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Friday, January 15, 2010 • Volume 95, Issue 19 • nique.net Feeling Blue?

RALLYING AGAINST TRANSIT CHANGEFormer bus drivers rally against new transit contractor

Photo by Jarrett Skov/Student Publications

Teamsters and former drivers line up at West Peachtree St.

to rally against transit contractor Groome Transporatation.

Dean of Ivan Allen College

inalists named

Pipes burst due to frigid temperatures

Transportation switches to new buses, trolleys

By Vivian FanNews Editor

he Department of Parking and Trans-portation has undergone a face lift over winter break with the arrival of new buses, trolleys and expanded services. he face lift accompanies the newly signed 10-year contract with transit services coordinator Groome Transportation. he switch from First Transit, the previous contractor, came after a year-long process of proposals and bids from a number of transit companies.

“he main reason we went out for a new contractor is that the old contract expired. We used the state of Georgia’s contracting services and went out for a new multiyear contract. It was a competitive bid. A num-ber of contractors bid on it… We rated them both on technical and on cost, and at the end Groome Transportation was selected. It was done on a collaborative efort of the state of Georgia and Georgia Tech that included stu-dent representation,” said Lance Lunsway, director of Parking and Transportation.

With the new contractor come new ser-vices and features on the Stingers, Tech Trolleys and Emory shuttles. Groome pro-vided the new vehicles, which Tech represen-tatives helped select and design, in its con-tract. he new trolleys feature a cow pusher in the front, but maintained the same overall design. he Stingers feature brand-new LED screens showing bus driver and route names, monogrammed seats and rearview cameras which can be seen from the driver’s seat. In addition, the Stingers have a new exterior de-sign featuring bold lettering, larger decals of

See Buses, page 5

By Vijai NarayananAssistant News Editor

Photo by Jarrett Skov/Student Publications

Housing places fans in a hallway of North Avenue

Apartments after a pipe burst caused looding on Sunday.

Students, former bus driv-ers and union representa-tives gathered in front of the Department of Parking and Transportation’s oice, at the corner of Spring and West Peachtree St., last Monday in rally against Tech’s recent switch to transit services irm Groome Transportation.

he rally was the second one organized by the Team-sters Local 728 (the bus driv-ers’ union), with the irst oc-curring Jan. 4th when campus formally opened up after the break. he rallies come after 40 Stinger bus and Tech Trol-ley drivers lost their jobs when Tech formally switched its transportation contract from First Transit, Inc. to Groome. Although there was no formal clause in any contract signed by Tech, Groome or the driv-ers to ensure their jobs, driv-

ers expected to retain their jobs with the switch based on past instances of contractor changes.

Members of the union al-lege that despite the suggestion of a job fair and interviews from a Parking and Transpor-tation representative no such event occurred. In addition, protestors believe that Groome is “union-busting”, due to the fact that all 40 drivers dis-missed were unionized.

“We’re not trying to [tie] ends together that don’t it, but what is clear to us is that it is a very lucrative contract for Groome that they are trying to instigate it. But they are doing it in an illegal, immoral way by kicking drivers to the curb,” said Ben Speight, an organizer for Teamsters 7-28.

“We’re basically proposing is that Groome sit down one day with all 40 of the drivers and hire all of them, we may concede that there may be one

Vivian FanNews Editor

Photo by Jarrett Skov/ Student Publications

A protestor holds up a sign in Tech Square urging the Tech

and Groome Transportation to re-hire former bus drivers.

hree inalists have been chosen for the position of Dean for the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts (IAC) following a year-long selection process. A search committee was formed last summer following the departure of the previous dean, Sue Rosser, who left Tech to become provost at San Francisco State University. he committee was made up of faculty and staf in the IAC as well as an undergraduate and graduate student rep-resentatives.

he three inalists include Dr. Beverly Sypher, the Associate Provost and Susan Bulkeley Butler Chair for Leadership Excel-lence as well as a Professor of Communica-tion at Purdue University, Dr. Jacqueline Royster, the Executive Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in addition to being the Senior Vice-Provost and Professor of English at Ohio State University, and Dr. Bill Long, the Chair of the School of International Af-fairs at Tech.

he Institute hired the professional con-sulting irm William Funk & Associates upon the recommendation of the search committee to assist with the process of solic-iting nominations for the position. he irm

or two exceptions to that. To be quite honest with you we can’t concede anything less than that. We want them hired and to be hired now. We may ask for back pay that they’ve been unjustly out of work. We ask for these people back and on the job,” Speight said. “Our goal is not to disrupt op-erations of the bus services out there. Our goal is to get people

working who were unjustly terminated.”

Since the dismissals, which occurred last Dec., the former bus drivers and the teamsters have iled a legal complaint concerning the matter at Groome only. However, pro-testors hope that their actions will encourage the Tech ad-

See Dean, page 4

By Vijai NarayananAssistant News Editor

See Rally, page 5

Icy conditions moved in-doors when multiple pipe bursts resulted in the lood-ing of several buildings across campus. he Undergraduate Living Center (ULC), North Avenue North (NAN), and the Student Center were all impacted by looding.

On the evening of Jan. 4, a cold water pipe burst in the attic of the ULC, lood-ing study rooms on each loor

and afecting 18 apartments in the building. Cleaning crews worked in afected rooms to repair the damage and restore the building to its previous condition, inishing the work on Jan. 9.

Following the lood at the ULC, a sprinkler pipe burst on the 10th loor of NAN, re-sulting in the looding of sev-eral loors. A total of 38 apart-ments were afected as a result. A second restoration company

See Pipes, page 3

2 • January 15, 2010 • Technique NEWS

POLL OF THE WEEKDo you think the Dead Week Policy is suicient?

38.8%Yes, but no one will enforce it

29.4%No, it needs more protection for students

22.4%No, it needs more accountability for professors

9.4%Yes, I am completely satisied with the results

Next issue’s question:

Tell us at

nique.net

What do you

think the new

design on the

Stinger buses?

Based on 214 responses

Founded in 1911, the Technique is the student newspaper of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and is an oicial publication of the Georgia Tech Board of Student Publications. he Technique publishes on Fridays weekly during the fall and spring and biweekly during the summer.

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Copyright © 2010, Emily Chambers, Editor-in-Chief, and by the Georgia Tech Board of Student Publications. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the Editor-in-Chief or from the Board of Student Publications. he ideas expressed herein are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Board of Student Publications, the students, staf, or faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology or the University System of Georgia.

First copy free—for additional copies call (404) 894-2830

NEWS EDITOR: Vivian Fan / news@nique.netOPINIONS EDITOR: Matthew Hofman / opinions@nique.netFOCUS EDITOR: Kate Comstock / focus@nique.netENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: Jennifer Aldoretta / entertainment@nique.netSPORTS EDITOR: Nishant Prasadh / sports@nique.net

FOLLOW US ONLINE:

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By Vivian FanNews Editor

From the iles of the GTPD...

Campus Crime

Stolen Pizza

GTPD arrived at Maulding Residence Hall after receiving a phone call from a Pizza Hut de-livery man. According to the de-livery man, he had met with a cus-tomer identiied as “Lanz”, who was wearing Nike sandals, a blue hoodie and a pair of Tech football sweatpants. After bringing the in-correct receipt, the man suggested that the customer pay in cash in-stead. In response, the customer laughed and proceeded to enter the residence hall without pay-ing for the pizza, thus locking the delivery man out. When police

arrived on the scene, the delivery man entered Maulding and im-mediately pointed out a member of the Tech football team as the suspect. he player denied order-ing a pizza, but reportedly smiled and mocked the delivery man. Upon searching the player’s room, the oicer could not ind any evi-dence of a box or pizza. No action was taken. he pizza, which has yet to be paid for, cost $24.06.

Call a Plumber?

Wednesday Dec. 16, GTPD was called to Crecine Apartments after a member of the Department

of Housing called. he complain-ant was asked to ix a cracked toi-let bowl in one of the apartments in the building. He additionally stated that he did not know how the toilet was damaged; however, did mention that the broken toilet caused a leak which in turn lood-ed the bathroom.

Missing International

Police were contacted by a con-cerned parent from China. he parent had not heard from his/her child, a Tech student, for ap-proximately ive days. An oicer attempted to call the student’s cell phone and left a voicemail. As well, an on-duty peer leader knocked on the student’s door, but elicited no response. he stu-dent’s information was later listed as a missing person after calling a number of hospitals and jails in the area with no indings.

Technique • January 15, 2010 • 3 NEWS

Council ClippingsThis week in Student Government

Each Tuesday, elected members of the two houses of the Student Government Association, the Undergraduate House of Representatives (UHR) and the Graduate Student Senate (GSS), convene to consider allocation bills and discuss issues facing campus. Here is a summary of those two meetings.

By Vijai Narayanan, Assistant News Editor

his edition of Council Clip-pings covers the UHR and GSS meetings from Nov. 24, 2009.

AASUhe African American Student

Union (AASU) requested funding from SGA to bring one high-pro-ile speaker and two moderators for a town hall style discussion, as part of the Black Leadership Con-ference.

he organization aimed to bring Jef Johnson, a prominent news commentator as the key-note speaker and Louis Ramos and Roland Martin to moderate the town hall. he bill totaled ap-proximately $20,000. GSS mem-bers debated the necessity for two high proile speakers to moderate a town hall meeting, and ultimately failed it 7-17-2. UHR members felt that the cost was justiied and passed the bill 26-16-3. However, the bill did not meet the enact-ment ratio necessary to pass and hence it ultimately failed.

Student CenterUHR and GSS passed a resolu-

tion supporting the expansion and renovation of the Student Cen-ter. he Student Center was de-signed in 1969 to serve a campus of roughly 7000 people, but now

serves a campus of over 20,000. In recent years, the Student Cen-ter has had the tendency of being extremely crowded, especially during peak hours. he resolution does not monetarily tie SGA to an expansion of the Student Center, but it merely supports the idea of planning an expansion of the fa-cility in the future.

Campus Movie FestA bill was put forth requesting

$5000 from SGA on behalf of the Campus Movie Fest organization to host its annual movie festival at Tech. he funding requested was to pay the national organization for the registration fee and equip-ment rental fee for the event. Dur-ing the event, teams of students are given HD cameras, laptops and various other ilm equipment to make 5 minute short ilms, which will be screened during the end of the event at the Ferst he-ater. According the organization, the event would impact roughly 2000 people. he bill passed UHR 40-0-1.

Rowing Clubhe Rowing Club requested

funding for three motors, two boats and eight indoor rowing machines. Two of the motors were

destroyed during a lood. Due to an increase in membership, the club requested funding for the ad-ditional indoor rowing machines and new boats, one of which would be used with the third mo-tor to be purchased. Currently, the club claims to total almost seven hours a day on the machines available at the CRC. he bill to-taled approximately $14,100. It passed GSS with a total vote of 24-1-1 and the UHR 39-3-1.

FIMRChe Foundation for Interna-

tional Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC) requested $1400 from SGA for a trip to Nicaragua in order to volunteer at a children’s clinic and perform community service in the surrounding area. GSS passed the bill with a vote of 15-10-1 and UHR passed the bill 43-2-0

SCPC Speakerhe Student Center Programs

Council (SCPC) requested fund-ing from SGA for the amount of $20,000 in order to bring Bill Nye the Science Guy to campus. Following JFC policy, the bill was amended to the amount of $17,500. he bill passed UHR 33-12-0. See nique.net for GSS vote.

A lot of things went on outside the bubble of Tech

in the past week. Here are a few important events taking place throughout the nation and the world.

Breaking theubble

Massive earthquake devastates Haiti he island nation of Haiti was hit by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Wednesday. he quake destroyed the capital city of Port-au-Prince, where more than 2 million people live. Additionally, the city was hit with more than 30 aftershocks, leveling buildings and destroying communications networks. he International Red Cross reported that upwards of 100,000 people were dead and up to three million people were afected by the quake. he World Bank pledged $100 million in emergency funding for the restoration process.

Israel apologizes to Turkey for snub

I s r ae l i Pr ime Min i s ter Benjamin Nethanyahu issued a letter of apology for the treatment of a Turkish envoy, ending a row between the two nations.

he hostilities began when the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Turkish ambassador Oguz Celikkol to express anger at a ictional television series that portrayed Israeli soldiers killing children. During the meeting, the Ayalon ensured that Celikkol was seated in a lower chair and refused to extend him various diplomatic courtesies, intentionally humiliating the ambassador.

Google may pull out of China after cyber attacks

Google has stated that it is considering ending its operations in China following what it calls a “sophisticated and targeted” cyber attack originating inside the country. It said that the personal e-mail accounts of various Chinese human rights activists were targeted primarily, but also that dozens of US, China, and Europe-based Gmail accounts belonging to advocates of human rights in China were accessed. Google launched a Chinese version of its popular search engine in 2006, after agreeing to censorship rules enforced by the Chinese government.

