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runners prepare for London race.

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Six UW-Eau Claire students coordinated and planned the ninth Civil Rights Pilgrimage

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EDITORIAL

Titanic is back!

Whatever happened to the mighty morphin’

Chancellor accepts position at Utah collegeInformation on the

transition to a new chancellor has yet to be released

By Katie Hoffman and Carolyn TiryCURRENTS EDITOR & EDITOR IN CHIEF

See CHANCELLOR, page 2A

Levin-Stankevich Rynish

Bait bikes program leads to arrest

Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich sent an email to all campus faculty and staff Tuesday from Salt Lake City announcing his new position as the president of West-minster College.

Levin-Stankevich will be Westminster’s 17th president, succeeding current presi-dent Michael Bassis, who is retiring this summer after a 10-year tenure.

“We are extremely pleased to have attracted a top caliber institutional leader to Westminster College,” Bassis said in a Westminster press release sent out Tuesday. “Bri-an (Levin-Stankevich) brings strong academic and administrative ex-perience to the position. I’m confident he will build on Westminster’s longstanding record of success.”

Westminster is a small, private in-stitution with an undergraduate enroll-ment of 2,500, compared to UW-Eau Claire’s 10,500.

The presidential search committee rec-

ommended Levin-Stankevich to the West-minster Board of Trustees from a pool of more than 60 applicants, according to a press release posted on the college’s web-site Tuesday. The release also stated the 31 member board voted unanimously to ap-point Levin-Stankevich, who has been the chancellor at Eau Claire since 2006.

“I am honored by the Board’s selec-tion to follow on the highly successful presidency of Michael Bassis,” Levin-Stankevich said in the release. “My wife, Debi, and I are truly excited to join the extraordinary faculty, staff and students at Westminster College and to become con-tributing members of the greater Salt Lake City community.”

Student Body President Phil Rynish said he thinks the chancellor has been a great as-

set to the university and very student-friendly. He added that even when ad-ministrators care deeply about a place, sometimes they look to other oppor-tunities that they might want to pursue.

“The chancellor has been a great leader for us here during the budget cut turmoil we’ve been going through,” Rynish said. “I have confi-dence that a committee will bring in some-one that is very capable of still navigating us through these tough times.”

Sad to see you go

Students returning to campus from spring break have noticed a significant change to lower campus. Over break, 59 trees were cut down to enable construction for the new education building, which is set to begin later in the spring and completed in late fall 2013, according to a university press release.

To help guide further campus tree removal, a group of biology and geography students undertook a re-search project to catalog all the trees on campus. Se-nior ecology and environmental biology major Kaleigh Spickerman said this involved taking photos and mea-surements of the trees and marking their location using

GPS and GIS technology. “We’ve so far only done the ones that they’ve cut

down. We still have to go back out and do all the ones that they left,” Spickerman said. “Hopefully, in a couple weeks, we’ll have all the field stuff done and then we’ll work on getting it into the computer.”

Spickerman said the project helped stoke her in-terest in plant ecology, as well as serving a more practical purpose.

“I’m planning on going to grad school so doing re-search is good for that,” Spickerman said. “I’m also in-terested in conservation as an aspect of ecology, so it’s nice to get some practical knowledge.”

By Spenser BickettCHIEF COPY EDITOR

University removed more than 50 trees to make way for education building

See TREES, page 2A

Early Sunday morning, university police were notified by a GPS track-ing system that one of their bait bikes was stolen from campus.

University police Lt. Jay Dob-son said the GPS units hidden on the bait bikes send alerts to officers via text message when

they are moved.“That information was then re-

layed to the patrol officer in a squad car who got a visual of the sus-pect riding the bike,” Dobson said. “Upon stopping the subject, the bike was identified as one of our bait bikes, and he was arrested for misdemeanor theft.”

The arrest of the 25-year-old

male was the first through the use of the bait bikes program, imple-mented last October in Eau Claire after 13 bikes valued at $5,000 were reported stolen from the Eau Claire campus from July 1 through Sept. 30.

University police catches 25-year-old male for stealing GPS-tracked bikeBy Katie Hoffman

CURRENTS EDITOR

See BIKES, page 2A

Over spring break, 59 trees were cut down to allow the start of the construction of the new education building. The con-struction is set to begin later this spring and be completed in late fall 2013.

GRAPHIC BY BRIAN MILLER/The SpectatorUW-Eau Claire alumnus Chris Langel went missing in the Pa-cific ocean after the fish boat he was in sank on March 10. The Coast Guard has suspended the searches.

Alumnus missing in Pacific OceanFormer biology major involved in fishing

boat accident, death unconfirmed

“It’s hard to describe. He’s just gone … I guess I’m just still so saddened about it.”

Chris Floyd, a biology professor, spoke of Chris Langel, a 2009 UW-Eau Claire graduate who went missing on March 10 in the middle of the night when his boat, the 70-foot vessel Lady Cecelia, sank into the Pacific Ocean 17 miles off the coast of Washington.

“I just took my students on a field trip and I told them, ‘I feel like Chris should be here,’” Floyd said, while looking at Langel’s Facebook page. “I know he grad-uated in 2009, but I feel like he should be here. It’s like if one of you weren’t here next time.”

Langel’s Facebook wall is covered with faculty, friends and family expressing grief over the sudden loss of their student, classmate and friend. Messages carrying senti-ments of “too soon,” “we miss you so much” and “you will never be forgotten” repeat over and over again.

The disappearanceLangel, along with three other crewmen, remain miss-

ing after being sent on an excursion to the west coast with the Alaska-based company, Saltwater Inc.

According to The Seattle Times, the ship went down so abruptly that there was no time for a distress call to be manually sent. The SOS signal was sent to the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, a device that sits atop the boat’s roof that sounds an alarm when it comes in con-tact with water.

Langel

By Emily Albrent and Emily GresbrinkCOPY EDITOR & NEWS EDITOR

See PACIFIC, page 4A

Columnist argues that movie re-dos are overdone.

CAL MCNEIL/The Spectator DEBORA BIASUTTI/The Spectator

Campus News2A •

CONTINUED FROM FRONTThursday, March 29, 2012 News Editors: Emily Gresbrink & Haley Zblewski

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In his letter of application to Westminster, Levin-Stankevich expressed his frustration with the political and public funding climate in Wisconsin. He wrote that it is his belief that private institutions are most able to focus first and foremost on education and their true missions.

“Our increasing dependence on tuition and fees would work if we had pricing control and the ability to more easily use institu-tional aid — but that’s held tight-ly by the legislature,” he wrote in the letter. “So our version of entrepreneurship is managing to do what is necessary in spite of the regulations.”

Marketing professor Chuck Tomkovick said he is happy for Levin-Stankevich, adding that he served the campus “well and no-bly.” Tomkovich said that he, as a university employee, is optimistic about the future but can see how the current political climate affect-ed the chancellor’s career decision.

“It’s challenging to be in ad-ministration in the Wisconsin system right now, and the future is highly uncertain,” Tomkovich said. “It makes me wonder if we won’t see more budget tighten-ing in the future, along with more administrators leaving.”

Junior Isaac Risseeuw reacted similarly to Tomkovick. He said he

thinks the politi-cal climate in Wis-consin doesn’t favor educators.

“I really can’t blame anyone for leaving the uni-versity in this cli-mate,” Risseeuw said. “I have oth-er professors that are leaving for jobs in other places.”

Although information regard-ing the transition to a new chan-cellor has yet to be released, Levin-Stankevich will begin his po-sition as president of Westminster College in June.

BIKES from page 1A

James Boulter is the sustainabil-ity fellow through the office of the chancellor, and was involved with the project. He said his job en-tails helping the university achieve carbon neutrality, which means no net greenhouse gas emissions.

When he first saw the plans for the new buildings on lower campus, Boulter said he realized that many mature, full-grown trees would be lost in the construction process.

“I never had a doubt that they were going to get replaced, but

my concern was, right off the bat, was you can’t replace a fully ma-ture tree,” Boulter said. “It’s going to radically alter the way the lower campus looks for the next 20 years.”

Boulter also said he then spoke with Student Senate president Phil Rynish, who is a biology major, about a tree inventory project.

“He had a project with one of Sean Hartnett’s classes, and he ended up doing a preliminary ver-sion of this for a class project,” Boulter said.

Rynish said the idea for the proj-ect came to both he and Boulter af-ter the two attended a sustainability conference in Pittsburgh.

“From that, we got the idea about doing the tree inventory, and then

we went from there,” Rynish said. Bringing together students from

multiple academic backgrounds helped bring a lot of knowledge to the project, Rynish said.

