Sitting on the UC Patio for lunch is routine for senior Kristin Jacobus.
And after eating lunch – a bagel and soda on this particular day – throwing her trash away in the regular garbage can has also become routine for this New Jersey native used to rigorous recycling regulations.
“In New Jersey, you are fined if you don’t recycle,” she said. “There are bins everywhere, and if you don’t sort your trash, they won’t pick it up.”
Recycling habits on the University campus are, like much of Miami’s, mediocre.
“When I first got to UM, I thought it was strange to see people throwing cans and glass in the regular trash, but after being here for four years, I’ve realized that the problem is that no one sees bins around, so they don’t want to make the extra effort to look for them,” Jacobus said.
A couple hundred feet from where she sat were two green bins recently placed in the patio for recycling.
Has the trite issue of on-campus recycling become a blind eye that the University community is now accustomed to, or a poor program in need of a shake-up?
In the eyes of Associate Director of Contract Administration Alan Weber, the 12-year-old recycling program at UM boils down to dollar bills. If the University doesn’t make enough money on a particular item, it will not be recycled.
Consider the three main recyclable items: glass, plastic and paper.
According to Weber, glass does not make the University any money so they don’t recycle it.
Easy solution.
Now, plastic has eight grades and it would be a nightmare to try to sort all of them out properly, he said. Plus, the higher the grade of plastic, the less recyclable it is, so recycling a grade eight bottle is almost pointless.
But paper has potential.
“We’ve focused our program on paper and cardboard, especially office paper, since cardboard becomes tricky because it is easily contaminated,” said Weber.
The entire recycling operation on a campus of 14,973 students and 2,511 faculty members is a two-man show, contracted from UNICCO to pick up, compress and ship the recycled paper. This team, led by Recycling Manager Irving Kohen, works on a rotating schedule to pick up approximately 196 bins, 79 boxes and 6 containers throughout campus in the library, behind the cafeteria, in each classroom building and in the residence halls.
Following the theoretical paper trail, each professor is supposed to be given a small box to throw away paper at the beginning of each academic year, according to Weber, as well as a UM Recycling Manual.
When those boxes fill up, they are then responsible for taking the paper to larger trash bins located throughout each building.
After this, the UNICCO recycling duo starts its course throughout campus, picking up the paper, depositing it into one of two University recycling trucks and taking it to a compactor.
When the paper is compacted, the university pays $120, according to Weber, to have it shipped to the waste management plant in Broward.
“Paper makes $80 per ton,” said Weber. “We pay to ship our compacted paper, but we also make money from it. In October we recycled 17 tons, but we can do up to 50. That’s a lot of money.”
In addition, each year the University makes approximately $17,000 from its recycling program.
Now if this is a money-making operation, then where is the student involvement?
“Nowhere,” said Kohen. “For university students who are supposed to be educated, this campus is a shame. They contaminate the recycle bins by throwing regular garbage in there.”
Both Kohen and Weber agreed that the UM’s recycling program runs smoothly and is becoming more and more visible throughout the University. But students unanimously disagreed.
Sophomore Lisa Hannigan, who lives is Mahoney Residential College, concurred that bins, especially in her building, are not noticeable.
“You have to hold on to your trash and seek the bins out if you want to recycle,” she said. “Students are just too lazy for that.”
In Virginia, Hannigan’s home state, there are a lot of incentives to recycle, and she thinks that creating something similar at UM might boast student awareness and participation.
“A university is about students, isn’t it?” she said. “Putting bins beside each trash can will make it very easy for us to get involved.”
Student groups like Greenpeace and Earth Alert have made efforts almost every semester, according to Weber, to implement creative plans to get people to recycle, but “they never work.”
“They’re usually complete failures because people simply don’t care,” Weber added.
While students blame the school’s program and UNICCO blames the students’ apathy, some say that the only reversible solution can come from the administration.
“There are so many opportunities to recycle here,” said Hannigan. “If the administration would spend more money on recycling and less on landscaping, then maybe students could play a more active role in this process.”