B

Pipes from page 1

www.nique.netsliver

Why have I only now found the sliver boxthwugaWhen people confess their attraction through slivers, I always feel like they’re vague enough to be talking about me. Hope, right?Tour groups are targets for scaring away freshmen. Except girls. You can stay. fat loud kid in library, I watched sportscenter this morning too... please shut up about football.TO HELL WITH GEORGIAIvi likes men.Diddy remembers when he was a sperm.ugaDiddy’s like the President.. he’s hard to reach.so the toilet paper back home feels like I’m in heaven every time I wipe. :)give us the ability to leave comments on articles on nique.net!I’m slivering to show my sister how to sliver. hanks for closing the dining halls. Hate this place!If I only had a brain...I hope UGA goes with the robot dog...I love the spectral analysis of lossless music ilesalthough we may have some issues from time to time, all in all we’re a great organizationWalking around campus during break is like waking up in Lon-don during 28 days later.. . . hmm why is it that the THWG version never made it online? =/tumornatorsOIT: I pay you $103 every semester in fees. FIX LAWNIf you don’t tell him you like him...he’ll never knowmen are pretty much obliviousso you must be frankBecause you’re a smelly creeper, of courseto the tall, taken, curvy blonde: I’ll be your honey on the sideI reeeeeeally want to hook up with ow of these hot Indian girls in the library... I have my goals set for next semester

was hired to repair the damage.On Jan. 9, another sprinkler

pipe in the attic of the ive loor stack in NAN burst, afecting eight apartment units. Accord-ing to Dan Morrison, the Direc-tor of Residence Life, the total

cost for cleanup crews in the resi-dence halls is could be as much as $250,000. In addition to lood-ing in various housing units, a sprinkler pipe in one of the stor-age closets of the Stamps Student Center Commons burst, lood-ing the Piedmont Room, Jackets

and Burdell’s. Water traveled to Einstein’s Bagels before the valve was shut of. Dehumidiiers were placed to dry the carpet and walls to prevent mold. Clean-up in the Commons will be completed this week, with repair work in Jackets extending into the month of Feb.

CorreCtionsIn the Nov. 20 article about Tech leaving the academic common

market, Tech did not completely leave the academic common mar-ket. Rather, Tech still retains eight graduate programs and only left two undergraduate programs.

In that same issue, the Dead Week Policy table featured on page 5 is printed incorrectly. A correct version can be found at http://www.nique.net.

4 • January 15, 2010 • Technique NEWS

NEWS BRIEFS

Tech named in 20 best value universities

Business magazine Kiplinger has named Tech one of the top 20 best value public colleges in the nation this year. Tech ranks number 15 in in-state rankings and 57 in out-of-state rankings, out of the list of 120 colleges. he magazine, which gave the Univer-sity of North Carolina – Chapel Hill the top position, determined the rankings based on academic quality, cost and inancial aid for both in-state and out-of-state stu-dents. Tech’s ranking improved by one standing over last year in the in-state list, and is one of four colleges from the state of Georgia that appeared on the list. Other schools present also included the University of Georgia, which ranked 6th.

Reed inaugurated as mayor of Atlanta

Following the Dec. 1 runof election and ensuing recount, Ka-sim Reed was named and inaugu-rated as the 59th mayor of Atlanta Jan. 4th. Reed previously held the position of state senator of Geor-gia’s 35th district and defeated op-ponent city councilwoman Mary Norwood in the election.

Five faculty members named IEEE fellows

Dr. David Bader, Dr. Ian Fer-guson, Richard Hartlein, Dr. Da-vid Keezer and Dr. Emmanouil Tentzeris were elevated to the rank of IEEE felllows. awarded to 309 engineering professionals based on their accomplishment in any IEEE ield.

While the construction on the Clough Undergraduate Learn-ing Center (CULC) pounds away at the center of campus another, quieter branch of construction has been underway in the Engi-neering Science and Mechanics building. Room G-17 has been converted into a miniature proto-type classroom of two of the new rooms in the CULC.

he room, which is being used by 11 diferent classes ranging from English Composition to In-dustrial Engineering, was debuted over winter break and uses two educational tools to help redesign not only the architecture of the space, but also the way that the classes held within are taught.

he layout of the rooms is based on the SCALE-UP (Stu-dent-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Pro-grams) model. he SCALE-UP model is a modular model with movable desks and chairs that lacks the “teaching wall”.

“When you walk into a class-room its immediately obvious where the instructor is going to be, there is one projector screen, one podium and all the seats face that wall. By using two projection screens and whiteboards on the other walls the new rooms don’t have that,” said Donna Llewellyn,

director of the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL).

he prototype room has win-dows lining the top of one wall and seemingly dozens of ceiling lights. he nine tables are modular and are arranged in three large circles for the demonstration of the room to the faculty, with a movable po-dium near the far wall. he two projector screens are on opposite sides of the room, and the two re-maining walls have multiple rows of sliding whiteboards and gleam-ing LCD monitors.

hose LCD monitors link the

SCALE-UP classroom layout with the other innovative techno-logical addition to the prototype room, the ClassSpot PBL (Proj-ect-based learning) software cre-ated and provided by Tidebreak, Inc. he software allows students to link their laptops in to their Team Spots, connecting all of the members of each team to a com-munal screen. “Students can scroll to the top of their laptops to enter the Team spot screen, where they can all access the browser or work on a document or presentation, or you can use the archive function to send things from the commu-

CULC designs revealed at open houseBy Emily Chambers

Editor-in-Chiefnal Team screen back down to the individual laptops” said Andrew Milne, CEO of Tidebreak, Inc.

he Team spots can then con-nect to the Class spots to share information or programs with the whole class, again by simply mov-ing the cursor to the top of the team spot screen (one of the three LCD screens on the walls) and tog-geling up to the main projectors in the classroom. “Faculty have the option of locking the Class spot so that students can’t send anything up to the Class spot screen during a lecture or when students are test-ing, but ideally most of the class will be spent learning in a shared environment” Milne said.

Students using the ClassSpot PBL software will be able to share video, search results and presen-tations with their teams, which will also have their own modular space and whiteboards from the SCALE-UP layout. he classroom itself is also modular, with detach-able loor panels so that designers can ind the best possible place for outlets for faculty and student laptops. “I went in there yesterday and they had already moved the furniture, so we know that works and they aren’t afraid to use it.... We will be surveying the faculty who are teaching in there and the students who are having classes in there to see what they do and don’t like, what works and what doesn’t work.” Llewellyn said.

www.nique.netsliver

I’m experiencing excessive bluntnessEven more so than kitty!photographers please stop showing pipettes & test tubes like that’s all science isAnother 7.5 on the douchebag scale. Don’t do it.I was disappointed in the paper airplane comp. I was expecting some Aerospace major to bust out a tricked out planeLike it had propelers and paper engines and dropped bombs of goldOMG DOUGHNUTS YAY! :DFemale, socially competent gamer who likes anime, searching for a like minded female(s) to room with next yearahhh a pesimistic poll this weekis a new technique coming out this friday?Cute airforce boy, what is your name?girl in chem review- you look like luna from harry potterI miss Red Jesus. :(Buzz was at the home basketball game and the ACC champion-ship game at the same time....here are two buzzes?!Hey, ‘Nique - Congrats on topping the THWUGA issue with the biggest boneheaded he guys who moved out of 6th St 416 are total douchebags.little miss pufy bushfunsies!next stop: nique not updating after the orange bowlbattleaxe behind bars!archivelovin the new buses.will someone please ix course critique?! this is the only time of year i need it!!!Going to GaTech: waste of my money. No one wants to hire me because of my 2.7 GPA - the name of my school matters not.new gt email login SUCKSthe design on the side of the new buses looks like cornIt’s f-ing FREEZING and there’s barely any Trolleys running, WTF.

does not have a role in inluenc-ing the committee’s recommenda-tions.

“here are only six colleges at Tech and the dean is a very im-portant position... At that level we thought it was important that we get the assistance of a professional irm. hey do the heavy lifting so

to speak and have their own net-works of contacts that can help us cast a net as wide as possible and ind the right candidate,” said Doug Allen, the Associate Dean for the Ivan Allen College.

Over the course of the previous semester, the committee reviewed a list of over 150 applicants were narrowed down to three inalists.

“More than just credentials we

[the search committee] wanted to make sure that the candidate would be a right it for the In-stitution and understand what it means have a liberal arts college at a technological institution,” Allen said. Each candidate will now be brought on campus for an inter-view at the end of this month. he interview will be a two-day pro-cess, with each candidate meeting

with campus administrators, fac-ulty and staf. Each candidate will then give a presentation on their vision for liberal arts at Tech to an audience of faculty and staf.

Following the interviews, the provost and the Institute Presi-dent will decide who to hire for the position. he new dean will take up the position on July 1, at the start of the academic year.

Dean from page 1

Photo by Emily Chambers/ Student Publications

The CULC prototype classroom was created to promote project-

based learning and features LCD monitors and modular tables.

Technique • January 15, 2010 • 5 NEWS

Buzz and a gold hexagonal pattern to enhance their visual campaign across campus.

“he fact that a yellow jacket’s nest is kind of like a wood nest, if you see it from far of, but when you get close on it, you see that little [hexagonal] pattern. We use the hexagonal pattern along with the football team on Yellow Jacket alley… Everything around campus is pretty must a nest,” said Torise Battle, communications of-icer for Parking and Transporta-tion.

In response to student com-plaints about the broken down condition of last semester’s buses, Parking and Transportation rep-resentatives maintain that the maintenance of the buses are the responsibility of the contrac-tors. hus, the previous contrac-tor First Transit operated on the broken buses due to impending end of their contract last fall. he new buses and trolleys are outit-ted with a new door system that should be able to endure its fre-quent usage.

“he buses that we specked out are expected to last the ten years based of the use that we have,” Lunsway said.

One of the most striking changes to on campus transporta-tion, however, will be the switch

Photo courtesy of Parking and Transportation

Groome Transportation and other Tech oicials worked together

to select the design and model of the new buses and trolleys.

to a B20 mix of regular fuel and 20% biodiesel that will be used on each Stinger and Trolley. he biofuel component will be de-rived straight from campus din-ing services and potentially res-taurants around the area. Tech dining services will be collecting cooking and fryer oil used at the dining halls and Student Center food court to be reined into bio-fuel from an outside company.

“he notion is that this leet will be all biodiesel,” said David Williamson, assistant director of transportation. “hat’s our target, which we’re not there yet because the tanks need to be installed.”

“he exciting thing is that if you’re in the Student Center and you’re eating some French fries; know that some of that oil may be put in our buses. We’re trying to make sure that any of the used fryer oil on campus should be coming back [to] Georgia Tech in a diferent form as fuel,” Lunsway added.

Despite all of the changes as far as Stinger and Trolley routes are concerned, all routes will re-main the same except for the green route. he route will be changed to its original one, prior to the construction of the 14th St. Bridge, and its hours will be ex-tended to 9 p.m. More informa-tion on the routes can be found on the department’s website.

Buses from page 1

Advertise with us! Visit nique.net/ads for information

Rally from page 1

ministration to call for action in this dispute.

“I think Dr. Peterson has an opportunity to show his leader-ship on this campus and that he can leave a legacy of justice and fairness on this campus,” Speight said.

However, Tech representatives state that they have no current or future intention to take action concerning this matter.

“Georgia Tech doesn’t have standing to step in. here is no contract speciication that gives calls for us to play a role in Groome Transportation’s hir-ing process. We hire Groome, and that’s the end of our involve-ment… they’re not our employees, they’re Groome’s employees,” said Jim Fetig, associate vice president of communications and market-ing. “he employee relationship was with First Transit, First Tran-sit no longer has a contract. hat relationship ended when that con-tract ended. Now you have a new employer in a right-to-work state so as long as employer follows state law in the hiring of their new em-ployees and those employees meet the contract speciications, as long

as those contract speciications are met, Georgia Tech [is] satisied.”

Concerning the matter, a Groome Transportation represen-tative issued the following state-ment in regards to the situation:

“We started our hiring process in Oct. of 2009. Since that time we have received over 250 appli-cations. Approximately 17 of the applications were First Transit Employees. We have attempted to contact 12 First Transit employees that applied for a position with us. Only seven showed up for their interview and of those ive were ofered a position with our com-pany. With this showing it has be-come evident that a large number of the employees that service the GA Tech Contract have been re-tained by First Transit and placed in other contracts throughout At-lanta.”

Although Speight and the Teamsters deem Groome’s ac-tions as “immoral” and “illegal”, oicials at Groome stand by their decisions.

“We are conident that when the facts are known that courts will determine that our actions were appropriate,” said Chris Groome, vice president of safety and service at Groome.