“Kaleigh’s got the expertise in tree identification, and then Tyler (Debruin) and I kind of did the ge-ography project,” Rynish said. “Ka-leigh’s a little bit more of the tree expert, and we fill in the rest.”

Sustainability is more than just cutting carbon emissions, Rynish said, it’s also about ecology.

“Part of sustainability is preserv-ing what we do have, so it kind of fits into that,” Rynish said.

For now, campus will look a little bare in order to make way for the new buildings.

TREES from page 1A

Boulter

According to data from University Police, an addition-al nine bikes were reported stolen on campus from Oct. 1 through Jan. 31.

Dobson wouldn’t comment on the number of bait bikes currently on campus, but with construction and lack of parking on campus, he said he’s seeing a lot more students using bikes to get around.

“When it comes to thefts that we investigate on campus, bikes rank right up there with the most commonly stolen item on campus,” Dobson said. “We were seeing these num-bers of bikes being stolen, so we’re just trying to think of ways to try to curb that.”

Senior Graeme Lewis said he rides his bike to campus when the weather is nice, but hasn’t lately due to a rusted bike lock. He said he knows of students whose bikes were stolen in the past, and that’s not a risk he’s willing to take.

“I think it’s good that they caught somebody with this program,” Lewis said. “It proves that it’s working. These things take time, and now that the biking season is begin-ning, there are more likely thieves to be caught.”

The bait bike program is funded with a $3,400 grant through the Wisconsin Office of Justice. The grant money bought the GPS units, along with the service subscription to send the tracking information via text message and infor-mational pamphlets and bright yellow “This Could Be a Bait Bike” stickers.

Although just one arrest has come from the program, Dobson said he thinks the program is still effective — espe-cially due to the deterrence factor and public awareness of bike thefts.

“Even though we’ve only had one arrest, part of the pro-gram is detection and apprehension of bike thieves,” he said. “Hopefully somebody will not want to risk getting caught because they don’t know what’s a bait bike and what’s not.”

CHANCELLOR from page 1A

Risseeuw

RE-ELECT KATHRYNDUAX

*QUALIFIED -- 37 years as a music professor at UWEC

*EXPERIENCED -- 3 years on the Eau Claire School Board

*DEDICATED –to our children’s future, great teachers, and community involvement

Auth. and Pd. by Friends of Kathryn Duax, J. Erdman, Treas.

K O R E A N F O O D2823  London  RoadEau  Claire,  WI  54701715.952.3456Mon-­Thurs  11am-­9pmFri-­Sat    11am-­10pm

WWW.THEKIMCHICAFE.COM

Now Open

for Lunch!

Chancellor starts in Utah college in June

Biology and geography students catalogued, measured trees

Thursday• 4to5:30p.m.Martin

Morgensen Educa-tion Lecture: Chris-tine Sleeter, Ph.D.HibbardHumanitiesHall.

Friday• 12to1:30p.m. Majors

and Student Services Fair. DaviesCenter.

• 7:30to10p.m. Jazz Fest Concert — Part I. MemorialHighSchool.

Saturday• 4:30to5:30p.m.

Jazz Fest Concert. ZornArena.

• 8p.m.Mixgenre Mix-tape, I Am Daniel, and Lorelei. TheCabin,DaviesCenter.

Sunday• 7:30to9p.m.Faculty

April Fools Concert. GantnerConcertHall,HaasFineArts.

Campus News3AThursday, March 29, 2012 •

As a service to the community, The Spectator publishes upcoming events. Events must be su mitted to The Spectator office by 5 p.m. Monday for the Thursday issue and will be published as space allows.

Campus CalendarR E C U R R I N G

E V E N T SCampus Film Series:

“Sector 7 ( 7 gwanggu)”Davies Theatre, Davies Center

6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Thur. - Sun.

Eau Claire Progressive Film Festival

Various Rooms, Hibbard Hall7:30-10 p.m. Fri.

1-10 p.m. Sat 1-10 p.m. Sun.

7:30-10 p.m. Mon.-Wed.

News Editors: Emily Gresbrink & Haley Zblewski

The Police Blotter is compiled from campus police files. All names have been withheld. Call 9-1-1 to report emergencies. Call the Anonymous Tipster Line at 855-5555 to report suspicious activity that is not in progress.

During their Monday meet-ing, the Student Senate passed abill via voice vote in support of cooperation between UW-EauClaire,thestateof Wisconsinandthe city of Eau Claire regardingthe construction of the SummitAvenuebridge.Thebillstatesthatbecausethe

current levelof thebridge railingat34inchesisbelowwaist-levelof the average adult, it is unsafe forpedestrianstocross.Steph Mabrey, director of the

Student Services Commission of the Student Senate, said a changeneeds to be made for the safetyof students.“Thegoal is toget therailings

higherbecausetheyonlycomeuptoabout(waistlevel)onme,whichis not tall enough,” Mabrey said.“It’s not a bridge you can safelycrosswithabike.”ThewaterbeneaththeSummit

Avenue bridge is shallow, addingan even greater risk of injury ordeath for pedestrians should theyfallfromthebridge,thebillstated.The bridge is currently owned

bythestateof Wisconsinbecauseit is considered a state highway.The state plans to reconstruct itand turn over ownership to thecityof EauClairein2015,accord-ingtothebill.

The bill is meant to urge thecity of Eau Claire to move upthedateof construction tobe assoonaspossiblefor thesafetyof pedestrians, including students,Mabreysaid.Mabreysaidthatif thebridge

isnotmodifiedsooner,itcouldbeharmfultothesafetyof individu-alswhousethebridge.“With the construction of

campus, a lot of studentswill beforced to take it coming to theuniversity,”shesaid.The bill also states that the

height of therailings on theSummit Av-enue bridge arean even great-er hazard forthose walkingthe bridge whileinebriated. Thisis a problem be-cause the bridgelinksWaterStreetto areas of student housing andotherresidences.Mabreysaid that thebill isbe-

ing passed now so Student Sen-ate can start working on gettingthe date of construction movedup. She said it will be somethingthesenateworksona littleat theendof thissemester,butissome-thingthatwillbepassedontonextsemester’ssenators.

STUDENT SENATE

By Haley ZblewskiNEWS EDITOR

Bill to increase bridge safety passes Summit Avenue railings too short, bill says

A shattering mysteryMonday, March 19

At 5:48 p.m., a male stu-dent called the University Po-lice about his vehicle, whichhad been hit by an unknownvehicle in the Oak Ridgeparkinglot.Uponarrival,anofficermet

withthemanintheparkinglotandlookedatthecar.Therearright taillight and brake light

were shattered,and scratches andcuts were on thelower right panelof thecar’sbody.The man said

he parked his carat 5 p.m. and returned at 12p.m. the next day, finding thedamage.Healsosaidhedidn’tknowanyonewhowouldhavedoneit.The officer gave him

information to get a copyof the accident report, thenchecked theparking lot to seeif any cars were consistentwiththedamage.Nocarswerefound and the officer clearedthescene.

Mabrey

Campus News4A • Thursday, March 29, 2012 News Editors: Emily Gresbrink & Haley Zblewski

call (715)836-4416 any timeor stop in at HHH 104

After the Wisconsin Department of Justice closed a nine-month investigation into Eau Claire’s high gas prices, unhappy community members believe there’s more to the story.

Two UW-Eau Claire faculty members in particular, together with the Eau Claire City Council and student support, are on a mission to find the answer.

Assistant professor of economics Lau-ra Middlesworth, along with assistant pro-fessor of geography Ryan Weichelt, plans to spend the summer collecting and ana-lyzing in-depth economic and geographi-cal data of the Eau Claire fuel market and comparing it to similar areas.

“When you compare gas prices in Eau Claire to other areas, cities and towns in Western Wisconsin, the gas prices in Eau Claire consistently seem to be higher,” Middlesworth said. “The public certainly notices these details and they want some explanation.”

While the state’s initial investigation looked into price collusion (or deliber-ate manipulation of prices) among local gas owners, Weichelt said his committee’s investigation is aimed towards examining

the entire surrounding gas industry in or-der to better serve the community.

“The biggest thing that we’re interest-ed in is that if things are higher — which it seems that they are a little bit higher — is to help people out because gas prices are going up and up and up,” he said. “If we’re finding that it is higher, it’s going to save people a little bit of money.”

City Council member David Duax said that for almost three decades, local gas prices in the Chippewa Valley have inexplicably been among the highest and most uniform in the state.