La Casa Cultural brings the diversity of Miami to the first floor of Pearson Residential College.
The program, which currently has 10 resident participants, gives students the opportunity to converse with one another in Spanish and further their knowledge of Hispanic culture through activities planned throughout the year.
“La Casa is a unique living and learning experience for those interested in furthering their exposure to the Spanish language and the wide variety of cultures in which Spanish is a major language,” said Professor Lillian Manzor, the faculty advisor for the program.
“I wanted to be an RA of LCC so that I could have the opportunity to contribute to the program,” junior Shani Simpson, resident assistant of LCC, said. “I lived on the LCC during its first year and I felt that it was a program worth coming back to.”
Organizers of the program try to promote an informal interaction among students, professors and individuals from the Spanish-speaking community in Miami.
“Word of mouth is key in attracting new residents, along with forms of advertisements like flyers, e-mails and working with student organizations and various offices on campus.”
However, the La Casa program is not restricted to those students who live on the floor.
“Students who are not residents of La Casa can also participate in our programs as members,” said Manzor.
“I am most proud of the fact that we have a diverse group of students that attend the programs that the LCC program team plans,” Simpson said. “All of our activities are open to all UM students; thus everyone gets to learn more and get a taste of Hispanic culture.”
“I would like to see greater attendance at our conversation tables on Monday nights in the Mahoney/Pearson cafeteria,” Simpson said. “The table is a great way for students in all levels of Spanish to practice improving their conversational skills in a friendly setting.”
The only entrance requirement for the program is one year of college-level Spanish, three to four years of Spanish in high school, or being a native speaker of the language.
“I studied Spanish for three years in high school and one year at UM before the program was initiated,” said senior Melissa Mavers, a microbiology and immunology major. “I thought this was a great opportunity to improve my Spanish outside of the classroom and learn more about Hispanic culture.”
“My first year participating in La Casa was both the first year of the program and also my first year on campus,” said senior Greg Barnett, a communication studies and Spanish major. “The activities arranged through La Casa really explore the culture and allow for learning in a fun and enjoyable atmosphere.”
This semester, members have toured Little Havana, visited the set of an international television show, Sabado Gigante, and eaten at local Latin restaurants.
“I went to the Little Havana tour,” said Elizabeth Reese, a sophomore majoring in psychology who lives on the La Casa floor. “It was cool. We passed by a historic part of Little Havana and went to Domino Park.”
“We recently took a trip to the galleries on Calle Ocho,” said Mavers. “We also went to a taping of Sabado Gigante and saw ourselves on international television! That was a lot of fun.”
Despite the attractions and benefits of the LCC program, many participants think there is definite room for improvement.
“Perhaps with more advertising on campus, the program could grow and incorporate a greater variety of students on campus,” said Barnett. “Also, it would be helpful to have a larger number of Latinos in the program. The majority of the students now are Anglos.”
“I don’t think they should restrict the program to only people who have taken a few Spanish classes,” said Elizabeth Soffman, a sophomore majoring in English who lives in LCC. “All should be welcome.”
Some program participants feel the program has a lot to offer and that it will only get better.
“I think Professor Manzor and the RA are doing a good job at planning everything,” Reese said. “They really want to have our input.”
Students interested in living in La Casa Cultural who meet the language requirement must request to live on the designated floor in Pearson by contacting the Department of Residence Halls at 305-284-4505.

(U-WIRE) PHILADELPHIA – Harvard University, with its academics ranking among the highest in the nation, claims diversity, liberalism and a broad educational base as some of its cornerstones of success.
While this boast might slip by uncontested now, Amit Paley, a Harvard student and writer for The Harvard Crimson, recently uncovered a span of history during which this was not the case.
About six months ago, Paley discovered 500 pages of documents describing an episode from the 1920s in which the Harvard administration ousted a number of male students under the suspicion that they were gay or were associating with gays, The New York Times reported.
After intrusive rounds of questioning about the men’s sex lives, the students found “guilty” — two of whom later committed suicide — were ousted from the university and chased out of the town of Cambridge. The dean then ordered that a letter be added to the students’ files to hinder their professional and social prospects.
Although these events occurred more than 80 years ago, they haven’t lost their relevance. Debates over sodomy laws — which currently exist in 13 states — are still taking place. In fact, the Supreme Court is set for a re-evaluation of laws on gay rights, The Times reported. The current controversy stems from a challenge made by two gay men whose activities have been found illegal through the eyes of the Texas judicial system.
Given the ongoing struggles that many homosexuals face, Penn Communications rofessors Larry Gross and Katherine Sender said they were hardly fazed by the information that has been kept safely guarded for the past 80 years behind Harvard’s towering stone walls.
he Crimson article incited Gross to refer back to a similar incident in 1950, in which former Harvard Professor Francis Matthiessen, who, after being fired and persecuted by the press for his extremist views and sexual orientation, jumped to his death from an upper floor of the Hotel Manger in Boston.
Nonetheless, Gross insisted that these events are not to be taken as commentaries against Harvard, but rather as commentaries on the times.
“This was the same period in which universities recently opened quotas for the number of Jewish students,” he said. “There was an attitude of unabashed discrimination…. Let’s not even talk about colored people.”
Still, Gross insists that the events that occurred in Cambridge, while extreme, could have happened, to some degree, up through the 1970s.
The only difference, he said, is that then, administrators might have facilitated a quieter disappearance of students and faculty members rather than ensuring that they continued to suffer beyond their college careers.
Gross said that it is quite probable that incidents like this occurred relatively frequently in the realm of higher education. Given the difficulties Paley found in uncovering details, Gross said that other such occurrences probably remain stifled under similar barriers.
As an openly lesbian faculty member, Sender said that Penn seemed to embrace her sexual orientation rather than condemn or oppress it.
Still, she maintained that there are cases in which gay faculty are taken less seriously than their straight male counterparts.
Much of this rests on career choices, she said.
“It was partly a function of where I chose to apply,” Sender said. “I’m in a progressive discipline, but others who are in the engineering or medical schools might not be taken as seriously.”
Still, both professors continue to assert that in today’s world, universities — and particularly private universities in the northeast, Gross added — remain the best in terms of tolerance.
“Things have changed…. The culture has changed,” Gross said.