OpinionsTechnique

6Friday,

January 15, 2010

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. —Isaac Asimov

Opinions Editor: Matt Hofman

“”

OUR VIEWS CONSENSUS OPINION

Failure to ActDriver situation missed opportunity for Tech to lead

he labor situation with the former Stinger drivers is unfortunate. While Groome’s practices in this instance were shortsighted and unfair, we agree that they do not constitute the accusations of “Union Busting.” Furthermore, under the contract with Tech, Groome has full privy on employment of the bus drivers, and Tech should not attempt to strong arm Groome over this situation. But Tech does have a responsibility as member of the community to address the issue. Many of the people who drove the buses had worked at Tech for over ten years and, in such capacity, were members of the Tech community. he Institute and Groome Transportation should have been more accommodating to the workers. Aiding in inding new jobs or priority when new drivers were hired could have helped prevent the predicament that currently exists.

he Institute has refused to issue a statement on the situation, neglecting its

role a leader of the Atlanta community. If Tech expects its students, faculty and staf to be citizens of the Atlanta community the Institute as a whole must remember that it also is one large and highly important citizen of the city and should act that way, using its civic voice to at the least acknowledge when political issues involve our campus.

his situation comes across that Tech is apart from the city, as opposed to a part of the city. If Tech wants to educate the future leaders of the world it must irst learn to play a leadership role in the community that surrounds it. It is not enough to simply go out and apply a new coat of paint on playgrounds; the Tech community must truly learn about the problems that face the people within in the city around us and work to ind a remedy to the problems, including labor disputes. he administration’s seemingly lack of the concern for the former drivers goes against any such objectives.

EDITORIAL CARTOON BY MAGGIE SMITH

I just wanted to point out amongst the up-roar about the increase in student fees that the faculty and staf of Georgia Tech have also been impacted by bud-get cuts this year.

he faculty and staf are be-ing forced to take furlough days, and while students might jump at the chance to skip class this could bring hardships to members of the Tech community. Remember that faculty and staf have bills to pay and many have kids to feed, or put through college. While you may be paying an extra $300 in fees, if you go all three semesters this year, faculty and staf will be losing 6 days pay, or about 2.3% of their yearly salary, which could anywhere from $700 on up. Please try to remember that budget cuts afect all of us.

David ColvinGrad Student ECE

More attention needed to detail of new Stingers

I just saw the new Stinger bus graphics with the honeycomb pat-tern on the side. I can only imag-ine that the person who approved the graphics doesn’t know the dif-ference between a bee and a yellow jacket. Can you imagine someone approving a graphic of a Jack Rus-sell Terrier on the side of a UGA bus in the place of a bulldog? I don’t think that would get past ONE person.

Sterling SkinnerAdministrative Manager ME

Football team deserves recognition for success

I’m writing to congratulate the Georgia Tech football team on an excellent season. I hadn’t seen GT play this season until the Orange Bowl, and even in a tough loss, the team is impressive. he tal-ent level of the athletes and the quality of the coaching staf was evident, despite the outcome. he players stayed cool under pressure, didn’t lash out with stupid pen-alties, stuck with the game plan, and refused to abandon the ofen-sive schema that got them a well-earned No. nine ranking.

GT enjoys a distinguished rep-utation nationwide, in both aca-demics and athletics, and both are well-deserved. I hope the Georgia Tech students are proud of their team and its success this year.

Benjamin J. Siders U. of Iowa ‘99

YOUR VIEWS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Budget cuts afect all members of campus

Write to us: letters@nique.net

We welcome your letters in response to Technique content as well as topics relevant to campus. We will print letters on a timely and space-available basis.

Letters should not exceed 400 words and should be submitted by Tuesday at 7 p.m. in order to be printed in the following Friday’s issue. Include your full name, year (1st, 2nd, etc.) and major. We re-serve the right to edit for style and length. Only one submission per person will be printed per term.

he Consensus Opinion relects the majority opinion of the Editorial Board of the Technique, but not necessarily the opinions of individual editors.

Technique Editorial BoardEmily Chambers, Editor-in-Chief

Jonathan Saethang, Managing Editor Hahnming Lee, Business Manager

Jennifer Aldoretta, Entertainment EditorVivian Fan, News EditorNishant Prasadh, Sports EditorKate Comstock, Focus EditorMatt Hofman, Opinions Editor

Steven Cappetta, Advertising ManagerKelvin Kuo, Photography EditorReem Mansoura, Development EditorChris Russell, Online Editor

By Greg MercerWriter, The Post

Ohio State U.—Publishing is changing. It started with this “internet” thing everyone talks about. As soon as news went on-line, it was largely ofered for free rendering printed newspapers ob-solete.

his wasn’t a deathblow by any means, of course. Newspa-pers continued on, and did ine enough. But with Amazon’s “Kin-dle” ebook reader, Barnes & No-ble’s recently announced”Nook” and a practically conirmed tablet to be released by Apple, it looks like things are drastically shifting.

Of these electronic readers, the Kindle came irst. Although it didn’t exactly set the world on ire, many were enamored with the concept. It did generate a lot of buzz, but it didn’t achieve the right mixture of usability, price and style. he Kindle does look strange and clunky, and carries a $260 price tag.

Barnes & Noble, the world’s most successful brick-and-mortar

bookstore, ofered a similar device called the Nook. It builds upon the Kindle in a lot of important ways: he screen is larger and the device, as a whole, is thinner. In-stead of a physical keyboard, it has a second screen for touch-typing and can also browse through cata-logs of new books. It still carries that hefty $260 price tag.

Apple, which has reportedly been working on a tablet, has the best chance to revitalize pub-lishing. Books are a given, and wouldn’t be hard to implement. If Apple could create an iNews ser-vice, with 99 cent daily copies and cheaper subscriptions presented in a clean, usable style, that would have serious potential.

Publishing needs a leg up, and needs someone to bring it into the modern day. Imagine if, instead of a stack of three or four thick textbooks, you had a single thin device in class. You’d still be pay-ing per textbook, but because the distribution is electronic, mate-rial costs go down as well. It will never be cheap, but it just might be easier.

New devices could be inal blow for print publishers

Technique • January 15, 2010 • 7 OPINIONS

Let’s rewind back to your last days of winter break. Imagine that you are in a foreign country, excited for a transit home after weeks abroad. Mishaps are not part of your itinerary when envi-sioning your trip home. A sim-ple 14 hour plane ride full of Hollywood ilms, banal food, and sleep within the cramped quarters of your economy class seat. his was my ideal situ-ation when boarding Malay-sian Airlines light 094 service from TPE to LAX.

All went well through the irst three hours of light, right as we were passing Tokyo, Ja-pan. he captain monotonous announcement of “technical diiculties” forebodes disas-ter, but luckily a minor hiccup compared to other potential outcomes. A three-hour dou-ble back resulted from these diiculties, but it was a start of the longest delay and worst irst time experience with a single airline.

he experience on land ampliied the hate toward the Malaysian Hospitality motto that was associated with this speciic airline. I had no sense of hospitality the second I stepped back onto foreign ter-ritory. his was due to being informed that a hotel has been scheduled for an overnight stay, and a light that would leave in only 28 hours after the original departure time.

Customers were scrambling

in complete chaos to make sure they would make the connections that were suppos-edly scheduled for their inal destination. Surely the staf promised that all lights would be changed and set to accom-modate the inconvenience that had already arose. Little did we know, this would only further the complications when inally on domestic soil.

With the already exhaust-ing day continuing to bring in unfortunate news and the day being drawn out to the very last second, a “short” transport was required to arrive at our resting place. Instead of this promised “short” transport, which I thought would be a hotel within the airport prox-imity, we ended up travelling another 30 minutes to down-town of TaoYuan, Taiwan.

Passports were coniscated for passes that allowed bus rides and rooms at our desti-nation. It is scary enough to be in a foreign environment, but being without a passport add-ed additional anxiety. With the passports out of our pos-

session, a rule was enforced to place all customers on “hotel arrest.”

he hotel guests were not al-lowed to leave the hotel prem-ises, if a guest was found try-ing to “escape,” they would be immediately transported back to the terminal and placed on the watch list. his meant that we were not allowed to do anything but vegetate in our rooms for the 20 or so hours prior to our departure.

Checked in baggage was not allowed to be taken out, forcing guests to live with the clothes and commodities of of their back. Hunger and thirst could not be responded to, with a lack of money and potential of being caught. I ended up sleeping with my contacts and street clothes still on, waking up even more dis-gusted then when I did going to bed. Cotton mouth and cot-ton “eyes” could be wonderful ways of describing my condi-tion that morning.

Arriving back at TPE, after the extended stay at the ho-tel and one book read, I was

hopeful for a more productive day. But that idea was short lived with the news that Ma-laysian Airlines was not go-ing to help accommodate my misfortunes of a missed con-nection. Instead everyone was not notiied of any changes and was told that it could only be solved upon our arrival at LAX.

he frustration also trans-lated when inally arriving in Los Angeles. I had no checked baggage so I was able to be the irst in line to igure out which connections were possible. But line priority did not mat-ter, I was still forced to wait 3 hours with the no change.

Instead of having Malay-sian Airlines solve the prob-lem, I inally found good customer service in the form of Air Tran. hey were gladly there to help and assist by giv-ing me a standby ticket for the next light that night. his was opposite with the other customers that were forced to miss work, meetings and time by spending an extra night in LA with non direct lights to their destination.

Malaysian hospitality cannot be placed anywhere within the vocabulary of this horrid airline. If you are ever thinking of travelling the pa-ciic islands, I deplore you to not support the “budget” air-line and instead pay the extra few dollars for the added relief and support.

Not all airlines were created equally “Malaysian hospitality cannot

be placed anywhere within

the vocabulary of this horrid

airline.”

Kelvin Kuo Photography Editor

Scott ChamblissSecond-year ARCH

“Work out more.”

Molly WilliamsFourth-year STAC

“Go running at least three times a week.”

Olivia BurnsedSecond-year BME

“Read my Bible everyday.”

Andrew BordaFirst-year ISYE

“Sleep more.”

What is your New Year’s resolution?

BUZZAround Campus

If ever ind yourself trapped in a city late at night with nothing to do, nowhere to go, no way to get anywhere and in the airport, you have an opportunity to have a truly amazing experience.

For those who think this about to make you hot and bothered, you are perverse. I am talking about sitting down and simply taking notice of the diferent types of people who are in an airport at 2:27 A.M.

First thing I noticed is the guy next to me who is also on his laptop looking at Facebook. He seems normal enough, but do I have any idea who he might be? Of course not. He does, however, have a cup of cofee and a Dunkin’ Donuts bag, so it is tempting to try to strike up conversation if for no other reason than I am exhausted. I take the plunge, and learn he speaks as much English as I speak Ukrainian. Is this failure? No—it is all in good fun.

Feeling discouraged, I try to just take notice of the peo-ple who are aimlessly walking with no apparent direction or reason as to why they are walk-ing. I take notice irst of the teenage couple who passes by about every ten minutes. hey are awkwardly holding hands, and based on the religious tee shirt the girl is wearing, I igure they probably have not done much more than that. Do I know for sure? No. But this sort of snap judgement

gives me a wonderful, and not very destructive, way to proile people, something that other people get to do in an airport and I feel left out of.

Next comes the awkward airport police guy, who is also overly bored and desperate for conversation. He tries to make small talk about how weird it is for it to be 40 degrees in Mi-ami even though it is January. Of course he asks where I am from, and Atlanta apparently is not that interesting to him, because he stopped our chat right then.

I also got the pleasure of making enemies with some people while I was there. he cleaning crew was out in fury, and I of course was in the way. I thought I should move, but then decided that would have been more awkward, because I would have to pack up my stuf, move somewhere else and there would be that really awkward two seconds when I would have had to walk around their cleaning cart, no doubt making that strange eye contact without any acknowl-

edgement. So I stayed put.With 3:00 came the people

starting the early shift. here was the bell hop, or whatever they are called at an airport, wearing his seemingly too for-mal attire. It was like a white tuxedo with too many but-tons, and he even had to wear that stupid looking hat. Does anyone really care if the person carting their luggage around is wearing a hat? I certainly do not. And if someone does, aren’t they probably just really big jerks anyway and should not be appeased? I think they should lose the hats.

he guy driving what looks to be a remodeled golf cart towing behind him those rent-al push carts came by. He was wearing a ski mask, and that freaked me out a little bit. I know I should not have been, after all the po-po and I are now the next closest thing to brothers, but that is the beauty of it all; rationalization is fu-tile at 3 a.m.. I then noticed the irst person in a real suit, and he was carrying a cup of cofee from Dunkin’ Donuts.

hen two more people walked by also carrying cups of cofee from Dunkin’ Donuts. I de-cide that it is now late enough for breakfast.

I pack up my things to leave, noticing more people with the liquid goodness known as cafeine. As I begin to make my escapade in search of my holy grail, I fell victim to that which I tried to avoid not less than thirty minutes prior. I ran into the cleaning crew, and of course there was the strange eye contact and no acknowledgment. I know they will forever hate me, but I have come to accept that.