“In particular in the Eau Claire market, what has been misunderstood for many, many years, is why Eau Claire is always the high gas price leader in Wisconsin,” Duax said. “The other phenomenon in

Eau Claire is all of our prices are always identical at every station and have been for a long time.”

Weichelt pointed out that the lack of differences in gas prices is odd, and if consumers are made aware of this issue, it might put pressure on companies to drive the prices down and save people — especially commuting students — money.

“It doesn’t sound like a lot — five cents — but (with) a ten or thirteen gallon tank, that’s sixty, seventy cents,” Weichelt said. “You start adding up four, five years that students are at Eau Claire and that can add up to a significant amount of money.”

The summer investigation is open to Eau Claire students interested in earning service learning credit. Middlesworth said

that this is an excellent opportunity for students to apply learned concepts out-side of the classroom setting.

She added that they plan to present their results to the City Council, the local media and possibly at student re-search day next fall.

“This is one of these situations where we felt like students could use the skills and that knowledge that they’re learning in the classroom, and use it to help explain something that’s actually happening,” Middlesworth said.

Duax explained that they will be very proactive in their approach and will meet with company owners to discuss the lo-cal market issues if necessary.

“If we feel there’s some anti- competitive activity there, then we need to report it to the appropriate authorities to investigate,” Duax said.

Middlesworth and Weichelt said they lack the authority or resources to actu-ally prosecute anyone for criminal be-havior, but will strive for the betterment of both students and the community as a whole.

“We’re not going after anyone,” Weichelt said. “We’re just trying to help the students make the connection and also help the city out.”

Two professors to lead gas price investigationEau Claire City Council to partner with faculty in attempt to determine why prices remain so high

He has worked with several Olympic marathon runners and world record breakers who call him “The Professor of Marathon.” In the past, he has made maps for the New York, Boston and Chicago marathons.

Now, he’s taking his talents across the pond to the biggest stage in athletics: the Olympics.

Sean Hartnett, a UW-Eau Claire geography professor, was approached by London Mara-thon officials to profile the marathon course for the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Hartnett said he was taken aback by the offer at first.

“I’ve made a lot of pro-files,” he said, “but not for the Olympics.”

Hartnett said he had produced maps for the London Marathon, a notoriously big race, and that’s what led him to be asked for the Olympics.

The goal of Hartnett’s map is to give the c o m p e t i t o r s a look ahead at the course’s turns and eleva-tion levels, so as to be more prepared when the gun fires. Hartnett noted that runners — especially Olym-

pic-caliber runners — like to do their homework for races like this.

And they might need to. Turns can be tricky for runners and Hartnett said there are more turns in this course than in any other profile he has produced — a total of over 110.

“Much like a car if it goes around a turn, you’ve got to slow down and speed up,” he said. “Most things you like to do in a marathon you like to do efficiently, but slowing and speed-ing up takes more energy.”

Senior Scott Lewis is in Hart-nett’s geospatial technologies class and said that Hartnett was very humble about the whole thing.

“It’s like a normal day in his classroom and had I not discov-

ered the article in the local town paper (The Leader Telegram), I may have never known he was assist-ing with the 2012 Olympics,” Lewis said.

Olympic marathons tend to take the runners past famous land-marks in each Olympic city, so Hartnett’s map sends competitors by Big Ben, the Tower of London and down near the Thames River, all with a variety of elevations, a main feature of the map.

Hartnett’s graphic shows elevation at different kilometer markers, which helps runners determine how to pace their runs to give themselves whatever advantage they can.

A lot of geographical thinking goes into preparation, Hartnett

said, but also in post-race analy-sis. He has made many post-race maps for different marathons that show runners’ times in relation to their location in the race as well, all which feature his own photo-graphs of the runners and data.

But all in all, the “Professor of Marathon” said he’s proud to see Eau Claire’s “hyphenated name” on a map that people from all over the world will see.

Lewis said that Hartnett’s all too deserving of having his work featured in such a big way.

“I for one, am proud to have him as not only one who profess-es many aspects of geography,” Lewis said, “but shares his work, experiences and knowledge to all of those who ask.”

Geography professor maps Olympic marathon routeMap to help competitors prepare for summer race; path takes runners past famous London spots

The signal was reached at a Coast Guard station in Warrenton, Ore., at 3:37 a.m. on March 10. After the sig-nal was reached, a Coast Guard helicopter located the spot where the call came from and flew over the area. All that was left was oil and a life raft.

The search was suspend-ed on March 11 with the no-tion that the men were dead. The ship’s disappearance is still undergoing investigation.

According to the Saltwater Inc. website, since 1988 the com-pany has been an industry leader in the design and implementation of fishery and marine mammal observer programs. Every year the company hires over 250 ma-rine observers who collect fishery data for many public, private, and foundation clients.

As stated in the Leader- Telegram by Saltwater Inc CEO Tim Carroll, “Saltwater has had vessel incidents in the North Pacific before, but we have nev-er lost an observer," he said. "This is extremely rare that this would happen."

However, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states in a Commercial Fish-ing Safety article from 2011 that commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs with extremely high fatalities. More than half of all of the deaths occurred from a vessel disaster.

“I don't think it’s any more dangerous than rush hour in Seattle,” Floyd said, “but it’s definitely rough — you're in a boat off the coast of Oregon and those are some big waves, even the best surfers in the world can't handle those. But yet, I think this thing is not terribly un-usual, even for these huge vessels to disappear.”

Remembering a star student

Langel studied ecology and environmental biology during his time at Eau Claire and left a lasting impact on the biology department, working at the reef fish tanks and performing well in classes, Floyd said.

He added that Langel quickly found work and started a career on boats in the Pacific waters,

most likely working his way up to working in the fishing industry.

Floyd, who was Langel’s former advisor during col-lege, remembers seeing his final Facebook post and not hearing much until the boat went down — the first post of his disappear-ance came from Langel’s father.

“If you look at what peo-ple are writing, people are heartbroken,” Floyd said. “It's just so sad ... obviously when you lose someone, it’s a natural response to be shocked, he was so young.”

He stopped to look at pictures of Langel at work, spending time with friends and the dozens of sentiments left behind. He closed the computer window and paused to think.

“Chris was amazingly ener-getic. He just loved living. And when he started applying that personality to classes, that’s where I got to notice him and follow him,” he said. “He's like my own son in some ways, be-cause I watched his progres-sion. We (the biology depart-ment) all feel the same way. We're heartbroken.”

By Eric ChristensonOP/ED EDITOR

By Anna SoldnerCOPY EDITOR

“You start adding up four, five years that

students are at Eau Claire and that can add

up to a significant amount of money.”

ERIC WEICHELT Assistant professor of geography

PACIFIC from page 1A Coast Guard search suspended March on 11, crew presumed dead

SUBMITTED PHOTOChris Langel (above) studied ecology and biology at UW-Eau Claire and graduated in 2009. Langel‘s former advisor Chris Floyd said Langel was “like my own son in some ways.”

Hartnett

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CurrentsThursday, March 29, 2012 • 5Awww.spectatornews.comCurrents Editor: Katie Hoffman

Ally Frosch said many pieces of dance choreography made on campus in the past year could be related to relationships.

Frosch, a senior psychology major and a member of the upcoming pro-gram Danceworks, also explained how the connection can be made from re-lationships to this year’s Danceworks theme, “Convergence.”

“We think about what the general theme of our pieces are,” Frosch said. “This year it is a lot about relationships. Either relationships coming together, or relationships splitting apart, and that really resounds in each piece.”

Danceworks is an annual produc-tion put on by the members of the Concert Dance Company, and fea-tures 11 choreographed pieces, nine of which are student led. The cast in-cludes students and usually one or two professors choreographing.

Julie Fox is the director of Dance-works and a professor of dance at UW-Eau Claire. She said students prepare for Danceworks all year, and the show is the culmination of all their hard work.

“The show is big,” Fox said. “It’s the biggest. This is our annual program con-cert, so in a big sense everything we work for is preparing toward these three days.”

Six choreographers return to this year’s

show, along with the addition of three new student participants.

Senior Caitlin Rathburn said she thinks the new cast members will bring a dynamic side of the performance that audience members may not have seen in previous years.

“I think this year is really special be-cause we have some new choreogra-phers who are evolving and then a lot of old choreographers that are expand-ing,” Rathburn said. “They’re trying new things and I think that is really exciting, and I think the work this year is extreme-ly developed.”