British rock group Coldplay is set to bring brainfreeze to fans at UM’s new Convocation Center on Jan. 22.
Coldplay has enjoyed success with hits such as “Trouble” and “Yellow” from their critically lauded debut album, Parachutes. Their latest album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, was released in August. The singles “In My Head” and “Clocks” are currently receiving air play throughout the country.
As the second stop on the band’s North American tour, this will be the first concert event for the center and is being met with great optimism and anticipation, according to organizers and students.
“Coldplay should be an exciting concert for the students,” said Christi Soltz, director of marketing at the Convocation Center. “[We are] proud to bring this caliber of event to the University’s campus.”
“I’m overjoyed and actually surprised that they’re coming,” freshman Ayelet Regev said. “I’m definitely going to go.”
“[Coldplay] will be amazing because they are genuine artists,” Regev said. “Their music is more instrumental than most and what you see will be authentic.”
UM students are not the only prospective attendees, as the concert is open to all.
“I’m making plans to come down and see them,” said Renzo Diaz, a freshman at the University of Florida and avid fan. “Unlike the large majority of rock acts today that are hyped up to celebrity status only to become part of a fad, Coldplay seems to be one of the very few bands that will stand the test of time.”
WVUM 90.5 is currently running spots on the concert and plans on doing ticket giveaways.
“To tell you the truth I’m not too thrilled that we are promoting this show. After all, we don’t play Coldplay’s music on WVUM,” said Brian Hunker, promotions director at WVUM. “They get played on Y-100 and many other Clear Channel stations across the country.”
Hunker said that, in the past, the radio station has stopped playing REM, Nirvana and the White Stripes, among others, because they became well-known musical groups.
“It’s just that once bands break through certain barriers we get started on the next batch of worthy unknowns,” Hunker said.
Besides a concert hall, the Convocation Center is also the future home of Hurricane basketball and is located across from the University Metrorail Station. Jan. 4, 2003 marks the first men’s basketball game to be held there, as they go up against North Carolina.
Concert tickets – covering parking and tax – are available on campus at the UC Ticketmaster window from 12 to 2 p.m.The cost is $32.75. For more information, visit www.ticketmaster.com.

Christina Guzman can be contacted at christina_mongoose@hotmail.com.

TODAY

Multicultural Student Affairs presents Finals Fiesta from 4-6 p.m. at the Stanford-Hecht bridge. Finals Fiesta is an informal reception for students of diverse backgrounds to come together and celebrate the end of the semester. Free food from different cultures is provided on a first come, first served basis. A DJ will be providing the sounds. For any questions please contact Assistant Director Nanette Vega at 305-284-2855.

One night only art show, sponsored by Egal Art, featuring works by UM students and live music, at 8 p.m. in the Rainbow Building, 1540 Levante Ave. Call Marc Johnson at 305-441-8684 for more information.

Comedian showing at Cosford at 7:30 p.m. This documentary follows comedian Jerry Seinfeld and another upcoming comedian as they traverse a series of comedy clubs developing their new acts. It is both a hilarious and insightful behind-the-scenes look at the lives of stand-up comedians.

The Bank is showing at Cosford at 9:30 p.m.

DECEMBER 7

Comedian is showing at Cosford at 7:30 p.m.

The Bank is showing at Cosford at 9:30 p.m.