After walking what seemed to be miles upon miles to this oasis, I realized I did not know how to order my cofee, be-cause I had never had cofee from Miami. In Atlanta, cof-fee is generally pretty mod-erate; not watery, nor super heavy. But in New Jersey and New York, it is like an un-happy cross between crude oil and burnt tar. I decided to order like I do normally. It turned out alright, a little light though.

It was then time for me to board my light and head on home. I realize that in one night I learned a lot about my-self. I cannot speak Ukrainian, nor do I come from a very in-teresting place. I also learned that I generalize too much and that cofee in Miami is gener-ally a little too weak. A very productive two hours.

Late night travel ofers unique experience“The guy driving what looks

to be a remodeled golf cart...

came by. He was wearing a ski

mask and that freaked me out.”

Matt HofmanOpinions Editor

Photos by Kelvin Kuo

8 • January 15, 2010 • Technique OPINIONS

Tech students have recently no-ticed an increase in fees and a vi-cious labor dispute. Workers’ and students’ rights are under siege. We must defend public education and workers’ rights to unionize.

In Feb. 2008, the Tech Stinger, shuttle and Trolley drivers voted unanimously to form a union, ailiating with he International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 728. Over the holidays this win-ter all 40 drivers were unlawfully dismissed. Drivers discovered through a newspaper advertise-ment that they were being replaced two weeks before Christmas. Tech decided to contract transit services with a new company who hired non-union inexperienced driv-ers. he switch from First Transit to Groome Transportation is far from unprecedented. Over the past ten years Tech has signed contracts with four diferent com-panies and each time experienced Tech drivers who already know the routes and students were al-ways re-hired. Groome decided to hire only half of the drivers that it takes to fully staf our bus ser-vices, which explains the poorer service as of late, and ofers Tech the opportunity to mandate that Groome rehire at least 20 experi-enced drivers.

he Tech administration claims to have no inluence over whether these 40 drivers get their jobs back and yet they write the checks and retain the power to ire any contracted worker. Fur-thermore, Tech retains the right to cancel the transit contract with Groome with 30 days notice. he administration’s claim of inde-pendence from the labor dispute isn’t credible. Tech’s relationship with Groome is an intimate one.

Neither Groome transportation, nor the Tech administration, nor President Peterson have agreed to meet with drivers union to nego-tiate a fair settlement. he Tech administration is as culpable as Groome in union busting and at-tacking workers’ rights.

As students we depend on qual-ity public transportation. Unions in the U. S. and around the world have helped millions collectively bargain for better wages, beneits, and safer working conditions. A living wage, beneits and job se-curity provides for healthier more productive workers that are better able to get us where we need to go. Replacing workers on the basis of their participation in a union is unethical and a violation of fed-eral labor law. he drivers’ union is currently iling national labor relations act violations against Groome Transportation. We, as students, have an obligation to support union drivers not only because it’s a better deal for the Tech community but because it also improves the job quality for workers and service for students. As an educational institution in Atlanta we also have an obligation to provide reliable and fair jobs to our campus employees.

Many students at Tech feel that as an elite institution of science and technology we are somehow

independent from social injustice in the community. his idea is ri-diculous. Top ranked University of California Berkley and MIT have active progressive student movements allied with workers. he “economic crisis” is being used as the pretense for egregious attacks on worker and student rights. Because of mistakes made by the ruling class students are paying fee hikes and workers are having their unions busted. he political and economic system is re-enforcing the message that no one could have predicted market failure and we all must bear the burden. Students and workers are not to blame of the economic cri-sis; the corrupt system of the rul-ing class is.

With Martin Luther King Day approaching it is worth relect-ing on one of his great uninished projects: to unionize the South. As students have an obligation to support those who sellessly provide us indispensable services daily. hey are people that de-serve the same rights we expect for ourselves. Let’s bridge the gap between workers and students in light of this struggle, and demon-strate to administrators that the rights for workers are in our inter-est as well. Workers rights are hu-man rights! Demand Tech rehire all 40 union drivers!

OUR VIEWS HOT OR NOT

Pimp my Stinger

HOT– or –NOT“Let’s bridge the gap between

workers and students in light of

this struggle.... Workers’ right are

in our interest as well”

Martin Gantt et al.Members of the Student-Workers Alliance

he new Stingers that greeted students upon their return was a much needed upgrade from the old Stinger leet that was prone to mainte-nance problems. he new tim-ing devices at the Stinger stops are also a convenient modern-ization for the system. Addi-tionally, the new buses run partially on recycled oils, con-tinuing Tech’s commitment to environmental sustainability.

Wrath of Mr. FreezeAside from the below freez-

ing temperatures making walking to class less than en-joyable, the frozen conditions have caused pipes to burst around campus, looding buildings. Hopefully actions can be taken to prevent these disturbances in the future. Among the problem areas were the Undergraduate Liv-ing Center, North Ave. Apart-ments and the Student Center.

All praise the CzarPresident Obama’s re-

cent appointment of Howard Schmidt, a faculty member in the College of Computing, to be the cyber-security czar for the White House reinforces the prominent role that Tech and members of the Institute play throughout the nation and the world. With over 40 years of experience, Schmidt will no doubt prove to be a valuable asset in Washington.

Sour Orangeshe football team’s un-

fortunate loss in the Orange Bowl leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouths of Tech fans af-ter a memorable season. his marks the ifth straight loss for the Jackets in bowl games. It is also disappointing that four of Tech’s juniors will not be re-turning next season, but their success at the professional level could prove highly beneicial for the program.

www.nique.netsliver

Creepy guy who keeps sitting next to me in Health and com-menting on my conversations: You’re creepy, and you should stop.Lane KiinMath is HARD!!!!my ex gf is now lesbian FMLSung, can you wink both eyes?I just slivered for the irst time in 2 years. Win.I don’t feel safe anymore...and I am scaredGirls... enough with the sideburns... it’s gross.LET’S SING IN JAPANESE!!!!!insane in the membraneattention all japanese students: upon hearing such commotion plz put on the closest senior design = death. true storyOLD HICKORY LIVES!!! And he’s still riding his damn pig. You probably don’t want to use this Mac anyway.I’m slivering and you can’t stop me!!!!Let’s talk about Ben Folds again, package ladyyou’re in my heart for life.I hope you ask me out before the semester endswe get charged more so tech can waste money on shitty programs (oscar) way to go Budwoodie’s dining staf really needs to calm the ef down.is this thing on?freaking crowded library at dinnertimeindividual desks are for INDIVIDUALS; tables are for GROUPS! NOT THAT HARD GUYS!i woke up at 1 todayit was gloriouseveryone else can eat itugg stop making people feel your abs all the time!my roommates boobs are my biggest fear.Just because it’s not English you’re speaking at the top of your lungs in the quiet part Asian dude with British accent... cute!

Students and workers should be brothers in the ight for justice

Focusfocus@nique.net

Focus Editor:Kate Comstock

Organization Spotlight: Ramblin’ Rocket Club

Builds and launches rockets has activities for

beginner rocketeers and people who are into

high powered rocketry.

Contact: http://jacketpages.collegiatelink.net

Technique

9Friday,

January 15, 2010

By Sarah MalisContributing Writer

In 1995, the National Science Foundation (NSF) selected Tech as the head institute to provide leadership in creating models to enhance gender equity in the ields of scientiic and technologi-cal education, two stereotypically male-dominated ields.

his spurred the Integrat-ing Gender Equity and Reform (InGEAR), a program to create gender equity among faculty and students and equal access to sci-ence, engineering, and mathemat-ics programs.

“My research has shown that the percentages of women among undergraduate science and en-gineering majors and degree re-cipients are associated with the percentages of women faculty in these ields. his provides em-pirical support for the efects of ‘role models.’ My research shows that it matters to have women as well as men faculty for graduate students,” said Mary Frank Fox, co-director of Tech’s ADVANCE and Women, Science and Tech-nology Programs.

One piece of data tracked by InGEAR was the percentage of tenure-track positions held by women at Tech in the late 1990s.

Across every college the per-centages were strikingly low, espe-cially in the College of Engineer-ing.

While this may not seem like a

huge dilemma for Tech students, the lack of female professors, fair-ness, and female leadership roles carry a subsequent efect on the great male-female divide. In 2001 the Tech ADVANCE program was established to develop ap-proaches and solutions in creating gender equity with the help of a highly competitive, $3.7 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“Compared to men, women faculty act as primary research ad-visors for a larger number of wom-en students and they have more women on their research teams. Also, women faculty put emphasis upon giving advice, across areas of help, not only research and pub-lication of papers, but also par-ticipation in team meetings and interacting with faculty,” said Fox.

he goal of the NSF AD-VANCE program is to have a more balanced campus for faculty and students and to increase the participation of women through the increased representation and advancement of women and to improve the status of women in all colleges and in leadership.

Fox explains that the program continues to approach institution-al factors supporting the participa-tion and advancement of women faculty at Tech and the promotion of women in leadership at Geor-gia through a network of Advance Professors, equity in tenure and promotion, family-friendly poli-cies, faculty development prac-

tices, and tracking of data. “he Georgia Tech NSF AD-

VANCE institutional transforma-tion program took an ‘integrated approach to institutional factors’ that support the full participation and advancement of academic women, including leadership. We were one of the original institu-tions awarded a grant in the irst round of awardees made in 2001. Nine institutions, nationally, were

one in the irst round of awards. he Tech ADVANCE activities for institutional transformation and initiatives constitute an inte-grated approach to key and core institutional factors that support advancement of faculty,” Fox said.

Another initiative is insti-tutionalizing a formal training process for committees involved in tenure promotion, known as the Promotion and Tenure AD-

VANCE committee (PTAC) initiative to promote fairness in evaluation.

Part of this, which was devel-oped by Dr. Carol Colatrella from LCC, is called the Awareness of Decisions in Evaluation of Pro-motion and Tenure (ADEPT) interactive tool that is required of all members of tenure promotion

ADVANCE helps promote female faculty at Tech

By Chris RussellStaf Writer

Early last month the Depart-ment of Defense decided to put up party decorations across the country in commemoration of the Internet’s 40th birthday. On Dec.5, the Defense Advanced Re-search Projects Agency (DARPA) distributed ten 8-foot red weather balloons across the continental U.S. and challenged teams to be the irst to correctly locate all ten.

Since the balloons’ locations spanned from San Francisco to Miami, the challenge was not intended to be solved by a team of incredibly ambitious travelers. Rather, the goal of the challenge was to locate the balloons by man-aging a large social network and tracking spreading data online.

According to the challenge’s website (https://networkchal-lenge.darpa.mil/), the challenge was meant to, “explore the roles the Internet and social network-ing play in the timely communi-cation, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.”

he Tech team, nicknamed “I Spy A Red Balloon,” was headed by Erica Briscoe, a research scien-tist at GTRI, and Ethan Trewhitt, a research engineer at Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). he team also consisted of Dr. Betty Whitaker, Stephen Cuz-

zort, Jessica Pater, Rick Presley and Miles hompson.

When asked why they decided to participate, Trewhitt said, “For the most part, it was for the fun of it. I think it played more to our general analytical inter-est [than our speciic re-search].”

Tech’s team digitally spotted nine of the ten balloons by the end of the day, coming in sec-ond overall—just be-hind MIT’s team. he MIT team found the tenth balloon almost seven minutes before the GTRI team. How-ever, the GTRI team found nine balloons, thus making them the singular team to ind that nine balloons by 6:59:11 p.m. he third place team found only eight balloons at a time of 6:52:54.

hough the team didn’t take home the $40,000 top prize, they made their decision with what to do with the prize money before the contest had even begun.

Trewhitt said, “We started by making a conscious decision to donate our money to charity.”

According to Trewhitt, few teams planned on keeping the winnings for themselves.

Trewhitt said, “here were two schools of thought at the start: ei-ther donate the money to charity

or dis-tribute it to people who found the balloons.”

he team decided against the latter in order to avoid the tax headaches that would come with it and avoid the unfairness of some-one inding a balloon on chance while other team members spent hours looking without success.

Instead, they decided to donate any winnings to the Red Cross, a

d e -c i -

sion that won them several

supporters in the challenge.According to Briscoe, the team

spent most of their time the day of the event watching their so-cial networks rather than actively searching for the balloons. Briscoe said, “We heard there may be an Atlanta balloon, so we sent some people to ind it, but also moni-tored [our sites].”

he team drew a large number

DARPA balloon spotted by GTRI

See ADVANCE, page 10

of supporters before the

event was over. Ac-cord ing to Bris-coe, the t e a m ’ s w e b -

site had 6 0 0 -70 0

people sign up to watch for

balloons, and the Facebook group gathered another 800-900 supporters.

