
Lauderdale,” King said. “I think
it’s just kind of like when you’re
a sophomore you go here, when
you’re a junior you go here, and
senior year you just kind of pick
a place.”
Imaging Research Facility.
“I am basically a brain scientist,”
Puce said. “I study how (the)
brain makes sense: the body language,
studying brain function and
how different areas of the brain
and different structures of the brain
interact with others and how our
brains make sense of it.”
Sporns said the importance of
connecting networking with the
brain might best be explained by
using the small world phenomenon,
which shows up a lot in social
and biological networks.
Sporns mentioned the game
“Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”
when talking about the brain
network.
“With the movie actor database,
I think you can play this online,
you can connect any two actors
with as little as four or fi ve
links every time,” he said.
King also said the women
from her pledge class will be
taking a coach bus to Ft. Lauderdale
as part of their travel
package.
“You could either just buy
the package to stay in the hotel,
or you could just buy the package
to ride the coach bus down
there and stay in the hotel, so
all the people that are going that
might not even be in our house
will be riding the bus with us,”
King said.
As an alternative to a traditional
spring break trip, 10
members of Lambda Chi Alpha
fraternity are going to Slidell,
La., to build homes for Habitat
for Humanity St. Tammany
West , junior member Jordan
Fromm said.
Fromm said the building site
is just outside the city of New
Orleans , where many homes
were destroyed during Hurricane
Katrina, so there are still a
lot of recovery efforts.
Eight members of the house
went to the same building
site last year as part of Habitat
for Humanity’s “Collegiate
2
SARA SINGH | IDS
GLBT professionals share advice, experiences
Panelists discuss the issues surrounding being “Out on the Job” in the Georgian Room in the IMU on
Wednesday night.
4 IU professors recognized,
elected to be AAAS fellows
BY DAVID CAMELI
dcameli@indiana.edu
Four faculty members from
the IU Department of Biology
were elected as fellows to the
American Association for the Advancement
of Science , which ties
the department’s record for most
inductees in a single year.
Lynda Delph , Roger Hangarter
, Roger Innes and Rudy Raff
were joined by IU Rudy Professor
of political science Edward
Carmines and more than 500 other
individuals honored in Washington,
D.C., for their work.
This is the second consecutive
year that list included at least one
faculty member from IU .
Innes is the chairman of the
IU Department of Biology and
was honored for his study of the
molecular mechanisms by which
plants detect pathogens . He said
the inductions will bring more
recognition to the department.
“Ever since I joined this department
in 1991 I have known
Challenge” and wanted to return
again this year.
“We’re building a house
with hundreds of people we’ve
never met, and what’s really
cool about it is that everybody
leaves their mark,” Fromm said.
“When you’re done, you get to
write in some sort of part of the
house about your group, so last
year we wrote our letters and
our names, and they’re still in
the house.”
Fromm also said each Habitat
for Humanity house takes
three to four months to build,
and Lambda Chi men could be
doing anything from installing
insulation and plastering to
painting, depending on how far
along the house is when they arrive.
“Now is the time to show this
campus, our dean, ourselves, our
families, our community that we
can do something,” Fromm said.
“We are, as a greek community,
so strong and so important
to this school. We need to show
that we can do something outside
of our home and outside the
walls of our fraternity.”
it was an outstanding department,
but I also felt we were underappreciated
by our peers on the
West and East Coasts,” he said.
“This type of recognition helps to
alleviate that issue.”
The addition of this year’s
class brings the total number of
inductees from the Department of
Biology to 19 .
Innes said 14 AAAS members
are active and that almost 25 percent
of the department’s current
faculty has been inducted.
Raff, distinguished professor
of biology , whose research focused
on the developmental processes
in the evolution of species
and the fossilization of marine
animal soft tissue , said the quality
of the faculty has made his
time as a professor and researcher
more enjoyable.
“I’ve been here for 40 years
now, and I haven’t really wanted
to go away anywhere,” he said.
“It’s really a very good environment
if you’re doing science and
if you’re a faculty member.”
Raff said the department’s
emphasis on research has also
provided undergraduate students
with an opportunity to work in
a faculty member’s lab while receiving
class credit.
This experience can prove invaluable
for undergraduate students
who are interested in attending
graduate school, he said.
Innes said faculty members
are chosen “primarily based on
their outstanding track record in
research.” As chairman, Innes
said his job is to ensure that the
department can provide the resources
necessary for success.
“Indiana University has invested
heavily in providing stateof-the-art
facilities such as microscopes
and supercomputers,
thus providing a conducive environment
for research,” he said.
“With our combination of outstanding
junior faculty and outstanding
infrastructure, I expect
the department will continue to
add to those 19 AAAS fellows at
a steady clip.”