DECEMBER 8

Connie Payton, wife of former Chicago Bear Walter Payton, will appear at Borders Books and Music in Miami at 2 p.m. to raise money for the Walter Payton Cancer Foundation. She will be signing copies of her new book, Stronger than Cancer, a compilation of advice, wisdom and stirring accounts of families who have battled the disease. Borders is located at 9205 South Dixie Hwy.

Miami Food Not Bombs will be cooking at the Fischl’s Apartment, on the 1st floor of Pearson, at 12:30 p.m. Call 305-689-9660 for more information.

Comedian is showing at Cosford at 5:30 p.m.

DECEMBER 9

The Wellness Center promotes Stress Less Day. If you are feeling overwhelmed with your studies, we can help. Come and take a load off after a long day of classes with a relaxing time of movies and popcorn in the Wellness Center Atrium. For more information, contact 305-284-6524.

The Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies will present the second annual Robert Russell Memorial Foundation Lecture – “Words that Hurt, Words that Heal,” by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of Jewish Literacy, Jewish Humor and Biblical Literacy, from 8 p.m. – 10 p.m. The event will be held at the University of Miami Founders’ Hall on 1550 Brescia Avenue. The lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. RSVP to ccjs@miami.edu or 305-284-6882.

DECEMBER 10

Pianist Roswitha Lohmer will perform at the Lowe Art Museum at 8 p.m. For information & reservations, call 305-373-9581 or 305-444-4755. General admission is $10. Program will include Variations in F Minor, Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Allegro con brio, Rhapsody in B Minor, Concert Etude, Nocturne in E Minor, and Four Etudes to be announced.

The Department of Art and Art History is pleased to announce a special sale of ceramic and glass art created by University of Miami faculty, resident artists, alumni and students. These special items will be available for purchase and proceeds from the sale of UM art will mutually benefit the artists and the Ceramics and Art Glass programs at the University of Miami. A reception for Ceramic & Glass Artists will be held on Friday, Dec. 6 from 6:30 – 9 p.m. at The Gilded Hand, 165 Aragon Avenue (across from the Collonade Hotel) in Coral Gables. Contact The Gilded Hand at (305) 442-1445 for more information.

Due to an expected high turnout of students for the Virginia Tech vs. UM football game, the entire regular student section will be reserved for UM students only. However, tickets in a special East End Zone section will be sold to UM students (for their guests) before the general public can purchase them, and the students will be allowed to sit in that East End Zone with their guests by simply showing their valid UM ID.

The UM Center for Research on Sport in Society presents the Title IX 30th Anniversary Symposium, on Dec. 6 from 8:30 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Dec. 7 from 8:30 a.m. – noon, at the Cosford Cinema. RSVP is required and only 100 spaces are available for each session. Contact the Center for Research on Sport in Society (CRSS) at 305-284-3690 or crss@miami.edu. This symposium will mark the milestone 30th anniversary of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972. The scholarly symposium is aimed at examining and discussing both significant accomplishments and remaining challenges to gender equity. Topics that will be covered in the two-day symposium include “Title IX, Sports and Career Opportunities for Women,” “Title IX and Women of Color and Sport” and “Gender and Science.”

The Honors Program would like to announce that Ms. Devi Sridhar, a senior Honors student who plans to be graduated in May, has been named the 2002-2003 recipient of the Ford Motor Company/Gold Key International Honor Society Undergraduate Scholarship.

Do you know any dynamic undergraduate students? If so, nominate them for the November Student Leader of the Month. The deadline is 5 p.m. Dec. 6, and forms can be found in UC 209. Nominated students should meet the following criteria: driven to find the best within themselves and others, giving of themselves without regard to recognition or rewards, a model of the ideals of integrity and character, and aspiring to make the University of Miami a stronger community.

Recently, UM students and community members have taken to the street for a series of high-impact Greenpeace demonstrations in front of ExxonMobil’s Latin American Headquarters and the Mobil station near the UM campus, demanding that the company stop sabotaging international efforts to stop global warming. Activists handed out mock indictments to employees as they left the office for the day. On Tuesday, 50 activists gathered at the ExxonMobil station near UM in a massive protest against the company in anticipation of International Day of Action.