Rathburn co-choreographed a piece called “Disconnected,” which she said has a somewhat comical feel to it. She also produced her own piece named “Morning Circumference,” in which the six females dancers portray a seemingly endless cycle of being a college student.

Both Fox and Rathburn encourage the student population as well as the general population to see Danceworks Thursday through Saturday, especially if they’ve never previously been to a dance performance.

Fox said dance is comparable to music and thinks people should give Danceworks a chance.

“Think about how you respond to music: responding to dance is very simi-lar,” Fox said. “You are responding to motion, and how people connect … it

can be a parallel relationship to how you make meaning out of music.”

Rathburn said anyone who attends the program could make a connec-tion to one, if not many pieces in this year’s production.

“There’s a little something for ev-eryone,” Rathburn said. “We want ev-

eryone sitting in that audience to take something different away from it and interpret it in their own way. We invite them to come to any understanding or conclusion of our pieces that they would like.”

The show takes place 7:30 p.m. Thurs-day through Saturday at Kjer Theatre.

Relationships abound in dance productionUW-Eau Claire Concert Dance Company to perform “Danceworks 2012: Convergence”

Going from “Barney & Friends” in preschool to “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” in kindergarten was quite the improvement for me as a 5-year-old.

All of a sudden the emphasis changed from edu-cational songs to kicking ass. Half the kids in school weren’t even allowed to watch it, making the show even more awesome.

It didn’t matter that every episode was essentially the same; the change of pace from “Barney” was incredible.

Long story short, in every episode the Rangers would run into a new bad guy who couldn’t handle the Rang-ers and would always wind up becoming the size of a skyscraper. It wasn’t ever a big deal though, because each Ranger had their own animal-shaped-vehicle-thing that could morph into a part of the Ranger’s own gigantic ro-bot called Megazord!

After what always seemed to be a slow start, the Rang-ers would end up destroying the bad guy, thanks to great leadership from the Red Ranger.

Joining the Red Ranger in the journey were two other guy rangers — black and blue — and the pink and yellow girl rangers.

One of the huge reasons for the show’s success (other than the violence) was the Power Ranger-themed action figures that every cool kid had. You could buy the animal-shaped-vehicle-thing for each ranger and literally morph them into your own Megazord. It was like Transformers on steroids.

I can still recall the one and only time I saw all of them together in the form of Megazord at a friend’s house. It was something I never thought I’d see, which made it the coolest thing ever. Just take my word for it.

The original version of “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” aired from 1993-1995 and has existed every year since in some form of a spin-off. There have been 16 total spin-offs, and the current version is called “Power Rang-ers Samurai.” There have also been two movies, a play, four video games and a card game based off the series.

All of this goes to show just how much success the franchise has achieved, but in my opinion, nothing can ever replace the original Mighty Morphin’ version.

SUBMITTED PHOTOSeniors Ally Frosch and Caitlin Rathburn perform “Intersection” at Concert Dance Compa-ny’s 2011 holiday concert. The dance uses movement to express different paths taken in life.

By David HeilingSTAFF WRITER

By Frank F. PellegrinoSPORTS EDITOR

I never imagined I would be so invested in another worldwide ad-diction to a film franchise based on a book series at 22 years old. I was ob-sessed with “Harry Potter,” but now I have a new mega-addiction that showed up nearly overnight: “The Hunger Games.”

“The Hunger Games” book trilogy is being compared to the Harry Potter and Twilight fame, but this time, the craziness seems to be exploding past these film franchises. The screen ad-aptation of the first book was released at midnight on March 23 and grossed $214.3 million worldwide ($155

million from North American sales) during the opening weekend, accord-ing to Reuters.

The film broke numerous records for opening weekend ticket sales, including the highest film sales for a spring release and the third high-est opening weekend sales ever in Hollywood next to the final film of the “Harry Potter” series and “The Dark Knight,” according to an ar-ticle in The New York Times.

For those who are not completely engrossed in the first book and film, “The Hunger Games” involves a fu-turistic society split into 12 districts controlled by the Capitol.

Each year, to keep the citizens of the districts from uprising, the Capitol

hosts a televised “battle to the death” reality show, starring 24 children from the ages of 12 to 18 — a boy and a girl from each district — in a Capitol-controlled arena.

I was instantly hooked after watch-ing the film’s trailer 20 times and read-ing the first book in a single night.

My interest then morphed into a super obsession after spending 10 hours in the cold outside of Mall of America to get a wristband for a meet and greet with six of the cast members of the first film. I ended up meeting the cast, including the extremely beau-tiful and my new (imaginary) girlfriend, Jennifer Lawrence.

My obsession peaked while I was walking into the movie theater last weekend. This film was by far the best adaptation I have seen of a book. I cried during a few dramatic death scenes, and I nearly wet myself from pure shock during the last few heart-stopping scenes. Even the tweens sit-ting near me could not break my death stare from the screen.

Film adaptations have been in-creasingly accurate and true to the books throughout the blockbusters re-leased in the last decade, and this film is no exception. Minus a few minor details that would be too hard to ex-plain within this review, the film was very true to the book, which made me — and I am sure thousands of others — very happy.

The first 15 minutes of the film were the worst because of the extreme shake of the camera. It did not bother me as much, but I have talked to numer-ous people who said they felt nauseous because of it.

A reviewBy Cal McNeilPHOTO EDITOR

See GAMES, page 6A

CAL MCNEIL/The SpectatorJosh Hutcherson, who plays Peeta in “The Hunger Games,” answers questions for the thousands of fans with Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss, on March 9 at the

I realized that even though I make new reci-pes for this column every week, I haven’t had a nice home-cooked dinner in a long time.

As students, we’re so busy with school, work, extra-curriculars and hav-ing a social life that it seems that food is low on the list

of priorities. But eating a well-balanced meal at least once a week is important to staying healthy.

So here is my first one: chicken-penne florentine bake. I found it on the Kraft Foods website.

When I make pasta dish-es, I usually start by boiling the noodles so I can multi-task and prepare the other ingredients while the pasta cooks. Pour two cups of penne in a pot and cook it on the stove at a medium-high temperature.

While you’re doing that, cut thawed chicken breasts into bite-size pieces. The rec-ipe calls for one pound, but use the amount you’d like or whatever you already have in the fridge. I only had two chicken breasts, but I

wish I had used more. Three or four might be a better choice.

Next, pour sundried to-mato vinaigrette dressing into a large skillet. Throw in the chicken bits and sauté for a few minutes. Once those

are cooked through, add one cup of chicken broth and Neufchatel cheese. It’s kind of like cream cheese but tastes milder.

TUESDAY WUSTRACK/The Spectator

See PASTA, page 6A

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers

Currentswww.spectatornews.comCurrents Editor: Katie Hoffman Thursday, March 29, 2012 • 6A

There were a few things I think could have been improved besides the nausea-inducing first few scenes.

First, a more extreme portrayal of the Capitol and its residents betting on who would die in the games — I despised those people so much in the book. Also, more about President Snow, the leader of the Capitol, and Caesar Flickerman, host of the reality show who broadcasts the mas-sacre on television could have been a lot crazier to match the book better.

Second, the relationships between the main character Katniss Everdeen, who vol-unteers to compete in the Hunger Games to save her younger sister, and her close friend Gale and her mother would have created a better connection between the characters. Instead, the film only touches on them and periodically shows the two characters, which

really made the dynamic between them fall apart.

Other than those suggestions, the film was filled with a great cast that fit the char-acters in the books very well. When I was at the question and answer session at Mall of America, the cast members all men-tioned that they were avid readers of the trilogy. I believe that made them much bet-ter actors because they really cared about their characters and made sure to portray them in a way that connected to the book.

I am currently trying to find time to go see the film again, and I recommend it to anyone who wants action, romance, a good cry and a great film adaptation that truly respects the work of the author. The film’s trailer says, “The games will change ev-eryone,” and I definitely felt moved after seeing the film.

Walking the streets in downtown Eau Claire on Friday night, one might think they are walking onto New York City’s his-toric 52nd Street in 1938.

The sounds of trumpets, saxophones, drums, piano and bass will be flowing from a variety of venues on South Bartsow Street in Eau Claire this weekend as the 45th an-nual Eau Claire Jazz Festival kicks off.

“The idea for 52nd Street grew out of some work the board and planning com-mittee did to focus more closely with the community to have different venues play downtown,” said Patty Horecki, executive director of the Jazz Festival.

Horecki said the Jazz Festival is a four day event hosted by Eau Claire Jazz Inc. every spring to promote a cultural expe-rience. The festival is one of the largest and oldest events allowing local, nation-al and international artists to showcase their talent.