However, part of the contest wasn’t just about gathering infor-mation; according to Trewhitt, several teams and individuals outside the contest succeeded in throwing teams of the trail.

Photo courtesy of ADVANCE Program

ADVANCE team from left: Najah Hofman, Mary Jean Harrold, Christina Shalley, Mary Frank Fox,

Mary Ann Ingram, Catherine Ross, Sandra Duplessis, Wing Suet Li, Mary Lynn Realf, Carol Colatrella

See DARPA, page 11

Left:

Dr. Betty

Whitaker stands

next to a DARPA balloon

found in dowtown Atlanta.

Above: the GTRI team tracks

the locations of known

balloons using various

social networks.

Photos courtesy of Betty Whitaker

and Ethan Trewhitt

10 • January 15, 2010 • Technique FOCUS

committees. Other initiatives have been

strengthening and extending the scope and impact of family-friendly practices for all faculty such as lex time options and childcare services and collecting and using data to track employ-ment and tenureequity and de-velop best practices.

“Tech committed to the insti-tutionalization of the gains made during the NSF grant award pe-riod. he current ADVANCE initiative is for continuing trans-formation and success of women faculty. When you make things equitable for one group of faculty, you make conditions fair and eq-uitable for all faculty. Equity en-hances the whole institution,” Fox said.

he Tech ADVANCE team also implemented other speciic goals to continue growth and op-portunity for faculty, staf, and students alike.

One initiative for faculty ad-vancement is using the ADEPT and the PTAC initiative’s “best practices.” hese include having known guidelines for evaluations, which will help to promote equity and fairness on the Tech campus.

he ADVANCE program sponsors workshops for faculty members and graduate students. he programs are about leader-ship, obtaining and managing re-search grants, research productiv-ity, and work-life balance issues.

he Women, Science and Technology Center, which is a

part of the team, coordinates re-search panels and lectures, which are related to advancing prospects for women in the whole institute,

Another service that is ofered is career coaching.

“What this does is bring to-gether faculty who are interested in advancement in a range of ways, including senior people who may want more leadership roles, and junior people who seek to be promoted to associate professor as well as to full professor. During the workshop, each person can receive advice from senior faculty members, which is an important mechanism. It institutionalizes a structured and open environment, which sets the stage for more in-teraction and exchange.” Fox said.

he ADVANCE Program has recognized the need for advance-ment and retention of women fac-ulty.

Over the past ten years, the number of female professors has steadily increased in Tech’s col-leges. A key component is not just recruiting new faculty, but as importantly, retaining excellent faculty.

Fox said, “Over the course of the Tech NSF ADVANCE award period, there have been notable gains in the proportion of women faculty in Engineering, Sciences, and Ivan Allen College. Also, the College of Computing has re-tained their current proportion. What is important potentially for the future prospects is to have interaction with, and even do sys-tematic interviews with, people who exit, to determine how it is

that people are not retained,” Fox said.

Ten years ago, the lowest num-ber of full female professors was in the College of Engineering.

Not only does this afect Tech’s engineering programs, but also it holds signiicance in its efect on future female student enrollment and retention demographics, also known as “the ratio”.

“I think that the advancement of women in engineering is very important for a technological school, because of the size of the college of engineering and its re-lationship to Tech. What has hap-pened is that increasing numbers of women are getting doctoral degrees in engineering, and that has partially translated into pro-portions of women faculty in en-gineering. In order to commit to the success of students, we must commit to the success of women faculty, because the two are re-lated.” Fox said.

he ADVANCE program is continuing to build momentum and developing elements in insti-tutional transformation.

“I believe the ADVANCE pro-gram will stay on track and help to make Tech a leader in the ad-vancement of women faculty and diversity, just as Tech is a leader in other key areas. Challenges to advancement exist, but if they are increasingly acknowledged and addressed, that makes a difer-ence. We need to have standards that are known, communicated, and shared, and Tech is making progress along those lines,” Fox said.

Photo by Tim Nowack / Student Publications

Students enjoy the 0.6 inch of snow that fell on campus and

the surrounding Atlanta area on the evening of Jan. 8.

SNOW DAyADVANCE from page 9

Technique • January 15, 2010 • 11 FOCUS

Trewhitt said, “here was dei-nitely a counter-intelligence efort. A lot of misinformation popped up on Twitter and Facebook.”

Briscoe said, “Twitter in par-ticular was bad. hings on Twit-ter spread like wildire whether they’re true or not.”

Many of these simply proved to be minor distractions, though, as the team would contact people in the area to go out and check sight-ings for themselves.

Once one team realized the ruse, the word got out on Twitter just as quickly as the misinforma-tion.

he event was partly aimed at just that: tracking how fast infor-mation and misinformation can spread in the hyper-connected modern world.

Between social networks and new ways of obtaining and bar-gaining for information online, DARPA wanted to see what it could learn about the spread of information in online age.

Trewhitt said that DARPA also meant for the event to act as a public relations outreach to re-searchers across the country, so the entire afair had a fairly light-hearted, fun air about it. he red balloons replaced the original targets—ten DARPA employ-ees—for just this reason, as some were concerned what government-sponsored tracking of individuals would look like.

Trewhitt and Briscoe both say that one thing was left unresolved at the end of the contest: the iden-tity of the person who reported the location of the Atlanta bal-loon.

he team located the balloon through a tip on their website, though the only information they have on the tipster is the name “Emma” left on the site. Despite the submission being made from a Tech connection, the team has been unable to thank the tipster.

DARPA from page 9

By Coby LuContributing Writer

Last semester, Tech campus was struck not only by the H1N1 virus but also by the Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ) game (with com-mon symptoms being yellow ban-danas and bags illed with socks and marshmallows and increased paranoia) during dead week.

“HvZ is a game where you have 2 factions, horde and resistance. he horde represents the zombies and the resistance represents the humans. It starts out with pretty much everyone being human ex-cept for one original zombie. he original zombie’s goal is to as-semble a horde of zombies by con-verting humans into zombies and eventually leaving no humans,” said Jack Morgan, third-year CS and one of the administrators of the game.

he game lasts a week and the human’s objective is to survive the entire week and complete the i-nal mission which is to evacuate the city. he zombie’s objective is to convert everyone into zom-bies.

“Humans want to survive; the zombies don’t want them to,” said Sammi Immele, irst-year CHBE and administrator of the game.

“he point of the game is to have zombies win, so then every-body wins.” said Micah Cleve-land, irst-year CS and adminis-trator.

here are missions for the zom-bies and humans to complete. hese act as side objectives that each of the factions can complete and they contribute to the plot of the game.

Completion of the missions can change the rules of the game to favor the successful factions.

“For example, one mission the zombies completed gave them a

shorter stun time while a mission the human’s completed gave them extra safe zones,” said Jessie New-man, irst-year CS and player.

Zombies convert the humans into more zombies by tagging them. Humans can stun zombies by throwing socks or marshmal-lows.

Stunning prevents zom-bies from tagging humans for roughly ifteen minutes.

During the irst game roughly one hundred seventy participated. Players can be identiied by their yellow ban-danas.

Humans wear their ban-danas around their arm or leg and zombies wrap their bandanas around their head or around their neck when they are stunned.

Aside from the players there are admins who plan and run the game. hey are also in charge of the website at hvzgatech.com and post videos of the game to the HvZ Youtube account.

Moderators play the game along with the players and help the administrators make deci-sions based on the rules during the game.

Non-player characters (NPCs) act as characters in the plot during the game.

“Two groups are responsible for starting the game. One of the groups came up with the idea from the water gun assassin’s game during homecoming and got the administration on board,” Morgan said.

“he other group came up with the idea from internet searches on zombies and started a Facebook group and recruited people to play,” Cleveland said.

he two groups met which lead to the HvZ dead week game.

“Pretty much nothing went as planned, but the irst game was

basically a trial to make sure that things would be working and for future games,” said Tyler Weiss, fourth-year ME and administra-tor in the game.

he group has plans to run a second game during Feb.

“While people had criticisms for the game and various parts they did not like, pretty much everyone wants to play again and many people who didn’t play are interested in playing in the next game,” Cleveland said.

he administrators are plan-ning for more people during the next game and should be better prepared for the game.

“A lot of crazy things hap-

pened. he teams orga-nized mailing lists, texting lists, and facebook groups to organize and plan for missions,” Weiss said.

“One of the zombies went so far as to make a fake facebook of hu-man playing the game but didn’t have a facebook, and joined the human resistance group that was limited only to humans. Another attempted to spoof an adminis-trator account to get the humans to come out on a fake a mission,” Cleveland said.

Some of the changes that the admins plan on making include allowing a limited usage of Nerf guns, along with marshmallows and socks, during the missions.

Zombies give deadweek gets literal application

Photos courtesy Steph Greear

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Entertainment Editor:Jennifer Aldoretta

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Technique

13Friday,

January 15, 2010

AVATARBrilliant special efects wow audiences

Jay Sean’s album proves catchy, tedious in sound

By yameen HuqContributing Writer

It seems like every few years we wind up with a brand new hit song that scorches the Top Bill-board listings and brings some once no-name newcomer to super stardom. After only a short while this star fails to achieve his previ-ous success and collapses into me-diocrity.

he latest potential example

MUSIC

Jay SeanAll or Nothing

LABEL: Cash Money

GENRE: Rap, R&B

TRACK PICKS: “Down,” “Do You Remember” and “Ride It”

RELEASED: Nov. 23, 2009

OUR TAKE: «««««

of this theory is Jay Sean, the hit British-Indian singer whose latest album, All or Nothing, has become an international hit. Featuring content that’s certainly under-whelming in comparison to his singles, the album features dance-able music for any party.

For the most part, his music features songs reminiscent of the Backstreet Boys, Justin Timber-lake and other boy band-esque el-ements. Basic danceable beats and simple recurring melodies laced with a pretty, vaguely feminine voice.

he unique thing about Jay Sean is that he dropped out of medical school to pursue his sing-ing career. He originally began his career with music that blended East and West, using Indian beats and scales with western melodies. his new album contains none of that. In an efort to appeal to a mass audience, Jay Sean appears have a much more rap and R&B-

driven focus that is more suited to American and mainstream tastes.

his includes featuring cameo appearances by several big names such as Birdman and Lil Jon. For example, the single “Down” in-corporates a section with Lil Jon. While most of the song is enter-taining and pleasant to see, Lil Jon’s harsher vocals clash with the Jay Sean’s voice creating an unfor-tunate dissonance that probably should have been left in the edit-ing room.

However, listening to the alter-nate “Candlelight Remix” easily solves this problem. Replacing the fast-paced party feel with a light-er, gentler tune for a “romantic” mood, the song also takes away Lil Jon’s cameo, thus clearing up the inconsistencies of the original.

he unfortunate downside to the remix is that Jay Sean isn’t as good of a singer for slow songs. It almost seems like he’s using auto-tune to hide that his sound might

be out of pitch. If he’s going to make more slower, poignant bal-lads, then it’s probably best to ditch the computer equivalent of training wheels.

he single “Do You Remem-ber?” is another highlight of the album. he song is the epitome of uplifting and is arguably the best song on the album. he lyr-ics promote a feeling of nostalgia, a popular staple of famous songs. Lil Jon, despite his obnoxious vo-cals, manages not to spoil the song and Jay Sean’s moments are a wel-come addition.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album seems to be an imitation of just these two songs. he lyrics are all about love. Jay Sean must re-ally like “the girl” he sings about because apparently there’s no other topic. He seems for the most part to be content with maintain-ing this boy band level of lyricism and music.

he song “Fire” shows a higher

level of energy and rhythm then his other songs. However, the lyr-ics are no diferent that anything else in the album. Essentially, the only use for this song is for a DJ who wants to speed up the pace at a party where he’s playing “Down”.

he song “Ride It” seems to be a little better, emphasizing the cooler aspect of a party vibe. With a heavier clapping beat and smoother, lowing vocals, the song will deinitely appeal to his American audience more than his British one. his is enhanced by a music video that presents him liv-ing a glamorous lifestyle.

Despite some good songs, the album still fails to be anything particularly memorable. Every song reiterates similar rhythms and lyrics, the best of which can be found in his singles. It might be great for parties, but for personal listening this album does nothing but feel boring and tedious.

By Chris HarlessContributing Writer

James Cameron’s Avatar is one of the most visually stun-ning and technologically ad-vanced movies to be released to date. It’s diicult to criticize anything about the computer-generated portions of the ilm because they’re really unpar-alleled. Unfortunately, every-thing else about the movie is either forgettable or just awful.

he story of Avatar is set on a wild, alien planet called Pandora that is home to countless dangerous creatures. However, Pandora is also home to the peace-ful Na’vi, a group of tall, spiritual, blue-skinned natives who can “speak” to the jungle by linking their minds with the mind of the spiritual being, Ai’wa. It all sounds very weird on paper, but the movie explains this in a way that makes it seem at least somewhat logical.

he Na’vi see the jungle on Pandora as a sacred place, and they treasure every living thing on the planet. hey also treat hunting as a sacred thing, and they kill animals only out of necessity. It’s easy enough to see some very obvious similarities between the Na’vi and Native Americans.