For eight sleepless nights, many UM students will be sipping Starbucks into the wee hours of the morning as they cram for final exams and make last minute portfolio corrections.
“I’m so stressed! I’m very stressed,” junior Katia Clerzaud said. “I have to put a six-minute film together with a partner for my film class and I have to study for a geological science class that covers a lot of information.”
For Clerzaud, the film is due next Friday, while the geological science exam is only three days later. In addition, Clerzaud has two other finals to study for.
Formatting for tests varies depending on the professor, department and subject matter.
“I chose a format that it is comprehensive and covers a little bit of all the areas discussed in class without being too concentrated in any one particular area,” Professor Bonnie Rigg from the art and art history department said. “The students usually do very well with this type of exam – there’s a little something for everyone.”
“If a student is deficient in one area that we have studied, there’s a little leeway for improvement on other parts of the test,” Rigg said.
Despite having four exams in a span of two days, freshman Ryan Tominac is finding it easy to cope with the added pressures that exams can bring.
“I’m not stressing too much because my professors have been giving out pretty good study guides,” Tominac said.
Some students disagree.
“I’m stressing for chemistry because everyone who has taken the test says it’s really hard,” sophomore Jean-Paul Talamas said.
Dubbed “reading days,” students have four days prior to the commencement of finals to prepare gradually for the exams.
But will students take advantage of the allotted time?
“Big time,” Tominac said. “I’m going to re-read assignments and key in on what the major concepts are for each class.”
Pre-final festivities begin today.
Multicultural Student Affairs and Stanford & Hecht are among the sponsors of Finals Fiesta, a celebration recognizing the end of the semester, from 4-6 p.m. at the bridge between Hecht and Stanford residential colleges.
Free food will be available and a DJ will provide entertainment.
So what will students do when the finals are over?
“I’m going to eat and hang out with friends,” Clerzaud said.
“I’ll just feel really relieved that it’s all over,” Talamas said.
“I’m taking a plane and going home to Detroit,” Tominac said.
“I’m sure it’s more stressful for the students taking the test than it is for me,” said Dean Edward Pfister from the School of Communication. “The stressful time for me is after the tests are given because all the tests need to be graded and all the grades have to be averaged within a fairly short period.”
“It’s the time when I’m able to judge the level of my success,” Pfister said. “To be able to write on a student essay, ‘Wow! You got it’ is a wonderful fulfillment.”

Paul Fajardo can be contacted at pfajardo@umsis.miami.edu.

UM checks out of the Inn
The 110 University of Miami students still residing in the Holiday Inn, across from campus on US-1, will have to be out by the end of the calendar year.
The contract between the University and the hotel only lasts until Dec. 20, 2002.
This number is down from 140 students that were housed in the hotel at the beginning of the semester.
Last year, the first year that the University turned to the hotel for temporary housing, only 30 students were placed at the Holiday Inn.
Those living at the Holiday Inn are mostly continuing students whose previous living arrangements fell through or domestic and international transfer students.
Jon Baldessari, Assistant Director of Residence Halls for Marketing, Assignments and Conference Housing, foresees housing stability next semester. He anticipates no difficulty with fitting everybody into a room.
“Based on expected numbers, with the assumed number of cancellations and new students, we should be fine.”
To accommodate the extraordinarily large number of on-campus residents, study lounges in the Stanford and Hecht towers have been converted into permanent dormitories, complete with desks, carpeting and cable modems, at least for the next several years.
“They’re no study lounges anymore,” said Baldessari.
No freshman students were temporarily assigned to the Holiday Inn this semester. Nearly 80 were briefly living in double rooms with resident assistants.
“They were all reassigned within the first two weeks,” said Baldessari.
Because of the high density of students living on campus, students who currently occupy a double room by themselves will be assigned a new roommate for the spring semester.
Students who fail to remove their belongings from one half of their room will be assessed a $50 fine and may be removed from on-campus housing.
Students who wish to stay on campus between the fall and spring semesters must fill out an Intersession Housing Application at the Department of Residence Halls office, in Eaton 153.
Apartment area students may continue to live in their apartments over the winter break because they are already being charged for that period.
However, residents of Mahoney and Pearson must pay $400 to cover the costs of operations for the intersession period. Students who live in Hecht, Stanford, or Eaton and wish to stay over break must find someone in Mahoney, Pearson or the apartments with whom to share a room.
Students who are leaving the University at the end of the fall semester need to fill out a Request for Release form to receive a refund of their housing deposit, which also may be found in the office of the Department of Residence Halls.
Residence halls close at noon on Thursday, Dec. 19 for non-graduating students.
Students graduating in December must leave their dorms or apartments by noon the following day.
Effective January 2003, the State of Florida will require that all students living on campus must either document receipt of meningitis and hepatitis-B immunization or sign a waiver that they do not wish to be vaccinated.
The Department of Residence Halls did not give information on how the housing situation will be for the fall semester of 2003.
Housing sign-up for the fall will be in late March and early April.