“I would love for students to come out to enjoy the free events on and off cam-pus,” Horecki said. “We really want to educate, entertain and inspire those who already are loyal listeners and new audience of jazz. We want people to understand that jazz is at the root of almost all the music they listen to today.”

Sophomore Josh Huot-Gallus said he is excited to listen to jazz in venues around the city.

“You can see combos playing and not just student ones, but also professional ones,” Huot-Gallus said. “That’s great — it’s a lot of live music all night.”

The festival will be hosting jazz perfor-mances at Memorial High School on Friday and Saturday night. Grammy-winner John Patitucci and internationally known trom-bonist Andy Martin will be headlining both nights along with UW-Eau Claire’s Jazz Ensemble I. On Friday night the artists

will be joined by the College Honor Band, while on Saturday the High School Honors Bands will play.

“I always thought the Jazz Festival was meant only for music majors but I am really excited I can go and see Andy Martin and John Patitucci,” junior Ashley Backer said.

Along with the evening performances, there will be clinics, master classes, lectures, visual art exhibits of jazz and a variety of other concerts throughout the weekend. Martin and Patitucci both have clinics on Friday and Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. in Schofield Hall, and local artists will also be hosting some of the clinics.

“A lot of this festival is taken on by stu-dents,” Horecki said. “They volunteer, they set up, they tear down, they sell things.”

For more information on the festival and to buy tickets, visit www.eauclairejazz.com.

GAMES from page 5A

By Kortney HolbrookFREELANCER

All that jazzEau Claire Jazz Fest features local, national musicians

CAL MCNEIL/The SpectatorJosh Hutcherson, Jennifer Lawrence and Isabelle Fuhrman, all members of “The Hunger Games” cast, wave to thousands of fans at the Mall of America on March 9.

Film a true adaptation of bestselling fiction book

SUMBITTED PHOTOJohn Patitucci is one of many musicians per-forming during the Eau Claire Jazz Festival.

While that cooks, thaw out a package of frozen chopped spinach in the microwave. I put it in for three minutes.

Once that is done, drain excess water out and then add that to the chicken and sauce. Drain the pasta and add it to the mix.

While the recipe doesn’t call for it, I thought that onion flavor would taste really good, so I just threw in a couple shakes of dried minced onion. You could

add any spice or vegetable as well.

Pour half the mixture into a baking dish. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top and pour the remaining amount of the pasta mix-ture on top of that. To fin-ish it off, layer on Parmesan cheese. Bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

What’s great about pas-ta recipes is that you can add almost anything to it. Include as much cheese,

spinach and chicken as you want. You could omit any of those ingredients and add in anything else. For example, if you don’t like chicken, you could add beef or shrimp.

Not only did this recipe taste great, but it also will give me a few meals for the week. I don’t have to resort to microwave meals or fast food anymore!

PASTA from page 5A

Wustrack is a senior English major and staff writer of The Spectator.

Not looking forward to seeing the Eau Claire Police Dept. in your rearview mirror?

DON’T DRINK AND

DRIVE

DON’T DRINK AND

DRIVE

Playing ten games in the span of a week proved to be a trying experience for the UW-Eau Claire softball team. But with a 5-5 record at the NTC Spring Games in Florida over spring break, the team managed to hold its own against some stiff competition.

Coach Leslie Huntington said the Blugolds, ranked 14th in the most recent National Fastpitch Coaches Association poll, learned a lot about where they stand at this early point of the season.

“I think we saw the type of potential that this team has,”

Huntington said. “I was just a little disappointed at the end of the week when we kind of let the fatigue dictate how we played.”

The team started the 10-game stretch hot, allowing only six runs in its first six games, going 4-2 over that span. Pitching was a key to the team’s success, with senior Ashley Meinen and sopho-

more Emma Wishau dominating the opposition.

In her first three appearances, two of which were starts, Mein-en allowed only two earned runs in 14 innings. Wishau was even better, not allowing an earned run over 20 innings in her first three starts of the Games.

“I think we saw the type of

potential this team has.”

LESLIE HUNTINGTONSoftball Coach

SportSThursday, March 29, 2012 • 1Bwww.spectatornews.comSports Editor: Frank F. Pellegrino

Gymnasts take fifthBest finish at Nationals since ’05; sophomore wins title on beam

The UW-Eau Claire gymnastics team earned fifth place at the 2012 National Collegiate Gym-nastics Association Championship last Friday and Saturday. It was their best finish since 2005 and the Blugolds’ 183.700 points was their highest to-tal of the season.

Coach Jean DeLisle said the preparation process was hard for the team at times after having such a long layoff af-ter the March 3 conference meet. Because of that, DeLisle said she was especially pleased that the team didn’t let it affect their performance.

“During that three long week stretch … it was hard to keep the motivation really high,” she said. “But we got there, they picked it right back up and didn’t miss a beat.”

The individual competition was highlighted by five All-Amer-ican finishes for the Blugolds, in-cluding one national title.

Leading the way was sophomore Mi-chaela McCamey with her first place finish on the balance beam. McCamey’s score of 9.650 tied her previous career-high mark in that event.

McCamey said that it felt great to stick her rou-tine at the meet that mattered most.

“Basically, as the routine went on and I stuck each skill, I think I just smiled throughout the whole routine,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier with how it ended up.”

With her first place finish, McCamey became just the fourth Blugold gymnast ever to win a Na-tional title, and the first since 2006. Having her name added to the history books is something McCamey said still feels surreal.

“It definitely is an honor to be a part of that,

I can’t even believe it myself,” she said. “I’m just happy to have had the opportunity.”

Also earning All-American honors were soph-omore Olivia Aschenbrenner and junior Danielle Schulzetenberg in the all-around competition. Aschenbrenner tied for seventh place while Schul-zetenberg tied for ninth.

DeLisle said having two gymnasts from the same team finish in the top 10 was nothing short

of amazing.“First of all, to have two all-arounders on a team is get-

ting to be less and less common,” De Lisle said.

“So, to have both of our all-arounders fin-ish as All-Americans is fantastic.”

Both gymnasts also put together strong performances on the second day in individ-

ual events. Schulzeten-berg tied for third with

her routine on the floor exercise, earning her first

team All-American honors.Schulzetenberg said she was

pleased with her season-best score of 9.650 in the event she feels has been her strongest all season.

“I was really excited when I made finals,” she said. “I just went out the second day and had a lot of fun and gave it all I’ve got just to have no regrets.”

Aschenbrenner competed individually in the uneven bars and took eighth place to earn second team All-American status.

Coach DeLisle said she was happy to see Aschenbrenner place in the top 10 because she has been so consistent in that event throughout the season.

FILE PHOTO BY FRANK F. PELLEGRINO/The SpectatorSophomore Michaela McCamey does her balance beam routine at the confer-ence meet on March 3 in McPhee Center. Last Saturday, McCamey placed first in beam at Nationals, becoming just the fourth Blugold to ever take first.

By Frank F. PellegrinoSPORTS EDITOR

See GYMNASTICS, page 2B

Swimming tallies All-American awardsTeams compete at 2012 NCAA Championships,

individuals earn honors in five different events

The men’s and women’s swim and dive teams took home sev-eral All-American honors at the 2012 NCAA Div. III meet on Saturday. The women’s team tied for 28th place overall, while the men tied for 32nd.

Women Senior Nicole Dorvinen par-

ticipated in five events at Nation-als, two of which were relays. Since it was her last year getting to compete, she said she wanted to make sure she left her mark.

“I just went into my final meet of my collegiate year say-ing, ‘Last one, best one,’ leaving it all in the pool,” Dorvinen said. “I had to go out with a bang.”

Dorvinen broke her own school record in the 400 individ-ual relay twice — first in the pre-liminaries and then again in the finals. She placed fifth overall and earned her way to first team All-American honors.

Dorvinen said that her im-provement from the conference meet made all the difference to her.

“I was pretty happy with my time,” she said. “At conference I wasn’t really pleased with how I swam, so being able to go faster at Nationals I was pretty happy about.”

Dorvinen’s next best indi-vidual finish came on the final day when she placed 12th in the 1,650- yard freestyle, good enough for All-American hon-orable mention.

Junior Grace Fair also quali-fied for Nationals in five events, four of which were relays. Fair

was at the meet for the second straight year and said that com-petition at Nationals is so in-tense that it was a bit intimidat-ing the first time around.

“The second year you are just more confident and excited, less nervous,” she said.