Truthfully, the plot of Avatar is actually somewhat enjoyable, but the story is so forgettable because countless other movies have used the same story. It’s no big secret that the plot of Cameron’s ilm is heavily inluenced by Kevin Costner’s 1990 ilm, Dances with Wolves.

At the beginning of the movie, a paraplegic ex-marine by the name of Jake Sully arrives on Pandora for a new mission. He has been ordered to take the place of his twin brother in the Avatar program after his twin brother dies. he Avatar program is an attempt at diplomacy between the Na’vi and the human race. In the program, scientists use special technology to control an alien body double called an avatar. Because these avatars look exactly like the Na’vi, the scientists are able to it in with the natives.

Jake Sully’s job is to gather intel about the Na’vi while gaining their trust. Ultimately, Parker Selfridge, the head of the mining company that brought him to Pandora, wants to gain enough information from the Na’vi to know where to ind a very large deposit of unobtainium.

At irst, Sully plans to carry out his mission, but he quickly realizes that what he is doing is very wrong. When Sully inally comes to this realization, the movie gets signiicantly better. Even though the special efects of the ilm are extremely beautiful and entertaining, the plot tends to be quite forgettable and over-powered by the visu-als. If the story was able to keep pace with the visual efects, the ilm would not feel as

FILM

Avatar

GENRE: Fantasy, Adventure

STARRING: Sam Worthington

DIRECTOR: James Cameron

RATING: PG-13

RELEASED: Dec. 18, 2009

OUR TAKE: ««« «

See Avatar, page 16

««

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox

CITY SCENE

he Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center will be featur-ing the Shen Yun Performing Arts (SYPA) exclusively for this weekend. Having completed more than 300 performances in more than 20 countries back in 2009, the SYPA presents to its audience the magniicent art of traditional Chinese music and dancing. he superb choreography of a massive cast, the thunderous strength in the powerful melodies along with the beautiful landscape setup portrays the perfect contrast between strength and beauty in the depth of Chinese history and culture. he exhilarating performance is sure to leave its audience breathless. With tickets in the price range of $40-$120, this luxurious event is well worth its hefty price. For more information, please visit www.cobbenergycentre.com.

Regal Atlantic Station along with two other venues (Lefont Sandy Springs and Regal Medlock Crossing) will be screen-ing an international selection of narrative and documentary ilms for the 10th Annual Jewish Film Festival (AJFF) start-ing on Wednesday, Jan. 13, lasting 12 days. From Adam El-liot’s dark humored claymation Mary and Max, a bittersweet tale of loneliness and understanding between two pen-pals worlds apart, to Kaspar Heidelbach’s Berlin ’36, a documen-tary about suppression and friendship during the 1936 Sum-mer Olympic Games in Berlin, the AJFF contains a wide variety of masterful story-telling ilms about life, history and humanity. With $10 cost per movie, ilm fanatics will dei-nitely not want to miss this great opportunity. he selection of ilms, ticket purchasing and any other information can be found on www.ajf.org.

he Fox heatre takes a step back in time and revisits the past this weekend by presenting to its audience a more than 30 years old musical classic, Annie. Winner of the 1977 Tony Award for Best Musical, the tales of the little red-hair orphan on a journey to ind her parents during the Great Depres-sion is a heartwarming story of bravery and innocence. he instantly recognizable melodies of “Tomorrow” and “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” will together bring fond nostalgia to al-most any generation of listeners. For ticket prices ranging from $25 to $55, Annie is a costly but tasteful way to spend time with family or friends this weekend. More information on the performance can be found on www.foxtheatre.org.

By Zheng ZhengAssistant Entertainment Editor

Fabulous Fox hosts hard-knock life of Annie

Shen Yun brings Chinese tradi-tion to Cobb

Jewish Film Festival entertains in Atlantic Station

Photo by Chris Gooley/ Student Publications

he New American Shakespeare Tavern is happy to pres-ent a modern adaptation of Geofrey Chaucer’s classic, he Canterbury Tales. he comedic performance fully exploits the bawdiness and the humor deep within Chaucer’s ink and bring them upon stage in a fashion reminiscent of the styles of Monty Python. he interesting combination of clas-sic literature with cleverly hidden coarse humor is a unique experience that you will not want to miss. General admission is $12, and the show will be running for the whole month of Jan. Whether you are looking for a good dirty laugh or a chance to refresh what you learned in your high school Lit-erature class, this performance is a great way to spend a fun yet refreshing weekend. For more information, visit www.shakespearetavern.com.

Shakespeare Tavern welcomes Canterbury Tales

15 • January 15, 2010 • Technique ENTERTAINMENT

16 • January 15, 2010 • Technique ENTERTAINMENT

though it was lacking. Once you get past the visual drama, the re-al-human acting was ine but the acting in the animated portions of the movie is overall just poor. Sam Worthington, who plays Jake Sul-ly, was one of the best actors in the movie, and Giovanni Ribisi did a ine job of playing the movie’s vil-lain, Parker Selfridge.

Sigourney Weaver did an okay job of playing the tree-hugging scientist, but her performance was still nothing spectacular.

he acting during the comput-er-generated portions was much worse than the real acting. At times, the computer-generated Na’vi seemed awkward, and the emotions of the Na’vi seemed forced as well. As realistic as the Na’vi look, there is still something missing, and it makes them seem less real. However, the visuals of the movie are certainly Oscar-worthy.

With all of that said, the movie is still worth seeing. here’s a rea-son why everyone seemed to like it. If possible, don’t see it in 3D because it really takes away from the visual aspect of the movie, which happens to be the best part. he 3D glasses tend to distort the edges of the picture and force you to focus on action rather than de-tails, and the colors are more vivid in the normal version.

If you generally don’t care about the originality of the story or the quality of the acting, then expect to love this movie as much as everyone else. However, if you do care about those things, then expect to be fairly disappointed with the movie as a whole.

Avatar from page 13Dark Rihanna album rates poorly

By Chris ErnstStaf Writer

Rated R is the fourth album by Rihanna and the follow-up to the international super hit, Good Girl Gone Bad. Rated R, like Good Girl Gone Bad, rebrands Rihanna. On this album, she expresses herself as a darker, meaner, and generally more angry woman. he album art relects this. Previous albums show her as coy yet approachable. Rated R is the antithesis, almost defying you.

Despite this image of an angry

MUSIC

RihannaRated R

LABEL: Def Jam

GENRE: R&B, pop

TRACK PICKS: “Wait Your Turn,” “Hard” and “G4L”

RELEASED: Nov. 20, 2009

OUR TAKE: «««««

woman scorned, she never really gives reason for the attitude. Oth-er than the Chris Brown incident, this darker tone, which permeates the entire album, is hardly justi-ied. Why so sad? She seems de-termined to be upset, and nothing can convince her otherwise.

hroughout the album, her discontent is monotonously re-stated over and over and over ad nauseam, almost convincing the listener of the opposite. After so much lamentation, whom is she trying to convince?

After all the complaining, it becomes easier to ignore her than listen to what she is saying. like any drama queen she just whines but Rihanna does not emote as much as your standard high-school sophomore. his is album is song after song of contrived nonsense.

She never really says much. Most of the lyrics have marginal consequence and do not cohere together. None of the songs seem to make any kind of meaning. hey are all about nothing, with hardly anything to draw the lis-tener to Rihanna.

he songs seem to be an expan-sion of a phrase or idea and never seem to tie together as insightful songs of any kind. With as many as seven writers, something good should have been made. For in-stance, no metaphor is made with “Russian Roulette.” It seems to be Rihanna actually playing Russian roulette? It does not make any kind of sense.

Rihanna has never been much

of a talented singer. hankfully, no songs here try to display any kind of talent in that regard. his album mainly relies on the general sound and feeling of the song to convey any sort of meaning.

Unfortunately, the album re-lies on the talents of the producers and personnel to convey any feel-ing. he album is full of post-pro-duced melismatic hooks Rihanna may or may not actually be able to sing. Where the album succeeds, Rihanna cannot take any credit.

he irst track, “Mad House,” really exempliies the album. It has a ridiculous spoken-word in-troduction and never says why if you “are easily frightened” you should “turn away now.” Only turn back if you think about what you hear.

“Rockstar 101”is depressingly uneducational. he title implies that it teaches how to be a rock-star. hat is not the case. It in fact touts Rihanna’s rockstar status. She states numerous times her rank as rockstar. “To be what you is, you got to be what you are, only thing I’m missing is a black guitar.”

Apparently Slash is on the song, but it is impossible to tell that he is a talented guitarist and not a computer because he is il-tered and pushed so far into the background.

“Rude Boy” is basically a des-perate attempt for sex in graphic terms like, “Come here rude boy, can you get it up? Come here rude boy is you big enough?”. It is hard to believe six well-paid individu-

als wrote this mess. It is basically a series of nonsensical words, which happen to loosely rhyme.

“Wait Your Turn” features a Rihanna actually from Barbados. It jarringly switches from minor to major keys, which ultimately reinforces her singing style, even though it is distracting.

It is not particularly well writ-ten, but the sound design and pro-duction redeem it. he main idea of the song is not expressed very clearly, except for the lyric, “it’s best that you just wait your turn.” he song makes the most sense if directed at her fans, but for some-one who depends on those people, that’s not a nice thing to say.

“G4L,” meaning “gangster for life,” would really be the only song that could be directed to Chris Brown. It does not say how weak he is, but rather how strong she is. he song does not go much deeper than that, but again, it is the sound design and production that draw the listener in.

here are really only three songs worth note, “Wait Your Turn,” “Hard” and “G4L.” he rest of the album is just dark for the sake of being dark without lyrical justiication. Neither Ri-hanna, nor any of the writers, give much cause to this rebel.

To her credit, there is no obvi-ously Chris Brown-inspired song, which would have been expected. However, the songs that are here do not really do anything. he few interesting spots are wholly dragged down by the stupidity of the entire endeavor.

www.nique.netsliver

I think that for every increase in fees students have to pay, we should get an increase in our GPA. LOVE the school. HATE the people.my roomie just took passive agressive to a whole new level...To the girl in BME2210 in the irst row, I know you like me.To the old guy in my 2300 class: You’re bogus.MUCK FICHIGAN!!!life was a lot more fun when you could play with mercurythis sliver goes out to all my gingers out therewe’re nice people.Woe as me, I lost my key…Oh my gosh I know who the sliver editor is now!Clint, I joined the sail club for you.a drinking school with an engineering problemhe only diference between being charming and creepy is the reaction.GT PARKING BLOWS THE BIG ONEWho are these people?freshman survival guide only helps to a certain degree, whether you can survive at tech still depends on how smar you areacmI sense a disturbance in the bogus!he guy at the Admissions front desk is hot.love the gallery feature at nique.net!why do all ece profs give easy tests and impossible inals?!all dogs go to heaven but all TAs go to hell! I don’t even know your name...I dread locks.BTW males: chilvary is NOT dead.why do you pick and choose which comments to use?!someone please make a free OAT app or update the gtlogin app to include OATno one can deny jacob is hotter than edwardjdf is awesome. and that’s the truth...Dear Sliver Editor, I know mad girls are submittig slivers profess-ing their love for me and would appreciate if you published more of them.6 Months, Happy Semi-anniversary babe :)omg ask me out already!know....well, is ignorance bliss or should I tell him? to HELL with georgia!!!Taste of Taiwan was awesome!!!here is deinitely at least one good single guy left at GT

Image courtesy of Def Jam

Technique • January 15, 2010 • 17 ENTERTAINMENT

THEME CROSSWORD: BILLY CLUBBy Robert ZimmermanUnited Features Syndicate

ACROSS1. Pierces6. Umpire’s call10. Bad news on report cards14. Icicle’s anchor18. Namely19. Gator’s cousin20. Hold sway21. Broadway backer22. Remove23. Gulf bigwig24. Islamic leader25. Parallel grooves26. hree Billys30. Mother of Zeus31. Stagger32. Nonchalance33. Employs34. New England campus36. And so forth, curtailed38. “Dove sono,” e.g.39. Computer key42. Cinema canine

45. Bottom line, so to speak49. Low-cal come-on53. hree Billys57. Scorches58. N.M. pueblo59. Old newspaper section60. Real-estate docs61. Austen novel62. hey’re often yellow63. Scatters seed64. Firstborn65. Book-cover abbr.66. In high demand67. Two halves68. Ski challenge72. Allegro con --74. Move swiftly, as a cloud76. Part of NRA: abbr.80. Insect stage81. Actress Lena82. Debatable83. Merge84. Four Billys88. “Earth’s Children” au-

DOWN1. Take the wheel2. Flashlight, in Soho3. Conscious4. Guinea- --5. Editor’s order6. Tableau7. Gen. de Gaulle’s troops8. Peculiarity9. Beige10. Actress Slezak11. Gets very angry12. Suitor13. Big rig14. Filled with wonder15. Settle it

16. Seen often on Afghan streets17. Ben Gurion arrival21. Computer code27. From the auld sod28. Happen again29. Pitched35. Sunbeams37. Outit38. Rounds39. Caesar’s existence40. Rose carrier41. Study hard43. All told44. Riyadh resident46. Of a deck of cards

47. Military fare48. Diet for dobbin50. 100 Across, in Bordeaux51. Danson and Turner52. Formerly54. Notre Dame coach55. Turndowns56. Out of action62. Dot follower63. -- Locks64. Lineman65. Mouse66. Indian language67. Go one better68. Shelter provider69. Honolulu happening

70. Cathedral area71. Far-north Europeans72. Melancholy73. Saturn feature74. Weep aloud75. Feat76. Whatever77. Become a father78. Daze79. Loch of legend81. Former Christiania82. Don’t believe it!