Fair had a 16th place finish as a member of the 400-yard freestyle relay team, earning the swimmers A l l - A m e r i -can honor-able mention. Joining her on the team were seniors Kristen Lickel

and Julia Olson and sophomore Kristin Peters.

“That is really special to all of us that ... have been on it for several years,” Fair said. “All this season (it was) that same group of four of us, so it was a little emotional,” Fair said.

MenJunior Nick Badilla compet-

ed in 1-meter and 3-meter dives at Nationals and was one of two men to qualify for the meet. Prior to this year, Badilla had been the only male competing at Nationals for the Blugolds. Badilla said that it was awesome to be able to finally have an-other male teammate with him this year.

“The whole mentality for both of us was ... give every-thing you got, leave nothing be-hind, no holding back,” Badilla said.

Joining Badilla this year was sophomore Alex Card, who competed in three swimming events. He said he was ready for the challenge and was excited to be at the finals.

By Emily AlbrentCOPY EDITOR

Dorvinen

Fair

Softball goes 5-5 over breakNo. 14 ranked Blugolds see ups and downs at tuneup games in Florida

By Chris ReinoosCOPY EDITOR

See SOFTBALL, page 2B

FILE PHOTO BY CAMILLE GERSTENHABER/The SpectatorSophomore Lexi Demario reaches to return a shot against UW-La Crosse during an Oct. 15 home match.

Women’s tennis wins three straight after lossTeam narrowly falls 5-4, follows up with consecutive 7-2 victories to start spring season

The UW-Eau Claire women’s tennis team be-gan their spring season by winning three of four matches during their Spring Break trip in Hil-ton Head Island, S.C.

The team lost the first match 5-4 against Allegh-

eny College (Penn.) and won the next three, all by a score of 7-2. After go-ing 3-1 in the matches, the Blugolds improved their record to 11-5 overall on the season.

Coach Tom Gillman said he expected that the players would do their best and he attributed

their only loss to nerves.“In the first match, I

think most of the team were slightly disappointed because the match was right there and we were capable of winning it,” he said. “But after that match, our team ... actually ended up playing quite well.”

Leading the way for

Eau Claire were a duo of players who went unde-feated throughout their singles matches.

Sophomore Katie Gill-man won all four No. 3 singles matches, with her last one being the closest at 6-4, 7-6.

By Tuesday WustrackSTAFF WRITER

See the rest online at SpectatorNews.com

See the rest online at SpectatorNews.com

Online Exclusives at SpectatorNews.com

Weekly MLB column By Emily Gresbrink

Weekly fantasy baseball podcastco-hosted by Frank Pellegrino,Chris Reinoos andEric Christenson

Listen to this weeks episode — bit.ly/GXl2YFA preview of all the Wrestlemania 28 matches

By Alex Schultz

SportSwww.spectatornews.com Sports Editor: Frank F. Pellegrino2B • Thursday, March 29, 2012

Attending Summer Session is a cool way to keep your degree program on track. This is your chance to enroll in a hard-to-get course,

concentrate on those tough requirements and take advantage of the personal attention you get in small classes. With more than 200 courses

available (90 of them online), Summer Session gives you the opportunity to make progress toward graduation and experience the Eau Claire

Advantage. So chill out, and visit www.uwec.edu/registrar/schedules to register!

www.uwec.edu/registrar/schedules www.uwec.edu/registrar/classSched.htm

Soak up Some extra creditS with Summer SeSSionno SunScreen required!

UW-Eau Claire Summer Session 2012

Summer Session can help you burn through some of those graduation or major requirements. This is your chance to

enroll in a hard-to-get course, concentrate on specific subjects and take advantage of the personal attention you get in

smaller classes. With about 250 courses available (including 100+ online), Summer Session will heat up your academic

progress. Register now at www.uwec.edu/registrar/classSched.htm.

WUEC FM 89.7

89.7 WUEC FM IS HIRING A NEW STAFF! Keep your eyes open for our upcoming career and volunteer opportunities!

SUBMIT MUSIC DEMOS BY

APRIL 13, 2012 AT 4:30PM

“Her bar routine is ex-actly what she always does, whether it’s practice or a meet,” DeLisle said. “She’s just a solid kid up there, and it showed.”

W i t h two more All-Ameri-can honors each for the pair of gymnasts, S c h u l -zetenberg now has a career total

of six awards while Aschen-brenner has tallied five.

Schulzetenberg said she always feels a great sense of pride being recognized as an All-American, and that it’s es-pecially rewarding after all the years she’s put into the sport.

“It’s a big accomplish-

ment,” Schulzetenberg said. “A lot of people don’t even get an All-American, so it’s just kind of surreal to think about it.”

Moving forward, the Blu-golds will graduate only three seniors this off-season and have 17 underclassmen re-turning, including all of the All-Americans.

DeLisle said she gets a little nervous thinking about trying to replicate the success the team has had this season, but that it’s hard to deny how much talent the team has coming back.

“We have Danielle who is a six-time All-American, Olivia and now Michaela,” she said. “And we have more than a handful of girls that we haven’t heard tons about, but I think you are going to hear a lot about next year.”

GYMNASTICS from page 2A

Team graduates just three seniors, will return talented roster, coach says Wishau said she likes to pitch in

close, low-scoring games because of the excitement and adrenaline rush. She ended the Games with a spar-kling 0.95 earned run average in 29.1 innings, but lost two 1-0 games.

Fatigue seemed to set in on the fourth day of games, which saw Eau Claire losing 6-5 to Union Col-lege (N.Y.) and 9-1 to St. Thomas (Minn.). The team committed a combined seven errors in those two losses, which Huntington said was disappointing because of the em-phasis placed on defense in practice.

Junior first basemen Sarah Fern, who hit two home runs in an 8-2 victory against Bethel University (Minn.), thought the team could have played a lot better during the week.

“Our expectations going in were to be competing with the top play-

ers out there and doing fairly well, and I think we just kind of struggled throughout the week,” Fern said.

Huntington said the team needs to learn how to score runs against top-tier pitching. The Blugolds col-lected just two hits and struck out 14 times while being shut out by Eastern Connecticut State’s Molly Rathbun, a first-team All-American last season.

Tufts University’s Allyson Fournier, a freshman who Hunting-ton believes has a chance to be an All-American this year, also shut out the Blugolds while striking out 11 batters.

Senior Jess Freagon, a 2011 WIAC all-conference performer, struggled during the games, going 5-30. Another 2011 all-conference player, junior Emily Haluska, started slowly, with just two hits in the first five games, but finished strong for the Blugolds with four hits on the last day of games.

But the team was able to rebound somewhat on the last day of the

Games, shutting out Hope College (Mich.) 8-0 and losing to Wellesley 4-3. Freshman Taylor Pierce, who went 6-26 and scored four runs dur-ing the Games, said it was nice to end on a higher note.

“We definitely came out as a team after being really tired through the week, so it felt good,” Pierce said.

Despite her team’s uneven play, Huntington said the games were an ex-cellent way to prepare for the conference schedule.

“It’s really good for the players to play this many games,” Huntington said. “It gives us a real reality check of the things we need to work on.”

The Blugolds begin their confer-ence schedule this Saturday with a doubleheader against UW-Stevens Point at Carson Park, with the first game beginning at 2 p.m.

SOFTBALL from page 2A

Fern

Schulzentenberg

Pierce

Blugolds end 10-game series on high note, face UW-Stevens Point next

OpiniOnThursday, March 29, 2012 • 3BOp/Ed Editor: Eric Christenson

Carolyn Tiry Editor-in-ChiefDebora Biasutti Managing Editor

Eric Christenson Op/Ed EditorEmily Gresbrink News EditorHaley Zblewski News Editor

Taylor Kuether Chief Copy EditorSpenser Bickett Chief Copy Editor

Frank F. Pellegrino Sports EditorKatie Hoffman Currents Editor

Cal McNeil Photo EditorMax Grones Online Editor

Camille Gerstenhaber Multimedia Editor

Brian Miller Graphic DesignerAnna Soldner Copy EditorChris Reinoos Copy EditorEmily Albrent Copy EditorDavid Heiling Staff WriterTyler Hart Staff WriterTuesday Wustrack Staff WriterBrian Roberts Staff WriterAlex Zank Staff WriterElizabeth Jackson Staff Photographer

The Spectator is written and edited by students of UW-Eau Claire and they are solely responsible for its editorial policy and content.

Editorials in The Spectator reflect the majority opinion of the editorial board and are written by the Op/Ed editor. The editorial board is generally comprised of the editor in chief, managing editor, Currents editor, chief copy editors, news editors, sports editors, but may include other members of the editorial staff. Columns, cartoons and letters are the opinion of the author/artist and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board.