83. Westwood campus85. News summary86. Very, in music87. White Clifs locale93. Utilize again95. Star in France97. Student’s task98. Where the action is99. Korean port100. Companion to Doric and Corinthian101. Discourage

thor89. homas Gray, e.g.90. Teamwork for commuters91. Annapolis grad.92. Service-station logo94. “-- Wore a Yellow Rib-bon”96. Actor Kilmer98. Sleep phenomenon100. Brainstorm103. Subdue106. Frontier lawman110. Four Billys114. Airmatives115. He’s against it116. Actress Diana117. In perfect sync118. Trap119. Nam lead-in120. Sheltered, at sea121. Dance with a kick122. Treats hides123. 43,560 square feet124. “-- of to see the Wizard”125. Prayer supports?

102. Upper crust104. Rags-to-riches writer105. “he Cremation of Sam --”107. Make amends108. Kitchen appliance109. Humble requests110. Blister111. Programming language112. Sketch113. Shoot the breeze

18 • January 15, 2010 • Technique COMICS

NON SEQUITUR BY WILEYPILED HIGHER & DEEPER BY JORGE CHAM

CROSSWORD SOLUTION FROM PAGE 17

Technique • January 15, 2010 • 19 COMICS

DILBERT ® BY SCOTT ADAMSNON SEQUITUR BY WILEY

20 • January 15, 2010 • Technique SPORTS

points in the irst half and scored the last basket to give Tech a 39-38 lead at the break. Favors also had 11 rebounds, giving him his sixth double-double of the season.

he game was close for much of the second of half until Virginia used a 16-4 run to take a lead that Tech would not threaten for the rest of the game.

Tech committed several mis-takes that allowed Virginia to take the double-digit lead. With the Jackets leading 59-56 with less than nine minutes left in the game, Tech would only make two baskets over the next seven and a

half minutes, miss nine shots, at-tempt just one free throw and sent Virginia to the line for eight free throws, all made.

While Tech shot over 50 per-cent from the ield and had more blocks, Virginia was 23-of-26 from the free throw line. he Jack-ets only went to the free throw line 11 times and made just three of the attempts.

he Jackets will continue their road trip as they travel to North Carolina tomorrow.

Tech last beat UNC in 2007 and has not beaten the Tar Heels at their home stadium since 1996. hey beat the Tar Heels on a neu-tral site in 2005 in the ACC tour-nament.

When the Jackets returned home to take on Clemson, they did not allow the Tigers to pull ahead early. Instead, Tech jumped out to a lead in the early minutes, getting contributions from several players and building a 19-8 lead.

Clemson closed the gap late in the half, but Tech was able to attack inside to hold its lead. All of Tech’s successful ield goal at-tempts in the inal ive minutes came in the paint.

he Tigers closed to within two at one point in the irst half, but Tech went into halftime with a 35-29 lead. After the break, the Jackets were able to quickly in-crease this lead.

Starting with a pair of Fos-ter layups, Tech went on a 14-2 run that stretched the lead to 18 points. Clemson struggled to put a dent in the lead as the half went on, and the Jackets took advan-tage of 25 Clemson fouls in the game, draining 25 free throws in 36 attempts.

he Tigers eventually closed to within 10 points, but only with less than a minute remaining in the game. Tech scored its inal nine points on free throws and won the game 72-58.

Only two Jackets reached dou-ble igures in points, with Ardossi scoring 19 and Bennett picking up 15. hey also had eight and nine rebounds, respectively.

Tech out-rebounded Clemson 48-33 and had a strong defensive efort, holding the Tigers to 37.5 percent on ield goal attempts.

Photo by Joey Cerone / Student Publications

D’Andre Bell drives down the baseline during Saturday’s game against

Duke. Bell notched four points and two assists in 20 minutes on the loor.

Women’s from page 24Men’s from page 24

Overall, the Jackets were suc-cessful enough that they were one of 64 teams to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. hey lew across to the country to Los An-geles to take on Baylor in a irst-round battle.

Tech put up a solid ight, but the Jackets could not slow down Baylor and fell 3-0 to end the season. Despite the tough inale, though, both Johnson and Rod-erick were more than happy with the team’s accomplishments in the 2009 season.

“he girls here are my family, my best friends. I can’t imagine

having the best experience I ever had without them,” Roderick said, relecting on her four years with the team. “I didn’t take my experience for granted, and my se-nior year was the senior year I was looking for. I wouldn’t have done anything diferent at all.”

Johnson, whose former team—Texas—reached the national title game before falling to Penn State, still cheers for her old team but has never looked back since join-ing the Jackets.

“I am 100 percent positive I made the right decision,” Johnson said. “If I didn’t think there was potential here to do great things, I would not be here...Georgia Tech is the place for Tonya Johnson.”

Photo by Robert Combier / Student Publications

Chrissy DeMichelis makes a dig at O’Keefe Gym. DeMichelis, who had

2.93 kills per set during the season, was one of two seniors on the team.

Volleyball from page 23

Technique • January 15, 2010 • 21 SPORTS

Tech falls to Iowa in irst Orange Bowl berth since 1967By Matt Hofman

Opinions Editor

Tech’s football team fell to Iowa in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 5, 24-14 in Miami. he loss ends the Jackets season at 11-3, with two of the losses coming in the last three games. he Jackets now have a 3-3 all time record in the Orange Bowl, with the last win coming in 1952.

his loss also marked Tech’s irst appearance in a Bowl Cham-pionship Series game since the system was introduced in the 1998 season.

“We just never had any consis-tency on ofense…. It is hard to get consistency when we were not on the ield that much. We could not string together irst downs [in the irst half],” said Head Coach Paul Johnson.

he Jackets were stagnant on ofense during the irst half, only picking up one irst down and 32 yards. Of the 20 plays ran by the ofense, 13 of them were rushes by junior quarterback Josh Nesbitt.

he A-backs only had two rush attempts in the irst 30 minutes.

“We had a hard time blocking them on the inside, and it made it tough to run on the perimeter. And we could never hit a big play in the passing game,” Johnson said.

Out of Nesbitt’s nine passing attempts, the junior only complet-ed two. Both completions went to junior B-back Jonathan Dwyer.

Dwyer also had 14 attempts on the ground for 49 net yards.

“We were just shooting our-selves in the foot. We were just having penalty after penalty after penalty. Mistakes after mistakes after mistakes. If you have those, there is no way you will have the opportunity to have a big play,” Dwyer said.

he Jackets had nine total pen-alties on the night, setting Tech

back 68 yards. But the Jackets hung close with the Hawkeyes, at one point reducing the difer-ence to a three-point margin, un-til the end of the game when the mistakes began to catch up to the Jackets.

As the second half began, it appeared that Tech’s ofense had inally gained some traction. he Jackets drove downield on a 12-play, 44-yard drive that took 7:10

of the clock to move into range for a 41-yard ield goal attempt. With the wind blowing, junior kicker Scott Blair’s attempt sailed wide right, leaving the score at 14-7 in Iowa’s favor.

After the Jackets picked up their irst ofensive touchdown of the night with 12:30 to play, put-ting the score at 17-14, the defense forced the Hawkeyes to punt on the next series. Kick returner Jer-

rard Tarrant attempted to return an Iowa punt from the Jacket’s four-yard line, but only managed to get it to the 10-yard line. On the irst play of the ofensive series for the Jackets, Nesbitt threw an interception.

But again the defense stepped up and stopped Iowa on a fake ield goal. On the irst play of the next drive, Dwyer tried to reverse back to the side, but was initially met by Iowa defenders in the end zone. hough the B-back was able to avoid the safety, it put the Jack-ets on their own one-yard line, ef-fectively ending the drive.

Tarrant’s highlights of the night came during the irst half when forced a fumble during the irst series against the Hawkeyes and recovered it for the Jackets. Later in the half, had had an inter-ception returned for a touchdown, putting the Jackets on the board as they cut the lead to 14-7.

he corner was defending both receivers on Iowa’s two early touchdown passes, though.

he bowl game marked the inal game in a Tech uniform for three starting seniors: left tackle Brad Sellers, right guard Cord Howard and outside linebacker Sedric Griin. hey were three of six scholarship seniors on the roster.

Additionally, four Tech ju-niors, including Dwyer, declared for the NFL Draft and so have also played their inal games for the Jackets.

Photo by Joey Cerone / Student Publications

Jonathan Dwyer is swarmed by Iowa defenders as he ights for yardage on a run play. Dwyer had just 49 yards

on the day and the Jackets as a team gained just 143 rushing yards, their second-lowest output of the season.

22 • January 15, 2010 • Technique SPORTS

Wommack released from football staf

By Matt HofmanOpinions Editor

On the same day that redshirt junior wide receiver Demaryius homas announced that he will forego his senior year at Tech to enter the NFL Draft, Head Coach Paul Johnson announced that de-fensive coordinator Dave Wom-mack will not return to his post next season.

“It is tough. I think Dave [Wommack] is a great man, and I think he is a very knowledgeable football guy. But it just was not working. You can stay status quo or you can try to get better. My goal is to get better.” Johnson said.

Wommack was named the de-fensive coordinator the same year that Johnson took over as head coach on the Flats.

he defense struggled last sea-son as it gave up 152 rush yards per game, compared to 120 yards the previous year.

he Jackets did lose three of their starting defensive linemen at the end of last season. he Jack-ets also struggled to get ofensive backield this season averaging under ive tackles for a loss per game this season, No. 92 among Football Bowl Subdivision teams.

Ultimately, many of the issues involving the defense appeared in the regular season inale against UGA and the ACC Champion-ship game against Clemson. he Jackets gave up over 300 yards in each game on the ground, and never forced either team to punt.

“I had pretty much made up my mind [prior to the Orange Bowl]. It was not a one game type of deal,” Johnson said.

he success of Tech’s ofense also put added pressure on the

defense as the Jackets averaged nearly 7 minutes more in time of possession than their opponents this season.

Johnson acknowledged that in-juries hurt the defense this season.

“I do not think there is any question that [the injuries to de-fensive players] hurt. We were thin up front to begin with. hen you lose… [junior defensive end] Robert Hall. [Sophomore line-backer] Kyle Jackson hurt us not being there depth-wise. But that is part of football,” Johnson said.

Wommack is not the irst coach to leave the Jackets at the conclusion of this season. Special Teams Coordinator and A-backs Coach Jef Monken accepted the head coaching job at Georgia Southern last month, but stayed on in his capacity with the Jackets through the Orange Bowl.

With recruiting season now in full swing with the end of the season, replacing the coaches will take major priority for Johnson.

Johnson did not answer any questions directly about any par-ticular replacement.

“We will sit down and try to make the best decision on who I feel gives us the best defense that we can have. I can assure you that nobody has been hired,” Johnson said.

When asked directly if he had talked to former Virginia head coach Al Groh about the position, Johnson said, “I have talked to a lot of people about the position.”

“I want to make sure we get the best coach. I would expect it to be sooner rather than later. News travels like wild ire in this profes-sion and I have already a gazillion [sic] inquiries about the position,” Johnson said.

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combined for 140 tackles.Dwyer was Tech’s most hyped

player entering the 2009 season and he did not disappoint. Dwyer led the team in rushing yards last season with 1,395 yards, match-ing his total from 2008. He also added 14 touchdowns.

Dwyer leaves as the school’s sixth-leading rusher with 3,226 yards. He also is second on the rushing touchdown list with 35. Dwyer’s success at Tech garnered national attention and he is pro-jected by NFL scouts as a late irst-round to early second-round pick.

“When I got my information back from the NFL and saw what round was projected, I knew it was the best it for me to have the opportunity to go play at the next level. I’ve dreamed about playing in the NFL since I was ive years old,” Dwyer said.

homas was the only Tech player to catch more than eight passes last season. He inished 2009 with 46 receptions for 1,154 yards and eight touchdowns. homas ended his career with 120 receptions for 2,339 yards and 14 touchdowns.

In Morgan, Tech loses its most productive defensive lineman. Morgan was tied for fourth in the nation in sacks with 12 and had a total of 18.5 tackles for loss. He was the 2009 ACC Defensive Player of the Year and a irst-team All-American. Morgan inished his Tech career with 19.5 sacks and six fumble recoveries.

Many NFL scouts project Morgan to be a top-10 selection in the draft, which would result in a multi-million dollar deal.

“I don’t necessarily think it was an easy decision, but it’s probably an easier transition, having that knowledge of possibly being a irst-round pick,” Morgan said.

Burnett was more successful in 2008 than 2009 statistically, but he still put up a solid season. He was second on the team with 85 tackles and led the team with four interceptions. Burnett leaves Tech tied for second with 14 career in-terceptions and 235 career tackles.

Burnett’s draft status is uncer-tain, but unlike Dwyer and Mor-gan he did not spend much time worrying about his draft stock.

“I really didn’t want to get caught up in the rounds, because I really didn’t pay attention to it. A lot of people were saying difer-ent things, so I never really paid attention to it—I just ignored it all,” Burnett said.

Over the next few weeks, the soon-to-be NFL players will be very busy. hey will drop out of school and train for the NFL combine on February 21-24, where they will get evaluated on a multitude of physical and mental tasks in preparation for the draft.

Photo by Tim Nowack / Student Publications

Derrick Morgan celebrates with fans after Tech’s victory over Wake Forest. Morgan, who will forgo his senior

season, was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year and is projected as a high irst-round pick in April’s NFL Draft.

Draft from page 24

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Technique • January 15, 2010 • 23 SPORTS

Volleyball wraps up successful ‘09 season, looks ahead to ‘10By Nishant Prasadh

Sports Editor

he uncertainty of playing under a completely new coach-ing staf did not deter Tech’s vol-leyball team in 2009. A deep and talented squad led by Head Coach Tonya Johnson inished the year 21-10 overall, including a 15-5 mark in ACC play, and qualiifed for the NCAA Tournament for the irst time since 2004.

It was Johnson’s irst season as a head coach after several seasons as an assistant at LSU and Texas, and she extended Tech’s streak of 20-win seasons to four.

“Overall, for our irst year and for the fact that we lost ive seniors and four of the ive were starters, and that’s probably more than half of the ofense, I thought it was a pretty good year,” Johnson said.

Senior middle blocker Brittany Roderick played for Johnson’s pre-decessor, Bond Shymansky, for three seasons and said the team had no trouble adjusting after the coaching change.

“[Johnson] just brought a lot more diferent coaching charac-teristics that I hadn’t had in a long time, and she’s very positive. It was a great transition—very, very smooth,” Roderick said.

Johnson’s preference to rely on her assistant coaches during games contrasted Shymansky’s more centralized coaching style.

“It’s nothing against Bond... diferent coaches have diferent strategies. Tonya is very inclusive with her whole staf; everyone had a say in everything, even during the game,” Roderick said. “I had never had a coach like that, but I really like that.”

“If our team sees the positive chemistry we have as a staf, then it trickles on down....We all have one common goal, and that is to win,” Johnson said.

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Photo by Robert Combier / Student Publications

Mary Ashley Tippins dives to make a dig during a contest at O’Keefe Gym. Tippins, who had 11.27 assists per

set and a team-leading 36 service aces, and Monique Mead were both AVCA All-America Honorable Mentions.

See Volleyball, page 20

he team had a strong year de-spite having a very young roster with only four upperclassmen—two juniors, libero Jordan Mc-Cullers and setter Mary Ashley Tippins, and two seniors, Rod-erick and outside hitter Chrissy DeMichelis. hanks to strong leadership from the coaching staf and the upperclassmen, the younger Jackets matured quickly.

“One of the things I stressed to the upperclassmen before we even got to the preseason was the fact that they would have to accept these freshmen with open arms in order for us to be successful. hey did a fantastic job with that,” Johnson said.

“hat was one of our goals from the start, to make sure [the freshmen] felt welcome and that we were like a family,” Roderick said.

What grew to be a memorable season for the team opened with one of the biggest games of the year, as the Jackets took on rival Georgia as part of the Georgia Tech Regency Suites Invitational.

With a capacity crowd packing O’Keefe Gym, Tech jumped out to a 2-0 set lead before the Bull-dogs rallied to win the next two sets. he Jackets took the decisive ifth set 16-14 to win the only battle between the two rival teams in 2009.

“[he win] was huge... not only for us but huge for Tonya, because in her irst head coaching game she’d be beating our rival. It was deinitely the biggest boost we could have gotten,” Roderick said.

Johnson’s past stints as an as-sistant introduced her to rivalries such as Texas-Oklahoma and LSU-Arkansas, but she said the local rivalry is just as notable.

“To have that kind of experi-ence in my irst match as a head coach was incredible. I had all kinds of feelings...the anxiety

about killed me,” Johnson said. After some challenging out-of-

conference matchups, the Jackets had great success once ACC play began and inished the year 15-5 in conference play, picking up a road victory over No. 15 Florida State along the way.

Perhaps Tech’s most impressive mark, though, was its 13-3 record in matches played at O’Keefe Gym. Roderick noted that the setup of the gym creates an en-vironment matched by few other NCAA teams.

“You go and look at a lot of the other places...and they play in these huge basketball coliseums

where they’re never going to ill up their coliseum. You just don’t get an environment like O’Keefe in any other place,” Roderick said.

Tech did not cruise through the season problem-free, though. One frequent on-court issue proved to be the team’s ability to close out sets after taking a late lead.

Johnson tried to address the odd struggles in practice. “One of the things we worked on was situ-ational play... we were just giving away too many runs, so we started putting ourselves in drill situa-tions to capitalize on that,” John-son said, noting that the team’s lack of experience likely contrib-

uted to the struggles.Still, the Jackets took advan-

tage of a very deep roster. Even with four talented upperclassmen and a freshman phenom in right-side hitter Monique Mead, it was two sophomores—outside hitter Bailey Hunter and middle blocker Asia Stawicka—who led the team in kills and blocks, respectively.

“I actually thought [Hunter] would be an All-ACC member... but that’s okay, because hopefully it’s put a little ire in her belly to want to prove people wrong next year,” Johnson said.

Sportssports@nique.netSports Editor:Nishant Prasadh

Assistant Sports Editor:Alex Mitchell

Season snapshots

Head Coach Tonya Johnson and senior Brittany Roderick look back on the vol-

leyball team's success in 2009423

Technique

24Friday,

January 15, 2010

Basketball trumps No. 5 Duke, falls to VirginiaBy Hahnming Lee Business Manager

hen-No. 17 Tech topped then-No. 5 Duke on Sunday at Alexander Memorial Coliseum (AMC), 71-67. It was the sec-ond straight home win against Duke after the Jackets beat the Blue Devils in 2007, 74-63.

Junior forward Gani Lawal led all Tech scorers with 21 points on eight-of-nine shoot-ing in just 23 minutes of play.

“Gani has been a great lead-er for our guys. He does a lot behind the scenes with these guys to get them pumped up,” said Head Coach Paul Hewitt.

Sophomore guard Iman Shumpert struggled in his irst home game after missing six games due to injury. He was one-of-nine from the ield with seven turnovers. he guard inished with eight points. He played 34 minutes.

To couple with his ofen-sive struggles, Shumpert had to guard Duke shooting guard Jon Scheyer. Scheyer contin-ued his streak of high-scoring games and was one of two Duke scorers with double-digit points, inishing with 25 points.

Freshman forward Derrick Favors had his second lowest season output in the nationally televised game, scoring seven points-all in the second half. He also had four turnovers.

“He’s never been challenged physically like this. He’s going to be a great player down the road, he’s a very good player now,” Hewitt said.

Duke jumped out to a 12-3 lead in the irst half, but Tech rallied back in what turned out to be a close half with six lead changes. Still, Duke went into the locker room with a six-point lead. Despite having arguably a decided size advan-tage, Tech was outrebounded in the irst half 21-16.

he second half had the roles reversed. he Jackets out-rebounded the Blue Devils 22-11. Tech rallied to tie the game at 60 with about two minutes left in the game and went on a 9-4 run to seal the victory.

“he whole game we talk-ed about playing with energy and efort...it was just simple adjustments [at half-time],” Hewitt said.

Despite two of Tech’s top players not performing well of-fensively, the team was able to hold Duke to one of its worst shooting games of the season.

he Blue Devils shot six-of-28 from the three-point line and only had nine points of production from All-Amer-ican forward Kyle Singler. Sin-gler was held to nine points on two-of-13 shooting. He also had four turnovers.

“He’s [Singler} a great player...I just think he had an

of-day,” Hewitt said. he win was Tech’s irst

win against a ranked opponent of the season. Tech has now beaten a top-5 team at home two years in a row. Last year, they defeated No. 4 Wake For-est late in the season, 76-74.

“It’s a great conidence boost to get a win like this. his team has a high ceiling,” Hewitt said.

No. 18 Tech failed to build on the win, dropping its open-ing ACC road game in a loss to UVA, 82-75. he loss drops Tech’s record to 12-4 and 1-2 in conference play.

Shumpert scored 15 points and had six assists in his fourth game coming back from his injury. Senior Zach Peacock led Tech in scoring, inishing with 19 points of the bench on eight-for-12 shooting.

Lawal, after being named ACC player of the week, was held to 12 points after aver-aging nearly 24 points in the last three games. After hitting at least 50 percent of his free throw shot attempts in every previous game of the season, he was two-of-six from the line.

he game was back and forth for much of the irst half, with nine lead changes and no lead larger than six points. Fa-vors scored 10 of his 12 total Photo by Joey Cerone / Student Publications

Derrick Favors goes for a layup over Duke’s Miles Plumlee during Saturday’s game

against the Blue Devils. Favors had seven points and eight rebounds in the victory.

Four Tech football juniors to skip senior seasons, enter NFL Draft

W-Basketball splits irst two ACC games

Photo by Kelvin Kuo / Student Publications

Demaryius Thomas stif-arms a Georgia defender en route to a long gain.

Thomas was one of four Tech juniors who elected to enter the NFL Draft early.

By Alex MitchellAssistant Sports Editor

Over a four-day span, the Tech football team learned that four of its best players would not be returning for their senior seasons.

Last Friday junior wide receiver Demaryius homas declared he would forgo his se-nior season and enter the NFL draft. On Monday, three more junior Jackets held a joint press conference to announce that they had made the same deci-sion: B-back Jonathan Dwyer, defensive end Derrick Morgan and safety Morgan Burnett.

he players mentioned that they prayed and talked to their families before coming to their decisions.

“With careful thought, consideration, and much prayer, I have decided to enter the 2010 NFL Draft,” Burnett said in his opening statement.

All four of the players will be tough to replace in the up-coming season. homas and Dwyer combined for 2,589 yards of total ofense last sea-son, and Morgan and Burnett

By Nishant PrasadhSports Editor

he No. 21 women’s bas-ketball team dropped its ACC opener but rebounded to im-prove to 1-1 in conference play in the following game. Tech dropped a battle of ranked teams last Wednesday, fall-ing 89-78 at North Carolina, but rebounded to take down Clemson at home 72-58.

he game against UNC saw the teams trade runs early on. he Jackets fell behind early but rallied with an 11-1 run to take a four-point lead six min-utes into the game, only to see UNC respond with a 13-2 run of their own.

he Tar Heels began to build a big lead late in the irst half. UNC guard Italee Lucas caught ire and scored nine straight points, and she con-tinued to lead the Tar Heels as they broke the game open.

he Jackets did not help their own cause, at one point committing turnovers on sev-en straight possessions. UNC closed the half on a 24-5 run and led 50-26 heading into halftime.

Early in the second half,

Tech was unable to cut into UNC’s lead, and in fact the Tar Heels expanded their lead to 27, leading 66-39 with 14:29 left. From there, though, the Jackets began to mount a comeback.

Junior guard Deja Foster and sophomore center Sasha Goodlett keyed a run of eight unanswered points. Tech be-gan to steal the ball and force UNC into turnovers, and after junior guard Alex Montgom-ery followed up a three-pointer with a pair of free throws, the lead was down to 13 with 7:41 left.

he Tar Heels tightened up from there, though, and the Jackets did not get any closer until the end of the game. UNC held on for the 89-78 win.

Four Jackets had at least 12 points apiece and senior forward Brigitte Ardossi and sophomore guard Mo Ben-nett both had double-digit rebounds, but Tech shot just 42.9 percent on free throws and 20 percent on three-point attempts. Lucas led UNC with 28 points on 9-of-14 shooting.

See Draft, page 22 See Women’s, page 20

See Men’s, page 20