Students, faculty and staff members are invited to write letters to the editor to express their views on public issues and other matters of concern or to respond to editorials or other opinions in the newspaper. Letter writers are not allowed to respond to attacks on their letters. Letters should be typed or written legibly and include a name with signature, address and phone number. Students should include their year in school and major. The Spectator reserves the right to edit, shorten or withhold letters. Letters should be 300 words or fewer. Letters will be published in their entirety online. Email letters to spectator@uwec.edu.

For more information about The Spectator contact Carolyn Tiry by phone or email. Faculty adviser Michael Dorsher can be contacted at (715) 836-5729 or mdorsher@uwec.edu.

THE SPECTATOR

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By Eric ChristensonOP/ED EDITOR

The Axis of Brilliance is a graphic ranking of everything awful and brilliant this week from here to infinity.And it’s back.

Uh oh, you guys. Jet is breaking up! What songs will beer compa-

nies use in their commercials now? Are there actually other songs

they can use? A beer commercial without a Jet song is like a horse

without a rider: probably okay.

Livability.com has named our neigh-bor Minneapolis’ music scene the

second best in the country! And our other neighbor, Madison, was eighth!

This is very cool!

Callista Gingrich was in Eau Claire at the Northwoods Brew Pub on Monday speaking about her husband’s presiden-tial campaign. I didn’t go, did you? Can anyone confirm if she’s not an alien? Anyone?

Apparently to stay healthy and ener-gized, January Jones takes vitamins of HER OWN PLACENTA. She explains

(to People Magazine): “Your placenta gets dehydrated and made into vitamins. It’s something I was very hesitant about, but we’re the only mammals who don’t ingest

our own placentas.” Weird and gross, January Jones. Weird and gross.

If you’re itching for some more info on weird actresses doing super weird and gross things, there’s more! Alicia Silverstone ap-parently chews food and spits it into her 10-month old baby’s mouth, like a bird. Why does everything always have to be so gross?!

AWFUL BRILLIANT

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Hope you guys had a chance to try Taco Bell’s new Doritos Locos Tacos over spring break. I did and it was pretty excellent. It’s probably one of those things where we didn’t know why we needed it until we had it. Like Twitter or birthdays.

I was a bit alarmed after seeing an editorial in the March 15 issue of The Spectator that contained one of the most naïve statements I have ever read.

In a piece titled “A response to critics of the Invisible Children,” senior April D’Water defended the controversial actions taken by the non-profit organization Invisible Children.

After expressing her opinion, Ms. D’Water concluded with the following claim: “If we sit back and constantly criticize move-ments that are calling for change, then we are doing humanity an astronomical disservice.”

I could not believe my eyes when I read it.

Not to use an extreme example, but wasn’t Hitler calling for change?

Even though there is evidence that shows numerous countries knew of his actions (most nota-bly our own), some 6 million Jew-ish people were killed before he was stopped.

What about Joseph Stalin; he was calling for change too, right?

Well, he managed to kill some-where between 3-60 million people while in power (depending on esti-mates), even though outsiders had an idea of his actions.

It certainly seems like it would not have been an astronomical dis-service to humanity if someone had criticized their movements from the start, ultimately saving millions of lives in the process.

After reading through Ms. D’Water’s hostile editorial and

somewhat ignorant conclusion, I knew I had to look further into her defense of Invisible Children. Once I gathered enough facts, I found that the majority of her opinion seemed to be based on poorly interpreted information and felt compelled to respond.

For those not familiar with In-visible Children, their current cam-paign is centered on trying to track down Joseph Kony, the evil leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

To start, Ms. D’Water pointed out that Invisible Children spends 80 percent of their budget on programs, and of that, 37 percent of that goes to “projects on the ground.” She argues it is complete-ly justified that 43 percent is spend on “advocacy and awareness” be-cause they are “an integral part of Invisible Children.”

Unfortunately, the advocacy and awareness she is referring to is mostly making films and promot-ing them. I understand that get-ting people aware of the situation in Uganda is important, but I find it hard to justify spending more money on this than actively trying to help the cause.

Ms. D’Water then mentions how the awareness campaigns of Invisible Children has resulted in money being invested in the cause, including $40 million from the U.S. government.

The problem with this, how-ever, is that Ms. D’Water conve-niently ignored one of the largest issues people have with Invisible Children. The group surprisingly supports military intervention, and much of the money they advocate for goes directly to the Ugandan

government’s own military.In general, I think the idea of

trying to solve violence with vio-lence is always bad practice. I don’t see how arming Ugandan soldiers to help take down Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army would help in any way. Aren’t they going to have to kill thousands of children in the LRA to have any chance of getting to Kony?

But the reason why I find it par-ticularly alarming that they support the Ugandan government’s militia is because evidence shows they aren’t much less evil than LRA.

Evidence shows the militia raped underage girls and even started their own prostitution ring, according to a Dec. 2011 report from the Social Science Research Council.

The worst part about Invisible

Children helping fuel Uganda’s army is that the LRA has been largely non-existent in Uganda since 2006. Since then, they’ve been almost exclusively active in other areas, which is why it puzzles me that Invisible Children still sup-ports Uganda’s army.

It’s sad to say, but I truly feel that the advocacy of Invisible Children may be resulting in even more violence.

Encouraging people to blindly follow movements based on the assumption that change is always good can be a dangerous proclama-tion. Instead, I would urge people to research an organization before they decide to become involved in it, especially one that has contro-versy surrounding its actions.

Now, I don’t want to imply that Ms. D’Water didn’t do any research on Invisible Children prior to writ-ing her piece. And I realize that many people support the actions of the organization.

But my disagreement with her stance on Invisible Children is ex-actly why people should make sure they know enough about anything in our society before they decide to support it.

It may sound crazy, but people legitimately supported Hitler’s ac-tions in WWII, and that is exactly why it is so important to not blind-ly follow any movement calling for change.

To me, doing that would be a true disservice to humanity.

By FRANK F. PELLEGRINO

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Taking on Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resis-tance Army is a complicated issue to address hastily. The nonprofit orga-nization Invis-ible Children is complicating this issue fur-ther rather than helping it. -FP

Kony complexInvisible Children complicates the issue more than it helps

Pellegrino is a senior journalism major and sports editor of The Spectator.

Editorial4B • Thursday, March 29, 2012 Op/Ed Editor: Eric Christenson

I made my first micro-loan us-ing Kiva on Friday. And despite not being able to personally witness the good that loan will do, it feels like it’ll do more good than anything else I’ve done for a long time. And that includes UW-Eau Claire’s service-learning requirement.

For those who don’t know, Kiva is a micro-lending website where you can lend money in $25 increments to a person in an underdeveloped country.

They’re generally trying to start or ex-pand their own small business, but some are looking for help with housing or education, too.

The most encouraging thing about Kiva is that 99 percent of those loans are even-tually paid back. Which means that I have an excellent chance of having my money repaid, which I could then loan to another person on Kiva, if I so chose. It’s really a great system.

Which brings me back to the service-learning thing. Though Eau Claire requires each student to perform 30 hours of ser-vice-learning over the course of their time at the university, and though I’ve fulfilled that requirement two times over, I don’t

feel as though I’ve done much good for the community.

I’ve gotten all of my service-learning through classes, and I think that may be where the problem lies.

In an honors class I took junior year, I chose a community service project from a list compiled by the professor. And in an ad-vanced reporting class I’m required to take for my major, I guess I fulfilled the require-ment by completing projects I would have done regardless? Sure, we’ll go with that.

I only know that I got service-learning through advanced reporting because I hap-pened to notice it on my degree audit. I could have gone my entire four years at Eau Claire without knowing about the require-ment and still have met it. Hardly the point of the program, I think.

According to the website of the Center for Service-Learning, the “requirement is intended to provide students with an op-portunity to serve their community, apply knowledge gained in the classroom, en-hance their critical thinking skills, and be-come informed, ethical, responsible and active citizens.”

That’s a pretty lofty — albeit excellent — goal.

And I think one of the best ways to ac-complish that is to have students choose and develop their own service projects, some-thing that they’re passionate about.

Speaking from experience, it is difficult to see the positive outcomes of a service-learning project when you don’t feel very strongly about it or involved in it in the first place.

Perhaps there could be a class — required for every student — devoted to helping them develop and follow through on these proj-ects. Or that could be a require-ment in first-year experience classes, which would be easier to implement and would give stu-dents more choices.

Plus, it would help to build camaraderie,

which seems to be a goal of those classes anyway.

It just seems to me that with the cur-rent program, having service-learning be part of some classes may be expedient, but it certainly doesn’t meet the university’s stated goal.

I’ve heard that there is a plan in the works to overhaul the current service-learning pro-gram and install what amounts to a com-pletely new system.

I don’t know how far along they are or what this new system will entail, but I certainly hope there will be more accountability there. Because I’m afraid the current program just doesn’t cut it.

Election season in Wisconsin is heating up.

On April 3, citi-zens of Wisconsin will have the op-portunity to elect candidates for local office and select the presidential candi-date they want to represent them.

In Eau Claire, there will be elections for the mu-nicipal school board, city council president and the presidential primary.

As a student, you will spend almost half a decade of your life in the city of Eau Claire, so you have a vested interest in how the city will run.

Your vote will help deter-mine how much your tax levy is (which you pay through rent),

and where your tax dollars will be allocated.

Your vote will determine to what extent Gov. Scott Walker’s policies regarding public sector unions are put into place.

Your vote will determine the quality of education the children of Eau Claire receive in schools, and the quality of services that the residents of Eau Claire, including you, receive from the city.

The outcomes of these mu-nicipal elections will affect your

day-to-day life more than a con-gressional or national election ever could, and you can influ-ence the outcome.

Show you care about how of-ten the roads are plowed, when the pothole next to your drive-way will be filled or how large of a check you’ll have to write to the government by voting on April 3.

Voting takes little time or ef-fort, and there are conveniences offered to enable your vote.

The polls are open from

7 a.m. until 8 p.m. If you live on

campus, then you can vote in Da-vies Center. If you live off campus then you can go to www.eauclairewi.gov and under the “elec-tions” tab you will be able to look up

your polling place. You don’t even have to worry

about the voter ID law because it is under temporary injunction by the state court and therefore cannot be enforced for this elec-tion — the bottom line is, no special ID is necessary.

You can register to vote at the polling place on Elec-tion Day and vote immediately afterwards.

Exercise your civic duty, be-come informed and go vote!

By CAROLYN TIRY

... though I’ve fulfilled (the service-learning) requirement two times over,

I don’t feel as though I’ve done much good for the community.

Volunteering for the university’s sakeService-learning requirement doesn’t fulfill intended goals

By CORYDON FISH

Tiry is a senior journalism major and editor-in-chief of The Spectator.

Go out and vote on April 3

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

VOTING INFORMATION

Voting day: April 3

Polls are open: 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

If on campus: vote in Davies

If off campus: visit www.eau-

clairewi.gov and look up polling location

Show you care about how often the roads are plowed, when the pothole next to your driveway will be filled, or how large of a check you’ll have to write to the govern-

ment by voting on April 3.

For details, call or email Matthew Klebe:

(800) 635-5987 Ext. 6619or 507-457-6619mklebe@smumn.eduWinona, Minnesota

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www.spectatornews.comStudent Life6B • Thursday, March 29, 2012 Editor: Taylor Kuether

Six students serve as coordinators to plan and facilitate ninth Civil Rights Pilgrimage over break

When Associate Dean of Student De-velopment Jodi Thesing-Ritter put to-gether the very first Civil Rights Pilgrim-age in 2008, she knew she wanted it to be student-led.

“Anything that impacts students should be developed and implemented by students,” Thesing-Ritter said.

She’s been true to her word: the most re-cent pilgrimage, which took place over spring break, was assembled and led entirely by six students.

The trip, a ten-day pilgrimage to the Deep South to follow the civil rights trail and ex-plore the history behind the movement, has grown considerably since its advent in 2008. Back then, the excursion hosted 47

participants. Last week’s trip, the ninth since the program began, required two coach buses to carry all 109 travelers, according to Thesing-Ritter. Those 109 travelers par-ticipated in a trip completely crafted by the six coordinators.

“We divided (the trip) into the cities we’re each most interested in,” said student coordinator Jackie Lee, a junior. “We have the general itinerary and we’re responsible for making reservations, finding places for people to eat.”

In addition to Lee’s list, the student co-ordinators also plan stops and events for the week, facilitate discussion while on the trip, keep track of the travelers, and conduct research.

“We continue to assess the trip and we have added elements over time

that have helped to increase multicul-tural and intercultural competence and knowledge based on our assessments,” Thesing-Ritter said.

Altering discussion questions as well as being intentional about the movies picked and the speakers selected has helped reap greater change over the course of the trip, Thesing-Ritter said.

“That’s what the research is for,” said student coordinator Mathias Hughey, a se-nior. “We’re hoping to see statistically sig-nificant results so we can start to address the trip in a manner that’s more about the experience and the impact it has on the students who are involved.”

Thesing-Ritter described the group of students as a “well-oiled machine.” Student coordinator Elsa Kraus, a senior, agreed.

“As a whole, we definitely function collaboratively,” said Kraus of the group’s planning and research. “It’s a re-ally awesome experience in that it is student-empowered.”

The most recent pilgrimage took place March 16 through 25. Follow the trip’s itin-erary, see photos, and read about the experi-ences of the students on the pilgrimage at http://uweccivilrightspilgrimage.blogspot.com/ or by using the QR code below:

Elsa KrausSenior, fourth pilgrimageCoordinated Atlanta/Birmingham

How did you get involved? (A friend and I)both took the class together (Women of the Civil Rights Movement) and went on the pilgrimage to-gether and it was awesome. Talking to Jodi, I was passionate about research with my psych major and my women’s (studies) major and so it fit right in, so she offered me to join her team.

What is your favorite stop on your leg of the trip? (Meeting with) Charles Person (a Freedom Rider) is an addition that we added last winter. He’s definitely amazing. The Freedom Rides were incredibly impactful and significant in making changes in the Civil Rights Move-ment and propelling it forward. It’s a hard story to come to terms with, but it’s a really nice addition to the trip.

Mathias HugheySenior, third pilgrimageCoordinated Montgomery/Selma

How did you get involved? Last spring, Elsa talked me into coming on the trip with her. It didn’t really require much persuasion at all. It sounded like something I’d be inter-ested in doing. I loved it, decided that I wanted to coordinate.

What is your favorite stop on your leg of the trip? I love walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. I ... think (Selma is) one of the most powerful days of the trip.

Paul WilliamsSenior, third pilgrimageCoordinated New Orleans/Little Rock/Memphis

How did you get involved? I was the male RA for the so-cial justice learning commu-nity in Sutherland. One of the planned activities for the year was that we would go on the civil rights pilgrimage so that was the first time I went on it.

I think it’s the best thing I did in college.

What is your favorite stop on your leg of the trip? Little Rock, when we go to the school and across the street is the Memorial Center. It’s so saddening and fascinating, that part of our histo-ry. Just seeing how not only the Little Rock Nine were treated, but how the people that stood up for them and spoke up for them … It speaks so much about the times and the place.

Jackie LeeJunior, third pilgrimageCoordinated Little Rock/Memphis

How did you get involved? Nick encouraged me to go, and I went last spring and really loved it. It kind of changed something inside of me and I wanted to help other people experience that same thing.

What is your favorite stop on your leg of the trip? I really like stopping at Little Rock Central

High School, we talk to a variety of different people and just the building itself is so massive. You’re literally standing on the steps of history.

Nick SeversonSenior, fifth pilgrimageCoordinated Atlanta/Birmingham/Montgomery

How did you get involved? I actually got involved by going on my first trip as a non-Eau Claire stu-dent. A friend of mine was at Eau Claire and I de-cided it sounded like a great experience and I some-how got to join the class and go on the trip over my winter break (while a student at UW-Green Bay).

What is your favorite stop on your leg of the trip? Going to the service at Ebenezer Baptist Church. I think it shows what our poten-tial is in society, how welcoming they are to us. Just the fact that (the congregation) can all be there and be so welcoming and be so hap-py … if we translated those worldviews, the world would be such a better place.

Virgil WardJunior, third pilgrimageCoordinated Selma/New Orleans

How did you get involved? I went on the trip last spring and saw the impact it had on a lot of people and myself. I wanted to be a part of … the reconstruction of people’s perceptions of the world.

What is your favorite stop on your leg of the trip? I really like the bus tour of New Orleans, the

9th Ward tour. It’s a magnificent city and just to see the effects of Hurricane Katrina … I want to help out.

GRAPHIC BY BRIAN MILLER/The Spectator

By Taylor KuetherCHIEF COPY EDITOR